Upon Further Review 2016: Offense vs Indiana

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In addition to being a gentleman replete with Michigan tickets, 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: Ace trips tight bunch was the most relevant formation of the day.

Michigan invariably used two tight ends in the bunch.

Indiana's response to this was to have only six guys in the box with and OLB flared way out to the field. This is one of Michigan's favorite crack sweep formations; Michigan ran one crack sweep that got buried for a loss of five yards and repeatedly gashed IU up the middle.

Michigan also went with a lot of big formations; Indiana usually lined up with an even front, a SAM linebacker, and increasingly aggressive safeties. By the third quarter it was MSU out there:

This run performance was against a statistically good outfit in difficult conditions.

SUBSTITUTION NOTES: OL per usual. O'Korn the QB save one Pepcat snap; Peppers got two other plays on offense. Butt (57 snaps) and Darboh(54) got the most run amongst the skill position players, with Chesson (43) running third.

RB snaps were about half Smith, with Evans in second place; Higdon and Isaac got slightly less than ten each. Wheatley(30 snaps) was suddenly preferred over Asiasi(8) as the second TE. Bunting(11) actually came in third. Poggi got 28 FB snaps to Hill's 18; Hill did have another very bad pass pickup that might explain that.

Crawford, Perry, McDoom, Bushell-Beatty, and Harris all got a few snaps.

[After THE JUMP: De'Veon Smith and a buncha nothin'.]

We need Speight or we're gonna die.

Yup.

That's it? Yup?

I mean, I guess they could win 10-9. But that's probably what it would take.

Aren't you supposed to be talking me off the ledge?

If John O'Korn 1) playing and 2) making decisions like he did against Indiana, Michigan's in a bunch of trouble against OSU. This was a home game in which Michigan shielded O'Korn as much as possible and a majority of what he did was some variety of bad.

[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.]

WILTON SPEIGHT

JOHN O'KORN

In addition I had him –3 as a runner, with a missed zone read pull and a bad cut the main culprits.

Iffy passes are one thing. It's windy, it's cold, maybe you can explain that away. Given the length of most of these passes I don't think you can sell the wind thing very convincingly. This is just off.

That is a four-yard throw. The wind is not the problem. That gets filed as "MA" because it is catchable but it's way more difficult than it has to be, and like Speight against Iowa he turned some would-be easy completions into more difficult plays for his wide receivers. Yes, there were one or two drops on moderately difficult balls you want the receiver to bring in. Yes, a batted pass isn't really his fault. For the most part the offensive struggles were on him.

More concerning than the iffy accuracy was O'Korn's decision-making. He had a horrendous case of happy feet, to the point where I'm not even sure if protection was breaking down on a couple of dropbacks. He drifted backwards like a rookie Madden player—something that was a problem at Houston—and ended up throwing some hilariously long zero-yard passes.

I'm pretty sure the protection is fine. O'Korn reacts like the dead have risen in front of his eyes.

Later he made a play by doing the exact opposite of this: he waits, sees the protection is not in fact there, and steps up between two players:

That was by far the best thing he did all day.

When staying in the pocket, O'Korn missed reads. This completion goes to the wrong person, as Michigan brings out a play they used in the Citrus Bowl to screw with the MLB's zone. Perry breaks in at first and the LB chases him when he goes back out; Butt's wide open behind. What it looked like in the bowl:

What it looked like against Indiana:

That rankles because the play is designed to get that very bite from the LB and open up the deeper route, and it should be O'Korn's first priority. Instead he short-circuits.

By the fourth quarter, O'Korn was so wobbly that he eschewed an open fullback flat route on a waggle. That's a half-field read and zero yard throw directly in front of your face; nope.

Michigan got bailed out by a horrendous late hit call. If it was a late hit it was late by a microsecond. O'Korn drew it by doing the same thing Speight has a tendency to do: give up before you get out of bounds and get blasted. This is the instant O'Korn's foot edges out of bounds:

It's not the defender's fault that O'Korn stopped playing. Refs +3.

When given opportunities to run the ball he missed cuts. Here he can set up a Bredeson block and get something; instead he runs outside and loses two yards.

He failed to pull the ball in an obvious pull situation later in the game.

Soooo... yeah. That's up there with certain Russell Bellomy, Nick Sheridan, and Shane Morris performances.

That was rather harsh.

Under 60 yards passing speaks for itself. I do think he got unlucky some. Indiana covered the FB flat thing once and he correctly went to his deepest route; Darboh had an opportunity to make a play and did not.

