Upon Further Review 2017: Offense vs Michigan State

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FORMATION NOTES. It's Michigan State.

With limited exceptions Michigan was not inclined to (or able to) force MSU out of their 4-3 over with two safeties at 8-10 yards, and so this happened the whole game. This could have been okay, but it was not okay, but that's what all the stuff below is about.

SUBSTITUTION NOTES. O'Korn the whole way at QB. OL was Cole/Bredeson/Kugler/Onwenu/Ulizio until just before the half when JBB came in, and remained. No Runyan or Ruiz this time out. TE rotation was fairly even between Bunting, Wheatley, Gentry, and McKeon, but the latter two got the bulk of the at-bats. Wheatley is still mostly a blocking option since he's got a cast on.

WR was DPJ, Crawford, and Perry with a number of McDoom and Ways snaps. Schoenle did not play. Injury, I assume. FB alternated between Hill and Poggi, as per usual, but Mason got maybe a half-dozen snaps.

RB was about half Higdon, half Evans, with Isaac filling out the remaining snaps. Isaac's fumble obviously limited his playing time.

[After THE JUMP: medium numbers multiplied.]

*drinks bleach*

oh my god where did you get that bleach

the bleach store

oh man i gotta go get some

all sold out, last one

hey man can i have some bleach, i really need some bleach

sorry i am dying now goodbye

...

Fine, it was Fresca.

Can I have some Fresca?

Fresca is for people who do UFRs on time and don't care about soccer.

Doesn't really have the same ring as "coffee is for closers."

WELL MAYBE I'M JUST DISPLAYING THE SAME LEVEL OF COMPETENCE AS THE MICHIGAN OFFENSE. LET'S DO THIS I'M SICK OF THIS INTRODUCTORY SENTENCE. GIVE ME THE BAD NEWS, DOC.

O'Korn's Purdue game currently looks like a huge outlier, as he regressed back towards his Houston/Indiana level of play. It wasn't as bad as the Indiana game, but it was not good.

JOHN O'KORN

I don't think that's harsh; one of those INTs was a CA I gave him since he threw a good ball undone by one fingernail. That is a lot of BRs, and he could have had a couple more if he hadn't escaped pressure he created himself a couple times.

After a couple of completions O'Korn's day started to fall apart at the end of Michigan's first drive. After going over the whole game I have the distinct impression that O'Korn made up his mind where he was going with the ball before the snap on most plays. This made everything look hard and resulted in a number of terrible-idea throws. When O'Korn's first read did pop open everything was fine.

When they didn't it was almost always play over. The frustrating thing is that the third-and-goal hopeless fade at McDoom was the exact same play as Michigan's first third-down conversion earlier on the drive. On the first one O'Korn stares down Perry for the whole play and barely fits it in a tight window of his own devising:

That's a bit amateurish what with the staring at one guy the whole way. It works. barely, as the first read. Then, the third down fade catches man coverage and Perry is wide, wide open with no complicating zone guy coming from the middle of the field.

#88 slot WR

5'11" guy who is not your best WR on a fade versus open easy throw. No idea why this happens. Against Purdue O'Korn was finding good presnap reads and executing them. Here not at all, and this isn't something tricky MSU is doing. It's just man coverage, and man coverage that is pretty obviously going to see Perry break open.

The play before that was equally frustrating because Michigan appears to leave a wide receiver at the line of scrimmage specifically to get Gentry one on one with a safety in man coverage. Gentry is in front of the S and an enormous pogo stick man...

...and O'Korn takes another low percentage sideline shot. This sack wasn't great from Ulizio but he makes Frey go around at ten yards as M runs four verts and I'm just like... throw the ball. Throw it to Crawford, who's open, or Gentry, who might be open or might not be but is definitely not a huge sack:

That is third and nine. A deep INT is a punt. Throw the ball.

On other plays it seems like O'Korn went momentarily blind. This play action on Michigan's first drive sees a safety suck up and DPJ left in one on one press coverage where he's running a fly route inside the numbers. O'Korn looks at this ideal situation for a fly route against press and...

