Upon Further Review 2017: Defense vs MSU

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FORMATION NOTES. Michigan did slide more heavily towards a four man front against a manball outfit. Michigan had 27 3-3-5 snaps; they had 35 in a four-man front, almost all of which feature Mone. Those 4-X snaps were split 15/20 between 4-2-5s featuring Hudson and 4-3-4s featuring Furbush.

They also had 3 dime snaps, one in a 3-2-6 and two in a 4-1-6.

Here is a picture.

SUBSTITUTION NOTES. Formation notes prove spoiler: Michigan had about 35 Mone snaps, give or take a substitution. Michigan chose to put out two of Mone, Hudson, and Furbush depending on the situation and Don Brown's whim. Mone got about 60% of the snaps; Hudson and Furbush 70%.

The rest of the defense was almost entirely static. Winovich, Hurst, Bush, McCray, Metellus, and Kinnel did not leave the field. Gary got almost all the snaps with just a few for Kemp. The cornerbacks rotated through their top three of Hill, Long, and Watson.

The defense had zero margin for error in this game and they deployed like that was the case.

[After THE JUMP: the inverse Fielding Yost: a point per drive.]

I have no bleach-related feelings about this.

No. This was basically as expected. MSU had one long TD drive that was about 60% a contested downfield catch and this year's RPS thing and a short-field drive on which a couple scrambles and an absurd penalty on Devin Bush were most of the distance. MSU had one 50-yard power play that turned into a first-down-and-out and that was the almost literally the end of their offense until the refs bailed them out on their four minute drill.

Say what now?

This was called offsides on Rashan Gary.

That is the frame that the ball starts moving on. Rashan Gary is not offside, and neither is Devin Bush, and neither is Mo Hurst since Mo Hurst did this the whole game without getting called.

That was the difference between third and eight after a Hurst TFL and second and one. I mean... it probably didn't matter given Michigan's offense. But it might have mattered. Michigan's OL got away with a lot of holding in this game; this wasn't as lopsided as the officiating in the game two years ago. But it remains depressing that this crew sucks so bad and keeps getting games.

While I'm on my bitchin' here, MSU's open and dropped pass was flaaaaagrant OPI. This guy isn't even trying to pretend he's running a route:

#7 S and slot WR

MSU tried to flagrant OPI themselves into a wheel route later but Michigan zoned it and Lewerke had to abandon it. Check out Bush and Felton Davis here:

That's not even trying to conceal intent. That's how unafraid MSU is of getting an OPI call.

Hmm... bleach related issues rising.

In this one department, yes.

So... defense still elite?

Probably, yes. MSU's OL is very bad and they were starting a true freshman at guard with David Beedle out. The one thing Michigan hasn't done is go up against a legitimately good OL with, like, NFL prospects on it, but I'm not sure there's one of those on the schedule.

Drive survey:

• 9 three-and-outs, one of them a four-and-out in the monsoon section of the game.
• two first-down-and-outs, one of them that went 44 yards after the 50-yard run
• 6 play, 46-yard TD drive
• 9 play, 83-yard TD drive
• two first downs, one of them the above hamhanded crap, on a four-minute drill.

Against anybody other than Delaware State that's about as good as you can expect in 2017.

WHY WE NO TURNOVER THOUGH

Look please stop asking me this.

WHY

Because every time I say anything about turnovers I point out how random they are and doom Michigan to another 80 years of terrible turnover luck.

IS THAT HOW IT WORKS?

I hope not, because: FFS, randomness. MSU put the ball on the turf multiple times and got it back. Lewerke almost threw three picks of his own but two of the throws were too bad to be picked off and one went an inch past Long's hands. Gary pressures this throw and Lewerke throws right at the Tacopants version of Devin Bush:

That's a throw-it-anywhere that did not result in a pick. Meanwhile, Hill's impressive zone PBU was a bad throw to the inside of his WR; an accurate throw is a Countess-style INT.

WHAT WAS WITH THE SCRAMBLES

You realize that large parts of the defensive UFRs now read like you complaining about the only things that went badly in a game Michigan dominated?

Yes, now get on with it.

The first one was Mone and Winovich both getting a little out of position. Winovich rushed around the corner not quite well enough, opening up the gap, and Mone leapt at a throw-like twitch from Lewerke; once he was in the air he could not redirect outside to slow Lewerke's procession.

I'm the second one was 80% Don Brown. After a false start it's second and thirteen from the 14. Michigan runs cover two man under—i.e., two deep safeties and everyone else in man coverage. This is a super conservative approach that you cannot get away with against a mobile QB of any description, and once McCray follows the back as he must there's nothing between Lewerke and the end zone:

MSU has three guys blocking Gary, preventing him from closing off the gap, and so Hurst's free run is for naught. One extra guy in the box turns this into a sack or small gain and then you can run your cover two man under on third down. That guy should be Devin Bush, who runs out of the box to cover a wide receiver on the outside.

