Upon Further Review 2016: Offense vs Hawaii

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If you're buying a home or refinancing, he's the right guy to call.

FORMATION NOTES: There wasn't anything worth screenshotting as unusual. Here is a picture of how this game went.

[Bryan Fuller]

PERSONNEL NOTES: Speight was your QB until the last three drives when things went O'Korn-Morris-Malzone. The RB depth chart looked to be Smith-Isaac-Evans-Higdon-Davis, with Isaac and Evans getting the bulk of the work once Smith's rib issue sent him to the bench. Poggi (15 snaps) and Hill (21) split things about down the middle at FB.

No surprises at WR, and the lack of passing cut into opportunities to see guys down the depth chart. McDoom may have passed Drake Harris? Way too early to tell. Nate Johnson was about the only guy who surprisingly didn't play, FWIW.

At TE it was all Butt and Bunting early. Wheatley and Asiasi didn't get snaps until the second half, I believe. Those two and McKeon all got around 15.

OL was Newsome-Bredeson/Kugler-Cole-Kalis-Magnuson, with Kugler getting the first and third quarters while Bredeson had the second and fourth. The second team line was JBB-Bredeson-Kugler-Onwenu-Ulizio. With Kugler on both lines he actually got 59 snaps, more than anyone else on either side of the ball. FWIW, Michigan left Newsome out for one drive after the established players left w JBB at RT and Ulizio on the bench.

[After THE JUMP: hair]

So this was  definitely not a good defense.

Nooooooo. But you can only play who they put in front of you. Take many of the numbers in this post with a grain of salt since the opposition was so very overmatched, but we have some opponent-invariant things to concentrate on. Like throwing the ball…

…to the dang opponent…

okay, yes, once.

I have concerns about Wilton Speight, because of his interception and the fact that he throws… weird.

It started off not so hot, but after that and one other early goof things were pretty good:

[Hennechart orientation: mouse over column headers for explanations of the categories. + is handed out for a good throw under duress. * is handed out for a very bad version of a bad thing. Numbers in parens are screens. DSR is an attempt to compress the numbers into one overall number. PFF is PFF's grade.]

The interception was one bad read. Missing Jake Butt wide open was the other. The INX was a route mixup that was kind of dangerous that I am pretty sure is on Speight but could be on De'Veon Smith. Everything else, in a limited sample on which Speight got pressured once, was good.

The only thing other than the interception that's drawing criticism is the one deep ball he tried. I agree that he missed the read: Butt is wiiiiide open for 30+. The throw got broken up and nearly intercepted, but I've seen a lot worse:

That's a ball on which your WR has a chance; Darboh misjudges it and does not high point the ball. He's fading away and if it does get to him it'll be in his chest. If he correctly judges the flight he slows up and extends to catch or gets run over by the DB for a flag.

Other than that minor hiccup Speight was highly accurate. There might have been some slight timing issues but everything was right on point as far as location goes. The opening first down conversion was a weight off of everyone's shoulders:

Cunningham starts groaning about how that's late but Harbaugh said "you can't throw that better," and I know who I'm going with. Ditto this post later on the same drive:

I'm not sure if it's intentional or not but getting Chesson to the ground prevents him from getting blown up by the safety for a potential PBU or worse. Everything else was not only accurate enough but right in the WR's chest. The only non-routine balls I had on Speight throws were that post, which is actually a good thing from the QB, and said deep ball.

Data is of course lacking. We still have close to no information on how Speight deals with pressure or throws in a chaotic situation. Or, like, at coverage. He did get a plus on his chart for moving around and hitting Moe Ways.

Yeah, the throwing motion is a bit odd. It gives up a couple of inches of height, but Speight has that to spare, and I think it's out pretty quick. The Chesson slant above is out in nine frames; the post is out in ten. The Perry TD to finish that drive was also ten. I went back and checked several Rudock throws from the Citrus Bowl and usually had him around 11 or 12. If the ball's out fast and accurately Speight can do whatever wonky thing he wants.

FWIW, PFF had big negatives for the Butt miss and the INT and Speight couldn't catch up in just 13 throws, many of them easy.