#9 WR

Cumong man. Also nobody covered Poggi so at least check down to him. But really, throw the damn ball downfield. That's exactly what you want. Later he'd throw a drag route that got blown up when he had Gentry and DPJ running deep, two vs two; a few plays after that he missed DPJ on a fade route in part because he threw it so quickly, which didn't give DPJ time to run away from the DB. That too felt like a presnap read that didn't change, as it looked like DPJ was going to get a bracket and then MSU moved away from it before the snap.

When good things did happen it was in the usual way: O'Korn breaking the pocket and finding a guy downfield. This is legitimate talent he has, but it turned into a crutch this game. There were several dropbacks where he had a clean pocket and then started moving around for apparently little reason. This led to holding calls, the occasional sack, and unproductive half-field improv business that resulted in incompletions. This pocket is clean:

Also by the time he decides to throw the DB on DPJ has ceded the first down. Instead he tries an ambitious, out of bounds bomb.

Clean pocket, wide open dumpoff to Evans, sack:

This was a reversion to O'Korn Classic, and given his track record and his age I'm guessing the Purdue game is the outlier, not this. FWIW, the interceptions were:

1. a fine throw in a tight window that a LB gets a literal fingernail on, which takes it just past the outstretched arms of Crawford, who deflects it on to a defensive back's arm, whereupon the ball bounces directly to that guy,
2. a terrible playcall in a monsoon, a fumble on the snap, and a terrible decision to throw to a very covered guy when Perry is open outside of him, and
3. a vast overthrow, of an open Bunting possibly caused by rain.

#1 is mostly on fate, #2 is a combination of a terrible playcall and O'Korn panicking once he left the pocket, and #3 is on him and the weather. They aren't actually the most frustrating part of his day. That would be the resort-to-fade stuff early.

If O'Korn struggles I think we see Peters against Indiana. Don't believe any of that crap the internet is spewing about Peters being in the doghouse or a malcontent or whatever. He's on the radar.

Okay, but this performance was a pass protection debacle and it's on the OL?

Yes and no. Michigan was actually perfect in pass pro through the first drive, when O'Korn made his first two bad reads. He was not sped up, he was just not seeing the field. As things went along, though... woof.

Note that pass pro number was +12 on the first drive and afterwards it was nearly 50/50 as to whether any particular pass play will be an overwhelming disaster. 70% of that was the OL; 30% was O'Korn chipping in a number of snaps where he bugged out of a clean pocket. Everyone claimed their own bit of ignominy, but –9 from the right tackles combined stands out.

Those are some good blocking numbers for everyone except Ulizio, McKeon, and Hill. Michigan was 68% on the ground? With 3.8 YPC from their running backs?

Yes, Michigan hit 66% for the first time this year. They also only ground out 3.8 YPC. What gives? Three things:

• Michigan's pass pro was so bad that MSU never had to back off from their old-style quarters defense, so safeties chopped down a lot of plays just as they got to 6-7 yards.
• Rain allowed MSU to tee off in the second half even more.
• Running backs did not make a lot of plays. Higdon had a few positives here and there but his +6 is more like +3 when we're talking about the run game, as he got some positives late on catch and run stuff. Evans had –0.5 but it is –2.5 on interior stuff since he got +2 for a smoke screen. Also, Isaac fumbled.

This is a situation where Bill Connelly's stats are a godsend. Michigan had 3.2 line yards per carry, above the national average of 2.9. They had an opportunity rate (5+ yard runs) of 49%, well above the national average of 38%. After gaining five yards they gained 1.3 "highlight yards" per opportunity. National average? 5.2.

Upshot: the OL consistently delivered Michigan backs five yards downfield and then nothing happened. The run blocking was a significant improvement all around after Bushell-Beatty came in.

So the running backs are bad again?

I mean... maybe? I thought Evans had a poor game. He did not make many yards on his own and when presented with opportunities he didn't make anything out of them. This early crack sweep catches MSU off guard and delivers Evans to a safety. He manages to turn 10 yards into 5 here:

That guy is flowing up hard and desperate to maintain leverage. Slashing inside of him should be easy. Instead, that. Here he runs directly into an unblocked linebacker.

