Upon Further Review 2017: Offense vs Wisconsin

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FORMATION NOTES. THERE WERE DEFINITELY SOME FORMATIONS, BACK TO YOU JOHN.

SUBSTITUTION NOTES. Same QB and OL as the previous few games until Peters was knocked out. Onwenu did get a couple snaps as a RG in a jumbo formation, with Ruiz popping out to a TE-ish spot. Still mostly Gentry/McKeon at TE, with a number of 3 TE formations that also had Bunting. DPJ the main WR, with Perry, Crawford, and McDoom filling out the snaps.

Evans, Higdon, and Walker at RB, with an Isaac cameo on which he got hurt again.

[After THE JUMP: meh]

YIPPIE KAI HA HAPPY THANKSGIVING MOTHERBLOGGER

isn't Die Hard a Christmas movie

also, "yippie kai ha?"

THANKSGIVING IS CHRISTMAS NOW

i see

GIVE YOUR WOMAN THIS ROCK AND SHE WILL OVERLOOK YOUR MANY EXTREME CHARACTER FLAWS FOR UP TO 6 HOURS

she doesn't like jewelry

PURCHASE THIS CAR TO REKINDLE THE PALE, TINY SPARK OF WONDER THAT FLED FROM YOUR LIFE THREE PROMOTIONS AGO

can i talk about the game

UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES TALK ABOUT FOOTBALL

sorry buddy

UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES SHOW ME A CHART CONTAINING NUMBERS THAT ATTEMPT TO QUANTIFY MICHIGAN'S BLOC—

So that's a disaster. And one thing jumps out: eight unassigned protection minuses.

You were twitching and saying "line calls" earlier this week. I assume this is about that?

Yes. Michigan's apparently busted line calls cropped up even more often than I thought they did live. This killed a number of plays, both on the ground and in the air. The pass pro issues were immediately obvious; we've already talked about that ugly sack Peters took from UW's leading sacker on an early third and six. Maybe that's on Chris Evans. This was not, and it's the same issue:

There are only five guys on the line of scrimmage. It doesn't seem too hard to default to "I get the guy over me" and then try to adjust on stunts and the like. Instead Mason Cole is picking which guy to let through free. Because the line appears to be calling a shifted protection to the right. After a fifth guy walked down and announced himself as a potential blitzer to the left. With no running back.

Then there was the double-damn play where Kugler both gave up a sack and caused a chop block call. If Kugler sticks to his original guy here this protection is good and maybe Michigan converts here. Instead he peels off and woop up the middle.

Maybe Ruiz is partially at fault here but that's another instance where it seems Kugler doesn't know what the players around him are supposed to be doing.

Similarly, Michigan ran a lot of total nonsense on the ground. The early wildcat snap to Evans wasn't actually a tactical issue—Wisconsin had just 6, 6.5 in the box—but the world's most obvious slant. Michigan took the bait, with Kugler releasing downfield into nobody. JBB is picking which guy to not block, and kind of picks both, and kind of blocks both:

#57 C and #76 RT

When I see things like this I try to figure out how the offense could make this work. Here the solution is relatively simple: Ruiz shoves his guy, Kugler picks him up, and Ruiz attempts to release to the linebacker; JBB holds his original block. So why didn't this happen? Kugler couldn't read what was going on despite having no one in the world he can block on the second level. But also JBB seems to have no doubt that he should head to the LB on the second level; he assumes McKeon can pick up the guy he passes off. McKeon has a guy further outside. When I see two guys extremely wrong about what the defense is doing, that points at a bad line call. It is more likely that the kind of failure above is a systematic one than two guys independently borking.

And when you see this kind of thing over and over, question marks begin to resolve themselves into accusatory fingers. This absolutely has to be a bad line call, because Kugler uselessly doubles a nose tackle on a power play, leaving JBB to futilely chase a guy lined up inside of him while no-damn-body blocks the edge player:

#57 C, also poor damn #76 RT

That's how you get a power play destroyed by two all-but-unblocked guys on the backside. That is all Kugler screwing up what looks like a basic call. When I grade power plays I don't even look at the backside (except in situations like this) because the assignments are "vaguely obstruct this person and it'll be fine." To get a power blown up by two backside guys rather boggles the mind.