The wind probably pushed his corner route long; Jake Butt appeared to fall to the ground on another iffy but catchable pass. An ugly quick route on second and eight is on Asiasi, as need to be running a circle route that drifts away from the LB recovering from the inside. This ball is in the right spot. Asiasi is not.

For the second straight week, Michigan's receivers did not help their quarterback out. They didn't have many opportunities; they didn't make the most of them.

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

ROUTES: Harris --, Perry –, Asiasi –.

The route minuses are the worst bit, as each of those was a potential completion that ended up not getting much.

I feel bad for being all like WTF SPEIGHT last week.

To be fair, WTF.

Still...

Yes. Going from Speight to O'Korn brought Speight's outstanding pocket awareness into relief. We got a near-replica of a Speight third down conversion from a couple weeks ago when Khalid Hill airballed another pass protection. Speight feinted up in the pocket before breaking back outside. O'Korn goes where he indicates he will go with his initial step and gets sacked.

This was the most understandable reaction he had in the pocket all day; in this instance this is more a positive thing about Speight than an O'Korn negative. To go from really good pocket awareness to... this was jarring.

Harbaugh stuff? I feel we must have had a lot of it to win.

Michigan ended up slightly negative in RPS on the day but that's got to be taken in context. When your QB is struggling that badly so much of your playbook is closed off to you and the opposition can take shots at what's left. Add in the weather and even approaching even is good.

Michigan's most successful tactical gambit on the day was running a bunch of non-sweeps out of a very sweep formation—the tight bunch mentioned above the fold. Indiana really didn't want sweeps to work and left six guys in the box, which did not work. Blitzes were predictable and picked up:

When Indiana did not blitz they were stuck with six guys in the box against six blockers. The first Smith touchdown was out of this formation and you can see the big ol' spaces Indiana left when Michigan went to this.

Michigan only really needs two blocks to spring this to the safety level: Bredeson burying his guy and creating a huge gap on the line and Cole pancaking a MLB he got a free release to. Jake Butt is blocking the Indiana OLB and he's barely on the screen.

Darboh turns this from a first down into a touchdown by hamblasting the safety. Yes, the same safety Smith trucked earlier in the game. Kudos to that guy for not quitting football immediately after this game and moving someplace warm and full of lemurs.

Anyway: Michigan got a bunch of snaps with six in the box despite their passing game being totally nonfunctional, and their crack sweeps from earlier this year bought them that. It's no exaggeration to say that this formation matchup won Michigan the game.

Michigan also had a couple of big runs by running power at a huge gap in the Indiana line. A straight up power play was a first down on which nothing was particularly hard, and then when Michigan added a little counter action two lead blockers pulled around to find they only had one guy to block between them:

I don't know why Indiana did this or why they thought they could get away with it; this, too, felt like something Michigan saw on tape and knew how to go after.

I hated that waggle though.

I KNOW. The worst bit is I bet they get a first down if they just run the ball weak.

Instant pressure, everybody covered, third and two on the 45 so if you do get just a yard running the ball you can very easily go for it. Waggle towards a hilariously overloaded formation strength is just... why?

I also disliked the attempted Peppers pass, since it came on third and nine from the ten. The opposition is extremely unlikely to bite in that situation. First and ten, sure. Nobody in coverage is going to overplay a sweep to the boundary on a red zone passing down. It was up and down, the RPS.

He got a lot of yards on the ground, though, so that's good.

Mostly? The OL's performance was erratic, but they just about hit the 2/3rds metric for a good day on the ground.

No adjustments this week.

Guys alternated bad blocks with good ones. However, I think PFF's take—a collective -10.6 run block grade—is hard to countenance given the production. Take out a TEAM rush, John O'Korn's rushes, and the four runs at the end of the game when Indiana had no timeouts and Michigan was just trying to run clock and not fumble, and Michigan averaged 5.5 YPC. On the year Michigan's second to OSU in the league with 5.2 YPC, and it seems like every week the OL gets a bleah or worse. Something has to be going right. I don't know how  you can reconcile that YPC with the OL being collectively horrible.

Anyway. Michigan's first run of the game saw Bredeson get shoved way in the backfield, which forced a cutback that probably would have ended in a minimal gain except for the fact that Braden clobbered his kickout:

That pattern continued, with iffy blocks working because someone else kicked some ass. Wheatley was a frequent rescuer of plays; Bredeson made up for the above on the first Smith touchdown. Sometimes not so much, as when Braden and Bredeson got split on a double team:

Woof.

