Diaries

[Moved to Diaries to keep folks informed]

[Update 11/13: Todd Howard is confirmed]

[Update 11/7: Talked to some former players, who are going to try to come. A lot of guys coach so if the season's over (ie they lose in the playofffs) they'll make it.]

Q: What's the exact opposite of the East Lansing experience?

A: The Evanston experience.

Northwestern fans are eminently likeable, not that you really need to be alone on a purple sea since half the seats in Ryan are going to be filled with people in maize:

The above is the t-shirt that people going on the Northwestern trip with Sports Power Weekends will receive, along with a game ticket, hotel room for two nights, transportation, gift cards, and an MGoStore discount. For Friday night's entertainment, Jared of SPW has engaged the services of…US GUYS.

There's still some spots left on the SPW trip and I highly recommend you jump on that if you're considering going to the NW game—it gets down to just $350/person if you can get three of your friends to come along.

Since we'll be there anyway we'd like to also invite any readers from Chicago to come join us at:

Which is a huge (as in we get lots of space) Michigan bar. Details-like things:

When: Friday, November 15, from 6-9PM CST.

Where: Moe's Cantina River North 155 W. Kinzie St., Chicago, IL 60654, one block north of the Chicago River between LaSalle and N Wells. M: Merchandise Mart.

What: Q&A Session with Brian, and talking with people who don't need it explained that we had a true freshman guard starting against Max Bullough, i.e. other MGoBlog readers.

RSVP below, or show up.

Introduction

In the picture pages post today, I feel I noted something of some significance. This isn’t supposed to be a post to puff out my own chest, rather, I merely want to give the other side of the argument my side of the argument for what it really is.

As an aside, there have been numerous people that have constantly misconstrued my argument lately. I understand that by taking a particular unpopular stance so strongly, that I have opened myself up to criticism. But within this article I also want to make clear up some of my stance, so towards the end I will get into some of that. Much of these will be related to the comments I made earlier (if not copy and pasted), the major difference is that I now have the opportunity to add accompanying pictures and diagrams to go with it. This is of importance because football isn’t really a sport that is best described with words. You can try to be as descriptive as possible, but there will always be a certain amount of failure to accurately convey your thoughts through this medium. So the pictures/diagrams help in that regard. So let’s begin.

Set Up and Play Design

I’m going to copy and paste Brian’s set up to his post as he does a good job getting us there.

Michigan comes out with an H-back and two tailbacks in a twins formation, which necessarily means that the slot receiver is not an eligible receiver. Nebraska responds with 7.5 in the box, with the gray area defender just about splitting the difference between Funchess and the tackle.

I’ll get to the covered receiver part later, I want to start off with the basics here about what the intention of this play is. Let’s first start with the most fundamental concept of any run play: the blocking scheme.

Inverted veer works with a Power O blocking scheme. Power is a type of man/gap blocking scheme, while “O” indicates the pulling of the backside guard. A simple power play looks like this.

The inverted veer meanwhile, takes the fullback and erases him. It utilizes the option read to kick out the DE because the DE must commit to the QB or the RB. If the DE commits to the RB, the QB reads this and shoots through the lane inside of him. If the DE commits to the QB, the QB gives to the RB and the RB attacks the edge. Here’s how the inverted veer looks:

Now, let’s first act like there is no FB involved in the play so we can address the offensive line and TE first. As noted, this is a standard power blocking scheme. No one, from any of the offensive linemen, to the TE, do things differently than they would if this was a Power O run from under center. But the defense aligns in a way that makes running power difficult. This is an even front, stacked front, meaning the DL is aligned 5-2-2-5 as far as gaps. That’s outside shoulder of the OT and inside shoulder of the OG. The stack indicates that the OLBs are stacked over the DEs.

Well, to the front side this is similar to what a 4-3 Under will look like, but instead of the LB brought up on the LOS like Michigan often does with Jake Ryan, they’ve stacked him behind the DE.

This isn’t the exact defensive formation, but the blocking scheme is exactly the same (the only difference is the OC has one less shoulder to down block the backside DT and that the LB are shaded further from playside).