Smith should be a fullback now, we have Evans.

I would like to see more of Evans, but Smith wasn't bad on his limited carries. I thought he made an early Butt crumple worse, but that was a pretty tough situation, and when he did get delivered to the second level you know what happens then:

Even if Evans is the truth you need some thunder to his lightning, especially because he's so slight. Smith's going to play and play well and maybe lose more carries to his backups than I thought.

But Evans?

I'm not saying that wasn't a damn good debut. I mean, let's look at the

CH—

…

?

--ANGE DIRECTION IMMEDIATELY AND LEAVE YOU ON THE GROUND HOLDING THE SMITHEREENS THAT USED TO BE YOUR ANKLES.

Indeed.

So I'm busting up the charts a bit. Here is the backs and receivers run chart, which now has 1) rushes for those who rush and 2) blocks for WRs. All WR blocks are assumed to be run blocks; I'll tell you if there are exceptions. I'm also including PFF grades; again if there are any wild swings not about running (for backs) or blocking (for WRs) I'll tell you about it. WR grades are run only.

+6.5 on eight carries is a thing, there.

I mean, the 43-yard touchdown is barely worth talking about. "Can run fast in straight line" is something we already knew. What I liked was his vision and short-area change of direction. His first carry was an iso on third and two where he jogged up to the back of his linemen and looked for a place to pop out. It was a patient piece of running.

The next carry deserved more but Kalis got held by a DL without a call and couldn't release to the linebacker. I still like that Evans reads the block in front of him and knows where he's going immediately:

His shallow jump there gets over traffic and results in a solid gain despite the unblocked linebacker. And then this is only six yards but was Evans's best moment on the day. Come for the little hurdle and stay for the short-area juke:

Love that. He picks up his feet seemingly on instinct at the exact moment guys dive at his ankles, and then that move is an ankle breaker. Reminds me of a clip I put in his recruiting profile:

Chris Evans is elusive!! Best rep in this drill so far: pic.twitter.com/2XJao1xvGc

— Allen Trieu (@AllenTrieu) May 31, 2015

A guy who has that ability and good vision and the information processing ability to avoid the ankle tackles in the clip above is probably going to be really good, small sample size be damned. Also this:

I'm in, man. Evans hype train is leaving the station, all aboard, choo choo.

Anything of note from WRs on the ground?

Chesson and Darboh didn't have much to do in the air but they did collectively spring Evans for his first touchdown with a pair of +2 blocks, one a linebacker cut, the other Darboh getting a play-long CB block that ended in a pancake:

I might have missed Darboh biffing something that would result in a flat PFF grade; if I didn't he's not getting enough credit for paving that dude flat. Meanwhile Michigan ran a bunch of crack sweeps on which Chesson displayed his blocking chops and Eddie McDoom rather dramatically did not.

So you split off the actual blockers.

Yeah. Bear with me as I try to organize this. If anyone's got suggestions I'm listening since this is a ton to sift through:

I've separated out some metrics and plan to add a couple more.

The "error rate" in the table below is protection minuses divided by available protection positives, not snaps. Once the line gets settled down this will be a distinction without a difference unless there's an injury.

Note that the table doesn't include players I don't think have a reasonable chance of seeing the field this year in the competitive portions of the contests. These guys include:

• Juwann Bushell-Beatty: 0.5-3=-2.5, mostly for knocking over Wheatley on a play. JBB scraped over positive per PFF. Discrepancy discussed later.
• Mike Onwenu: 3.5-0=3.5. Discussed below in the lightning round. Onwenu got a +1.1 from PFF based mostly on run blocking.
• Sean McKeon: 3-1=2. +0.3 from PFF for those same blocks I bet.

And… exhale. So. This was a dominant performance by everyone except a few people.

Uh, that Butt number.

Yeah. Butt struggled on the ground. This is not something I expected to see from him against Hawaii:

He couldn't get his guy delayed much at all on Michigan's first crack sweep, and he was held off one handed on another early run that didn't get much. We've seen enough of him to know that he's not a huge liability; this was not a good start as he tries to get towards solid or even good. 

