Upon Further Review 2017: Offense vs PSU

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FORMATION NOTES. Michigan was mainly big sets early, except when forced into passing downs. That pattern changed a bit as the game went on and Michigan put more WRs on the field, more in an effort to see if something else worked. Answer: not really.

Penn State, meanwhile, put their safeties in Michigan's face the whole game, except for passing downs.

Michigan will have to get used to this unless they discover a passing game.

SUBSTITUTION NOTES. QB, OL, RB, and TE were about as they've been. Gentry and McKeon get the large bulk of the TE snaps. Higdon is the main RB with Evans and Isaac getting run behind him. WR saw Schoenle return and the debut of Nico Collins, who played a half dozen snaps, none of which he had a target on. Crawford, DPJ, and Perry remained the main targets.

[After THE JUMP: one guy]

Standard despairing preamble.

Yeah, it's about at that point.

But!

Oh come on there's no "but."

No, not really. But!

Fine.

So the offense sucks and the number one reason for that is the near-total lack of a passing game brought about by several factors we'll get into later. This is the original sin of the offense and one that will not be overcome this year. But at least the ground game is coming along.

Seriously?

I mean. Sort of? This was yet another game where Michigan had an excellent ability to get the first few yards, They got 3.5 line yards a carry (national average: 2.9) per Football Study Hall. Some of that was O'Korn scrambles, but the RBs combined for 3.4. Like the Michigan State game the overall numbers were held down because of two main factors. Number one was Safety With No Respect For Michigan's Passing Game. Here's Karan Higdon blowing through a safety tackle at two yards:

note that bad Gentry block prevents Onwenu from getting around and blocking him, but still!

If he doesn't do that it's another 3 yard gain on a play that Michigan blocked.

Number two was One Guy Per Play. I feel like I've been saying something along these lines since about 1500 AD, but on many of Michigan's unsuccessful plays they'd actually done a great job... except for one guy. It was never the same guy. It was a rotating guy momentarily possessed with the Spirit of Hoke. So a lot of runs ended up with a lot of +1s and a single play-wrecking –2 or -3.

Like, say, the first two plays of the game. Everyone hated them! They both would have worked but for One Guy! Michigan blocked its opening snap all the way to the safety for what should have been a chunk run, but Mason Cole got beat to the inside by a DE lined up with no leverage:

I always say that when a guy is futilely pushing a guy into the ballcarrier that someone left the first level too early, but not here. That's a block Cole has to make. Meanwhile:

Either 7 gets off that block and it's five yards or it's a CB coming from the side versus Higdon for a lot. That's a whoopin'. The guy Onwenu is putting on the ground is the nose tackle.

On the second play Michigan again carves out a huge gap, but Hill doesn't go in it:

That one has less potential because problem #1 is rearing its head—the safety prep to tackle at three yards but the blocking there is quite good except for the –2 that destroys the play. This is a big gap between 48 and the guy JBB is giving the business to:

The first play of the next drive saw Poggi go in the wrong gap:

This is maybe more of a two-guys play since Cole gets run around but there is the strong possibility that Poggi can ram Cabinda hard enough that Higdon hits the gap on a guy Gentry has definitively sealed out.

Those are Michigan's first three run plays of the game. Each features a play-wrecking goof from a different guy and a massive gap in Penn State's front. Hooray. Do you want more? I have more. This time One Guy is Higdon, who doesn't see the massive gap right at the bubble in the PSU line:

Dude.

If you can prevent yourself from running your mouse up and down in the gap despairingly you're better than I.

Also, Ty Wheatley runs by the playside LB on and a play that's otherwise a big chunk:

That's still four yards because Bushell-Beatty and Onwenu obliterate the right side of that play. Also: Hill whiffs a kickout on an RPS +2. Etc.

Tim Drevno said something along the lines of how the offense is so close to busting out, and while he's not correct—the pass protection is dire and will remain so—he's sort of correct. Michigan was one guy away from about a dozen plays.

And this is... good?

