The Situation Michigan leads 14-7 with about 5 minutes left in the third quarter. They face a 1st-and-13 from their own 22-yard line. Driving the field for a score could stop Purdue's momentum, as the Boilers brought the score back within 7 on their previous drive.
The Personnel and Formation Michigan is in its 2-back spread set, with Brandon Minor to Threet's left and Michael Shaw to his right. Martavious Odoms is in the right slot with Darryl Stonum wide left and the wideout to the right out of the screen. Purdue is in a standard 4-2 nickel package on defense.
The Play Upon receiving the snap, Threet gives a token fake to Minor, who then pass blocks. The wide receivers are running crossing routes, but none of them are able to get open. Threet checks down to Shaw, who has looped behind him and is now running a swing to the left. Threet throws behind Shaw, and the ball is tipped by a Purdue defender, who would have had a clear path to the endzone had he been able to get both hands on the ball.
Why It Didn't Work The first thing to note is that Ortmann gets completely crushed by his man, who essentially runs right by him and has a free run at the quarterback. With Minor set to pass block to the left on this play, there really isn't much excuse for getting beaten by a pure speed rush. That said, Threet makes the mistake of throwing behind Shaw. Shaw wasn't open on the swing, but had Threet been able to give a pumpfake of sorts and step up, leading the Shaw on the wheel, Michael would have been wide open for a huge gain (maybe even a touchdown, depending on how well he could dance through the secondary). Again, this isn't really on Threet, because he was about to get killed by Ortmann, but this play is a great example of good design being ruined by poor execution.
There were problems with fumbling again, but the first one was by Brandon Minor, which can be chalked up to his being Brandon Minor, one came from a freshman (Michael Shaw) coming off injury, and the rest came late in the game when players were trying too hard to make something happen. After the last few weeks, maybe this is disturbing because the fumbles are continuing to happen, but this time, they didn't really decide the game (as they did against Notre Dame, and could have last week against the Badgers).
The defense was not very good. Unless they step up their play, Daryll Clark is going to have a field day in a couple of weeks. Fortunately, I think some of the real problems are correctable:
Tackling. This hasn't been an issue so far this year, so hopefully the poor physicality and tackling effort this week was more of an anomaly than anything.
Charles Stewart. Man, if you're going to play the ball instead of the man when you're the only guy between him and the endzone, you've got to leave your feet to prevent him from making the catch. Running past a guy while waving your arms and getting almost there isn't going to cut it.
Disciplined play. On Juice's long near-touchdown run, Brandon Graham, Jonas Mouton, and Brandon Harrison all took the outside (contain) assignment. At least one guy (Graham) and probably a second (Mouton) was supposed to be plugging the inside. This was, at least hopefully, a case of players getting frustrated, and trying to do too much to make a play. They will definitely get chewed out by Shafer, and hopefully not be in a position where they have to force plays late in the game again.
Pressure and contain. The defense could usually get one, but at the expense of the other. I'd bet a small part of this is being tired from the emotional win last week.
Stevie Brown. He didn't do anything egregiously wrong this week, but I wouldn't be a Michigan fan if I wasn't bitching about him, now would I?
Steve Threet was his typical hot-and-cold self. I think when he's in rhythm, he's very good. However, if he isn't in rhythm, the results can be ugly. If he gets knocked out of rhythm during the game, as we saw against the Illini, it is very hard for him to snap back into form. Part of this is his youth. Part of it is the offensive line putting him in a difficult situation or two.
Martavious Odoms continues to have some struggles running precise routes, or at the very least getting on the same page as Threet. Chalk this up to inexperience. Once he's been in this offense a year or so, Odoms should be a super-entertaining player to watch.
Just like the past few weeks, this game showed why this team is going to be exciting to watch in the near future, but frustrating to watch right now.
The format of this feature is a work-in-progress. If you have any suggestions, let me know. The video quality problem from last week should be resolved..
For this week's Inside the Play, we're going to look at something that should be familiar to regular readers of this blog by now: the zone read option.
However, we'll take a look this time at a specific instance of Michigan having success on this play against Miami.
The Situation
It's 1st and 10 for the Wolverines, and they have the ball dead-center on their own 30 yard line. With a 10-point lead in the middle of the first quarter, another touchdown could start to open the floodgates.
The Personnel and Formation Steven Threet is the quarterback, with Michael Shaw joining him in the backfield, to his right. Junior Hemingway and Carson Butler are wide left and slot left, respectively. Darryl Stonum and Martavious Odoms are wide right and slot right, respectively.
Miami is in a base 4-3, with the outside linebackers shaded slightly outside. Neither is as wide as the slot players. The two safeties are both high, indicating a straight cover-2 zone.
The Play
At the snap, Threet and Shaw reach the mesh point, and Threet makes the give. Shaw runs through a cavernous gaping hole between the center and left guard, and his speed gets him to the second level quickly. The receivers to the playside run of their defenders downfield, then stalk block them. On the weakside, Odoms fakes a bubble screen route and Stonum works downfield to block. By the time he is finally tackled by the playside corner and a linebacker, Shaw has picked up 30 yards.
Why it Happened Like it Did The key to this play was exceptional blocking by the offensive line(!), and good awareness by Carson Butler(!!). The weakside DE looks to be flowing down the line of scrimmage, but he hasn't quite committed, so threet hands off. Ortmann and Molk own the playside DE and DT, leaving McAvoy available to take out the playside linebacker. On the backside of the play, Schilling manages to seal the DT (no easy task from his position) and Dave Moosman wrecks the MLB.
