iowa

So we called up extremely famous Delaware State blogger No One and had a great conversation about the Hornets that unfortunately failed to record because it didn't exist. But Tim and I do talk about the Iowa game and Jamiemac of Just Cover stops by to talk about the Big Ten and the completely hypothetical Delaware State line, which is hypothetically 35.5 and Jamie would definitely take if it was 34, because he is a degenerate.

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Personnel notes: No switching on the OL in this game, with Huyge-Dorrestein the right half of the line for the entire game. I don't think I saw Webb except in rare 2TE situations, and Kelvin Grady had a very limited role. The three-man rotation at the two outside receiver spots seems about even. Roy Roundtree came in on some four WR sets.

Complication notes: attempting a "zone read" metric that gets a +1 when a QB makes a right read and a –1 when he doesn't. Handoffs will usually get zero here. May not be accurate because some plays aren't reads, but better than nothing.

 Answer the question one more time. And don't fake like you don't know what I'm talking about.

If I'm going to do that I'll need a—

Chart?

Chart.

(Hennechart legend; MA is "marginal", screen results are in parens.)

TATE FORCIER

DENARD ROBINSON

This will be no surprise, but that was Forcier's worst game of his career. The only thing that came close was the who-cares Eastern game and that didn't approach this one in terms of damage. The downfield success rate* in this game was 8 / 16 = 50%, which is not good and is way short of the 70% he picked up against Michigan State. Also, the chart doesn't quite get how disastrous a couple of the throws were: one screen IN was a fumble and one of the BRs was the game-opening "anything you can do, Stanzi, I can do better" interception.

Forcier's zone read metric was +1, –3 = –2.

Robinson, on the other hand, was doing awesome until he ignored a hand-wavingly wide open Martavious Odoms on the last play of the game. I have seen Odoms ignored on more hand-wavingly wide open routes than anyone to date; someone get that midget a neon helmet.

*((DO + CA) / All Throws Not MA or PR)

So… the question?

Aw, hell, I don't want to talk about it anymore. If you were just going on the Iowa game it made total sense. If you incorporated Forcier's previous late game magic, it still didn't. The charts basically say what everyone already new: Forcier played very poorly. That was never in question.

So… more charts?

More charts.

The receivers didn't have a lot to do:

I may have been generous in filing a couple of those 2s; they were borderline and you'd like to see Odoms and Hemingway catch those, though you can understand why they might not have. The most interesting things on the chart to me: no attempts to Mathews, who also may have lost his punt return job after the muff, and Koger's picked up 6/8 tough or moderate catches so far this year. He needs the ball more, I think.

As for the protection:

PROTECTION METRIC: 25/41, Team –6, Huyge –2, Moosman –1, Dorrestein –1, Ortmann –3, Schilling –3.

That is not good, and is responsible for a lot of Forcier's running around. He was willing to sit in the pocket when he got one, but that wasn't often. And I'd say 60-70% of the negatives—all of the "team" negs and probably half of the player-specific ones—came on this:

This stunt never failed to get pressure and never opened anything up for Michigan; very frustrating they couldn't adjust to it even after Iowa had run it 6, 7, 8 times. Michigan did get a couple of good runs out of it, but in pass protection they got killed.

The run game bounced back from the State game, didn't it?

Absolutely. Watch Schilling and Moosman:

With Minor in Michigan did that a lot, doubling the backside DT and blasting some RAGE right up the middle of the field. That, too, was a new wrinkle in the run game that didn't show up against Michigan State.

And here watch Moosman seal the defensive tackle by himself:

That basically never happened against MSU, and I don't think it's got much to do with the quality of Iowa's DL versus Michigan State's. The offensive line bounced back from the ugly day against State, further suggesting that Dantonio has put a lot of effort into defending the spread 'n' shred and Michigan must go into next year's game prepared to break any and all previous tendencies.

Here's where we get back to the stuff about the Iowa defense: I wonder if Norm Parker will be this two-deep and passive against Michigan in future years. This game reminded me a lot of Corwin Brown's Notre Dame defenses, which absolutely loved leaving two safeties back on every play and got gashed by Michigan every year until he was deposed by Tenuta. It worked for Iowa in this game, though just barely, because of a slew of unforced errors and that damn stunt above. Given the Iowa D's rep, I bet they'll sit back even when Michigan has the spread 'n' shred up at full thresh, and in years like that they'll get blown apart. Watching the film, I was struck by a lack of adaptation on Iowa's part. They're fundamentally good but very boring, and I think that will play to Michigan's advantage going forward.