But the PFF number?

A mystery to me; I didn't think many of his minuses were disputable. Maybe they mixed up 88 and 89 since those guys look very similar and have numbers very easy to mistake.

And then it looks like the left guard spot was not so hot.

I thought Kugler was the clear choice at left guard and decent overall. He may get overrun by bigger and badder dudes but he got to his blocks and maintained them. His pull across the formation on the Evans TD up the gut was efficient and the impact on arrival notable:

He got shed once on a downblock and got a play blown up but when I noticed him he was generally doing a good thing, and I didn't catch any mental errors.

Meanwhile Bredeson looked like the freshman he is, the freshman who had been at left tackle for a bunch of fall camp. It is never good when you do something and then stop doing it halfway through the play, as Bredeson does here when he aborts a pull:

Newsome has that covered and in any case once you start doing something you need to keep doing it. Turning back just means you're 100% going to be wrong.

This was a flashback to several runs early last year; Bredeson fails to read that Wheatley is escorting his gentleman to the sideline and runs into an already very, very blocked guy:

The force defender is unblocked and makes the tackle. I also thought he was a bit slow through the hole on an Evans run that could have been a TD if he was able to make contact with a defender before Evans got on his back.

He looked promising when he got his head on straight—again, that scoop with Cole was well done—but amongst all the guys who are plausible starters he was the most error prone.

Braden's projected return will make this irrelevant unless someone else goes down. I'd bet Kugler gets the call if it's an interior OL. (Caveat: Bredeson will get better faster and could overtake him by midseason.) Neither guy did enough to make me think they were a serious threat to a healthy Braden.

But the rest of the stuff was good, right? I mean, it has to be or we're dead meat.

Yes, struggles against Hawaii would have been real bad. They did not struggle. The right side of the line was particularly efficient and excellent per both myself and PFF.

To me the biggest story coming out of this game is a close to flawless performance from Kalis. Since so many of his problems weren't about what he was doing but what to do, there's opponent-invariant improvement to observe. I don't have a minus for him in this game.

I didn't have him for a ton of positives for various reasons (just 36 snaps, a lot of crack sweeps on which he's way away from the play), but as I was breaking down the film he just felt like a different guy. That's very very handwavy and could get blown up as soon as we run into Big Ten teams. I dunno, man, I just thought he seemed surprisingly agile…

…and had the usual level of power:

And if he's not blanking on what he's supposed to do a bunch that's a real good lineman. I'm still concerned about his pass protection against people who were actually good—that was a weakness last year not related to busting—but on the ground this was a step forward from the bowl.

Meanwhile Cole looked like everyone thought he would: excellent. Whether it was driving a guy who slanted across him or getting out and getting around a linebacker on the second level or this pretty scoop block in concert with Bredeson…

…Cole was capable of doing all the things centers need to do, and again some of these things are opponent invariant. That scoop gets a seal against way better DL because he's around fast. His margin for error is big.

And in typical Magnuson fashion I didn't clip anything from him because he just got the job done consistently. Harbaugh said he graded out as their best lineman and he's more or less in a three-way tie here. Not a huge surprise since last year he was very consistent and not very powerful.

Newsome was pretty solid for a guy who we've been fretting about for months. He delivered a blow and moved on to the second level a couple times:

That DT moves big time on contact and then Newsome's immediate redirect seals out a LB. I haven't seen that done well much in… well, about five years. He did get beat for a pressure:

I have a feeling that might be a recurring issue. The good news on this play is that while that one dude was harassing Speight, the rest of the Hawaii DL was doing their best impression of poi:

This is literally the worst contain I have ever seen. Hawaii could be bad at football.

And the blocky/catchy types?

Hill was very good. An insider who talks to me relayed that Hill graded out as one of Michigan's top players (the other two: Delano Hill and Mike McCray), and while he didn't get sufficient snaps to get a huge UFR number he was solid on the ones he did receive.

He also made a nice catch on a deflected ball and scored on a late fullback dive. Poggi actually got more snaps but Hill pulled ahead in the fullback battle.

