Upon Further Review 2013: Offense vs Northwestern

FORMATION NOTES: Northwestern stuck to a 4-3 virtually the entire game, with pretty predictable rules as to how they would line up.

When Michigan aligned its strength to the short side of the field and had twins, NW would slide the LBs and play an even front. They would slide the LBs to the twins and shift their line to the strength of the formation when M aligned with their strength to the field.

When Michigan presented Ace, they would play a 4-3 under.

The primary exception to this was the redzone, where Northwestern played their safeties as extra LBs.

Five yards off the LOS and coming on the snap is why those two Derrick Green carries from around the ten ended up losing yards. The first one was actually blocked quite well.

Note that the way NW aligned consistently invited the bubble fake run game, as their corners played off and the slot LB had to respect the bubble. With a safety over the top those two guys removed three players from the box and left Michigan with seven on seven blocking opportunities without having to use the threat of Gardner's legs. It will still work if teams play Michigan like this; if they don't Michigan will have to find something else.

SUBSTITUTION NOTES: QB, WR, and the OL were all as you would expect. Dileo seemed to return full strength in this one and this meant Jackson was removed. Paskorz got some early PT but it was Williams most of the way as inline blocky guy. The line remained Lewan/Bosch/Glasgow/Magnuson/Schofield save for some goal line plays on which Kalis game in at RG and weird stuff happened otherwise, like wing TE Taylor Lewan.

Running back was of course an overhaul, with Derrick Green getting the bulk of the work, De'Veon Smith becoming a 30% second, and Justice Hayes acting as a third down back sometimes. Joe Kerridge also got a few snaps as a running back in the shotgun on passes.

[After THE JUMP: wherein we seem relatively happy with nine points in regulation.]

I feel like this is progress?

I have no idea man.

Like, they went forward on the ground.

They did, and they actually did so in a not-embarrassing fashion. Like, combine the carries for Smith and Green and it looks like a normal human tailback doing normal human tailback things: 27 carries for 120 yards, 4.4 an attempt. Gardner managed 59 yards on his 12 carries that weren't sacks. This is in line with Northwestern's sack-adjusted output against the rest of their Big Ten schedule. You can slot Michigan in on this list:

• OSU: 5.3
• Wisconsin: 6.4
• Minnesota: 4.3
• Iowa: 3.5
• Nebraska: 4.8
• Michigan: 4.6

And feel prout and goot about the run game. OSU and Wisconsin they were not, but they looked like a decent Big Ten rushing offense.

How did they accomplish this great and good feat?

They did this by throwing away the idea of a pulling guard and running almost entirely straight-ahead inside zone blocking on a bunch of inside zones and isos, some of which were paired with bubble fakes. The only plays on which Michigan pulled anyone:

• Two disastrous down G QB boots
• Two short yardage power O plays from big formations, one a first down on second and two, the other a loss of one on third and one.

That is it. They mixed in zone stretch as a changeup and got it blocked, too. Their two biggest runs of the day other than a Gardner scramble for 22 were 17 and 23 yard runs on the stretch, and while they got blown up on it twice neither of those plays was blocked particularly poorly; they just had the misfortune to be run into straight up nine man fronts with a safety at five yards who put his face into Derrick Green in the backfield.

OMG LOL FINALLY

That is an uncharitable sentiment.

You know you want to.

Okay, yes, finally, Michigan ripped out one of the three core plays they were trying to run and went with a grunting straight ahead extended double team style. That was simple for the OL and they executed consistently. A chorus of angels descended from the heavens and picked out a lovely melody as they sang "Glory glory to the most high who has ordained that this running game shall be rather simple and employ constraint theory to help Michigan even the numbers in the box, hallelujah."

The constraint: the not-infrequently used the threat of a Funchess bubble screen held the slot LB out of the box and gave Michigan a chance to run plays against a regular old unstacked box. Michigan picked up 37 yards on 7 carries featuring that action, 5.3 a pop, never lost yards, and left additional yards on the field through some player screwups. (In particular, Green cut back on a two yard run into space only for Jordan Paskorz to not wall off a defensive back; Paskorz returned to the bench from whence he came after. On another, Michigan catches a blitz but sends two OL at the same linebacker, preventing Green from breaking a 20 yarder.)

Our canonical example:

That is an extended forever double for Glasgow and Magnuson plus a bump from Bosch that puts Lewan in a position to drive his guy whichever way he goes, and a ton of space. The bubble action forces Northwestern to choose:

1. hold the slot LB out there and not play slanting games, have this happen
2. play press coverage on Jeremy Gallon
3. send the slot LB and single your safety on Devin Funchess

Excepting plays inside the ten, Northwestern went with Door Number 1, and Michigan had an average-looking run game. It was amazing how competent they looked when given the opportunity to blow a guy off the ball for a long time. Green cuts back on the previous play in OT; this one is a virtual replay on the blocking but Green picks the outside because he can:

That was easy to execute. You can tell because Michigan executed.