Why couldn't Michigan break this sort of stuff out against Michigan State?

The edge pitch is pretty obvious: don't want to debut a new play that can result in a fumble if your dinged up quarterback doesn't throw it in the right spot. The subtle variations in the run game, though, could have been inserted and I'm not sure why they weren't. Michigan blocked the backside defensive end quite a bit in this game, and that opened up a lot of cutback runs a crashing DE would have wiped out. I also think it convinced that backside DE that Michigan was not running a zone read and caused him to give up quarterback contain, because it certainly didn't look like there was anyone on Forcier much of the day. Not that it mattered, because Michigan was creasing the line time and again.

The only thing I can think of is that they were still trying to figure out the basics with their reconfigured offensive line and weren't confident enough in those, so they spent their time trying to get that down instead of putting in bells and whistles. Even that explanation is not very convincing. Maybe they just screwed up.

Heroes?

I'd say Minor but for the fumble. How about the interior OL, which had a very good day against the Hawkeye front? Also, Koger and Odoms are productive and look like they'll continue being productive.

Goats?

Forcier and the Mysterious Reason Michigan Couldn't Block That Stunt.

What does it mean for Delaware Penn State and beyond?

The debacle against Michigan State appears to be the lesser of two evils: MSU has just turned in anomalously good rush defense performances two straight years. The run game is not a smoke-and-mirrors fraud. Almost 200 yards against Iowa is a good output, especially when the long run of the evening was twelve yards*. If Michigan could have put together a decent passing game or not, you know, been –4 in turnover margin, we'd be spending this week rhapsodizing about the offensive line and MINOR RAGE.

Minor's ankle might not be totally healthy, but it's good enough for government work.

In the passing game: Odoms has taken hold of the slot receiver position and it looks like Mathews is getting a little marginalized. It's hard to tell given the output there. Forcier had a bad game but remains the #1 guy, without question. Robinson should get a lot of time against Delaware State, where we can all see him wing some bad passes and fret about it.

*(General theory here is that long runs are sort of random and very distorting.)

Video note: This week's torrent is in a format I can't figure out how to clip, so I'm converting it to something I know works. This process is currently scheduled to complete at around 9 PM. So no video today, unfortunately. I'll add it later. [UPDATE: Video added.]

Goofy new complicated metric note: I was convinced to try out a "Rock-Paper-Scissors" metric and tried but it didn't really work because I forgot about it 80% of the time. I will try again next week. Those will be the "RPS" +/- below; the general concept is that when Michigan's coaches get owned by someone else's playcall they get a minus and vice versa; Moeaki Disaster I, when Iowa released their TE into the seam after duping Williams into a blitz, was the inspiration for this.

Personnel notes: Woolfolk moved to corner and Williams re-entered the starting lineup as a safety; Kovacs was usually the guy in the box and Woolfolk the deep guy, but sometimes they switched. Michigan's rotation on the defensive line continued, but Will Campbell replaced Renaldo Sagesse as Mike Martin's primary backup. Not sure why, because Campbell proved he was not ready.

Michigan broke out a flat, aggressive package like so:

I think this is something USC runs from time to time called "double eagle".

You can see the NT head-up on the center and the two DTs in tight against a standard ace formation. Each guy is flanked by two linebacker-type players, Michigan is in man on the outside (see Woolfolk following the receiver in motion), and they're going to slant into the backfield. Suggestions as to what to call this welcome.

On with the show:

So… they did okay?

Yeah, they did okay. They faced 15 possessions, all of which were meaningful—though one was the time-compressed drive at the end of the first half and the last couple were more concerned with killing the clock than scoring—and gave up 23 net points. Iowa started drives at the Michigan 19 and 16 and came away with 3 points from those drives. By the Mathlete's reckoning, the day was a positive one:

An average team given Iowa's field position would have averaged 37 points given where Iowa started on the day.  That's a +7 for the defense to go with a pick 6.

Of course, that pick six was decidedly unforced, as were an array of other Stanzi misthrows. Michigan was the recipient of a number of unforced errors. Not as many as Iowa was on the other side of the ball, but here we're just evaluating how the defense did against a pretty mediocre offense. They did a mediocre job.

What about that timeout?

Which timeout?

The one right before the half.