Catch chart?

[0 = uncatchable, 1 = circus catch, 2 = moderate difficulty, 3 = routine]

Perry got a route ++ for his corner route TD.

Not much here: McDoom had the slant catch and I thought Darboh should do better on the bomb; that was the only remotely catchable ball that was not brought in. Next week the metrics will have the distribution of catch difficulty in them.

I need another lightning round.

Capital.

Ty Isaac.

Looked fine. Nothing amazing, solid speed and power.

Karan Higdon.

Good burst and hit the holes quickly. I'll be interested to see more; on the limited opportunities he's had to hit a hole he's looked good. PFF indifference surprising.

Eddie McDoom.

The jet sweeps weren't anything special but did give you a glimpse at his speed, which is considerable. The slant catch was righteous:

He had a miserably bad attempt at a crackback block late; other than that he looked up to par. Still haven't seen him put someone to the test on a route. On track early.

Kekoa Crawford.

Very much looks the part of an outside receiver and had a post catch from Morris that zipped into his hands:

Tyrone Wheatley Jr.

And?

And Devin Asiasi?

Wheatley fell off a block once but got two +2s as he just blew guys yards off the ball. Asiasi had a couple of similar moments, and this Higdon run was the Kaiju package* offering up its promise:

I don't think either guy is going to be awesome this year against good competition, because we are talking about freshmen. It is going to be something when both are locked and loaded down the road. This is a different level of blocking tight end than I've seen at Michigan. And both are athletic enough to be threats 20 yards downfield.

FWIW, I think the disconnect between UFR and PFF on Wheatley is probably based on the Hill TD. I think Wheatley got knocked over by Bushell-Beatty from behind; it could definitely appear to another charter like he just falls off a block.

*[This is what I am calling a twin TE set with Wheatley and Asiasi next to each other. You cannot stop me from doing this.]

Sean McKeon.

Potential player down the road. Had a couple good blocks based on his read of the game; expect that he would get wrecked against a Big Ten DE.

Michael Onwenu.

Moved some guys because when he decides to go in a direction it takes an army of millions to hold him back.

Kind of feel he's not firing off the ball there and just wins on mass, so that'll be something to work on. Was actually most impressed with the nimble feet to get around and anchor on Hill's touchdown:

I'd be really surprised if he could be a positive contributor on the OL this year and support him playing nose tackle just in case; he does look pretty good against weak competition.

Not enough data?

Moe Ways, Drake Harris, Nolan Ulizio, Juwann Bushell-Beatty, Kingston Davis, Ian Bunting, John O'Korn.

Any Stanford stuff?

No, not really. Michigan ran a bunch of basic jet sweeps that worked for free yardage almost every time, but that's hardly a new wrinkle. It was a very basic playbook consisting mostly of staple plays everyone runs. No reason to put it on film yet.

Heroes?

The right side of the OL including Cole. Chris Evans. Khalid Hill. The Kaiju.

Maybe not so heroic?

Bredeson had a number of mental errors. Bunting and especially Butt had disappointing days blocking.

What does it mean for UCF and the future?

Braden's going to get the LG job back. He's not being pushed by #6 and #7. However, I think we saw enough from Kugler to pencil him in on next year's line. I assume Bredeson is going to get there as well, so that's 4/5 slots Michigan should be reasonably confident in.

Cole is an excellent center and Kalis might be putting it together. Former is confirmation of something suspected. Going to have to wait another couple weeks before I start venturing that Kalis has turned the corner. Good start.

There's probably not going to be a Butt quantum leap as a blocker. Is what it is.

Chris Evans is legit. Love that Harbaugh saw it, love that they put him in. Can you imagine what Hoke would have done with him?

The Kaiju package is something to watch going forward. Better competition level needed to check but put those guys together and send Butt to go hit some DBs and that's a Stanford-like formation that could drive people crazy.

If kept clean Speight is very accurate. TBD how he does at going to second reads and buying time in the pocket. 

Khalid Hill could be a very good fullback. Always had the pop in his pads and good hands; if he's gotten enough technique in him that's the total package.