I continue to find myself baffled at what Michigan thinks they're doing on stretch plays. These are always a constraint thrown in to be tricky and I assume they are not heavily repped. I still find myself baffled when OL run right by guys shaded inside of them. If it ever worked I might get the idea; if they ever chipped these plays might ever work.

I am projecting the way RichRod ran outside zone onto a different coaching staff so maybe this is right, but... uh, it ain't right. The prosecution submits Michigan's average gain on outside zone as exhibit A and rests.

Also erratic: the fullbacks. Khalid Hill had another totally busted pass pickup and was not rewarded with a first down completion this time, as mentioned above. Poggi was meh, combining some targeting issues with less than forceful blocks. Here he determines pre-snap who he's hitting and runs by the first guy who shows in the hole:

That costs Michigan at least a few yards as Evans is cutting back into a reasonable amount of space. Poggi also blocked a corner blitz when Michigan was running read option—he blocked the optioned player. A free linebacker buried Evans immediately.

Was there anything, like, legitimately good?

Wheatley was a consistent positive. The sudden shift in playing time amongst the Kaiju came after a rough performance from Asiasi against Iowa, and Wheatley mostly paid that off. He blew some dudes up.

That was the most emphatic block on the day; there were others less comprehensive but still productive. He smoothly reacted to a slant on a fourth-down conversion and got the key block:

He'll probably regress against OSU because young players do that; this was his best game as a blocker at Michigan. Encouraging sign going into next year.

I have issued a formal apology to De'Veon Smith for my faithless ways and await placement in the woodchipper.

That won't be necessary. Smith has plenty of viscera laying around after this.

He's all stocked up.

RB chart (WR grades are run only):

Another strong performance from the running backs, highlighted by Smith and Darboh repeatedly turning #19 into a weepy mess. Smith did miss an opportunity or two; he ran into Kyle Kalis on a well-blocked power play that should have been a first down; Michigan's goofy-as waggle playcall on the next drive resulted in a punt.

I liked Evans a lot except on one very big missed opportunity. That opportunity:

Indiana ran another double A twist blitz with Michigan in that bunch formation. They more or less pick it up. Evans runs straight, and runs straight into that LB Kalis is shoving. At this point Evans has got to see more or less three guys headed straight for him and make a cut behind Magnuson, where there is a huge lane that also removes that safety.

This was apparently severe enough to PFF to get him a –1 on a day where he did some nice things.

When not turning a potential TD into bupkis he was excellent. This slick pocket juke on a charging safety calls for the deployment of the ankle-slurry related Chris Evans tag:

If you give Evans enough space to make some moves he will make the opposition look silly. Also sometimes if you don't. Michigan caught a defense that crushed the offset draw with a slant/stunt, and Evans pulled a Mike Hart by turning a four yard loss into a three yard gain.

May this be the first and last time this year I'm reminded of Mike Debord while writing this column.

Higdon mostly got buried through no fault of his own. I did think he had the opportunity to decisively cut inside on the crack sweep that got buried and his failure to do so turned zero yards into –5.  Isaac, however, also missed a cut, as Indiana stunted. The left side of the line didn't switch it but both guys stayed on their dudes and there's a cutback opportunity if Isaac is a little more patient and cuts behind Braden.

That's some advanced stuff but it is a missed opportunity.

Heroes?

Big day for wrinkly scaled beasts stepping on buildings, as both Smith and Wheatley destroyed various Tokyos. Darboh had little opportunity to do anything in the air but made his run blocks count when they became relevant. I thought Cole had a very good day.

Maybe not so heroic?

O'Korn. Poggi again struggled with IDing blocks. The guards both scuffled to days around 0, which is not good in my system, and PFF was even harsher.

What does it mean for Oh God Saturday?

Need Speight. The end.

I am somewhat dubious that Michigan's offensive line is going to be able to grind it out. On the other hand, I've seen the MSU and Wisconsin lines, which aren't great, and they managed just fine. With Smith acting as a relatively close Clement/LJ Scott analogue. It could happen. Or they could just get overwhelmed. Not much will surprise me other than a 7 YPC blowout.

Chris Evans can make you miss in small spaces. If he'd seen that cutback his day would have been truly excellent.

Wheatley up, Asiasi down. More based on playing time than anything else. Encouraging that there's some growth there.

Darboh is a good blocker. He blocks 'em good.