Upon Further Review 2016: Offense vs Rutgers

SPONSOR NOTES: Oh man if I keep talking about this trailer thing it'll be a thing and then I can see some dang games at tailgates. This has always been a downfall of tailgating: not seeing things. By repeatedly bringing it up here I may force Matt to do this thing. Yes. Yes. I have the power!

In addition to being a gentleman replete with Michigan tickets and possibly a trailer, Matt is also a good man to know if you need a mortgage. It's striking that we actually get non-astroturfed comments about positive experiences with Matt not infrequently.

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

FORMATION NOTES: Pepcat!

This concludes your formation notes.

PERSONNEL NOTES: A ton of rotation in the second half. Speight got the first half and then Morris and O'Korn alternated the rest of the way. Bushell-Beatty started at LT and was briefly knocked out; Michigan moved Cole to LT and inserted Kugler at C in response. The second string line was Ulizio-Bredeson-Kugler-Ownenu-Dawson, FWIW.

RB snaps split just about equally; ditto FB with Henderson getting a third of the snaps behind Poggi and Hill. Probably the most interesting depth chart item was snaps past the starters at WR. Those went Ways 19, Crawford 14, Harris 12, McDoom 7, Gentry 6.

[After THE JUMP: trinitite.]

You certainly took your sweet-ass time putting this together.

As I mentioned on twitter, I lovingly crafted this with

CUMONG MAN

...maybe played a little too much X-Com.

That sounds much more realistic.

But I did do the whole game!

why

I have no idea.

why would you do that

So I could put together this chart?

i'm supposed to interrupt you but i'm just thinking about your poor time management

this is like not calling your timeouts on defense

you need a Madden 14 year old for your life

Anyway, let's kick it off with the blockers, who I thought were murderous and PFF was like whatever:

*[+1 for a run after catch not in total]

Note that the metrics below only cover the first half and first drive of the second half, since that's how long the starting OL played.

Special bonus backup takes:

• Dawson: +0.9 on the ground per PFF. +3.5 in UFR charting.
• Onwenu: +1.3 on the ground; +6.5(!) in UFR. 
• Kugler: 0.0 per PFF; +3.5 per me.
• Ulizio: –3.8 overall, –2.7 on the ground per PFF. I had him at –1.

This time I don't get PFF's numbers; Michigan mauled the second and third levels of this defense, repeatedly busting huge runs because the peripheral blockers dominated their matchups. Asiasi got handed a –0.1 for a performance I thought was totally dominating.

I do tend to grade based on results, so if Michigan gets eight yards I'm extremely likely to hand out some combination of +/- that ends up +3 or +4. PFF is evidently not doing this since Michigan rushed for 8.6 yards a carry and the starting OL actually ended up negative in run blocking. I didn't see that. I saw a lot of movement.

You sound like you're about to defend your Asiasi grade with clips.

Well... yeah.

Offering Asiasi the #3 spot in Known Friends and Trusted Agents was somewhat speculative; on review he absolutely deserved it. He repeatedly bashed DL, got movement, and then popped off onto a second level block. Sometimes he did this solo:

Sometimes he helped out an offensive lineman and single-handedly changed that block:

The above is an excellent example of why double iso is closer to a zone run than plain old gap blocking iso. Rutgers slants. They want Evans in the lane behind the NT, because they've moved their LBs there to get a free hitter. Asiasi sees the NT slanting and blasts him; this is just as good as hitting a linebacker since if he gets Evans the gap he's in the LB is in the wrong spot. Regular-old iso mostly gets two or three yards since it has little recourse against slant. Double iso is a run play that can break for chunks.

Anyway: the one good bit of the Rutgers defense is their DL against the run and Asiasi reliably moved those guys and found second-level blocks. Usually those second level blocks saw him drive his man yards downfield.

That combo of agility and power was the single biggest key to Michigan's 8.6 YPC. I'll be eager to see if he can continue these performances against good rushing defenses like... uh... Indiana I guess? What a world.

It is in this way that I have pointed out many good things Asiasi did and therefore garnered my grade.

Bushell-Beatty gave up pressure on 17% of his opportunities?

More or less. That protection number is alarming and Bushell-Beatty's performance was most of it. Other starting OL gave up one hurry-type substance when Braden had some difficulty with a blitzer. Bushell-Beatty was beat clean twice. One time he managed to hold a bit and get away with it on a pass that Speight missed on. The second time he did get hit with the hold.