If you’re wondering what some of the things are in the diagram, the green boxes are the blocking calls that should be understood or made. As for the defensive formation, just for reference, the “G” means the NT that is usually lined up in a 1-tech slides out to the guards inside shoulder (often utilized to stop Iso) and the Loose is the SAM position loose from the LOS.

What you see is an adjustment in the blocking scheme. This is automatic and should be called and understood. Any team that runs power should make this adjustment. Why? Because that playside DE is very tight to the formation and becomes extremely difficult to kick out. His position pre-snap is already squeezing the hole that power is intended to go through, so rather than slam into that wall, it’s easier to down block him and seal the outside for the RB.

Now, here is how that applies to the inverted veer.

You see now that the person being optioned is that OLB (SAM) rather than the DE because of the defensive alignment.

Now let’s add the FB in the inverted veer. Power blocking makes another small adjustment when you have two lead blockers. If you remember back in the Tackle Over days, Michigan would utilize the U-back as a first lead blocker and a FB as a second. It was the U-back that was first through and responsible for the kick defender. The FB has some reads, but generally will try to get beyond the kick player and knock the first odd color jersey he sees.

More accurately, let’s look at it with an overhang defender. The way the FB is going to treat this is to go block that guy. If that guy tries to gain depth into the backfield, the FB will just carry him with his momentum. If he tries to go inside of him, he’ll simply arch block him. This is what that looks like:

Now let’s apply that to the inverted veer. It’s the same exact thing. The first lead blocker through takes the kick defender (here, that is the playside OLB). The fullback goes and finds the next off color jersey, typically to the outside. Generally, he will block this in a somewhat similar way, erring on the side of scooping the gray area defender. What that does is give a massive alley for Fitz to run through. It also forces that gray area defender to fight that block, regardless of if it blocks him from DG because he knows he must respect Fitz to run. That means if the blocking up front is done properly, DG has more than enough room and time to go straight up field and beyond that gray area defender before cutting out into the same lane that Fitz would run in.

So that’s how the play is designed to be run. Combined with the slot receiver taking the playside safety, everyone on the playside is blocked and a defined seam is established.

Why Run This Play?

I’m not really going to get into why you run the inverted veer, as that’s just a play more or less that has some pretty clear positives as far as reading a defender and threatening a defense with the RB and QB. But why put in the FB?

A common way teams defend the inverted veer is similar to ways that defenses have adapted to defend the read option: they force the QB’s read to be wrong. Essentially, this is a scrape exchange.

In the instance of an inverted veer, they’ll bring a defender off the edge that the QB can’t read or see because the QB is busy reading his key. The key typically is the DE.

Here’s a give look:

Here’s a keep look:

And here’s how a scrape exchange looks:

See that the read is still the same player for the QB. The QB’s read is to give. What the QB doesn’t see is the guy that is coming right into Fitz at the handoff. The defense is making DG’s reads wrong and there is nothing he can do about it.

So, to counter this, you add a FB. This is similar to what Rich Rod did with a U-back to kick the backside on a read option. Essentially, it’s making the QB’s read right by blocking the exchange defender. This means the QB just has to read his key and is fine. This is an adjustment to take advantage of a defensive look and seal the defense inside. Effectively, it’s acting similar to a bubble screen would act as it’s sealing the defense inside and attack the edge and alley with the RB (rather than a slot receiver). It’s a horizontal constraint on top of the normal inverted veer play.

Video/Diagram

Play:

Full Speed:

Half Speed:

Why Doesn’t it Work?

I’ll save some time and copy and paste a bit:

So the problem is two-fold: Kerridge completely whiffs his block because he archs too wide. His goal is essentially to scoop that gray area defender like he's trying to do in the MSU clip, note in that clip how he passes off the read DE and tries to get to the second level where he blocks no one because the safety he wants to block shot the gap instead (in theory here, his eyes are in the wrong place, there should be some adjustment that allows for DG to read the safety crashing and for Kerridge to scoop the DE, and DG should give here in that instance, but was likely hoping that guy would just follow Fitz and he'd have a clear path to a TD by having the option essentially block two-defenders, but as expected, it doesn't). The second problem is the fact that two people (Schofield and the TE) aren't on the same page as to what the power blocking adjustment should be.

