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Essentials

Overview

Indiana is the new Northwestern, an outfit with an irritatingly good offense whose defense gets clubbed so regularly that they struggle towards bowl eligibility. They've given up 450 rushing yards to Navy, 35 points to Indiana State, 45 to Missouri, 42 to previously-moribund Michigan State.

If only Michigan's rushing offense could be described as "moribund"…

Run Offense vs Indiana

This is high up in a search for "nihilists" thanks to Midnight Maize

Michigan's coming off the worst tailback performance in the history of the program in game I charted and have the tailback a +6.5 for the day, so the foxhole is crowded with atheists. Nihilists. What have you.

The good news(?) is that if there is a program on the schedule that provides an ability to get healthy, it is the extremely permeable Hoosiers. Leaving aside the Navy game, here are Indiana's outings against BCS competition:

Two hammerings and then Penn State providing a little sobriety about the performance of Michigan's rushing defense last week. Ace noted that their line is bad and their linebackers are bad, so they are bad. Think Indiana.

Of course, we're all in this foxhole waiting for the next shell in re: Michigan's running game. It got so bad against Penn State that savior Chris Bryant was pulled for walk-on Joey Burzynski, who didn't do any better against Penn State's loaded-up box. This week damn near anything might happen at guard, including an honest-to-God start for Burzynski or tackle Erik Magnuson getting his first career start at a position he has not played in his career at Michigan. Or both! After a miserable game in Happy Valley, reports are that Kyle Kalis's job is under siege as well, and deservedly.

This is time to full-on panic. Michigan's already pressed that button once with a mid-season switch; they are now pounding it. What's more, the previous move was plausible—Glasgow is major-college-sized and had played a lot of center in the spring and Bryant was a guard who had been injured for a while. Sticking a 6'1" dude and/or a tackle in when both weigh a 70s-era 285 pounds is not plausible.

Michigan will have to be better against Indiana if only because futility on the level of last week only comes around once every 64 years, if that; also Indiana is horrible. But no one's going to be talking about how the line is finally on the right track after this one.

Key Matchup: Guards versus anyone. Is the DT/interior OL matchup an advantage for Indiana? Think about that.

[Hit THE JUMP for WHY U HAVE TO BE GOOD AT OFFENSE]

Here is dragonchild's summary of Michigan's offensive gameplan versus Penn State.

Doing exactly what we've done 18 times before is exactly the last thing they'll expect us to do this time! (Remote play prohibited; click the photo or here)

After studying abroad I spent two months backpacking Europe, marveling at their master works while being constantly amazed at the pointless waste accumulated over genera. Nearly every city and town has at least one monument (pre-Napoleonic ones are inside the churches) to townsfolk whose lives were the grist in one war or another's death mill. Overwhelming bodies marching toward an objective worked for the first Louis and Edward, and Europe kept running that same play—regardless of technology—for another thousand years.

Afterwards I spent a week ("The Long Shower") at a friend's apartment in London to get reacquainted with civilization, playing Perfect Dark, watching Black Adder tapes, and just appreciating the hell out of the fact that I was born to the one country in Western Civilization that expects tactical change whenever something isn't working. We lost one Custer (and frankly he probably deserved it) by telegraphing where our inferior force would be, then stopped doing that. From the Euro perspective America is the country that came to the trench war with tanks, and the tank war with an Air Force. Huddling isn't just outdated; it's un-American. As for sending barely trained draftees into machine gun emplacements…

It's not the Philosophy; It's the Fit. Here's Eye of the Tiger from his updated "Reading the Tea Leaves":

Now, as an aside, can we please bury the notion that this result had anything to do with inherent superiority of offensive scheme or philosophy? We didn’t lose because “MANBALL” (i.e. i-formations, power running, play-action and so forth) is inherently worse than “basketball on grass.” (i.e. shotgun spread formations, read-option running, constraint passing and so forth). We lost because our coaches called plays we don’t have the personnel for, then called them again and again when it should have been clear that we couldn’t execute them. Wisconsin, Stanford and Alabama can. We cannot. It’s that simple.

Before there was the UFR of the offense reshp1 tried his hand at identifying what went wrong with the run blocking. This leaves the coaches out of it and talks about the technique problems on the OL:

Conclusion. I can only imagine how frustrated the coaches are getting at this point. There is no one problem or even one guy. Quite the opposite, on any given play, we have the ability to screw up in 4-5 different ways, by anyone on the line save maybe Lewan. That’s wack-a-mole futility right there, where do you even start?

That was bumped. The other bump this week was bronxblue's Best and Worst weekly, which is beginning to really stand out for Sunday content after a game. Co-sign everything up until he says 5 wins and a crazy loss ain't so bad: immediately after it ended I was like "we deserved that," but each day since I'm convinced the level of persistent coach derp it exposed, has me terrified. How confident are you that they're saying to themselves "Wow, predicating our offense on the bet that our young guards will play like All-Americans was just about the dumbest thing we've ever coached; we need to take all of this criticism to heart." So how do things get better?