That's two ole blocks on just 15 pass protection snaps against Rutgers. I am really skeptical he can put it together and strongly prefer a move back to Cole at LT with Kugler coming in. Cole did struggle against top end rushers last year. He did not struggle against Rutgers.

I guess there was some insight into the depths of the, uh, OL depth chart?

There was. We saw the contingency in the event of an injury to Bushell-Beatty: Cole flips out to tackle and Kugler enters at center. I wouldn't be opposed to that being the plan going forward, but that's just me.

We also got further confirmation that Bredeson is a true freshman OL, and not of the Cole variety. Michigan's first run play was a schmozz for little on which Bredeson pulled as if it was power while everyone else seemed to block split zone:

That might be correct since Harbaugh(!), but spending yourself on a dude already on the ground is not ideal.

On the next drive he got shed by the Rutgers NT in somewhat embarrassing fashion:

That guy, Darius Hamilton, is legit. That's still an ugly couple plays on the first two drives, and Michigan immediately inserted Braden. They were trying to sit him after a minor injury the previous week; Bredeson did not allow that to happen. (FWIW, he did have a key block on a Higdon TD late.)

I'm sure Bredeson is going to improve a lot and feel like Kalis does this year but in an ideal world he's redshirting. It probably doesn't matter since Michigan looks set to bring in an enormous pile of top linemen this year; his playing time is a warning sign about OL depth more than anything else.

So if PFF didn't like the OL they must have adored the running backs?

Sort of. Sort of not.

RB chart (WR grades are run only):

Smith only got five carries and then ate bench?

An early fumble was probably the catalyst there. Also on that play Rutgers stunts and Smith cuts directly into a DL who is obviously to one side of Kugler:

This isn't going to be amazing if he cuts to Kugler but he'll get something and set up third and four; that cut makes Kugler look terrible when he is attached to a guy and pushing him. The fumble is a turd cherry on top.

So now you hate everyone again?

No! Why do you keep asserting this?

Experience?

Merph. Fie on you, bolded alter-ego. Fie.

I again liked Higdon and Evans and Isaac, although the former two both had the occasional WTF moment. Nonetheless, Higdon's ability to patiently wait for this tiny crease to open up and then hit it is pretty friggin' good:

That's a power play where that is always the gap that is supposed to appear. Higdon doesn't cut to it until the last second, which freezes the LB level. It may also help the crease appear since maybe a DL doesn't fight over a down block. A crafty change of direction in the backfield is always going to help you out, and that was indeed crafty. The two or three yards of YAC is a bonus.

Unfortunately, on a later power play this did not happen. Higdon didn't cut to the intended gap, and Asiasi ended up shoving a DE into him because of it:

I like the idea that he's looking for a potential cutback if it's there. It's not there. Higdon should be moving back outside to the play's intent unless it's really obvious. Higdon did blow the playcall on the long Peppers run, FWIW. I still like his potential as the kind of darting inside runner Michigan hasn't had in a minute.

Isaac, meanwhile, consistently made the right cuts. I complain very frequently about backs who don't read the guy in front of their face and cut off their OL's butt; Isaac made a first down out of a crack sweep that Rutgers had managed to string out with a cut like that (and an assist from a very good block from Butt):

Michigan's final offensive play aside from kneels was Isaac finding a small gap and powering through a tackle to the endzone:

He is mostly delivering on the offseason chatter.

I admit I got a bit frustrated with Evans live since he's settled into a phase where he always gets tackled by the first guy. As soon as I complained about this to my friends he ripped off this run:

Never tweet things, just say them to your friends. Evans was consistently explosive and hit all the right holes except for this inexplicable run:

That's a first down and possibly a touchdown if he doesn't make that crazy cut. Aside from that he was mostly bursting into the open field and getting taken down by the first guy.

I like 'em both, and I like both the others too. Michigan has a deep and diverse collection of backs who seem greatly improved from where they were a year ago; they're not perfect but no longer am I pulling my hair out on a weekly basis.

I don't even want to ask about Speight, man.

All right.

But I have to.

You don't.

I do.

[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.]

Very few buckets in this one. Speight threw some inaccurate passes. He had the one terrific bomb on the run..