Meanwhile, the bubble was good for a 13 yard gain, an incompletion after a NW defender deflected it slightly, and a four yard gain that should have been bigger but for Funchess hitting it up inside and fumbling. Those are eh numbers, but the overall effect was clear.

The stretch worked?

Pretty much, yes. The winning play on offense was stretch blocking on an option look on which Schofield seals the end and Magnuson and Glasgow work through the playside DT to bother one linebacker and make the other bow around, giving Gardner his lane:

Here the stretch was an infrequently-deployed counter to the base play (six instances including the above) that only got stopped because safeties were blowing it up unblocked in the redzone. The speed option helps take care of that problem by forcing someone to take the pitch, but really the whole play is Schofield stepping around the end, which he is more likely to do when he's been kicked all day and his initial thought is that there's going to be a gaping hole inside of him he has to help shut down.

You can see that explicitly on the first one Michigan ran. The playside DT fires upfield because he's expecting to get a double and doesn't want to end up on his ass; Lewan steps around him and that's a huge gap that only gets filled because Bosch gets held on his release without a call and misidentifies the LB he should get and Northwestern is playing pure cover zero with nine guys in the box with a safety ripping down for a TFL:

Have to get out of that play, but what happens on the line is an example of Michigan establishing something the D has to cheat to and then using that to beat them. This play was not successful; the overall idea of the run game was.

This sounds positive.

It is positive.

But we scored nine points in regulation.

OT drives do count and Michigan had two touchdowns and closed in on a third; they gained a respectable number of yards despite the massive problems Gardner had. They still suck, yeah, but I'm just looking for progress. This was progress.

But…

Okay, yeah. Certain calls drove me absolutely nuts, like second and goal play action waggle from the nine that Northwestern obliterates save for Gardner being real agile and stuff. If I never see Al Borges run play action on second and long with one wide receiver on the field again, it will be too soon. The image of Borges sitting up in the booth going "heh heh heh, if I only put one wide receiver out there they'll NEVER SEE IT COMING (this time, despite having seen it coming every time ever before this)" haunts me nightly.

I'm just not sure a waggle is ever going to be a good option when you've got a QB with Gardner's mobility because containing him is always going to be a priority. Michigan blocked the backside end on one waggle and that guy still got in Gardner's face immediately. And that was first and ten. The idea was less insane in this one since Michigan had demonstrated they could move the ball on the ground, but they're just not working. Ever. If you want to throw, just throw.

And then of course, the Gardner boot stuff. Lewan is a playside wing TE on the first and seems to blow his assignment by going inside but ends up getting submarined by a linebacker who looks destined for Gardner, so he's probably picking which guy to let run at Gardner. And then the backside end runs around the whole world and tracks this play down:

It's dead, Jim. It's been dying for several weeks now and that should be the last nail in the coffin. That's irritating. Running it on fourth and two after a timeout? Infuriating. Everyone in the stands was thinking "not the boot, not the boot, not the boot." And yet…

The other thing was the rollouts, which actually worked pretty well at the start of the day but were hung onto too long. On the devastating sack on Michigan's final regulation drive Northwestern was playing for it, sending the playside DE straight upfield to cut off Gardner's progress almost inside the pocket. That meant the unblocked backside DE was on Gardner almost before he could do anything about it. With another sack coming on a rollout, Michigan was probably worse off with its pass coverage with rollouts in this game than playing it straight up.

So… Borges?

Thumbs up in the run game. That is a major step forward, a major step towards coherence. I wish it hadn't taken ten games. The passing game was pretty disappointing even considering that Gardner was having a really bad night. I mean… you cannot run the pop seam without actually running IZ from the pistol anymore.

There was also a frustrating reliance on things Michigan has put on tape over and over again when it came to lizard brain time. The second boot is just shocking since he had time to think about it after a timeout and still ran exactly what Northwestern was expecting him to. The Dileo in route was also something Northwestern was all over. Things got better in overtime, at least.

This was a step forward from a dark place. It is still pretty dark, but a journey of a thousand miles starts with one intrepid semi-pro reporter badgering the offensive coordinator about a particular play for two and a half years.

Overall, the RPS numbers came out +18, –25, –7, with twelve of the minuses coming on first and second and goal on Michigan's first drive (the stretch with nine guys in the box and the ill-fated waggle), the two Gardner boots (doooooom), and the first down after the punt to the ten yard line that was also a safety meeting Green at the LOS on a stretch. So: when not doing WHAT ARE YOU DOING things, that was a win!

