The Question:
Gentlemen. We're two weeks in and the true cupcakes have been stomped. What is
1) the biggest pleasant surprise so far?
2) the biggest unpleasant surprise?
First responder gets Speight. Get to it.
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The Responses:
Adam: 1) I had Wilton Speight resigned to the passenger's seat as recently as last month's Draftageddon, in which more rounds passed _between_ the selections of Speight and O'Korn (13) than passed before O'Korn went off the board (12). The ignorance is somewhat forgivable. Speight said yesterday that he basically learned his scout team assignment in 2014 and checked out. He got reamed in B-roll footage of a "Real Sports" piece on Harbaugh's arrival. He tore a groin and barely played in spring 2015. He got into a game against Minnesota later that year, and his performance was good enough to keep the Brown Jug but not good enough to unequivocally be anointed Rudock's successor. Fast forward to last Saturday, where it all ended on that first deep post completion to Chesson. With that one in the books, we'd seen enough throws of varying distances and degrees of difficulty to confidently assess Speight's ability to read the coverage and place the ball precisely where his receivers have a chance to reel it in while the DB does not. As it turns out, said ability is quite good. After 120 minutes as Michigan's starting QB, Speight looks very little like we expected him to, and that's been nothing short of a revelation.
2) Nitpicking is nitpicking, but the left guard platoon has been underwhelming. This was supposed to be a position manned by the more consistent of the two guards; Braden's return from injury against UCF didn't bear that out. He struggled, and though he has Bredeson to spell him it's hard to expect a true freshman OL to do much more than tread water. Braden's likely still recovering from injury, but I'll be nervously gnashing my teeth if the LG revolving door hasn't stopped spinning in two weeks.
[Hit THE JUMP for what we come up with besides “phew, so Quarterback’s alright.”]
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BisB: 1) Pleasant surprises: Chris Evans and Eddie McDoom. They both obvious ooze speed and athleticism, and they add a dimension that was lacking in Michigan's offense last year outside of Jabrill Peppers and the occasional Chesson jet sweep. But they have also flashed skills that indicate that they will be able to contribute as more than just Designated Fast Twitchy Guys. McDoom has run a couple of nice routes, and made a really nice catch on a slant against Hawaii. Evans has exhibited some real patience and running back instincts, and has shown the ability to run effectively between the tackles and to operate in close space.
2) Notsomuch: Tight End blocking. Jake Butt and Ian Bunting have been underwhelming. TJ Wheatley and Devin Asiasi both look as smashy as we expected when they find and hit the right guy, but they're freshman. Sean McKeon actually looks okay for his size, but his size remains "not that large." (edited)
Seth: Brian said a few times that when Butt had a bad crack block Brian's thought was "I wish that was Chesson." That about says it.
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Seth: 1) To the good: the Brownification of Peppers looked ahead of schedule against Hawaii and tantalizingly incomplete last Saturday. As Steve Sharik predicted in his HTTV article, Brown has been deploying Peppers as a wild card to disguise coverages and blitzes. Specifically (thanks in part to Taco being out) we've seen a ton of "Pup":
That's the 3-3-5 look that Brown likes to use for passing downs, and though the page above shows the "P" going into coverages, the other three quarters of that sector of the playbook are the Pup blitzing from gol-dang-everywhere.
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| Peppers had 5.5 TFLs last year. He’s already got 4 and a sack this year. [Bryan Fuller] |
Despite that stuff staying in the garage, Peppers the Linebacker is going to pass last year's tackles for loss totals in three games. Brown has Jabrill doing everything from high safety to third defensive end, and he's lining up in places that let him use his speed to dodge blockers and which don't betray his intentions. Already watching this defense feels like watching an A+ troll job, and we haven't even seen the really mean stuff yet.
2) To the bad: Okay this is EXTREMELY nitpicky, but after two rote blowouts over bad teams it's hard to find negatives. But I'm moderately cheesed at the Breakdowns when playing their base. This was always going to be the tradeoff: Michigan's defense got way more complex, and therefore lost of that edge you get from simplicity. They gave up contain a few times last year when playing Cover 1 All Day (the UCF game reminded me most of the Citrus Bowl). That was rare, though. The simplicity made Michigan's defense last year incredibly tough to play against for teams that couldn't win one-on-one battles.
It's one thing to have Gary and Winovich—a true freshman and a guy who was just moved back from offense—confused sometimes about where to line up, and I understand McCray being behind the curve as well since he lost two years to injury. But Dymonte Thomas taking a bad angle? Ben Gedeon getting matched against a slot receiver and carrying that guy long after the quarterback's off and running? Delano Hill getting crossed up and vacating his running lane several times? Jeremy Clark getting sealed/chest-tackled by a receiver? These are seniors blowing the finer points of the defense they played almost exclusively last year.
Like I said, I LOVE Brown, and hope he wants to be Defense Harbaugh for a decade. And it's all stuff they can clean up. But you can draw a dotted line between all the new stuff they're doing and a bit of tentativeness when doing The Thing They Do.
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| Kalis ain’t so easily pushed around no more. [Fuller] |
Ace: 1) Um, you guys
Kalis has been particularly impressive thus far, as he returned this season after finishing last year ranked 197th out of 212 offensive guards back for 2016, but through the UCF game sits ranked seventh overall in the country in our offensive guard grading.
Mason Cole is grading out as the nation’s third-best center, while Erik Magnuson and Grant Newsome both have yet to allow a QB pressure, but the story of the offensive line so far is the proverbial light may have come on for Kyle Kalis. He’s always had the physical ability to be an NFL-caliber guard; this year has been the first time he’s looked the part on a consistent basis. It’s still early, and the left guard spot is still worrisome, but Kalis playing up to his potential is as pleasant a surprise as I could’ve hoped for, non-Speight division.
2) Contain, contain, contain. Michigan did fine in that regard against Hawaii’s abject offense, but UCF repeatedly picked up chunk gains on the ground when pass-rushers abandoned their lanes or blew assignments on line stunts. That’s not a huge surprise with Charlton out and first-year DEs (Gary and Winovich) getting the bulk of the snaps on the edge; here’s hoping they learn quickly.
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Brian: 1) While the answer here is indeed Speight he's been taken, so let's talk about Grant Newsome. Newsome was our other biggest source of worry in the preseason. His job was under threat from Ben Bredeson; he'd had an extremely hard time of it in spring. By season preview time I was tentatively projecting him to the bench.
And then: he's totally fine. As Ace notes above he hasn't allowed a pressure through two games. Both weeks in UFR he's had a tendency to pick up really good-looking kickout blocks that aren't actually relevant to the play. I haven't been showering him in points because kickout blocks are often a mutually agreed-upon compromise between offense and defense; nonetheless he gives off the impression of a highly competent OL.
There have been some mental issues, as you might expect. Everything else has been the best case scenario.
2) I wasn't super happy with Michigan's response to Scott Frost's offense. They had multiple plays on which they were set up to get got by wide receiver screens and were duly gotten. That pop pass McCray batted down featured two Michigan DBs sitting passively on a side of the ball with literally no eligible receivers. In general they seemed vulnerable against trips formations that covered the TE.
That amounted to little because Michigan was able to out-talent UCF by bighuge margins; I was still unenthused by Michigan's approach against horizontal attacks. I'm not waving my tiny "punt" flag yet or anything, but I'm hoping that Michigan was keeping the exotics in the garage since they were up 31 with 11 minutes left in the second quarter.
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BiSB: Obligatory:
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