...and the rest were rather boring chain-moving.

It's hard to remember since this turned into a 78-0 romp but Speight was outright bad for the first few drives. His accuracy was massively off on plays where he got little or no pressure:

That was little; this is no:

Slow starts now seem baked into his performances, and in games like this one there isn't much time to make up for it since you stop throwing in the second quarter and don't play in the second half.

Speight missing simple throws is a major issue and one that I am concerned will hamper Michigan against OSU. I'm not seeing much if any progress from him.

But really we should just make Peppers the QB.

Uh... I might be with you? I usually hate wildcat stuff because it's so predictable but when you've got a talent like Peppers and the beef to move people I can get behind a redzone package heavily focused on Peppers at QB. Also maybe outside the redzone. The guy is just electric:

His first touchdown was in fact a rollout pass on which he read that his guy was covered and just took off:

I mean... I would keep doing this until anyone stops it.

If there is a problem it's that Peppers is too conservative about keeping the ball. I thought there were a couple keep reads on which he didn't keep in the last game; here he didn't pull the ball on a play that got battered despite the end shuffling:

With both those lead blockers arcing around any shuffle should be a pull; Peppers hands it. That's the third or fourth time I thought he should pull, and the clearest example.

That was kind of new and cool. I'm sure that was the only new thing we saw in this ridiculous blowout.

There was actually far too much cool tweaking in this game for my tastes. The Pepcat package was expanded in a few different ways discussed above; none of those were needed to win the game and I'd rather pull those out in a more competitive situation. I mean... this was so easy and I think it would be that easy against teams not named Rutgers if it was new:

Harbaugh has this stuff every week, though, and probably has a dozen other Pepcat items he's squirrelled away. At this point they must have such a backlog of stuff that some of it leaks out even when you're up a zillion.

Still, I wanted to destroy every tape of this lovely counter trap off jet action, especially after OSU had their struggles with the jet in the first half against Wisconsin:

Michigan had a series of runs that played off Michigan's tendency to run jet and crack sweeps. Watch the playside end here. Butt motions to his side of the field and he spends his energy running outside to combat a sweep that never comes:

This happened repeatedly. Michigan would motion a tight end just outside a tackle and then run inside that tackle as the playside DE and LB widened out to contain. That's such an obvious counter to the jet that you might as well put that on film; hopefully Harbaugh has something further up his sleeve.

FWIW, in the second half against Wisconsin OSU started flipping their coverages when the receiver threatened a jet: the cornerback on the receiver would run back to safety as that S activated towards the line of scrimmage. I expect to see a ton of jet motion if OSU continues this because it promises to remove Gareon Conley, who is by far their best cover guy, from a matchup on Jehu Chesson and hands it to one of the safeties. Malik Hooker has had some big plays but has also been vulnerable:

Buckeyes safety Malik Hooker had three interceptions over the course of Weeks 1 and 2, but has given up catches five of seven times he was the primary defender each of the last two weeks and has given up a QB rating of at least 94.8 both weeks.

Conley, meanwhile, has the same stat line Jourdan Lewis does. Opposing quarterbacks targeting him are garnering a 0.0 QB rating.

Also I don't think Michigan has put this subtle counter on film yet:

That looks like iso but is designed to cut behind.

Receivers?

Mostly uninvolved. Darboh dropped a third down conversion; both he and Chesson made some challenging catches as well.

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

ROUTES: Darboh ++++

Darboh did bail out Speight on a throw a few yards too far inside:

I didn't clip much in the second half for obvious reasons, but a few things did pop out. Kekoa Crawford got an excellent block on a crack sweep:

He's had some struggles this year as a blocker but was reputed to be terrific in that department coming out of high school.

Heroes?

Asiasi. Isaac. Hill and Poggi. To a lesser extent, the OL aside from Bushell-Beatty.

Maybe not so heroic?

I just don't see it with JBB. Smith fumbled and then hit the bench.

What does it mean for Illinois and beyond?

Not much. I mean.

Asiasi is developing into an impact blocker rapidly. He's a people-mover. Had some mental issues early but now that he seems to be locked in he is just crushing LBs and DBs.

Bushell-Beatty is alarming in pass protection. Small sample sizes. Small sample sizes of bad things.

Uh. Rutgers is real bad?