I liked it at the time but in retrospect the upside there was very low, since there were 27 seconds left and Iowa was on its 31. Even an incompletion followed by a punt leaves Michigan with 15-17 seconds and probably 40 yards to go for a long field goal attempt. And you know Michigan's not going to get a great return. About the only thing Michigan can hope for is a punt block.

Still, if you asked me to choose between that sort of error and the ones Carr made more regularly I'd go with that one. The instinct to wring another possession out of the first half is right, and usually Rodriguez is going to be calling that timeout with 1:30 or 2:00 on the clock, in which case the risk  you take is more than offset by the strong possibility you'll get the ball back.

What about the other timeout?

That was on offense.

I'm asking about it now.

Fine: obviously you want that timeout a lot more than the half-yard you save by expending it but it's really hard to expect players to break years of training and not call it when the play-clock ticks down.

Anything else?

You want me to say chart—

Chart.

Dammit.

A step back from the DL, which was almost +30 against MSU. A step forward for the linebackers, albeit only to mediocrity, and a step back from the secondary mostly because of the return of safety doom.

So… um… delicately phrased question about Mike Williams?

Very tactful. It's hard to blame Williams for the first disastrous Moeaki touchdown. He was obviously coached to see if the TE was staying in to block and attack the QB if he did. When Moeaki set up and he reacted and Moeaki released, that was just Ken O'Keefe owning Robinson. That play caused the email that spurred the obviously goofy addition of RPS this week; these things are always goofy because I forget to track it 80% of the time I try something new. When these things occur it's not 100% on the player in question. O'Keefe noticed the tendency to blitz vast numbers sometimes (seven happened several times against MSU) and killed it dead.

I still gave him a –3, yeah. But I'm not 100% mad about it.

Third and twenty-five is a different story, there is the Robinson quote above and this still I grabbed:

You can see the TE bugging out to the sidelines and Kovacs in a deep seam zone with Warren in cover-three to the outside; Williams absolutely has to get deeper than this. There is nothing threatening him short and it's third and twenty-four. It was a huge mistake from a guy who was thrust into a new-ish position—Woolfolk was always the deep centerfield guy before—and speaks to why Michigan needed to move Woolfolk in the first place despite the evident lack of a second cornerback.

Michigan has two defensive backs and one feisty walk-on mini-linebacker. It's pick your poison.

But moving Woolfolk seemed to work out, right?

Yeah. He was tested a couple times on fade routes, breaking one up and seeing the other one glance off the WR's fingertips because his coverage was good. There were a couple errors on outs. Despite that, it was by far the best performance Michigan's gotten out of that spot all year. The Woolfolk move allowed Michigan to play the press cover man Robinson said he wanted to play in August for the first time all year, and they played it well. Michigan's going to have to hope Williams makes a quick adjustment because Woolfolk isn't moving back.

And how about Will Campbell?

Campbell got crushed backwards on two separate zone plays and basically sat at the LOS on a passing down. He was poor, and I assume we'll see Sagesse again next week. Campbell was not ready to play.

You gave a collective –8 and a cover –6 on the second Moeaki TD. Overreact much?

Hey, man, Stanzi had his choice of two different tight ends wide open for easy touchdowns. –6 coverage each, and –4 for one disastrously open receiver x 2 = –8. It's time to get serious about big negative plays. UFR is going tough love. Or something.

Ezeh… good?

So I really wish I had the video for this and will revisit it tomorrow when I do. For now I'll just have to use my words: Michigan appears to have changed their style here. Early in the year, linebackers were sitting back and waiting for stuff to develop. Here's Ezeh and Mouton sitting, waiting, sitting, waiting, against Notre Dame:

Against Iowa the linebackers were screaming downhill at the first sign of zone blocking, which accounts for the +2s and TFLs and times that Ezeh smashed a FB at the LOS and closed down a hole for no gain. I think it also accounts for a large number of wide open waggle plays, amongst them Moeaki Disaster II. I'll come back to this when I have more evidence.

Goats?

Delicately phrased comment about Mike Williams. Also: Mouton's got to stop making big errors. Will Campbell was extremely ineffective in limited time. Mike Martin showed a propensity to get blown back for the first time all year.

Heroes?

A first: I won't mention Warren or Graham first. Ryan Van Bergen's crazy hulk up after the 85-yard Indiana touchdown has now extended itself to three games. Hes only got a +5 above but when you don't get to the QB much and end up with a bunch of half-points, +5 from a DT is a good day. I no longer think of him as a weakness on the line.

Elsewhere, yes, Graham had two sacks and though he was less beastly than usual he is still a beast. And the two corners had a good day.