The Big Picture

So we see this is messed up here. It is an execution issue. Alright. So what’s the deal. Quasi-rant in copy and paste mode:

Now, I don't think as far as the missed communication that it's because the blocking scheme is too complex. Much and most of their run scheme settles around a power blocking scheme. That should be better. The play against Nebraska should be executed better, but there were two huge botched assignments. The play against MSU is tougher and something that clearly wasn't repped enough (on the coaches). The FB nor Gardner made the correct adjustment to a safety shooting a gap. They might have repped it a few times, but clearly it wasn't enough to be familiar with how to adjust it in game.

It's basic Power O blocking fundamentals with two lead blockers (here, the two lead blockers are the option read and then the FB rather than a U-back and then a FB).

This is the problem that I've had with the "too many things that they aren't good at anything" argument. Veer option is based on a running scheme they utilize anyway (essentially a down G) but you don't have to pull because your kick block is the option. Inverted veer is Power blocking all the way. It is their base run play with the same exact assignments and adjustements. Nebraska does absolutely nothing that shows this play is tipped, they don't play it any way other than how a standard defense would play it. But Michigan can't get out of it's own way.

And this is the argument that I've had since PSU. It is execution. This play should work. It is 100% execution. Borges has Nebraska exactly how he wants them. Michigan is missing assignments in their base blocking scheme that they've repped thousands of times from under center, from pistol, from ace, from shotgun. That's not just on the players. Why the hell isn't the coaching staff able to get the players to block their base scheme? Why is it taking so long? Youth is part of it, yes. But at this point they should be able to block the run they utilize 75% of the time, including on their counters. It's on the coaches but it's not because of the play call. The play call is perfect. Why the hell aren't the players able to execute? Part of that, a lot of that, is youth. And part and a lot of that is they aren't getting through to these kids. It's the argument that I've made that's been misinterpreted since the start of all this. It's the same thing over and over again. Why can't they block their most basic, most repetitively run play in the entire playbook?

It’s not that there is too much in the playbook, I don’t believe that. That seems like a plausible answer when you isolate inverted veer from the rest of the offense. But it's not isolated from the rest of the offense. It's a Power O play with Gardner making a read. Blocking is exactly the same as Power O. It's their most repped play in the entire playbook. 

So how can you make it easier? They've taken out most of the difficult things. 75+% of the runs are the same damn blocking scheme. Counter Power, Inverted Veer, Veer option, Power, that accounts for the vast majority of the plays and all those plays have their roots in the same blocking structure. They still can't get it done. It's not about reducing the playbook anymore, they literally can't without just running from the I formation or just inverted veer. They can literally only reduce it by having the same blocking scheme and the same run action behind it, and that would only make matters worse because blocking is the primary issue.

And I know the execution thing rings of cliché as well, but it is absolutely true. This grab bag theory that all these plays are independent of one another isn't correct. They do have some tweaks. Zone stretch is now intended to be a constraint. Same with the counter. But the base of the run game comes back to power over 75% of the time I can promise that.

So it’s part youth. Certainly youth is a valid reason for some of these issues. But it’s also coaching. I can reiterate that until my face turns blue and some people won’t accept that I said it. But there is a fundamental flaw transferring the knowledge of this scheme to the players. This is not a difficult scheme. It’s a scheme taught to high schoolers all across the country. Sure, it gets a bit more complex at this level, and it gets a lot faster and you have to be much better at executing, but the basic, mental problems?

Why No Vertical Constraint?

Trust me when I say I would like a vertical constraint (pop pass) out of this look as much as anyone. My goal in this section is to try to explain why it may not be in the playbook right now with so many other issues in this offense.