Whatever it is in Michigan's defense that causes this to happen—McCray was put in a similar situation and MSU got an easy chunk of yards on the throw—should be excised.

WHAT WAS WITH THE SUCCESSFUL DOWNFIELD COMPLETION

just going all in on this aren't you

YES

I do have a complaint about it, but it's not Brandon Watson. Watson's in the chest of the WR with his head around looking for the ball. He hits the WRs arms, causing a drop, and then the ball floats back to the WR.

There's always a tiny window and MSU just about hit it. Also he's ground that route up, giving the safety time to get over. My complaint is not with Watson. It's with Kinnel, who's the safety you see flashing into the picture behind the WR. He clearly has time to come over and nail the WR; instead he runs behind both guys. I assume he's trying to intercept the ball because he thinks it's over the WR's head. It's not; bad read of the situation. Kinnel should have blown the guy up.

WHAT WAS WITH THE 50 YARD RUN

Three primary failures: one was Hurst getting blown out. One was Bush reacting to this in a very bad way, running himself into the Hurst double instead of scraping around it and holding it down to like eight yards. One was Gary getting upfield and opening up an outside gap that Kinnel got way too aggressive on:

#73 DT, #10 LB, and #23 S

Bush looks like he has no idea what to do when one of his DL gets blown out... and... I mean... fair enough?

WHAT WAS WITH... uh, that other first down?

I think we're done with this line of questioning. Maybe try another.

I saw Hurst was the best player in college football last week, per PFF?

Well, let's look at the

TOO LATE IN UR BASE

chart. This is an all time UFR record for a DL coming up.

RICK, THE CHART

Sooooooo. Yeah. That Hurst number is insane and unprecedented and I can't imagine it ever being broken unless I UFR the Texas-Nebraska Big 12 title game with Ndamukong Suh in it. Which I'd only want to do if I saw. Getting a 98 from PFF basically means you had a Heisman level, Saquon Barkley-vs-Iowa performance, and... yep.

There is a major degree-of-difficulty warning, because MSU's OL is butt. Even so: I be like dang. He got blown up on the long run; on all other plays where he was relevant his wrath was wroth. There are a half-dozen plays in this game that are candidates to end up on his NFL draft reel. This isn't even one of them:

#73 DT to top of screen

This one might be, though:

#73 DT to bottom of screen

Solo TFL while being held: check. Dismissal of two guys on a pass rush: check.

#73 DT to bottom of screen

Also this:

#73 DT to top of screen

Also this:

I left out a couple of +2/+3 plays. Dios mio, man. Playing next to Mone unleashed him, and nerfed Bush a bit.

But no sacks? For anyone?

I mean... the rest of the defensive line was good, but not out of their mind. Winovich's day was fairly quiet because MSU barely threw (just 22 attempts) and most of it was either short stuff or max pro on which he was a focus. He did have this impressive play on a power:

#15 DE to bottom of screen

He, like Mone, got the business on Other Successful RB Event.

Gary did get a sack, but it was only a fraction behind the line of scrimmage and he did not get credit for it because life is cruel and Sunil Gulati is its official scorer. He also blazed around the LT to force a throwaway; this should be a hold:

#3 DE to top of screen

Third and ten so whatever. Pressure was not an issue. MSU avoided throws more than a few yards downfield with limited exceptions.

What happened to the Bushpocalypse?

Bush was quieter than he has been in the first four games; he was still good except for the large bad thing. Most run plays didn't get to him because of Hurst and friends, and he made a couple of sizeable errors. I only kind of blame him for the first, but he was the guy in man on the RB on the frippery MSU TD and he got lost. That will happen when the double misdirection thing they haven't put on film comes out. The second was a lot worse: he did not scrape over the top of the Hurst mess on the 50-yard run.

MSU couldn't get blockers to him very much but I thought this was a potentially encouraging sign for how he'll hold up against Wisconsin. He gets a mostly free-releaser here and hits him back to tackle:

#10 MLB

The main concern left with him is that he'll get swallowed up by OL who get to the second level, should there ever be any. That's a hint he can cope in a bad situation.

This was a game for McCray, not Bush, and he delivered. He was consistently thunking guys back and constricting space. That, too, bodes well for future manball outings.

Second negative day for Kinnel in a row.

Sort of, yes. He is a part of the consistently excellent coverage metrics, and his part in that easily takes him to a net positive.