Cut. Change direction. There is a cutback as Michigan blows a dude off the ball, and you win when people change direction. Offseason hype about Evans's vision is now looking not so hot. 

Evans did give Frey the business on one smoke screen:

Would have liked to see them line up like that again and try to hit something deep if the LB creeps up closer to the line.

Higdon had a number of solid runs on which he made the right cuts and got what he should; he did average 5.4 YPC. But Michigan did not pop a single long run and it's tough to have any sort of respectable looking number when your long on the day is 12 yards.

WHY ARE WE THROWING THE BALL IN HURRICANE KATRINA MAKE PLAYS

I kind of agree, angry sir. The rain, when it came, was light except for one ribbon of doom-storm. Unfortunately, the doom-storm kicked in just before Michigan faced third and three and decided on this:

GTFO with that. It is pouring and you're going with a shotgun snap and a throw on third and three. Run the ball.

Aside from that it seems unlikely that Michigan could have ground down the field six yards at a time. Maybe without the INTs Michigan can grind themselves into a short field and field position themselves another TD, like they did early in the second half, but for most of the game it felt like the only way Michigan would drive the field was with a big chunk play. It didn't work out. It didn't seem crazy to me to try. At some point your OL is going to put you in third and forever and you're punting.

But: Michigan did end up with a big negative RPS number. In part that is the circumstances. It's tough to RPS when you suck at things, because nobody's overreacting. And it's tough to RPS when it's raining. However, Michigan didn't have much of anything like MSU's screen touchdown where you're just like "yep, good play." Maybe the TE screen. That's about it. But maybe I missed a bunch of stuff downfield because of the OL and O'Korn. I don't know man.

So: not happy after this game but playcalling is about 80th on my list of concerns.

That's a nice number for Wheatley.

Wheatley made his presence felt a few times. Michigan devised a way to run their crack sweep that didn't tip off the defense and on both of his opportunities Wheatley clobbered the playside end.

He generally moved guys and did not fall off; I got a little peeved at the backs late because Wheatley was opening up the bounce and they just ran into a pile of crap. This from Higdon was especially bad; MSU's LB screws up by going inside and not funneling to his help and Higdon just runs into him:

That bounce is open because Wheatley put his guy two yards off the ball. I expect his playing time will increase as we go along here. He's still got a small cast on that makes him a bit of a run tip. But he's mashing guys.

Are we ever going to see Ulizio again?

This year? Probably not. I won't rule out down the road. He's been awful in pass protection. One last example:

#70 RT

Woof. The ground game is more difficult to suss out because assignments and zone and whatnot are difficult to parse but I still feel like he spent most of his tenure as a starter running by guys he needed to block, badly. This one was especially egregious because it's not even zone, it's power, and he runs by a  DE who is the #1 priority on a power play and must be doubled:

#70 RT

You'll note that Ulizio doesn't even get the second level block.

Ulizio's out of nowhere rise to claim the starting job always seemed like a bad sign, and we now have 4.5 games of confirmation that indeed it was. The most likely explanation for his rise is that everyone else was terrible and they thought he couldn't be worse. They were wrong. I hope.

Five games into the season it looks like Michigan's OL plan was crazy. They rode with Runyan at RT until deep into fall, when suddenly Ulizio emerged. How, I don't know. Runyan is now getting some run at guard and surviving, because he is a guard. Meanwhile Bredeson—who is Michigan's highest-ranked non-freshman and was supposedly neck and neck for the LT job last year—doesn't get any shot at the right tackle job. Runyan isn't given the RT shot; that goes to Bushell-Beatty, who looks about like he did last year. His first snap was a terrible sack given up to a walk-on.

#76 RT

I have no idea how Michigan could have had Ulizio and JBB in practice for two years and not tried Bredeson at tackle.

FWIW, JBB did provide more oomph in the run game. This is a big kickout:

#76 RT

He is a big boy and maybe Michigan can grind more with him in the game. I have very limited hopes for his pass protection.

I imagine it will be JBB for at least the next game or two. 50/50 that Michigan is then forced to do something drastic like play a freshman or flip Bredeson out. Yes, I think about losing Grant Newsome just about every day.