What does it mean for Delaware Penn State and beyond?

Michigan's new glaring hole to attack again and again is free safety, which says things about Woolfolk and the fellows trying to replace Woolfolk. The corner play should be improved; Williams should just start playing afraid of letting anything behind him forever.

The defensive line continued being functional to good, but the disturbing ability of Iowa to blow NTs off the ball on their zone stretch plays was a new development. By my count it happened six times and was the only reason Iowa got more than 2 YPC on the ground. Penn State's shambles of an offensive line has really struggled with the stretch play this year—Iowa eviscerated them, and Michigan's just-ok OL did very well—and probably won't be able to duplicate that, but if they do look out. Royster remains dangerous when he can get past the LOS. Which he cannot regularly. That matchup will be one to watch early.

I've been saying this for a few weeks now: if Michigan can just stop making huge freaking errors this defense can be okay. They made some huge freaking errors against Iowa and were still okay, but Iowa's offense was a participant in that. Penn State and Ohio State look to also be participating-type offenses, though, and Illinois definitely is. It'll be hairy. On the podcast this week I called the defense "competition-invariant": they have talent and do well when they use it but when they make an error is so huge that even Indiana can exploit it ruthlessly, so the defense kind of plays the same against everyone.

10/10/2009 – Michigan 28, Iowa 30 – 4-2, 1-2 Big Ten

screenshot via MVictors; Denard Robinson as sad panda from the News via Genuinely Sarcastic and Mike Desimone.

This is probably a time to dispense with the fooferah and get right to the heart of the matter. From our vantage point from the endzone of Kinnick Stadium our instant assumption when Denard Robinson came in was that Forcier had gotten hurt on one of two earlier plays. We couldn't see a whole lot, but we saw a lot of Michigan's third quarter—unfortunately because they spent it next to the wrong endzone. Forcier banged his hand on someone's helmet, then later took a wicked shot from some defensive lineman or another moments after launching another incompletion.

When Robinson came out with around six minutes left, we had a debate about the idea, coming down on the side of "not good." Though Robinson was surprisingly effective driving Michigan for a score-tightening touchdown, the run-based nature of the drive stripped more than three minutes off the clock and saw Michigan attempt an onside kick with about 3:20 left and one timeout. This, too, was seen as a sign that Forcier was hurt: surely if you're going to cast your lot with Denard Robinson on a drive to win you need the ability to run the ball quite a bit. Kicking deep with only Robinson available is tantamount to waving the white flag.

So all that fit together and when Robinson came out after Michigan's defense thwarted Iowa on their attempt to strangle the game, it made sense. Forcier was unavailable, and this was the best Michigan could do. And, hell, it was working all right until Robinson eschewed what looked like a wide open Martavious Odoms in favor of Michigan's third or fourth jump ball into safety coverage. This one did not clatter to the turf harmlessly. As we say in UFR, EOG.

So… yeah. The news that Forcier had to be bodily escorted off the field before Michigan's last drive was less than thrilling. I'm sure this will be breaking no new ground after a couple days of checking in on the blog to see just which items raging about the decision needed to be excised, but for the record:

WHAT

THE

HELL

?

There are a billion comments across the internet calling the decision "indefensible," many of them drawing direct parallels to the last time a Michigan team visited Iowa. John Beilein sat Manny Harris down for overtime, Michigan lost when Iowa hit an array of circus shots and Manny's replacement, David Merritt, continued being a walk-on instead of Manny Harris, and a very large number of people were peeved, livid, or somewhere in between. This space in the aftermath of that decision:

If he thought Michigan had a better chance to win with David Merritt on the floor, he's nuts. More likely he had about reached his limit and sat him in what appears to be a fit of pique. I get that: Harris at the moment is a basketball doppelganger of Braylon Edwards in his afro phase, when he was benched because he and Carr weren't "on the same page" despite his clear superiority to Michigan's other receiving options. Edwards wised up and blew up. Harris? We'll see.

I would have preferred the teachable moment had not come in overtime of a crucial road game, though. You know.

The two incidents are creepily similar, and my opinion about Saturday is about identical to my opinion about the Manny benching: there were a ton of good reasons to make the move that don't come close to outweighing the enormous one that argued against it. If Michigan had gotten that onside kick and Robinson had three minutes to work with, okay. With 1:40 on the clock, no timeouts, and sixty yards to go, no.