I've been muttering about this for most of the year because there have been a lot of plays on which I struggle to understand what Michigan's trying to do. Those largely went away because Michigan could just pave people with power and counter and—except in this game, I guess—those are really easy to figure out your assignment on unless you're a puller*. When the heat got turned up here Michigan busted repeatedly and spectacularly, in concert. This points to the center. Because sometimes he and Cole are clearly talking to each other presnap, trying to get on the same page, and then nobody runs the same play.

I imagine there's a reason Kugler struggled to get on the field until year five despite Michigan's exceedingly mediocre OLs the past few years. There's a reason Michigan preferred a true freshman over Kugler last year when they moved Braden out to left tackle. (Remember that Braden was out with injury for the Hawaii game so Kugler started.) Since Kugler doesn't seem physically overmatched and the above stuff is happening imagine the reason is because he dorfs an ungodly number of line calls.

I mean, right? That stuff above is confusion plain and simple, and not of the one-freshman-goes-the-wrong-way variety. But what do I know? Kyle Kalis just started an NFL game. (On the other hand, he had three penalties.)

*[Guys pulling to the POA on power will have to identify and deal with various games the defense plays.]

Why would this get better if nobody on the team is able to displace Kugler now?

For the same reason the offense was less moribund when Brandon Peters came in. Younger players improve faster than older ones, coaches make excessively conservative decisions about who to play, and Michigan has at least two solid-looking bullets in the chamber with Cesar Ruiz and Stephen Spanellis. Ruiz in particular is a natural center who hasn't had the luxury of practicing there all the time because he appears to be the top backup at 3 or even 4 spots along the line. Also he is starting at RG now.

If Ruiz was anything other than a true freshman I'd be alarmed about that that says for next year. Since he is, it's understandable.

And then... the rest of it?

When not having wholesale breakdowns because they had no idea what they were looking at, there was some of the One Guy stuff from the Penn State game. Zach Gentry ran by a cornerback on an otherwise well blocked power. Higdon ran into his own OL on a well blocked play for no reason:

Twice TJ Edwards slashed inside of Cesar Ruiz on power plays that were good enough to get some yards otherwise. Here's a Trademark Useful FOX Endzone Replay:

TJ Edwards is a total badass but have to hope that a more experienced version of Ruiz is able to make these blocks. Alas, we have the freshman version.

But more often Michigan could not move the Wisconsin defense at all. UW shed blocks; they got a little depth on Michigan OL, and their linebackers got to shoot a bunch of fish in a barrel since they were 100% unafraid of Michigan's passing game.

At least we could throw a little? Until you know what?

A little. This felt about the same on a rewatch. Peters was noticeably less efficient than he had been against the lesser foes on the schedule. He missed five makeable throws, only one of which was a true deep shot. His DSR took a big dip.

BRANDON PETERS

The mountain of pressure he faced does matter. YMMV on a few throws where the ball was off but there was a significant mitigating factor: angry people trying to hurt Peters. Does Peters come off Perry and hit what looks like an open corner route if Bredeson and Kugler can pick up Yet Another Stunt?

Maybe. As it is he's sped up and it's third and eleven and you're on the Wisconsin 42, time to try to make a play. Ditto Michigan's attempt to replicate the Saquon Barkley vs Mike McCray touchdown, on which Peters misses, possibly because he can't fully step into his throw after—surprise—Yet Another Stunt gets through again.

Those got filed as negative instead of neutral PRs but they were borderline.

When not getting buried it was a mix of promise and frustration. Peters did some nice, relatively advanced stuff, whether it was getting the ball out before McKeon was in his break on his first pass or offering up trademark soft tosses on the two wide open intermediate shots he was presented with. And he hit DPJ! Woo!

Unfortunately, the mistakes were about as prominent. Twice he turned potential DPJ catch and run plays into not much, once by holding on to the ball too long, once with a marginal throw. Part of this is just Wisconsin being good. The first DPJ YAC issue featured a Wisconsin LB doing a good job to flow out on DPJ initially and then fall back to the interior route that was the second option.

Wisconsin OLB #17 to bottom of screen

With more experience Peters can maybe bait that guy with a quick look inside to get that fallback and then come back to DPJ. Here it was Serious Read, Serious Read, Too Late; as he goes along hopefully that turns into Serious Read, Quick Feint Read, Lots Of YAC. But don't sell the Wisconsin defense short. It was as advertised, and that creates a lot of problems for a young QB.