WHAT WAS HE DOING

oh man i don't know

Seriously. The fourth and two playcall was just… I can't even put it into words.

Speaking of Gardner…

Right. Here is a—

CHART THAT IS PROBABLY REAL UGLY

chart.

Devin Gardner 2012

Devin Gardner 2013

Shane Morris

Now that is filling out a UFR box score. Note the large increase in screens—more than double the attempts of any other game this year—and the epic five Bad Read Extreme(!!!) stars applied. The downfield success rate kind of fails here, because it holds all throws equal to all other throws. Gardner's flirtation with disaster should have cost Michigan the game several times over.

Anyway. We talked about Gardner's many, many throws that Northwestern guys got to before Michigan guys did. These were somewhat on no one being open and maybe on Gardner not being prepared to come off his main guy in situation X; for the most part they were just terrible plays by the QB. Those TAs from the last couple weeks migrated to BRX and Michigan was lucky to survive.

In Gardner's tenuous defense, he is undead now.

How about that run chart?

Well, it's bipolar:

This is addressed below a bit, but yeah, I am buying the rumors that Bosch might lose his job back to Kalis. He did some nice things but too often he got blow'd up because he is a true freshman. The rest of the line was pretty good, with Glasgow putting up a very good number thanks to a ton of double teams on what I'm betting is very bad NW DT. Magnuson got most of those pluses as well but gave ground at times he shouldn't have.

I do think I was handing out tailback pluses like candy out of excitement to see anyone do anything in the going forward department. Also, even though Gardner is undead he had a couple of absolutely crucial runs.

RIP to da Gardner?

Pass protection remains something of an issue, but right now it's usually guys messing up what they're supposed to do instead of getting blown up. Schofield thinks he has Butt outside here; Butt thinks he's picking up a blitz that never comes:

All of this is the cost of these slide protections that Michigan is running because they cannot rely on any of their backs to pick up blitzes that come through holes in the line. Miscommunications are rife. I mean:

WTF is Bosch thinking; WTF is Lewan thinking, etc.

The tight ends and backs are still struggling; one of the sacks Gardner suffered was AJ Williams and Justice Hayes combining to do this:

The rule is take the inside guy, so Hayes switching off on to Williams's man, who is still technically being blocked, is just as bad as the technical block being engaged by Williams.

How did Green and Smith do?

They both did okay, making the proper interior cuts. Neither did anything spectacular except maybe Green running through a one armed tackle by a defensive lineman on his 23-yarder. (He also blew up the safety pretty good at the end there.) Both guys seemed to hit the right holes kind of slowly and fall forward on contact.

I liked Smith's "leg churn," as faux NFL draft analysts like to say. He seems to have a knack for keeping his thighs moving as the pile forms around him.

Wait, there are rumors about another OL shakeup?

Yeah, supposedly Magnuson may flip to the other guard spot—leaving him a snap at center away from the cycle—and Kalis may reclaim his job at RG, leaving Bosch on the bench.

Does that make any sense?

Oh, I don't know. Bosch did get less push than the other guys on the line. A lot of their isos ended up with Bosch just standing up his guy and Michigan squeezing it out because their other OL did well with it.

Maybe Kalis will do better than that. Maybe not. After this game I'm inclined to leave it alone since they, like, went forward. But Bosch has been up and down, was mostly down in this one, and maybe if they stick with this kind of blocking they think they'll get more push from Kalis.

Receivers?

[Passes are rated by how tough they are to catch. 0 == impossible. 1 == wow he caught that, 2 == moderate difficulty, 3 == routine. The 0/X in all passes marked zero is implied.]

A couple of painful drops by Gallon on 20 yarders, though we should point out that the weather was ugly. Butt gets a circus catch.

Heroes?

Tailbacks. Whoever installed the inside zone iso grind game. Glasgow and Schofield. Funchess, when not fumbling. Gardner, for not dying.

Maybe not so heroic?

Gardner should have lost this game about four times. Bosch struggled. Borges: QB boot is over, man, over.

What does it mean for Iowa and the future?

Inside zone is your run game please. It is simple and may get blown up by Iowa and whatnot but this is the time to clutch this one thing to our chest and just bleeding try it. Stretch can be a changeup. Constraints yes please.

Gardner boot is dead.

Gardner is undead. This is affecting his decision-making process. At some point he may return to the living but right now there is nothing of the person we once knew, as he is trapped in a hellish dimension far from here.

Turmoil on the offensive line is still progressing.  Bosch's job seems under threat and that makes sense given what I'm seeing.

Michigan needs to run inside zone from the pistol if they're going to run the pop pass. It's the same thing! Just do it! Linebackers are all like hanging out waiting for the pass!

Waggles: just say no. No.

GARDNER BOOT IS DEAD. (and you shouldn't run into nine man fronts)