------------------------

So where does that leave us? Michigan's just experienced a two point loss on the road against a top-15 team during which they were –4 in turnover margin. They got outgained again. Forcier was pretty terrible. Robinson displayed both his talent and his limitations. Rodriguez made a poor decision in the heat of the moment, bursting this site's obvious hope that he was Jesus Ferguson. They're 4-2 in the league with three games they should win left, which would leave them at 7-5 if they don't pick off one of Penn State, Wisconsin, or Ohio State. A walk-on has permanently ascended to the starting lineup.

Add that all together and you get… I don't know. A jumbled mess that's clearly not as soul-destroying as last year's merry band of incompetence but not in any respect good. Michigan has been significantly outgained in each of four games against teams outside of the MAC, and mitigating factors like special teams and turnovers can no longer patch those gaps up. After all that at the start of the season, Michigan's settled about where everyone expected they'd be: still digging out from nuclear winter, looking towards the future with hope and the present with tolerance, at best.

The emotions I had coming out of Kinnick were as much of a mess as the team is. Michigan shot itself in a thousand different ways, busting coverages on two tight end touchdowns and a third and twenty-five that was more damaging than any of the five (five!) turnovers they gacked up with little assistance from Iowa. It was really frustrating to walk away feeling that Michigan should have won but for their own errors—errors that at this point are obviously a fundamental part of what the team is—but the memory of last year hovered, suggesting that the mere idea that errors were only a part of the whole this time around represented progress. Clearly, there is a long way yet to go.

Bullets

• I know I make fun of people in the comments who believe I have some sort of crazy power over the fortunes of Michigan football that I only use for evil, but dammit Greg Mathews, not only did you drop a punt, give Iowa the ball at the Michigan 16, and eventually lead to that short-field Tony Moeaki touchdown, you did it mere hours after I suggested that I should stop typing HOLD ON TO THE DAMN BALL as the key matchup in the special teams section. It's hard not to feel personally responsible even though that's completely insane.
• Have seen a number of complaints about the timeout with 27 seconds left before halftime. I wanted Rodriguez to call it at the time; after some consideration I think that was probably not a good idea either. Even if Michigan gets a stop on that third and ten they'd have the ball somewhere on their side of the field with 12 seconds on the clock or whatever. In general I like the bent of Rodriguez's decisions; that one was wrong.
• Another TO complaint: Michigan shouldn't have taken one on third and ten from the one and a half. Just take the penalty there and Michigan's got another 40 seconds to work with on their final drive. I understand it's hard to break the natural inclination to take a timeout when the playclock gets way low, though. That's a corner case that doesn't come up much.
• I don't know exactly whose fault the two busted coverages were but if, as rumored, it was Mike Williams I don't know what you do about it. Woolfolk was physically capable at cornerback and Michigan finally went with the press man they've been talking about since Greg Robinson got hired. Williams definitely let an Iowa receiver behind him on third and twenty-fing-five, and if Moeaki was his guy on either of his touchdowns he's directly responsible for all three Iowa touchdowns. Maybe Iowa would have done something with the last drive, but the first Moeaki TD was on third and twelve; a stop there is a FG attempt. A stop on the third and twenty-five is a punt.
• Michigan did break out some new stuff, grinding Brandon Minor into the line from the I on a successful, Bo-pleasing late touchdown drive and debuting a quick pitch to the sideline that never looked like it was going anywhere but also never failed to gain four to six yards. The former is something Michigan could have tried against State; the latter was probably hampered by Forcier's shoulder issues.
• It seemed like after the first interception from Forcier that he refused to throw to receivers who were open. On a couple third downs there were slants available (I think) that Forcier did not take, instead running around as is his wont. I was pretty frustrated by him, and imagine that Rodriguez was ready to strangle the kid.
• Graham shouldn't be rushing the punter on a punt safe, not that it mattered.

Trip Report Section

City. I can tell you about a lovely Econolodge in Davenport, Iowa, but despite driving out Friday and spending about all of Saturday in Iowa City, I can't tell you much about the city itself. My momentary first impression was that this was a foofy college down as I strolled by some organic eatery down one of those cobbled pedestrian streets you see wherever people are trying to create an area for foot traffic. Then we went in a bar that had six things on the menu, asked if you wanted ranch with your waffle fries, and attempted to purvey something called a "walking taco," which the waitress explained was "um, it's like Doritos in a bag with some meat and cheese and onions and taco stuff thrown in." The stalls in the bathroom didn't have doors on them.

