spread offense

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A thing I noticed this offseason while going over the depth and usage of various Michigan defenders is that Mattison used a lot more nickel than we gave him credit for. One thing Ace noted was that we're (finally) recruiting more cornerbacks. We shrugged a bit while losing two more CBs to playing time transferitis this fall, but I don't think we should be shrugging so much.

A little background (skip this if you already know personnel terminology and usage): Defensive coaches tend to match their personnel to the types of players on the field for the offense, NOT the formation. In general the number of backs and tight ends will be matched by linebackers, and the more that come out for receivers the more DBs the defense will send out. Three wide receivers generally means five defensive backs (i.e. nickel), two wide receivers equals four DBs (e.g. 4-3 or 3-4), etc.

The classic personnel shift is on 3rd and long, when the steady rock-pounders make way for the seven-yards-or-bust fellas. But it happens so often despite the situation that it's more accurate to see the game of matching personnel as another strategic aspect of the master's football game.

The offensive personnel is usually expressed in three digits meaning # of RBs, # of tight ends, and # of receivers, respectively. So 113 means 1 RB, 1 TE, and three WRs. Sometimes they'll call that same "eleven" personnel, referring to the first two digits. Examples below; click embiggerates.

Not different:

Different:

How the matching up occurs is up to the coach. You could, for example, play a run-first OLB whenever a fullback is in, and sub him for a more rangy linebacker when the the fullback runs off the field for a tight end who's a known receiving threat. This happens all the time, but it's hard to track the defenses' reactions since we can't tell one linebacker in a formation from another in UFR. We do have data from which we can determine how many receivers were out there at any given time, and it's clear from these data that the more receivers the more defensive backs.

From the UFR defensive database, Michigan in 2011 was no exception:

The last row is important because it shows Michigan left its base 4-3 Under set for an extra defensive back far more often than otherwise, usually at the expense of a linebacker. We didn't go to a nickel every time three receivers stepped on the field, in fact there were 22 plays charted where Mattison put his 4-3 personnel against four-wide (mostly against Northwestern and Purdue). But the charts not only say that Michigan was forced out of its base 4-3 set often; it says we played more Nickel downs than 4-3.

If I remove 4th quarters and all plays that occurred when Michigan was up by more than one score, the 4-3 just barely edges the Nickel, 147 to 140. This isn't opponents trying to play catch-up. It's two things: the personnel that Mattison inherited, and the spread offense forcing Michigan to adapt to it.

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Why all the nickel and diming? The first part is a story about outside linebacker. Early in the 2011 season Michigan played Brandon Herron and Brandin Hawthorne at WILL, while at SAM we lost Cam Gordon to injury and his backup was a redshirt freshman. That freshman, Jake Ryan, was earning his way toward more playing time, but in the meantime we still had Carvin Johnson taking snaps at free safety while Thomas Gordon was in at the nickel role. Watch what happened at about mid-season:

That is Gordon moving to free safety and splitting time with Woolfolk, while the freshmen linebackers had their usages increase. Greater faith in Jake and Des explains some of the variance, however the real story is matching personnel:

I pointed out the two extremes on the schedule with boldation: Northwestern used about twice as many receivers in their formations as Iowa did, but there was a limit to how many defensive backs Michigan would counter with. The nickel served as well for 4 WR as for 3, yet accounted for 4 in 5 plays. However when the opposition went to 2 WR (Iowa), Mattison could spend a majority of the game in the 4-3.

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When Michigan's on offense. Nothing is out of the ordinary yet, but when we turn the tables and show how defenses have reacted to Michigan's personnel it gets interesting:

This is not including anything when Michigan was more than a score down, but the season averages counting everything say about the same thing. I went through the plays and even a few youtubes and yes, in 2010 they played one-high against us despite spreading the field to pass as much as Purdue. Michigan went bigger in 2011, and got more defensive backs, which is counterintuitive except for one factor: opponents in 2010 really really really feared the running game, and tempted Michigan to pass.

Okie dokie. | Greg Shamus via ESPN

One more table to break this down by Michigan's opponents last year, 4th quarters and two-plus-score leads excised:

Nothing really jumps out except perhaps more spread in close games, and SD State's apparent paucity of linebackers (weird—didn't they just have that guy who recruits lots of linebackers there?) Actually that's Charlie Strong's 3-3-5, and the GERG numbers from 2010 are similar due to the same effect.

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What it means for this year. Alabama and Air Force aren't going to be spread it out—their challenges are elsewhere. However the Big Ten schedule is spread-heavy, with Ohio State joining the ranks of the many-receivered. Due to recent attrition, Michigan goes into 2012 with just six scholarship cornerbacks for three positions that will be filled half the time. It's a good thing the coaching staff has four guys coming in at corner to replace the one expected departure. These days, in order to keep up with the Joneses, that nickelback position has to be considered as much of a starter as, well, a third receiver.

Brief vacation note. I'll be limited Friday and Monday as I visit some friends. I don't think it'll be that noticeable Friday but it's likely there aren't going to be any major columns Monday or Tuesday. I won't be able to catch the hockey game since they're not on TV, but I will write something up on the Purdue game whenever I get a chance.

Northwestern. Via mgovideo:

Podcast. I guested on The Solid Verbal. They asked me if I could think of anything wrong with Brady Hoke and I came up empty. It's been a good 13 months.

Beilein recruiting vs. development. I'm not entirely clear on whether Dan Hanner's recruiting and coaching rankings have methodology gaps that would particularly affect John Beilien but the general idea is to evaluate a coach's recruiting on the ORtg of his freshmen and his development of players on the movement of that ORtg as the players age. Survey says:

There are some obvious holes in the evaluations here since they only take offense into account, they assume a guy like Burke's performance is all recruiting and no development when he's had on average a half-year of development by the end of his freshman year, etc. But they do make the case that Beilein's recruiting at Michigan has been horrendously underrated, especially since the defense is more than holding its own in this year's Big Ten. Throw it on the pile of evidence indicating Beilein has a great eye for players.

See also: Trey Burke, nation's #3 freshman according to CBS.

It might behoove us to move to a less three-mad offense. Emphasis on "might"—obviously there is something going on with Beilein's offense that works. But in Ken Pomeroy's ongoing quest to discredit defensive three point efficiency, he's doing collateral damage to offensive three point efficiency:

OFFENSIVE 3P%

DEFENSIVE 3P%

Oh dear. The defensive plot is just a random scattering of data, as has been discussed previously, but the offensive version isn’t much better. If you shot 45% in the first half of the 2011 conference season, you’d be expected to shoot about 35% in the second half. If you shot 25% in the first half, you’d be expected to shoot 33% in the second half. A difference you couldn’t notice with your eyes. I don’t know exactly what implications this has on strategy, but when evenly-matched teams get together, action happening beyond the 3-point line is like a lottery. You take a shot and a third of the time you have success.

In contrast, two-point shooting correlates well. Pomeroy admits he doesn't know what the impact on strategy is, and neither do I. This could be an argument for Michigan to move its game inside the line, but it's not hard to see Michigan's #6 two-point shooting as a number that benefits greatly from Michigan's long-range bombing. As long as Michigan is going four-out, one-in they're going to have to take a lot of threes to stretch opponents into giving them decent opportunities from two.

Thirty-eight is way too many, though. Right now the Wildcats are obviously right with Michigan; in the future when McGary, Horford, Glenn Robinson, and Stauskas give M a huge size and athleticism advantage bombing it from the outside is asking to get upset. I wonder if we see Michigan cut back on the bombs in their new era of talent superiority.

Meet the new GERG? Iowa's new offensive coordinator:

If you were hoping that the Greg Davis rumors were nothing but smoke and disinformation, well, today is not your day. Kirk Bohls of the Austin American-Statesman, a gentleman who is about as well-connected to the Texas football program as Mack Brown himself, reported today that Greg Davis had accepted the Iowa offensive coordinator position.

Davis was run out of Texas on a rail after Colt McCoy graduated and the offense collapsed. Before that he'd told Vince Young to run around out there to good effect and transitioned to a pretty good McCoy-led passing spread, so this is not exactly hiring a guy whose only success in the past ten years was a one-year blip (Greg Robinson).

Still, a 61-year-old retread who cratered that much talent has Iowa fans shrugging. The consensus at BHGP is "decent"; if things go south this fall they'll turn quickly. Looks like Jacobi had to rewrite his headline after his initial take:

http://www.blackheartgoldpants.com/2012/2/22/2817320/greg-davis-hired-iowa-offensive-coordinator-goddammit

Also on the url of the above Prevail and Ride cartoon as uploaded to SBN:

http://assets.sbnation.com/assets/962023/gergdavis.jpg

Mattison is probably not quaking at the hire.

Elsewhere in Iowa blogging. The High Porch Picnic evaluates Michigan's recent recruiting from an Iowa POV and is a bit bothered that Hoke and Ferentz seem to have a lot more overlap than the Hawkeyes did with the previous Michigan regime. If I was Iowa I'd be more concerned with Michigan's sudden relevance in Illinois, a place they've struggled in for the past five years.

This reminds me to elaborate on something I mentioned in passing on the Solid Verbal: the current configuration of offenses in the Big Ten footprint is advantage Michigan recruiting. The two schools who do the best job of competing on the trail, Notre Dame and Ohio State, are now spread offenses. The second tier run pro-styles. Michigan looks like it's in a phase where it's rarely going to lose a battle against the second tier; meanwhile they should have an advantage with certain recruits in hostile territory simply because their opponents won't have a good place to put them.

Michigan's in a good position to starve Michigan State and, to a lesser extent, Iowa of offensive talent while bolstering their class with a guy like Jake Butt who Ohio State might have been pursuing hotly if they were still running a Tressel offense.

Side note: the impressive thing about Hoke's progress in Illinois is beating out ND. Remember when going up against Notre Dame was totally pointless, especially in Illinois? Yeah. We'll see what happens with Ty Isaac and LaQuon Treadwell; if Michigan lands them that will be a huge statement.

List o' jerkos. CBS's Eye on College Football lists the 30 BCS schools who voted to override the multi-year scholarship legislation and points out that their real desire is to avoid giving out multi-year scholarships themselves:

The motivation in Austin, Baton Rouge, Knoxville and Norman isn't that they can't hand out four-year scholarships, it's that they simply don't want to.

Of course, the legislation doesn't mean any school -- BCS, mid-major, or otherwise -- is required to offer multiple-year scholarships. But since that might put the schools that don't at a recruiting disadvantage against schools that do, the Texases (and USCs, and Alabamas) have tried to prevent anyone from offering them.

In short: because these schools don't want to promise their athletes a full four-year college education, they've decided the athletes at other schools shouldn't have the benefit of that promise, either.

But whatever, they failed. Wisconsin was the only Big Ten school to ask for an override. Their football team signed up with most of the rest of the conference in offering four-year rides, though, so why is unknown. IIRC, their hockey team has a bit of reputation for cutting kids loose. That might be it.

Now the Free Press won't exist for anyone else, either. Gannett hastens its own decline:

“We will begin to restrict some access to non-subscribers,” said Bob Dickey, [Gannett] president of community publishing. The model is similar to the metered system adopted by The New York Times a year ago, in which online readers are able to view a limited number of pages for free each month. That quota will be between five and 15 articles, depending on the paper, said Dickey. Six Gannett papers already have a digital pay regimen in place.

The Free Press is a Gannett paper, so to get your Drew Sharp fix you'll have to start kicking in subscription dollars. I'm sure the line will be lengthy: Gannett projects they'll increase subscription revenues by 25%—$100 million per year. Think of all the press conference rehashes, trolling, and Mitch Albom columns about angels you'll be missing out on.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! I'm not going to steal Ace's recruiting roundup thunder entirely but just… holy hopping ham sandwiches:

The Levenberry family is looking for a paternal figure to guide son E.J.'s career. It's found him in Ann Arbor.

E.J. Levenberry Jr. said this week that Michigan is the lead school for his services. The ESPNU 150 Watch List linebacker prospect from Woodbridge (Va.) C.D. Hylton referenced Wolverines coach Brady Hoke as one of the primary reasons why.

"He kind of reminds me of my dad, the way he carries himself," Levenberry said.

Add Levenberry, Isaac, Treadwell, and O'Daniel—all players who Michigan reputedly leads for now—and that's nine Rivals 100 recruits, three guys who would be consensus five-stars if rankings hold, and a class that will compete for the best in the country. They'll probably lose at least one of those guys and rankings do not hold*; even so… good God.

*[Because there's not many places to go but down and as the year goes along recruiting analysts will turn up top flight talent they missed the first time around. See: Ondre Pipkins. Even if Rivals's opinion of Jake Butt doesn't change at all he's likely to slide 20-30 spots by Signing Day.]

Briefly. Ohio State fans are now the ones annoyed by the "spread can't work in B10 lol" meme propagated by hobos, people who think wrestling is real, and newspaper columnists—all the same people. They get bonus annoyance because Rich Rodriguez just "proved" this by having a quarterback run for 1700 yards. As I said: people who think wrestling is real.

So they're trying to dispel the Rodriguez stink:

Rodriguez largely failed to evolve his offense past the spread's origins.  Chris Brown, for instance, prophetically predicated at the beginning of Rodriguez's Michigan tenure that Rodriguez's passing game lacked the conceptual nature necessary to succeed as teams adapted to the spread's basic tenets.  Nor did Rodriguez (for the most part) diversiify his offense in the way an Oregon has to counteract things such as scrape exchanges.  Michigan never embraced plays such as the midline option, inverted veer, power or counter trey like others.  The upshot is that, while Michigan's offense was largely succesful once Denard Robinson was in place, it never hummed in the way Oregon's offense did (particularly against better teams) to overcome Michigan's defense or special team liabilities. 

That's not really true. Rodriguez adapted his system to use Lloyd's collection of tight ends, burned many defenses with plays specifically designed to blow up scrape exchanges, and eventually shelved large sections of the old playbook in favor of having Denard Robinson run QB isos and stretches, pairing those with "aigh he's open" moments when a Robinson run turned out to be a pass. The reason 31 points against Penn State and 28 with a missed chip shot field goal against Wisconsin were bad performances didn't have much to do with the offense.

Rodriguez's offense never reached the high-pitched hum of Oregon's because he never had a returning starter at quarterback and the only non-freshman was a breathtakingly green Denard Robinson. Also his tailbacks were pretty bad. If OSU fans are looking for narratives to combat hobos, "we'll have an assload of talent relative to Rodriguez" is your best bet.

Etc.: Tremendous has an even more detailed breakdown of Hoke's appearance at the Glazier Clinic. Rodger Sherman narrowly survived the Michigan-Northwestern game but the prognosis is grim. Michigan's off to a healthy lead in the name-based recruiting class derby but there's a "Zanquanarious Washington" out there—they will not win. Blue wall! You've already seen Luke Winn's decision to put us in SI's "magic eight" teams from which a national champion will come. That seems like a bad bet to me, but whatever. TTB interviews Jehu Chesson, who I will probably call "Jehuu Caulcrick" at some point during his career.

Formation notes: I usually don't try to determine what personnel the opponent has on the field because it's nearly impossible and the TV announcer men never tell you. So EMU may have just run the same sets of folks out there the whole game, I don't know. I do know that I dubbed this the "nickel" look:

The guy over the slot receiver there is in man. This would normally leave only six in the box but EMU would walk a safety up, as you can see. The "base 4-3" is basically this with the linebackers slid over and EMU in a two-deep shell. Why would Ron English do this against a high powered spread run offense? I don't know. Ask Armanti Edwards YES I'M STILL A LITTLE BITTER.

We kind of sucked, couldn't complete a forward pass, and still put up 45 points on an opponent. Woo spread 'n' shred?

Woo spread 'n' shred. The last time Michigan rushed for that many yards was the 2003 Houston game that preceded the 38-0 shellacking of Ty Willingham and ND that saw the student section chant "Houston's better" at the Irish, which latter point I bring up for no reason whatsoever. Remember this?

Charts, but they're not very useful since all the offensive charts focus on the passing game.

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

TATE FORCIER

DENARD ROBINSON

Forcier was just 7 of 13 for 68 yards but his chart isn't too bad. Our Downfield Success Rate is 7 / 11 = 64%, which is about on par with what he's been doing so far, and one of those TAs (throwaways) was actually a 20-yard scramble. Forcier did zing a screen high, though.

Robinson… well. I don't actually think he made any bad decisions, he just made bad throws. On both of his interceptions he had guys running open downfield and left the ball way, way short. And he did mess up a tunnel screen throw that would have been vast yardage if he'd gotten it right. And the did lay a pretty pass in to Martavious Odoms only to see Odoms juggle it and (eventually) drop it. But I am searching for a bunch of excuses for an 0/4 2 INT day.

Receiverchart:

This was a less than great day from the receivers, as in limited opportunities two balls got filed as straight drops: the corner route to Odoms that was overturned on review (I still think he actually caught it but it's really close and result-based charting) and the seam to Webb that hit him between the numbers.

Also, let's talk about Darryl Stonum, deep threat. I mentioned this in the play minutiae most of you don't read so let me replicate it here:

Okay, Forcier left this short and Stonum had a step or step and a half on a guy that can't press him. But from above:

I'm grabbing this just so people can maybe talk about Stonum's adjustment to this. I think it's poor. He misjudges the ball and doesn't slow up enough and turn, which would probably have led to the DB running him over and a PI call. Mike Floyd [or Braylon Edwards] catches this, right?

Even if there's no catch, Stonum should at least give himself an opportunity to get both hands on it. And then there's this from the Notre Dame game:

Stonum is running a fly down the sideline with a guy sort of in tow and plenty of room to the sideline and Forcier gets it to him. Stonum turns inside and ends up doing a 360 on a ball that was perfectly placed to the outside. He turns a very catchable ball into a circus attempt. It was open.

Unfortunately, I didn't get a clip of this; it was worse than the above. Stonum's got speed to burn and a great frame, so what's preventing him from being Michael Floyd is the stuff you see above. Floyd is huge, great at adjusting to a ball in flight, and brilliant at using his body as an asset. Same with Braylon Edwards. Mario Manningham was probably the best I'd ever seen at it; he was as good as those guys without having their height. Stonum doesn't have it, at least not yet. I don't know if that's talent or coaching or a combination of both. Junior Hemingway seems pretty good at it. Could just be a thing you've got or you don't. If Steve Breaston had it he would have won the Heisman.

Anyway, that's why I think Stonum is behind where you'd expect he'd be given his recruiting profile.

Offensive line whatnot?

The most useless protection metric ever:

PROTECTION METRIC: 17/20, Huyge –1, Team –2.

Nothing to see here.

Heroes?

Pick a tailback, any tailback, and an offensive lineman, any offensive lineman.

Goats?

Well, you know… made of dilithium and all but Denard Robinson did throw two interceptions.

What does it mean for Indiana and the future?

The Hoosier's run defense is currently #15 nationally but it's hard to tell how legit that is when the opening opponents are Eastern Kentucky, Western Michigan, and Akron. Given that we're talking about Indiana, the answer is probably "not particularly legit." Michigan wants to continue the pounding ground game against the Hoosiers without showing more of their hand, and you'd imagine they'll be able to. Not to the tune of 10 YPC or even the 7.6 Michigan got outside of the third-longest run in Michigan history, but 5-6-7 in a game where Michigan hopes to spend the second half running out the clock would be fine.

We did get further indication that Denard Robinson is not a suitable replacement for Tate Forcier at the moment, though I figure at this point he's got to be above Sheridan just because I've seen him move.

John Ferrara did pretty well in his first start of the year, though it was against weak competition. The dropoff from the starting line to the Molk-free line might not be too severe. (Though I am pumped to hear Rodriguez describe Molk as not only one of the team's best linemen but "one of the team's best players" when discussing his injury. I lived in moderate fear that the insider reports about Khoury pushing Molk were anywhere near accurate, which would have been a black eye given the David Molk Hype Machine that lives in my keyboard. Then I am not pumped because Molk is out for a month.)

Farther down the road, Michigan looks in excellent shape next year at tailback, where all three backups performed well. Shaw was especially impressive; you could tell that all the stuff about being slowed by a sports hernia was no BS. Guy looked Brown fast. Maybe even faster. Smith and Cox had impressive runs as well, and Fitzgerald Toussaint's highlight tape from high school is a 0.8 McGuffie.

Hooray for automatic translations. Via BHGP:

Michigan State's, on the other hand, have been very naughty lambs. 

Personally, I am deeply affected by this. I am in favor of Michigan's just-approved basketball facilities in all ways except one:

That real estate is the home of my ancestral tailgate. Ah well. The plans look very nice, though, and should help the program steady itself as a respectable one (or better!). More at UM Hoops.

Yes yes yes maybe? 100 cocktails to Yostal, who gets a question in to Chris Brown at EDSBS and extracts a thousand or so words on Michigan from one of college football's most interesting bloggers—apparently Brown's article on Tressel was specifically mentioned by the man himself on a radio appearance! Yostal's question has to do with Michigan's attempt to shoehorn both Tate Forcier and Denard Robinson into useful roles on the field. Brown:

I think the winds are changing, and a two-quarterback system is quite possible. At its best you are likely to have the system Florida used to win the 2006 title: a starting quarterback in charge of most of the offense (Chris Leak), and a second guy with special abilities for whom a package is installed (then-freshman Tim Tebow). This example has now been made universal throughout football under the nauseatingly overused rubric, “the wildcat.” (Had “wildcat” been around in 2006 think of all of the puns Dan Shanoff could have used to describe how Meyer used his young talent.) The reason that works though is because you choose a starting quarterback for one set of skills (passing, reading the defense, making checks, accuracy, some athleticism, etc) but another guy opens up a new dimension because of their running ability, and the spread with a mobile guy gives the offense certain numerical advantages it doesn’t get with an immobile quarterback.

Read or die. /diddy.

Do we care about this? The Detroit News has an article about how a bunch of Michigan coaches have loans from the Bank of Ann Arbor, which is a potential conflict of interest for Bank of Ann Arbor founder Bill Martin:

"I don't suggest banks to any coach," he said. "I don't ever get involved in their financial affairs in any way, shape or form. I believe it would be a conflict of interest (to do so)."

But Martin also acknowledged that now that he is aware of the loans, it does create a conflict.

"Now that I know, I don't like it necessarily," he said. "When you don't know, you don't have a conflict."

This contradicts an earlier statement by Martin. Is this of interest to anyone other than the Bank of Ann Arbor corporate board? I'm thinking not so much.

The scene of the crime. Johnny Sears (Yes That Johnny Sears), now a senior, makes his return to Michigan Stadium tomorrow. Jokes aside, and there is plenty of material, it sounds like Sears has come a long way from the events that precipitated his dismissal:

“I was on the practice squad on my junior college. I didn’t even get to play. Sometimes by myself I thought like, ‘Is it worth it?’ but then I felt like, ‘OK I really want to play football.’ That’s my love. It’s my escape from things. This is what I love to do so I just wanted to make sure I could do that.”

And okay, yes, it is a little funny that Sears ended up on a JUCO's practice squad after starting The Horror. Funny in a sad clown way. When you're discussing the clunky end of the Carr era, "started sophomore DB who had never played varsity football before he got an offer and couldn't crack a JUCO 2-deep after he left because he seemed like the best option" should be somewhere on the list.

The spread is dead part XXVI. Excellent research by Team Speed Kills on Lane Kiffin's latest quote:

"The only time I really see [Florida] lose kids is because kids want to play in a pro-style offense," Kiffin said. "It’s such a great place to play, and they do such a good job of coaching. But you see some kids that don’t want to play in that system because a lot of times it hurts them going to the next level for their draft status."

This will be read as a tiny bit douchy by most and with white-hot rage by one Urban Meyer, and won't be much of an argument going forward:

• Three spread offense receivers (Crabtree, Missouri's Jeremy Maclin, and Florida's Percy Harvin) were taken in the first round of last year's draft. The only tight end taken in the first round (Oklahoma State's Brandon Pettigrew) came from a spread offense.
• Both Harvin and Louis Murphy, from Florida's very spread offense, started on opening day for their teams and both caught touchdown passes.
• Sam Bradford was predicted to be a top ten pick had he come out last year and is the top quarterback prospect for 2010. He plays in a spread offense in Oklahoma.
• The top two offensive lineman prospects for 2010 according to ESPN (Oklahoma State's Russell Okung and Oklahoma's Trent Williams) block in spread offenses.

It does not matter much what sort of offense you play in as far as the NFL goes.

Moose replace. David Moosman's out this weekend. The replacement derby:

Michigan right guard Dave Moosman suffered a dislocated shoulder against Notre Dame and may miss two weeks. Starting right tackle Mark Huyge moved to Moosman's spot and Perry Dorrestein filled in for Huyge at the end of last week's game. Michigan coach Rich Rodriguez is uncertain about this week's starting plans with Wauseon redshirt freshman Elliott Mealer one of three others being considered.

I'm hoping one of the redshirt freshman breaks through for the long term, but it sounds like it'll be someone more veteran. AA.com says junior John Ferrara is likely to be the guy.

KOVAAAAAAAAACS. A fair amount of attention has been paid to Jordan Kovacs this week, and why not? He's only an unrecruited walk-on who played much of the second half against Notre Dame and did not end up plastered on the bottom of Michael Floyd's foot. Kovacs actually had to try out twice because the first time he tried to sign up he had serious knee issues the athletic department didn't want to volunteer to fix. He got the surgery himself, tried out, made the team, and took a valuable lesson from the whole thing:

"I said I'm never going to come back to the training room," he said. "I'll have to be dying."

Er. Well. A lesson of some variety at least. The official site has their version of Kovacs' life story and a helpful reader forwarded along this article from a 1983 edition of the Toledo Blade that has an article on Lou Kovacs, Jordan's father and a walk-on himself. Bo on the elder Kovacs:

"Having an individual participate in our football program and then continue on is one of the most important aspects we have in this program at any coaching level, and having someone like Lou is even more gratifying because we like to have young men like him stay on in coaching."

That right there is black-belt level coachspeak.

Weis one-ups. This is the most quintessentially Charlie Weis sentence ever:

At fullback they have a versatile fullback who plays fullback in Hawken who plays fullback, but he moves around a lot, giving them a lot of the versatility along with the multiple tight ends they have because they do play three of them.

Bloated, meandering, repetitive, full of fail. A sentence or a life in coaching? Zing!

Etc.: Bacon's latest for Michigan Today has an extensive discussion of the 50 Yard Line club. Yes, that 50 Yard Line Club. "Lose yourself" hype video. Misopogon sees dead cornerbacks in Boubacar Cissoko.

Personnel notes: this was the most boring opponent D personnel ever. ND spent the entire game aside from a few goal line plays in a 4-2-5 nickel with Sergio Brown acting as a sort of S/LB hybrid over the slot receivers. Michigan's base set is 1 TE, 1 RB, and 3 WR, pending the return to full health of Brandon Minor.

If you just want to skip to the heroin, here's an HD version of the final drive from Askarpo.

Woooooo!

Woooooo!

Wooo—

Right.

Okay.

Right.

Should I send my daughter to Forcier's harem or am I still holding out for Tom Brady when it comes to siring the next generation of Michigan quarterbacks?

Sounds like a job for a chart (chart)

(Hennechart again; MA is "marginal")

TATE FORCIER

(I'm going to put the screen numbers in parens from now on.)

DENARD ROBINSON

I won't continue charting Sheridan, as… well… obviously. Denard didn't throw any passes, he just ran.

Forcier's downfield success rate* in this game is 19 / 29 = 66%, and it should be noted that a couple of the TAs were successful scrambles; our DSR metric probably underrates wheeling Jackson Pollocks relative to Navarre sorts since it files scrambles as TAs. Also, five DOs is a large number. That was a performance that, remarkably, just about deserves the adulation it's received in the aftermath.

So it's really easy to pick out that Terrelle Pryor has a 99th percentile skill in being huge and fast and this gets you #1 recruit status; two games in it looks like Tate Forcier has 99th percentile skill in accuracy on the run, pocket awareness, and (yep) moxie. I don't know if I'd trade Forcier for Pryor, and who on earth would have been able to state that without getting laughed at two weeks ago?

Okay, okay, there were some rough spots: that interception winged so far over Mathews head there must have been some screwup; Mathews blamed himself but he was running into open space so if it was an option route he got it right. And Forcier almost caused a cascade of BOOM MALLETTED jokes when he chucked a dangerous ball as he was being sacked. Also: Forcier's maddening tendency to bounce his keepers outside cost Michigan 10-15 yards over the course of the game. I assume that latter will be relatively easy to fix.

Nits, all. The power to destroy a planet is insignificant.

*((DO + CA) / (DO + CA + IN + BR + TA + BA); basically "percentage of times you threw downfield that something good happened." Marginal (MA) passes don't count either way, and pressures (PRs) are charged to the OL, not the QB.)

He did get some help.

Yes, he did. Receiverchart:

(remember: 0 is uncatchable, 1 is a circus catch, 2 is a somewhat difficult one, and 3 is a routine one)

Notes: look at the spread here. Seven different receivers got four or more looks, with Mathews topping out at nine. Receivers dug out three catches filed as circus (Mathews's 40 yarder, the first Brown wheel route, and Odoms's critical third down conversion on the final drive) and dropped no balls filed as routine. You couldn't ask for anything more.

Brown is the clearly preferred option as a pass receiver out of the backfield. His speed and hands make him dangerous; that first wheel would probably have been a touchdown if it was thrown accurately. I bet Michigan uses him frequently against teams that are playing a lot of man.

Stonum's solid game may be the most important development going forward. Notre Dame was very aggressive on the corners because they didn't respect Michigan's ability to get deep and Stonum's the only guy on the roster who can put the fear of God into those guys, as he amply demonstrated on his kickoff return. That showed why he was such a highly-touted recruit. An earlier fly route showed why he's been stuck on the bench: he ran a great route that gave him three or four yards to the sideline, and Forcier used that room to throw a great pass where only he could get to it…and he turned inside. That went from a long completion to a ball glancing off his fingertips. So he's got work to do. But his career is officially off life support.

Protection is less cheery but mentally file this under "Tenuta":

PROTECTION METRIC: 35/50, Moosman –1, Huyge –6, Team –8.

That is not a good metric but that big "team" number indicates that a lot of that was just TAH-NOO-TAH sending guys from everywhere and Michigan either not making the right pickup or not having the ability to make the right pickup because there are just more dudes than blockers. Huyge, on the other hand, struggled, especially when Moosman went out and he slid inside to guard; he got driven back on multiple plays on the final drive and was a main reason it was so ridiculous and scrambly.

Any other reasons this offense has taken a quantum leap forward?

Yes: the coaches.

Take a look at the Michigan drive that ended in Darius Fleming's jock on the field and Matt Millen making up words via which to homoerotically praise Forcier. As described in Picture Pages, Michigan gashed Notre Dame twice early in the second half with a zone read dive that acts as a counterpunch to the scrape exchange. The third time M runs it the backside DE treats it like a power running play much like you see Michigan State run and runs up to cut Koger, which spills the play outside and results in zero yards.

Okay. They've caught on. Michigan immediately discontinues the dive stuff and finishes out the drive with a variety of other plays. When Michigan gets the ball back they run one inside zone out of an ace formation (odd) and then go to this:

1. PA TE flat on which Koger fakes the dive block and then heads out for a big gain.
2. Called QB keeper on the dive play that would be eight or ten yards if Forcier would just run straight upfield instead of trying to beat the corner.
3. Zone read stretch variant where Koger pulls but is actually acting as a stretch lead blocker. This gains six despite a Schilling whiff and would probably have been more if it was Minor running through a thicket of desperate hands instead of Brown.
4. The dive play itself, which loses a yard when Tenuta blitzes right into it.
5. Return to the PA TE flat, which ends up sucking every ND defender to Brown and Koger and leaves Forcier in the clear with one Darius Fleming.

That is awesome. That sequence is, in a nutshell, the difference between this year's offense and last year's offense. Last year, Michigan would rip off the two long runs off the dive and then the opponent would adjust, as Notre Dame did, and then Michigan would just be out of ideas because their quarterback was incapable of running and passing. This year, Forcier gives them the ability to set you up and then run one, two, three counters to their play (which was originally a counter!), all of which worked and would have gone for big yardage if Forcier had realized he was not in high school any more. And then they go back to the original, which Tenuta gets lucky on, and then they go back to a counter, which Tenuta does not get lucky on, and Michigan has a touchdown drive built almost entirely by the ingenuity of Rodriguez and Magee and the ability of Tate Forcier to MAKE PLAYS.

Michigan and their freshman quarterback and their unthreatening WRs and their almost total lack of NFL talent kept pace with a team running out a third-year starting quarterback, two future NFL receivers, and a veteran, talented offensive line. And the above is how. That is a decided schematic advantage.

Contrast this with the old Carr/Debord style: run the same play over and over and over again, out-executing them for little bits of yardage and setting up the opponent for one big killshot. Get predictable, and then break tendencies. Rodriguez only tolerates predictability insofar as he has to, and operates his offense as a coherent suite of plays that you have to guess right on lest you get gashed. This is not "rock rock rock," it's "rock, scissors, rock, rock, paper, scissors, candle, rock, wait what candle(?) oops you scored a touchdown." WVU's offensive standing was not a coincidence, and neither was Michigan's.

No offense to any of the departed, of course.

Why didn't the slot receivers get any play? Where were the bubbles?

This is why:

Notre Dame had a guy directly over the slot the whole game, which took it away. As we saw above, that opened up other things. Playing defense against this thing is like plugging a hole in a dike with your finger.

Heroes?

Forcier, and let's hand out some awards for the receivers, who pulled in three circus catches and dropped no 3s. They may not be explosive but they were utterly reliable. Top marks to Stonum for his kickoff return. Also, Sean McDonough really did this ridiculous game justice. Millen was pretty good, too.

Goats?

I've got Huyge down for a –6 in pass pro, which is bad. The team picked up another –8, too. I love it when Forcier runs around but I'd like it if it took a little longer for that to be the best alternative.

What does it mean for Eastern Michigan, and beyond?

Forcier's going to Favre a game away at some point, I think, when he runs around too long and fumbles or chucks an INT he shouldn't have even thought about throwing, but this offense will be in a position to Favre games away. It is the real deal, man, capable of running or throwing on just about anyone short of Ohio State, whose defensive line is probably going to devour the OL, and maybe Penn State. It's got a suite of plays that work together, any of which can bust long, and the receivers are really helping out with their hands.

This is no fluke. This is the Leap.

All formats and locations will be ours. A reader requested that I MGoBlog available on the Amazon Kindle, so I duly signed up. I have now been vetted and show up in the store. A word of caution: when I checked out the preview it didn't seem like a compelling product. It obliterated images, formatting, and even blockquotes. Maybe it's better now.

Even if it's not you get a 14-day free trial before the dollar per month—the lowest price they'd let me set—kicks in.

Also, you may have noticed that the Bucknuts link on the left sidebar went haywire a few weeks ago. Bucknuts implemented a new software system and the transition did not go as smoothly as hoped. Insert your own Ohio State "the files are in the computer?" joke here. The link now works and This Week In Michigan returns sometime today. [Speaking of things I write named "This Week In X": This Week In Schadenfreude will be a TSB joint this season. That was probably obvious.]

More research I didn't do. The streak of diaries in the range from useful to awesome continues. There is of course Misopogon's uni-tournament that got front-paged on Friday. (If you're interested in getting front paged take his posts as a model from his posts: they're attractive, use pictures, and organize their information well.) There's also more outstanding research going on.

MCalibur posted a followup to his earlier post on running QB fragility that expands his earlier study from one year to a definitive five. The key chart (chart):

Interestingly, the hiccup from MCalibur's first study holds up. Group 2 quarterbacks are the most likely to get injured; group one quarterbacks are the least. Extreme pocket passers and rushers fall in the middle.

The numbers show an slight uptick in QB injuries for run-heavy quarterbacks. Extreme rushers are 3% more likely to miss a game than a pocket passer and heavy rushers are 13% more likely. I don't think either of those numbers is significant statistically or strategically*; MCalibur has successful debunked the idea that spread quarterbacks are more vulnerable to injury than your John Navarres.

Elsewhere, Hannibal quantified something Michigan fans have known for a while: if you rotate off Michigan's schedule you will be terrible. This is a law of nature. I mean, seriously:

Penn State:
Winning percentages in the "did not play Michigan" years:  .188
Winning percentages in the "did play Michigan" years:  .745

How does that happen if not for the black hand of Angry Michigan Schedule-Hating God?

The net, with Michigan games removed:

Total:
Winning percentages in the "did not play Michigan" years:  .371
Winning percentages in the "did play Michigan" years:  .494

That's just weird. This year Michigan misses Minnesota and Northwestern. Beware hyping them.

*(I know there are more serious statisticians that myself out there, so please correct me if I'm wrong.)

World so cold (world so cold!). A long profile of Tim Hardaway Jr. appears in the Miami Herald. I don't remember the careers of Larry Brown and the elder Hardaway intersecting but maybe he just got this by osmosis:

Hardaway Jr. takes more pointers from the games of Dwyane Wade and LeBron James than he does from his dad's. But the elder Hardaway still sees similarities between their skills. Hardaway Jr. may not be a point guard. But he's still the son of a point guard.

``You know how people say, `Play the right way?' He plays the right way,'' Hardaway said. ``He understands the game inside and out, because I'm always talking to him about it.''

The story's mostly about the Hardaways' relationship—senior was too demanding, doves cried, now it's cool—and not so much about the younger Hardaway's game.

Burger King bathrooms excluded. AnnArbor.com has an extensive look at John Beilein's role as the head of the NCAA's basketball ethics committee. It doesn't sound like they've gotten to the point where they can talk about specific issues they'd like to fix:

“That is really the biggest challenge right now,” Beilein said. “Is to get a clear agenda of what are important issues. But you will be focusing on one issue and something real and very important can come up that nobody ever thought of before.

“I don’t think there’s a science to this thing. We just have to chop away at being persistent in trying to identify the biggest problems.”

Rothstein couldn't get much in the way of specifics out of the half-dozen or so coaches he surveyed but Dane Fife, now IPFW's head coach did say some frank stuff:

"Reggie Minton just says ‘Don’t willfully break the rule.’ That’s my main focus, you can’t willfully break a rule. There’s probably more time spent trying to circumvent rules than time spending [sic?] within the program for some of these coaches.

"I think it’s part of the business, part of the game. I really do."

They never drop the names, though.

Lies! Rodriguez on the quarterback situation:

“Everybody can go ahead and be patient cause there will not be a starter named until right before the first game,” Michigan coach Rich Rodriguez said. “Maybe even be a game-time decision.”

Forcier is already running with the first team and is not stained by last year; file under coachspeak. We now return to your regularly scheduled Tatehype:

"It’s weird," Molk said. "I never see the kid crumble. Once in a while you’ll see a quarterback and they’ll start to get kind of shaky, but he’s pretty solid."

Forcier's poise sounds akin to Chad Henne's, which once prompted me to call him a robot. May it be so.

Etc.: Smart Football moves to swanky new digs; DocSat picks Penn State to win the Big Ten, has Michigan 7th and a bowl team, doesn't understand the Michigan State hype. The Smoking Musket, a West Virginia blog. is skeptical of the Eers' move away from the spread 'n' shred.