But I seem to remember a pop pass off of it once or twice last year (I believe with Denard at QB). Honestly can't say why Borges hasn't run a false mesh, slide protection pop pass off of this look yet this year. I would like him too as well unless. My guess is that he's uncomfortable with DG making that read in traffic (he's worried about someone undercutting it or scrapping into it is my guess, and DG not processing it fast enough).

This is intended to argue one way or another if that play should be in there (I would personally like it), it's just trying to give perspective on if it's been run before and why an OC may shy away from it.

Why Cover Funchess?

Again, guesses for the most part, but realistically:

As I said, I hate covering receivers. It is a tip to the defense that it's likely run (where, they don't know). That said, you would be surprised how many defenses will still trot a DB out to cover that guy.

Anyway, the reason here is because Borges wanted a guy to block the playside safety. He wanted to form an alley on that side for Fitz. The FB takes the slot defender, Funchess takes the safety, and Gallon takes the CB. Everyone else is sealed inside. That's the only reason he did it, was to get the play completely blocked playside, which it should have been.

They need to cover the TE or Funchess because he wanted to run to strength and wanted that slot blocker. So the TE or Funchess had to be covered. Now, typically I'd say "alright, cover the TE, don't cover your 2nd biggest threat". But a couple things could have gone into the thinking here.

1. But have the TE off the line you open up plays to the backside of the formation with the inverted veer look (including counter schemes and how the FB would leak out into the flat later). So in a way, it keeps the box defenders more honest, which they succeeded in doing (they didn't all crash playside on the snap before reading the play).
2. They wanted to know what that slot defender was doing. They didn't want to run him off, they want a clear target for the FB. Funchess covered, that guy comes. Maybe that was something they saw on film and were trying to take advantage of. But there's a real possibility that they didn't want to force the FB to read "is that guy going with the WR, do I pick up the filling alley safety or does Funchess, so do I switch to his guy?" etc.

My guess is more #1 than #2, but it depends on what they saw on film.

Conclusion

So what’s the point in all this? Is it to blindly defend Borges? No. The intention isn’t to blindly defend the coaches. The intention is to look at what is happening and figure out where the issue is. Here is a very, very clear example of a bigger picture. It is execution. The coaches aren’t lying about that and it isn’t a copout answer. This is a play where Al Borges got everything he wanted and more from Nebraska. Nebraska, who had a player say they knew every play that was coming, did nothing to stop this play because of any tip or tendency. They stopped it because Michigan can’t get out of their own way. They can’t execute their most basic blocking scheme that they practice and rep more than any other. This points to youth, and this fails to a failure by the coaching staff to adequately teach these players to do one of their most fundamental plays. Both of those are under the execution umbrella.

And this goes beyond this play. This goes to the pass protection schemes. This goes to how I’ve seen veer option blocked. This goes to how every single run play pretty much ever this year is blocked. There are a few players that seem to “get it”, there are some that get it sometimes and not others, and then there are the young or inexperienced that clearly don’t. It’s a fundamental issue that isn’t play calling, it isn’t scheme, it isn’t about huddling or not huddling. It’s not about if you prefer certain screens (I’d like more screens), it’s not about play action or 3-step drops or hot routes. It is as simple as people continuing to fail at doing their jobs. That’s not just calling out the players; that’s also calling out the coaches for putting out a product, for not teaching their students, in a way that allows them to succeed. They are in positions to succeed, probably positions to the best of what they rep day in and day out in practice, but the mental aspect, the thought process, the confidence to know what they are doing without questioning it or doing it wrong is not there. And that is the major failure in this offense right now. This play only exemplifies that.

Rerum omnium magister usus.

Experience is the teacher of all things.

Julius Caesar, Commentarii de Bello Civili, Book 2, Chapter 8

Setting. As the 2013 football season rolls on, the problems in Michigan’s run game have become more and more glaring. This has led to much ballyhooing and debate as to the main causes of Michigan’s ground game woes. The most basic argument is whether our problems are caused by weakness on the line or at the running back position. Brian’s UFRs come into play here, and while Fitz and the gang haven’t been perfect by any means, the play-by-play breakdowns seem to suggest that the problem lies with our offensive line.[1] A phalanx our line is not.