So I was a little confused. I was referring to this experience at the Black Heart Gold Pants tailgate, and I was talking about this place we were, and when asked where, exactly, we were I rakishly pulled out my zinger: "the place with no doors on the stalls." The response was "which one? There are lots of those." So… yeah. Iowa City leans towards the no doors on the stalls. I guess. I saw the inside of a bar, a parking lot, and Kinnick. I am not a one-man Yelp here.

Fans. Excellent. There was the usual dose of meathead yellin' at the guys in the wrong colors—sort of, anyway, the difference between maize and blue and black and gold is not drastic—that you get whenever you go anywhere other than South Bend. Other than that everyone was perfectly nice. At no point did I feel like someone was going to hit me, which is more than I can say for the last few trips to Columbus or East Lansing.

I will note that the male student body of Iowa appears to be 80% meathead.

Kinnick experience, in total. Very classy. All brick exterior, looks like I'd like to see Michigan Stadium end up looking like once they figure out what they're going to do in the endzones:

Anthony Ciatti

And the interior:

Anthony Ciatti

The stadium itself was a bit smaller than I'd expected. Our seats were strange: section "NB," which ended up standing for "North Bleachers" and was not listed on the map or at all familiar to the first two people we tried to talk to about just where the hell we were supposed to sit. An usher had clue, though, and directed us to five rows of makeshift metal bleachers that were literally on the field in the endzone. We stood the whole game, which was fine because from appearances so did the rest of the place.

Despite that, it didn't seem particularly noisy. It got loud on important third downs but I thought it was about on part with Michigan Stadium. FWIW. I am apparently terrible at discerning variable noise levels, given my reaction to this year's addition of luxury boxes.

There's a full gallery by Anthony here.

PIPE IT IN BABY. The Iowa marching band might as well not exist. I don't know if this was a homecoming thing, but they didn't even march pregame—the alumni band did—and had a seriously abbreviated halftime show so that a Hawkeye inductee to the CFHOF could get his due. During the game they hardly played, and when they did play they mostly played marching band versions of songs that had already been piped in over the PA.

Oh, also:

This disaster was played incessantly over the PA, and we, not being 14-year-old-girls, didn't know what it was. Friend of Blog joked that it was probably a Jonas Brothers song, and we laughed, and then we thought to ourselves IS that a Jonas Brothers song? It turns out no, but it's by the Black Eyed Peas, which is 95% as emasculating. Hell, this imeem playlist by one Shelby Veppert, who—no foolies—is a 19-year old from Columbus who lists Nickelback(!!!) as one of her favorite bands, has the song sandwiched between two Jonas Brothers songs. If Michigan Stadium ever has anything that can be considered a sort of theme song I'm going to buy out Ann Arbor Torch & Pitchfork, and if it's ever something as terrifyingly fey as that thing, I'll storm the castle myself.

Site note: Michigan's homecoming activities murder Iowa's, chop them up, and put them in a bag. Iowa basically has the alumni band play the fight song and march off the field, then has a tedious announcement of various alumni who helped out and the members of the homecoming court*. And that's it. Michigan has a goofy prohibition-era cheer, awesome flipping 80-year-old alumni cheerleaders, a terrific combined-band halftime show, and that one crazy old drum-major who rips it up every year. I love homecoming at Michigan Stadium, and was excited to get the Iowa version of it. I didn't get it.

*(The homecoming king was a bioengineering (or something along those lines) major named Rohit… Naha… Romin… fromblobololgbogl. The telltale pause from the very Iowan public address announcer after the poorly-pronounced "Rohit" promised three seconds of pure unadulterated awesome, and that promise was delivered upon.)

Woo! This one is going up early because I'm in lovely Davenport and am about to go off the grid. At 7:30 tonight, Tim and others lead you through a magic wonderland of liveblogging. Enjoy or die. If you don't know why your posts aren't appearing, or have other questions, check the Live Blog Chaos Mitigation Post.

Wegher is an oddity in many ways: he's a white guy from Iowa who was given four stars by Rivals. Robinson was recruiting non-entity whose only offer was an Iowa grayshirt (IE: come in next January, kid, when we have room). Insert recruiting debate we're not having here.

Iowa has gone up against three good rush defenses in Arizona (19), Penn State (11), and Arkansas State (30) and has been juggling the offensive line due to injuries. Star tackle Bryan Bulaga missed three games with an illness and returned for the ASU game, which resulted in this:

“We were not very happy with our performance as an offensive line,” guard Julian Vandervelde said. “I suppose it’s good to have that sort of performance and still come out with a win. That’ll motivate us this week to work a lot harder at the things we need to improve on. We’ll spend a lot more time in the film room and on the practice field focusing on the details this week.”