I don't know anymore. I guess it's good that errors on plays are usually one guy and often no guys. This feels very different than the late Hoke offenses, which were a frustrating mess to chart because the playcalling was terrible and there were huge errors on the regular because Michigan kept changing what they do. This is a bunch of stuff that almost works. I can see the idea. I can see that Michigan can execute these plays. I've seen the OL and TEs gradually improve their blocking. This isn't the same morass of hopelessness that Michigan suffered through a few years ago.

Michigan had plenty of plays where they looked physically dominant against the PSU line, none more so than the Isaac touchdown where they manballed it in from the six:

Michigan's tight ends didn't give up the sort of penetration they had in previous games; they grabbed slanters and blasted them down the line almost without exception. McKeon is the guy blowing a LB down the line and opening up the gap. This was a bonafide trend:

#84 TE off LOS

That's another One Guy play, as Gentry goes for the same LB Bredeson does; if Gentry gets a hat on Cabinda this is 8 instead of 4.

And Mike Onwenu was a capital-F Force. Two of the plays above feature him blasting PSU players, and when he pulled he was able to make edge-collapsing contact:

#50 RG

Another thing to note on this one is the safety who eventually tackled Evans: he is rotated back by the motion and spends a second or two reading the play out before barreling downfield. That makes for a good gain instead of good blocks and three yards. The difference between that nine yard gain and this three yard one is evident:

PSU safety to top of screen

PSU also got a DT out there on a stunt, but that's just a thing that happened. It's not a trend. The trend is the safeties firing at Michigan's ground game with impunity. PSU's safety froze on the first one because he didn't know what he was looking at. Once he saw the play once he was able to fire because nobody cares about Michigan's passing game. That's a version of what happened to early Rodriguez offenses where the new stuff would work for a bit and then when the defense had seen it they curled up and died, because they could only do one thing.

But hey, the blocking was good on that. And I mean that. It's meaningful that Onwenu and Gentry get positives there. I mean, the chart is okay to good? Numbers are low because I charted just 24 runs, but they're better than you'd expect given the results.

So that's pretty encouraging on the ground and a disaster in pass protection. I handed out five TEAM minuses that feel like mental errors in the call; those probably go back to Kugler, who had some live-fire issues of his own, and maybe O'Korn. But probably Kugler.

SEVEN SACKS WHAT THE BALLS

Well... I mean. It is what it is. My modest hopes for Juwann Bushell-Beatty's pass protection remain modest indeed. Michigan coulda should had a late-clock drive in response to PSUs but for JBB getting beat very easily to the inside and just tackling the dude.

There are holds, and there's that. He was beat clean for a second sack on the last Michigan drive I didn't bother to chart, as was Mason Cole. Michigan has no tackles. They're playing a center at tackle and they tried to insert Nolan Ulizio instead of Bushell-Beatty earlier this year. There's no way this was going to be at all acceptable.

More frustrating than the incidents where tackles get beat one on one is Michigan's persistent inability to pick up anything resembling a stunt. But many of those stunts were only sort of pressure.

Sort of pressure?

I mean... pressure. Sort of.

Michigan's pass protection is bad. O'Korn is exacerbating that because he can't reliably read defenses. His scrambles were moderately effective in the first half but degenerated into some problems he ran himself into, and even at their best they're only ways to mitigate his primary flaw. O'Korn ripped off a first down here, hooray. Also Grant Perry should be his primary read on this and he's wide open. If he's surveying the right side, either an up-high shot at Gentry or the wide open dumpoff to Hill are acceptable options:

#88 slot to left

please don't make noise about the OLB Perry is 15 yards past

Michigan would come back to this route later and O'Korn would throw a dart to convert on second and 21, so bully for that, and bully for the first down. But you can't build an offense out of improvisation, and while O'Korn was improved in this game from his last two outings he's still a long way from even average. The dump to Hill may pick up fewer yards but a QB who throws that is part of a more sustainable offense than hoping a hole opens up in front of your face.

A more frustrating example was this third and short on which a false snap from Michigan triggered PSU defense into tipping a blitz. There's no check, O'Korn should know that the OLB is coming. Michigan either manages to screw up the protection or Evans leaves the backfield immediately because he should be the hot read; I think it's the latter, but O'Korn doesn't throw it until he's dodged the blitzer and it's too late:

That looks like a should-be RPS plus that's a quick conversion to Evans with potential for YAC but for O'Korn's slow information processing. I mean:

Pick one of the two open guys, if not some more of the other potentially open guys downfield.