But... yeah, I'm getting a little squirrelly about Kinnel. He had the aforementioned issue on the long completion along with a couple other problems. He missed a tackle on a QB draw; that was only semi-dangerous but it was dangerous. Unfortunately, we now have a fairly large number of open-field whiffs from him. And the 50-yarder broke big because Kinnel got way too nosy on first and ten:

#23 S

I kind of get that on third and three or whatever when you might boot 'em off the field. Overplaying that outside gap to prevent second and short is not a good gamble.

But... Lavert Hill! Dang!

We're still early in Lavert Hill's career, and for cornerbacks who don't get evaluated here unless they're tested there's less data for them than anyone else. That caveat out of the way: he's Jourdan Lewis, just as the prophecy foretold. His coverage was challenged three times in this game and on each he excelled. Here he pops outside the WR on the snap because he's got help inside and then dominates a corner route:

And this, as mentioned, is Blake-Countess-level zone cornerbackin':

And this is back to being Jourdan Lewis:

He did get beat on a comeback for nine yards. He was otherwise great. He was a good run defender against Air Force and he's part of big UFR coverage + metrics and almost every time he's relevant to a passing play is going to go well for M.

About the only thing we haven't gotten excellent, if limited, data on was his high school bugaboo: getting torched on double moves. The thing is I'm not sure how relevant that's going to be if he's in press man the whole time. Usually you see double moves against off coverage. When someone's in your grill and you downshift to sell them on the route they're looking at you the whole time; it's much easier to maintain "eye discipline" in that situation—ie, not look at the throw you think is coming as Jehu Chesson lopes into the endzone uncontested. Hill's hypothetical weakness is nigh-irrelevant in this defense.

Suggestion for Michigan: trot out Mike Zordich to tell us about how terrible the OL is.

FWIW, Metellus also had an impressive PBU. He's got outside leverage on the slot and bites on the out fake but manages to flip his hips and recover:

There's a window there but Lewerke misses it with pump and then it's gone. With the safety coming over the top the throw has to be a little short and Metellus makes up the ground. That would have required perfect timing and a strike.

How did Mone do in his most extended outing this year?

He was fine. Not great, not terrible. Fine. He's a useful player. He offers no pass rush; he's not easy to move. Like Hurst he had one bad snap when he got busted by a double. This was The Other Successful Michigan State RB Event:

If you're like me you thought to yourself "what the hell just happened" and remembered when it used to happen like 20 times a half. Well, young person, Michigan used to not have great giant beasts along the DL and this was the result. Also sometimes Michigan did this themselves. But not at the same time.

The rest of the game Mone was fine. He held up. One time he dismissed his opponent like a man scolding a child:

#90 DT to top of screen

Naturally, Hurst robbed him of a TFL.

That was rare. He's a space eater and he ate space while other guys did crazy stuff.

Did it feel like there was a certain lack of fancy we-saved-this stuff? I mean, the screen, and then not much?

There were a couple more things. MSU ran an unbalanced line a couple times and got their TE open when Michigan didn't realize it. Both were incomplete, one on a drop, and the other on the near-INT by Long on the overthrow. Michigan did have Long in position to tackle quickly on the second. On the first they schemed up a first down but for the drop:

"LT" is actually their TE

They also had a couple of QB counter runs that were new, although they mostly worked because Winovich got held:

M got called for that outside-the-shoulder-pads yank three times. Argh. Anyway: the LB level does bite the other way. MSU returned to this for the third down conversion that forced Michigan into a 30-second drill at the end of the game and Furbush went up the middle, disastrously.

MSU also had an "arc keeper" on which the play looks like split zone but the guy supposed to kick someone out instead runs around the guy and cuts him off. This worked once, and then when they went back to it Michigan had it down.

MSU also tried to run their WRs wide a few times and it didn't work; they had a number of shovel passes that didn't work. They had another misdirection screen that Michigan left McCray at the line to deal with; he dealt with it. They ran speed option on third and short, and McCray thumped it:

They had a bunch of stuff but most of it didn't work so it fades from memory.

OTOH, there was nothing like last year's opening drive, a motion-heavy scripted thing MSU had clearly been working on for a month. It's earlier in the year and the MSU OL is very young, so they probably had to focus more on the footballing than the frippery.

Heroes?

Hurst set an all-time UFR record. Hill was great when tested. McCray was a thumping presence, and both DEs were very good.

Maybe not so heroic?

Nobody, really. Kinnel did have a hand in two of the big MSU gains and didn't do a ton that was visible on-screen. Furbush didn't have much impact and didn't play the final first down well.

What does it mean for Indiana and the future?

Not much we didn't already know. Michigan obliterates bad OLs, MSU has a bad OL, the end.

Hill is moving towards elite. Three excellent plays move him closer to star cornerback territory. One of them coming in zone is a bonus.

Mone is useful but only that. He was solid, but only intermittently impactful against an OL the rest of the team was hammering.

Bush gets muted against manball... but Hurst gets turned way up. It's a wash.