… They always say the film is never as good or bad as you think it’s going to be. Sometimes, that’s just not true. It’s every bit as bad as you thought it was going to be. This was probably one of those weekends.”

The Red Wolves (why does every team that replaces their offensive Indian nickname put "red" in their new nickname? discuss) held Iowa to 124 yards on 33 carries, 3.8 per. That was Iowa's second-worst game of the year on the ground. The worst? The 87 yards they put up against Northern Iowa. Suggestion for Michigan: join the SWAC temporarily.

This will be an interesting test for Michigan's possibly-competent-when-aligned-correctly nouveau run defense, which crushed Michigan State's primitive attack to the tune of less than 3 YPC for the running backs. And Michigan State's pitch touchdown run was another instance of a badly misaligned defense similar to the 85-yard doom run by Indiana. Expect one or two of those against Iowa.

Outside of that stuff, Michigan's rushing defense was dominant. This is thanks in part to Brandon Graham (who actually graded out better in Steve Sharik's evaluation of the game than he did in his record-setting day in UFR):

And it's thanks in part to Michigan saying "screw it, we're an eight-man front" and dropping Jordan Kovacs into the box on almost every play:

That worked well and I expect Michigan will continue to do it, as they have a number of players with limited skill sets that they can take advantage of in very specific ways. For one: Jonas Mouton is a talented blitzer who's struggled with coverage and whatnot and Michigan decided they'd just blitz the hell out of him against State, to good effect. More of that will probably happen against Iowa.

The other aspect of the "run" defense to watch may not be run defense at all: Kirk Cousins averaged 10 YPC on 7 carries last Saturday despite his well-deserved reputation as a pocket passer. Stanzi's even more of a pocket passer—he's got –50 rushing yards on the year—but anyone can run up into the great wide open Michigan was graciously providing Cousins. Dollars to donuts Michigan spent a lot of time working on maintaining rush lane integrity; Stanzi's not likely to replicate Cousins's feat. Obi Ezeh is a lock to get dragged out of his zone, opening up at least one key, frustrating third down conversion.

Key Matchup: Ryan Van Bergen vs Iowa Interior OL. Van Bergen's emergence the last couple weeks has been the hidden secret to the run defense. He was able to prevent himself from getting sealed or blown back by MSU's OL and this removed just about the last weak spot on the line against the run. A reprise against Iowa's line would be very good for this game and the next two and a half seasons.

Pass Defense vs. Iowa

Here, again, Iowa has been fairly meh. Ricky Stanzi has thrown two pick-sixes in the last three games and is currently 70th in passer efficiency. That's a severe drop from last year, when Stanzi was the better half of a two-headed QB (recruitin' bust Jake Christensen was the other) and finished 34th. Stanzi's completing only 58% of his passes, has 7 interceptions to 8 touchdowns, all of which were against UNI, Iowa State, and Arkansas State, and averages 7.1 YPA. None of these marks are particularly good, and the rotating line has given up two sacks a game. There is some potential for Michigan to not soil themselves here.

Injuries have hampered Iowa here as well. Obviously, the line's been an issue. Iowa's also missed TE Tony Moeaki and WR Derrell Johnson-Koulianos, a man whose name is so long the NCAA's official site gives up somewhere in the middle of his second last name, for chunks of the season. With both those guys tentatively healthy and Bulaga back, Iowa figures to be a bit better than they have been so far. The prospect of Moeaki, who's been an excellent receiving tight end in the rare instances when he's healthy, against Michigan's dodgy linebacking crew is not a tantalizing one.

On the other side of the ball, Michigan has thrown a walk-on in as a full time starter and is thinking about moving once and future cornerback Troy Woolfolk from safety in an effort to shore up the corner spot opposite Donovan Warren, where virtually all opponent passes go. Mike Williams will slot in at free safety in that situation, leaving Michigan more vulnerable to long gainers but hopefully less likely to give up 130 yard, ten minute drives. It's ugly. I said there was little chance this went well against Michigan State and that was borne out; there is a chance it goes better against Stanzi and company but to get the horrible interception Michigan is going to have to cover some guys. Maybe Woolfolk can do that and maybe Michigan's linebackers can remove the head from the butt in the zone coverage; I'll remain doubtful about that until I see it.