HTTV Hoops & Hockey arrived at our warehouse yesterday. They look rather nice. Rush orders should be getting theirs and the rest of you in not too much time. If you skipped ordering one on the kickstarter, get it in any UGP Store or Moe's, or have one delivered from the MGoStore. We also have another DraftStreet deal if you've got another email account. Saves you on shipping and gets you $30 extra to play with.

If you'd care to bother your local store to carry a few copies or next year's football books, have them email me ([my first name] @ [this site]). The more requests the better.

FORMATION NOTES: More tackle over stuff. This is the aforementioned play in Picture Pages that's just an I-Form with Lewan and Schofield flipped, mostly notable for PSU's super heavy package on the DL. Penn State brought this out three or four times.

They had one snap in an offset pro-form with Hayes in the backfield.

And, of course… this.

SUBSTITUTION NOTES: Gardner all the way at QB save one Morris snap after Gardner's helmet popped off. Toussaint almost all the way at RB; some scattered Green, and one Justice Hayes snap in a two-back look. Norfleet got one snap, a fake jet sweep that led to a middle screen.

At TE, Butt and Williams played a ton; Funchess put his hand down every once in a while but was mostly part of the WR rotation. That rotation has almost entirely come down to Gallon, Chesson, Funchess, and Dileo; Jackson got one snap IIRC and Reynolds none.

The OL was a revolving door. Magnuson first came in to replace Williams in tackle over sets after Williams gave up a sack, then replaced Lewan, with Schofield moving to left tackle and Magnuson generally existing on the right. Burzynski first replaced Kalis after his personal foul and then played most of the second half and overtime in place of Bryant.

[After THE JUMP: probably a rainbow of kittens]

Weekend Visitors: Goddag, Hr. Froholdt

Hjalte Froholdt (photo via 247)

The list of visitors for the Indiana game is short, though it's headlined by a very important potential member of the 2015 class who could be deciding quite soon. DT Hjalte Froholdt, who's currently playing semi-pro football for a year in his native Denmark, will be in attendance and tells Brandon that a list of top schools will shortly follow his visit:

Froholdt will release a version of his top list after his visit to Ann Arbor Saturday, but he already told me that Michigan will probably be toward the top of his list.

Froholdt has a very strong relationship with Greg Mattison, and as of now his recruitment looks like a classic Michigan/OSU battle, with the Wolverines possibly out in front. The picture may not be that clear, however, as Froholdt is in the midst of a country-wide recruiting tour that's included Arkansas, Alabama, and Florida State; he pulled in an offer from the Tide following his visit and already had one from the Razorbacks. With a decision planned within the next couple months, this is a very important visit for Michigan, especially with 'Bama now very much on the radar.

As noted in this week's previous recruiting roundup, the other big-time visitor for this weekend is 2015 Cass Tech RB Mike Weber. I said in that roundup that Michigan probably wouldn't take another back given the small class size and commitment of Damien Harris, but I may have been mistaken; with no running back committed in the 2014 class (which is unlikely to change), a second would be a high priority, and the Wolverines are also still heavily recruiting '15 FL RB Jacques Patrick. Weber still has significant interest in Michigan and has repeatedly said that he's not averse to competing with Harris; Michigan State, Ohio State, and Tennessee are all strong contenders, as well.

A couple younger brothers of current Michigan players will also be in attendance: 2016 Cass Tech DB Lavert Hill, brother of Delano, and 2017 OLSM LB Joshua Ross, brother of James, are slated to visit according to Tim Sullivan ($). Both are very talented prospects in their own right and have been steady presences in Ann Arbor; offers may not come imminently, but both could be Michigan-caliber players.

[Hit THE JUMP for updates on Malik McDowell and JuJu Smith, the latest commits to ink their LOIs for 2014, and more.]

FORMATION NOTES: Some additional  things in this game. This was a special situation, but when PSU hurried to the line in the first quarter to attempt it on fourth and one, Michigan responded with the perfect pinched-line D:

This punched PSU off the field and earned Mattison a gold star.

Michigan occasionally split their LBs in the nickel package in what I called 5-1-nickel:

And they took to a thing where they're standing the WDE before the snap like so:

This has almost always meant he's dropping.

Finally, everyone milling about presnap with no one with a hand down:

This was just Okie in my book.

SUBSTITUTION NOTES: Secondary was as per usual, with Stribling getting in on a couple of dime packages in the second half and replacing Avery on the Fatal Bomb Drive. ILB was basically the same; Morgan and Ross spotted by Bolden. SAM saw a three-guy rotation with Beyer, Ryan, and Cam Gordon all getting snaps.

The line was also about per usual: Heitzman/Washington/Black/Clark with Wormley/Ash/Henry/Ojemudia spotting. Ash's snaps were extremely scanty, FWIW. When Washington was out it was more often two of Henry/Wormley/Black than Ash.

[After THE JUMP: a heroic 43 allowed.]