This was just... aigh.

I know he's on the run but the target area there is so huge. Peters had a similar miss on a crossing route for about 20; he left it behind Gentry and let a beaten DB recover to PBU.

Peters didn't look like the second coming of Tom Brady here but the circumstances make it tough to judge. For a first road game against a tough opponent it was fine. He looked like he belonged. His mistakes were generally low magnitude, and he showed reasonable command of the offense. I'll take it.

And O'Korn?

The same. Chart:

JOHN O'KORN

This is the bit where I say "it is what it is."

I thought they'd saved up a bunch of stuff over the past few weeks and were going to dump it on the Badgers?

Uh. So did I?

They didn't.

No. Michigan's tweaks in this game were limited. Some looked like total nonsense, like running the wildcat on third and eight—or at least trying to before calling timeout. Setting the goofiness of that approach aside, when you can barely get lined up in the first half that doesn't really seem like a thing you've been lovingly polishing for a month.

Also in the total nonsense category, this!

I would assume throwing McKeon into the back of the line for no purpose is a McKeon error, except Michigan's been doing that on various plays for no readily apparent reason for a few weeks. So Michigan runs an iso at a 3-4 with one blocker for two ILBs. The spoooooky ghost of Al Borges appeared to me in a dream this week, and gave me a finger in the shape of this play.

Some things worked better than... that. One was a package featuring McKeon as an outside WR that looked like it might be reasonably effective after the first edition featured a UW cornerback having to hold to prevent McKeon from breaking open on a hitch:

Later on Michigan's first drive the hoodie patrol would keep its paws off and McKeon would convert a third and long on that same hitch.

But this should be a "punt it up against the 5'10" guy" package and Peters didn't get the memo. Michigan's first drive ended when he didn't throw the back shoulder fade that seems to be the whole reason you'd put McKeon wide in the first place.

Michigan also popped open some tight ends and fullbacks past the linebacker level. I don't think the TEs can be considered a tweak since that's what TEs are supposed to do. Khalid Hill on a downfield route is a new thing. And an effective one, here.

That attacks the same spot the long Gentry catch did in a different fashion, with near-equal effectiveness.

A second was a power variant on which Schoenle motioned inside to  cut an outside linebacker, thus allowing both the backside T and G to pull. This worked for nine yards:

It didn't come out until the end of the third quarter, and was only run once. Woof.

Michigan also brought out a couple of traps, one of which was a solid gain. It too underscored that Wisconsin is a tough customer. There is slim crack here and safety hitting Higdon at about four yards on a play where just about everything went right:

That's tough sledding.

That sucks! I dislike that!

I am disappointed, too, but here's Michigan popping open Gentry for 35 yards and Peters getting lit up.

And here's Wisconsin's playside linebacker so hell for leather he's a yard from the LOS when the handoff is made... up two scores halfway through the fourth quarter.

Michigan had a pin and pull from a big set—something they haven't shown yet—and it died largely because the playside LB was one yard from the line of scrimmage and charging as the handoff is made. Ruiz gets thrown off slightly because Kugler gets pushed back into him, but I'm not sure it makes a bit of difference:

What can men do against such reckless hate? Throw? Ha.

I don't think it would have mattered much since Michigan's pass protection is so wretched Michigan cannot put an ounce of hesitation into anyone's linebackers and safeties. That DPJ post above was second and ten. Sure, run a post with no safety help, Wisconsin said. And Michigan did and they still scored 10 points. Or 17, I guess.

This is the difference between the #80 pass protection and #120: when you are that horrid the opposition can tee off on your run game and it just doesn't matter because football drives are multiplicative affairs. 30% * 30% * 30% drops off much much faster than 40% * 40% * 40%. Michigan sucks too hard at pass protection to have a decent offense against good defenses. No matter what they do or do not do schematically. The end.

Receivers?

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

ROUTES: McKeon +, Crawford +.

Note that nothing DPJ brought in was routine. Also I gave him credit for the non-TD, since it was a TD.

Heroes?

Peoples-Jones did everything he could except make one block. Cole was up for the challenge.

Maybe not so heroic?

Every other OL was overwhelmed.

What does it mean for Ohio State?

Pain. Pain.