Here, as always, the key is to get pressure on the quarterback. Dead donkeys cannot be covered, etc.

Key Matchup: Graham versus The Idiotic Idea You Can Single Block Him, or Brian Bulaga. I assume Iowa won't make the same mistake State did and let Graham run wild against single blocking unless they try it a couple times with Bulaga and it works out. Sharik notes that Michigan's gone to a strictly field-boundary scheme in the aftermath of the 85-yard touchdown run—ie, no flipping the line when Iowa realigns, so if Iowa wants to they'll be able to get Bulaga on Graham whenever it's not an obvious passing down. If Graham can win that battle and demand a second blocker, or just win that battle and cause Stanzi to do his usual interception thing, Michigan's in it.

Special Teams

During my podcast interaction with Oops Pow Surprise of Black Heart Gold Pants, he blasphemously asserted that Iowa's punter, whose name is something like Boring Smith, was the Big Ten's finest. I inadvertently uttered an expletive—as opposed to the intentional, if somewhat stammered ones earlier in the podcast—in reaction. And it is blasphemy. Boring Smith and the Hawkeyes are 31st in net punting. Michigan is fifth. Michigan should pick up an extra four yards every time punts are exchanged.

Michigan should also have an advantage in kick returns, where Iowa is 98th and Michigan is 25th; punt returns, which Michigan just doesn't bother with anymore (107th!) probably won't be relevant because opponents have only returned 7 of Zoltan's 26 punts and those have gone for five yards each because the opponents has invariably been surrounded by spread punt gunners of all varieties.

In the kicking game, Jason Olesnavage is now 5/6 of the season with proven range in the mid- to high-40s, though his one miss was a chip shot. Iowa's Daniel Murray has more of a track record but it's not a great one: he's 6/9 this year, was 6/9 last year, and was 7/10 the year before that. Tentative advantage here goes to Michigan.

Key Matchup: Can I cease saying CATCH THE DAMN BALL? I think so. How about field goal kickin'. Iowa's guy seems more likely to miss one and that could be a BFD.

Intangibles

Cheap Thrills

Worry if...

Cackle with knowing glee if...

• Iowa fails to crease the Michigan DL and has to put a lot of the game on Stanzi…
• …and Stanzi responds with his traditional festive interceptions.
• There are a lot of punts because Boring Smith sucks.

Fear/Paranoia Level: 9 out of 10. (Baseline 5, +1 for Hello Iowa City Night Game, +1 for Probably Best Team M Has Played So Far, +1 for Spread Nearing Double Digits, +1 for M OL Vs Iowa DL Looks Like Not Fun Things That Are No Fun, –1 for But There Is The Tate Hulk Up To Account For, +1 for Dammit We Rushed For 28 Yards Last Game).

Desperate need to win level: 4 out of 10. (Baseline 5, –1 for This Is Not One That Anyone Expects To Pick Up, –1 for And The Fanbase Isn't Even Annoying, –1 for And No One Even Knows An Iowa Graduate, Right, +1 for The Battle Of Mary Sue Coleman, +1 for Man, 5-1 With A Road Win In Iowa City Heading Into Delaware State Sounds Like A Recipe For New Year's Day )

Loss will cause me to... not be particularly surprised.

Win will cause me to...  probably get kidnapped and stuck in the Black Heart Gold Basement.

The strictures and conventions of sportswriting compel me to predict:

I'd like to walk back some of the negativity I've offered on the radio and podcasts of late. I hadn't taken a close enough look at Iowa and seen how mistake-prone Stanzi's been or that the run defense looks fairly permeable, at least for Iowa. I still don't think Michigan wins but I was offering up 8-10 point margins earlier this week, and I now think Michigan will be closer than that, not least because of Tate Forcier's late-game heroics.

The prediction below is weird: it builds in what appears to be a 50-50 shot at Iowa having one more game-crippling mistake than Michigan. I think if M gets that game crippling mistake they will be in it at the end with a chance to win, possibly attempting to defend and Iowa game-winning drive. If they don't I think they end up in a hole and threaten to break out of it from time to time but never actually do so, with the cold and the crowd and the Iowa defense finally reining in Forcier when the game's on the line.

Finally, opportunities for me to look stupid Sunday:

• Minor has like 90% of the carries.
• Michigan finally pulls something out of the bag of tricks.
• Woolfolk moves to corner and Iowa gets a big play because of safety error because of it.
• Iowa, 20-17.