Speaking of MAKE PLAYS, wither the wideouts? Have they MADE PLAYS all year?

With the exception of Grant Perry, not really. And on our pain train goes: nobody is helping out the QB. Crawford had a deep shot go through his hands. He was getting harassed by a DB but at some point you are out there to MAKE PLAYS. Crawford has not caught a contested ball this year. DPJ also blew an opportunity down the sideline on a somewhat marginal ball from O'Korn. DPJ fades to the sideline too much and does not high point this ball, allowing the DB to shove him out:

O'Korn should be putting that yards further inside since there is no safety help and DPJ has a step. DPJ still could have made a play; he did not.

Here's the receiving chart, and it's an ugly one:

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

ROUTES: DPJ –, McDoom –.

Three flat drops, one that will live in infamy, and very little help on harder catches. Nobody has made a play like MSU's WR did in the second quarter seemingly all year. One wonders how much different this offense feels with Braylon Edwards. Survey says: a lot.

You mentioned on the podcast that Michigan changed up its running game?

Yes. Michigan returned to a run game more like Harbaugh's first two years in Ann Arbor. The traps came back, to good effect. Oddly, on more than one of them the DL who was supposed to get trapped just fell, perhaps out of bafflement.

#50 RG Onwenu

Michigan was a bit of luck away from a big play on these. Here Higdon gets chopped down by a corner in zone. If that guy is in man and trying to crack replace Higdon might break a big run.

Michigan ran 11 zone plays versus 14 gap-blocked plays. (FB dives, crack sweeps, and the reverse are excluded from this analysis.) That is a significant shift away from zone. That still remains a part of the playbook, obviously... but a crappy one. Those 11 plays gained just 25 yards. Michigan suuuucks at zone.

There were costs to the returning diversity. Michigan had a couple of plays on which it looked like someone busted an assignment. Onwenu appeared to be running a trap on a play that was not a trap, and either Hill or McKeon busted on this Isaac TFL. Michigan blocks a big cavern in the middle that has an unblocked LB, and then Hill runs outside. Isaac follows him, because follow your fullback:

I gave that to Hill but that could be what he's supposed to do; in that case McKeon needs to be doubling on Cole's guy and leaving the force player for Hill. YMMV. Either way it's a mental mistake that turns a promising play into a TFL.

Heroes?

Tyrone Wheatley had a whomping day on the ground. Kugler and Onwenu both checked in very positive on the ground with single pass pro minuses.

Maybe not so heroic?

Don't expect we'll see Ulizio for a while; JBB's pass protection was no better. Isaac fumbled and exited; Evans failed to make yards himself, and O'Korn fell about halfway down the cliff at the bottom of which is last year's Indiana game.

What does it mean for Indiana and the future?

After trying to be a zone team they're now a gap blocking team in mild denial. Big uptick in power and iso in this game, and it was effective. Expect at least an even split going forward and I bet it shades towards power, because Michigan now has a lot of power on the right side of the line.

Improvement week did work, sort of. Michigan's run blocking here was better than it's been all year with the exception of the gent who got yanked.

The black hole is slightly different. Ulizio goes out; JBB immediately gives up sack. Michigan will roll with it and see if he's improved. He did do work on the ground.

Tyrone Wheatley can mash. Very good, consistent, no-falling-off day. Add him on the regular and get that cast off and Michigan could actually power some guys off the line.

It's Higdon at RB. Until he fumbles again. Evans spurned a lot of yards and Isaac lost a second fumble this year. It'll be Higdon, who had better vision this week than he has so far this season. Hopefully that continues. Don't be surprised if Kareem Walker gets a run out next week.

My kingdom for a wide receiver. No offense, Grant Perry, but Michigan needs more than just Grant Perry. Black going out looks like a killer. Schoenle did not play this week and I have to assume that's an injury. Michigan needs him back.

Flowers for O'Kornernon. Heavy regression this week. This wasn't nearly as bad as the Indiana game but it was a harsh reality check after a week in which he looked like a totally different quarterback. He's not. He's a better John O'Korn.