Identifying the line as the problem, however, has not really made anyone very content. Rather it’s sparked a debate between the baby blamers – those who see Michigan’s youth as the source of their problems – and the crappy coach contingent – those who find fault with our coaches development of our o-line talent, not to mention play calling.

Previous Work. The MGoCommunity has already produced some solid work on this topic. The Mathlete’s preseason study looked at other teams who had offensive lines with an 1^st round NFL pick combined with 2+ freshmen. Although he eventually admitted that we were still probably a year away, his comparison grouped us with the likes of Alabama, Oregon, and Stanford. GuloGulo’s diary from back in September looked at the relationship between average o-line experience in the Big 10 and success mainly defined as yards per play. After the first four weeks of the season, he concluded that we were about average in both experience and success. Gameboy’s recent diaries have shown that Michigan’s line is relatively young whether you take a “number of years in the program” or “number of previous starts” approach.

Questions. In this study I want to delve a little deeper into what we mean by “experience,” what we mean by “success,” and how those two variables are actually related. I will attempt to answer four questions:

1. Can offensive line experience explain run game success?
2. Are years or starts a better measure of experience?
3. Is interior line experience more important that tackle experience?
4. Is average experience a better measure than the weakest link?

Definitions. Neither experience nor success have single and obvious definitions. With regard to the o-line, success could be defined by wins, yards per play, yards per rush, sack percentage, or play-by-play results a la UFR.  For the first part of this study, I use yards per carry as my metric for success. Experience, likewise, can be defined in a variety of ways, including the number of years in the program, the number of starts, or the number of snaps. This analysis primarily uses the number of years in the program as its measure for experience. This isn’t because it’s necessarily the best measure – we’ll test that in a bit – but rather because it’s the measure that’s easiest to find information about. Redoing this study with a start- or snap-focused measure of experience would be a worthwhile endeavor. In the graphs below, the year of the players are equated with numbers, so that freshman = 1, red shirt freshman = 1.5, sophomore = 2, red shirt sophomore = 2.5, and so on.

Data. The data for this study are drawn from this 2013 season. All 125 FBS teams are included. The YPC stats come from ESPN and the experience info comes from the a scouting site. Because this isn’t necessarily about Michigan’s o-line this year, but rather about the general relationship between offensive line experience and success, data from any recent season should apply though. Giving this thing some time depth would probably improve its efficacy. The stats are current as of 11/6/2013. All the images are from the MGoBlog flickr account; Bryan Fuller gets the credit, I believe.

The weekly roundup gets somewhat less enjoyable with each loss, but here's the chart nevertheless. I've incorporated Seth's suggestion of including last week's rankings for comparative purposes. Last week's rankings are indicated with a less opaque icon; if you can't see it at all, it's because the ranking hasn't changed much at all.

Click to embiggen:

So, we seem to have a four-tier B1G:

1. Good teams: Ohio State, Wisconsin, Michigan State
2. Above-average teams: Nebraska, Minnesota, Michigan, Northwestern, Iowa, and Indiana is in this group, too, despite their schizophrenic nature (excellent offense, abysmal defense).
3. Below-average teams: Illinois, Penn State
4. Horrible teams: Purdue

What The Hell Is Going On Out Here!: In unison, the entire Michigan fan base was quoting Vince Lombardi on Saturday. Gardner has just one giveaway in the last 2 games and the offense has NEVER looked worse. If this is what ball security looks like --- fagetta bout it! Devin looks tentative on just about every throw and every run. I'm not buying the "lack of talent on the O line" either. This is just horrible, horrible play calling/coaching. Unless something changes drastically, M is looking at 6-6 (and how does 10-2, 8-4, 6-6 look for the first 3 years).

Synopsis: Michigan's TOM for the game was +2.0 and that should have been enough for a victory. The first takeaway resulted in 2 yards in 3 plays and a missed 52 yard FG. The second takeaway was run, run, run for a massive total of 3 yards and a 40 yard FG. You don't win very many football games when scoring only 13 points.