And there were some complaints about the route set on the O'Korn ultrasack where he sat in the pocket long enough to grow a beard. They are bad complaints.

All of these guys are in pure man coverage. They're already in their breaks. The safety is to the hash to the bottom and can't get to Crawford. Literally everyone is open enough to throw. The guys are 30 yards downfield, it's 3rd and six, you're down two TDs in the fourth quarter. Throw one of the shorter guys open or go at Crawford, who has a step on his guy. Eating a sack is totally unacceptable.

The capper:

O'Korn feels the pressure there as Higdon doesn't get a ton of his man. He gets enough to provide a lane to step into. O'Korn steps up. And then he waits. The ball is in his hands four seconds after the snap, and that's the game-sealing turnover. Yes, the protection wasn't great. This is still at least 50% on O'Korn.

So we're doomed.

Mostly. But! Here's a chart:

JOHN O'KORN

O'Korn was improved over the last two games, when dropbacks were almost invariably pain. He had a fair selection of downfield throws that looked polished, including the aforementioned long conversion to Perry. This to DPJ was also a nice reminder of how it feels to get a downfield chunk:

That's a two man route and max protection with PSU's entire front biting hard so this is very basic. It's still progress from last week. There were other blips and bloops in there: a nice first-down hitch to DPJ; a shot between guys in the zone to Perry. The latter was instructive because far more of the pressure events PSU faced—their line wasn't a whole lot better than Michigan's in pass protection—ended with events like this instead of sacks:

QBs who know where they're going with the ball paper over a lot of pressure. This stunt gets through but super-slowly and I think most quarterbacks get the ball out on this little drag route to DPJ to set up second and medium:

That looks like pressure. It is, sort of. It's sort of not. Sorry, sorry, that's the other section.

Another potential positive: O'Korn seems to have something a little like McSorley's ability to loft balls down the sideline effectively. He hit Black in the opener, had that deep shot to Gentry against Purdue, and then set up Michigan's second touchdown by standing in against a blitz and giving Crawford a chance:

Crawford converted, and will now be Braylon Edwards.

O'Korn looks good when he knows where he's going. He looked good against Purdue on a bunch of open stuff, and at times against Penn State he looked excellent. Those times were interspersed with large plains of indecision and error. There's a possibility that Michigan finds a set of things that the opposition defense is consistently giving up and O'Korn might have a replay of his Purdue game. The hope you should probably be holding onto is that Michigan can stop having so many One Guy plays and turn into an efficient rushing offense, whereupon O'Korn can keep the opposition honest with plays like that crossing route to DPJ: two man routes on play action.

Any... like, ideas?

I would be down for some heavier involvement for McDoom. He got two cracks at the ball in this one and on both he did well. The first was a screen pass that saw his speed and running instincts turn into a first down despite a whiffed block:

And the second was a jet sweep that he turned up smartly and got maximum yardage on.

There's a limit to the number of things you can get him without eating a 5 yard TFL because the defense is overplaying it but when he gets the ball in his hands he does good things with it. I'd like to see McDoom get up to a half-dozen touches a game instead of the 2 or 3 he's gotten so far. Nothing crazy.

Other than that not really? Michigan's plays are almost working so just keep working at that.

Receivers?

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

ROUTES: Perry +.

A brief and rudimentary day save for Crawford's catch.

Heroes?

Mike Onwenu was a bulldozer, as was McKeon. Run blocking in general was good.

Maybe not so heroic?

Everyone who thought about pass blocking except Bredeson. Also O'Korn was responsible for about half the sacks himself.

What does it mean for Rutgers and beyond?

The run game is close to putting it together. Unless they don't in which case I said none of this. But seriously folks: PSU was an average-ish P5 run defense and Michigan's blocking was pretty good, with gains held down by the nonexistent passing game and one guy blowing way too many plays.

Pass protection is a disaster. Surprise.

I'd like to get a look at Brandon Peters. Just in case.