Another thing that made this play successful was the succesful running by Threet when he kept the ball on zone-reads. The danger of the QB picking up yardage if he doesn't hand off the ball gave the backside DE just enough pause to allow Shaw to escape the backfield.
The format of this feature is a work-in-progress. If you have any suggestions, let me know. Also, the video quality is really poor for some reason. It should be better in future weeks.
The Situation It's the first quarter, and Michigan's offense has already looked kinda bad. A Utah pass interference penalty has given the Wolverines the ball inside Utah's 10 yard line, and a Sam McGuffie rush sets up a second and goal from the 8. A touchdown here could help Michigan set the tone early in this game.
The Personnel and Formation Michigan comes out in the shotgun with two tailbacks and three wide receivers. Nick Sheridan is flanked by Brandon Minor on his right and Michael Shaw on his left. Greg Mathews is split wide left. Darryl Stonum is split wide right, with Martavious Odoms in the slot to that side.
Utah lines up in a 4-3 defense. To the strong side, the corner is head-up over Martavious Odoms, with the safety deep, but aligned with Stonum. Mathews has a man head-up over him, showing press technique.
The Play
At the snap, Sheridan fakes to Minor, who cross in front of him to the left, and then fakes again (slightly less convincingly) to Shaw, who goes in the opposite direction. After the fakes, Sheridan rolls out to the right. He hits Michael Shaw at the seven yard line, and Shaw races to the corner for a touchdown. Why it Happened Like it Did Utah was playing man coverage on this play, keeping one safety in a deep zone, and one linebacker spying Sheridan (Cover-1 Spy). The Utah linebackers bit on the fake to Minor, freezing them long enough for Shaw to beat his man to the outside, and for Sheridan to have enough time to roll out and make the pass. With Odoms and Stonum running crossing routes, Shaw was given a clear path to the endzone.
Added: FL S Mike Jones. Michigan is one of the schools he is considering. They may be co-leaders with ND. IN LB Jordan Barnes. The Michigan target is deciding this week (info in header).
Etc.: Fluff on '08 player Dann O'Neill, fellow freshman Mike Shaw's track exploits/excellence. As the article states, he is the anchor leg on the winning team.
While it is not news to anyone who follows the Big Ten that Penn State fans have an... uncomfortable fixation on Michigan, typically this has been restricted to fans. Nittany Lions supporters have a focus on Michigan that seems unwarranted but for the Wolverines' dominance over PSU in recent years. Now, even those who write in the mainstream media have latched onto the obsession as a crutch for writing their terrible columns (entire relevant section quoted to avoid giving this idiot clickthroughs):
An interesting sidebar to these rankings: How much will they be different if QB Kevin Newsome winds up in a Penn State uniform? He committed to Michigan earlier, but all indications are that Penn State is still recruiting him hard. So much for the gentlemen's agreement between Big Ten teams about not talking to verbal committments. What years of sportsmanship and living up to one's word built up, Rich Rodriguez and Michael Shaw tore down.
While I don't need to point how how dumb the bolded portion of this quote is (nor do I need to point out that Donnie Collins doesn't know how to spell "gentleman's" or "commitment"), I will anyway.
Of course, due to a highly-publicized quote from Joe Tiller, suddenly Rich Rodriguez is to blame for Penn State's recruiting tactics. Umm... what? If he wants to try to hold Penn State up as a bastion of sportsmanship, maybe he shouldn't do so in reference to an incident where they are doing something he deems to be "unsporting." If Penn State was as virtuous as Collins intends to imply, they wouldn't be recruiting Newsome, regardless of what Michigan did last year.
In addition, it's great to see him trying to slam an 18-year-old kid for picking a school that he liked more than Penn State. If Penn State was worth going to, Shaw would have ended up there. Rich Rodriguez is not some sort of hypnotist. Of course, Shaw wasn't even the recruit that caused the "controversy" in the first place (that would be Roy Roundtree).
And of course, Collins's entire argument hinges on the presumption that Rodriguez was the first coach to recruit other schools' commits, which (actually good) columnist Sam Webb pointed out to be not at all true in an unfortunately-no longer free Detroit News article.
With two commitments and a few prospects down, it was a big weekend of change for the recruiting board.
Removed: KS LB Jaydan Bird. Committed to Oklahoma. Not a huge loss, as I don't think there was ever great mutual interest. He seemed like one of those guys who mention Michigan early in the process to make them sound like big-time prospects. TX OL Mason Walters. Committed to Texas. Not sure anyone but the Horns ever had a really legit shot at him.
New Information: MI RB Teric Jones. Freep article on his commitment. VA QB Kevin Newsome. Track video interview.
Both the Detroit News and the Michigan Daily (featuring quotes from Mary Sue Coleman, the most obvious source in the world for a story like this!) have articles that essentially sate Jim Carty is nothing more than a gossip monger, trying to make a name for himself by making something out of nothing. In the Daily article, even Professor Paris, Carty's crucial witness, declined an interview because he wanted nothing to do with Carty's slam piece.
The only point I haven't seen Carty ridiculed on is his assertion that athletes were allowed to enroll in classes only a month before the semester ends, with professor permission. What Carty fails to mention is that this is the late Drop-Add deadline, during which any student can enroll in a class with prohttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.giffessor permission.
Again, this isn't really on Threet, because he was about to get killed by Ortmann, but this play is a great example of good design being ruined by poor execution.
Again, this isn't really on Threet, because he was about to get killed by Ortmann, but this play is a great example of good design being ruined by poor execution.
| »