For the year M is now dead even at 0.0 TOM and improved to #62. Turnovers were not a primary factor in determining which team won the game. Tam Gordon forced a fumble that was recovered by Wormley and Norfleet recovered the muffed punt and ran it in for the touchdown. Stupid rule if you ask me.

Next Week: For the year, Northwestern is somewhat better than Michigan for turnovers. NW has 1.8 giveaways per game ranked #70 and 2.4 takeaways per game ranked #17 with a +0.60 TOM per game ranked #25. Oddly, NW has a worse TOM at home (+0.2/game) versus on the road (+1.0/game). NW is ranked #3 for interception takeaways with 2.0 per game. Michigan has a TOM of –0.7 for road games.

Player Details: Here is the overall summary for all games by player (data in yellow was affected by this week's game).

National Rankings: All rankings include games between two FBS teams ONLY and are from TeamRankings except for forced fumbles which is from CFBStats. The four columns with *** show the best correlation to offense and defense (per Advanced NFL stats).

Turnovers And Winning: This chart shows turnover margin (TOM) at the end of the season versus the percentage of teams with a +4 WLM (8-4 record) or better. [WLM = Win/Loss Margin = Wins – Losses]

Expected Points: The impact of each turnover depends upon the down, the spot the turnover is lost, and the spot the turnover is gained.

This chart shows Expected Points for various yard lines.

This chart shows the basis of EP calculations for each turnover.

THE BIG TEN PUTS US IN A STRANGE PLACE

Well, Saturday happened. One thing that we can get from that game is that there are still several things that, when compared to the whole of the Big Ten, we still do well enough. As you will note, of course, they may not be things which draw a complete map to winning with consistency. Normally, I try not to be terribly judgmental, but yeah, I said that. In an case, here is how the conference looks with most teams now at the 9-game mark.

SCORING OFFENSE AND DEFENSE:

For Michigan specifically, there has not been much movement for a while, mainly because the average is buoyed by some nice offensive outings against CMU, ND, Minnesota and Indiana. Even the 40 points at Penn State are in there somewhere. When it works, it works basically. It is good for fifth in the conference right now.

We sit in the middle-ish rungs of scoring defense, with Illinois, Purdue and Indiana clearly making their conference opponents seem like the Big Ten equivalent of Baylor in a typical performance. Michigan State, Wisconsin and Ohio State sit at the top as the stingiest teams. The point differentials will show Michigan firmly in the positive, but there was about a 1-point slide in the metric over last week.

TOTAL OFFENSE AND DEFENSE:

For this week, I have decided to just post the tempo-free chart to start since it is a little more descriptive of the situation. If you want the entire conference posted, I can definitely do that in the thread below. For Michigan anyway, we gain an average of 385.3 yards per game, which is good for ninth in the conference and we give up and average of 350.4 yards per game, which is good for fifth in the conference. To know what that really means from a performance standpoint…well…

RUSHING OFFENSE AND DEFENSE:

We’ll stick with a Michigan-centric view here, and I am assuming you know the story by now, of course. We are pretty good overall at stopping the run. In fact, at 107.7 yards per game allowed on the ground, we’re fourth in the conference. As for generating a rushing attack, we should at least take heart that were are basically twice as good as Purdue at it. That’s something, right?

PASSING OFFENSE AND DEFENSE:

Fourteen sacks in the last two weeks probably doesn’t make this look at all true, but it is – we still have the fourth best overall passing offense in the conference. Again, when it works, it works. When it comes to stifling the passing game of another team, Michigan rounds out the bottom third of teams, sitting above Illinois, Northwestern and Indiana at ninth in the conference.

THE DOWN BATTLES:

Here again, I think we’re going to focus on tempo-free this week. However, if you want the specific data for everyone, I will post it in the ensuing thread. In any case, what used to be a good number for us – third-down differential – is no longer so good. On average, Michigan converts 41.6% of its third downs, which is about a 10% tumble from just a few weeks ago, but it gives up 40.9% of third downs as well, which is about a 5% increase in the same timeframe. Convergence of this type is troubling.

SPECIAL TEAMS STUFF: