troy woolfolk

Personnel notes: Michigan didn't change much at all from the Notre Dame game. Leach played basically the whole game for Mouton. Kovacs again got the fourth quarter when Mike Williams tweaked his ankle. Substitution on the DL continued as before. The only difference is that JB Fitzgerald did get in some as a replacement for Leach or Ezeh.

Michigan did debut a couple of new looks in this game, as described by Steve Sharik earlier this week. One was a pure 3-3-5 look that could have come right out of the West Virginia salad days; the deathbacker played as a MLB. The other was an aggressive eight-man front run defense Sharik calls "split" that M ran against a lot of their ace sets. I noted the 3-3-5 stack somewhat but not the split, which looked like an under to me. I'll work on it for next week. If Robinson stops adding packages I'll eventually be able to ID them consistently.

BTW: This completes Michigan's collection of fronts: They've run even and under 4-3 fronts, a 3-4, and the 3-3-5. Robinson was not kidding about "multiple fronts." The under is still the base, though.

Steve also talked about the "Down G" play that EMU ran a lot. The basic principle here is much like the basic principle was against Michigan State's power ground game the past two years: you are an unblocked DE; there is a guard pulling around who wants to kick you out and open up a crease inside you. You have to get into the guard and make the tailback bounce it outside, where a linebacker will pursue and clean up.

BONUS! In my never-ending quest to make UFR more complicated every year I've added a third defensive metric: tackling. Missed tackles get minuses, as do routine tackles on which the ballcarrier picks up YAC. Open field tackles, tough tackles, and tackles where the guy goes down right where he's hit get pluses. It's very experimental.

So that was concerning, wasn't it?

Slightly, yes, but after looking at the tape I'm more encouraged than I was immediately after the game.

How can that be?

To explain that I think I need a—

Chart?

So… there you go. I'm still working on the tackling bits, obviously. I wouldn't take the minuses on the safeties too seriously.

Why does this make you less concerned than you were before?

We already knew that Ezeh is the kind of guy to get dragged out of position and open up a 24 yard scramble, and we had a strong suspicion that even though the starting linebackers were poor their backups were worse, and all this bore out. Most of the defensive line played up to expectations except Van Bergen, and Banks may add some additional interior depth going forward. The secondary was par for the course, too, and the tackling was pretty good.

Come on, look at that 36-yard all-run touchdown drive. This is Eastern Michigan!

Is that a question?

This is Eastern Michigan?

Fine, fine, okay, yes. It's not like I expect the defense to be good or anything. It's just that the EMU game didn't reveal anything particularly surprising or new. And ten of their points were on the world's worst pass interference call and a thirty-six yard drive. They gained under 300 yards and Michigan outgained them by 180-some. I'm fine with what happened, mostly.

The most disturbing bits were the zone read breakdowns. How does that happen when you practice against it all day every day? I don't know, but when any EMU QB pulled the ball out he had plenty of space.

Any hope for defensive depth in the future?

In the secondary and at linebacker, no. Leach slotting in ahead of Fitzgerald and Fitzgerald proving that wasn't a crazy decision with some really bad play indicates that there's no cavalry coming in the backups. Michigan is riding with Mouton and Ezeh, like it or not. Pray they improve. (To his credit, Ezeh was better at hitting the hole in this game. Baby steps.)

Meanwhile in the secondary, Michigan went the whole game with the starters until Williams got tweaked and Kovacs returned; no corner other than the starting pair saw a snap until uncharted garbage time, and that didn't even include uber-frosh Justin Turner. I did include converted WR/RB Teric Jones, whose redshirt is burned. Burning that redshirt is a whopping statement about where the secondary depth stands: next to Charlie Weis on a precipice, looking down at disaster.

The line, though, looks like it might pick up another contributor in Greg Banks and at some point you figure they will unleash Will Campbell on short yardage. He was part of the goal line set that saw a few snaps and probably should have been in on a few more. He's a tough guy to move.

So… no on Fitzgerald?

Not yet, at least. Watch the linebacker to the top of the screen (not the guy on the line, the guy lined up on the 32, which is Fitzgerald) here:

Michigan was playing that play to spill all day, spilled it, and Fitzgerald was nowhere to be found. He is not mentally ready to play.

The safeties look halfway competent, don't they?

Um… well… mentioning this will probably doom them forever, but maybe? None of ND's long plays can be blamed on the safeties, though part of that was the defensive scheme and part of that was the ability of Notre Dame to exploit an injured, short Cissoko in his first start against a good offense. And Eastern didn't find anything long. The only play on which a safety got a big negative was the long Western touchdown. Just MAC teams, sure, but by this point in any other season there would have been two or more plays from the safeties that make you groan and clutch your rosary. Obi Ezeh's "so we got that going for us" quote about Woolfolk may be accurate.

Heroes?

The starting defensive line outside of Van Bergen, who didn't do much.

Goats?

All linebackers not named Ezeh, who was decent.

What does it mean for Indiana and the future?

I'll keep it brief since this was a game against Eastern Michgian and you overrate it at your peril: the team is basically what we thought it was. If you want to load up against it and grind down the field you'll have success doing it, though I wonder if teams will manage to score a lot of touchdowns with that sort of approach. Michigan's going to bend a lot; hopefully they won't break.

Greg Robinson is busy installing all sorts of different stuff and slants and various games to cover up for the fact that he's got no depth, two seniors, and three walk-ons contributing. I think we're going to see a lot of instances where the games work and Michigan swarms something and a lot of instances where Michigan gets caught and gashed. There are places to attack this defense, and the safeties are going to have to do a lot of cleanup in Big Ten play.

Is there any upside for these guys? Maybe. It is a new system so Michigan is behind mentally and should improve more than veteran units whose failings are more likely to be physical shortcomings than mental errors. Look at Eastern's long touchdown drive: mental error after mental error. If Michigan can fix those things—or, more conservatively, mitigate them—they appear to have the horsepower to be completely mediocre. Again: getting Ezeh and Mouton up to a level where they are decent is the key to the defense's season.

Rich Rodriguez

• Injuries: David Moosman popped his shoulder out, might sit for 1-2 weeks. Some combination of Ricky Barnum, Elliott Mealer, John Ferrara, and Patrick Omameh will fill that in. Boubacar Cissoko was still banged up against ND, but he'll continue to play. Mike Williams sat because of cramps, and he should be healthy. Junior Hemingway should be back soon, but Rodriguez won't know until later today. The full injury report will come out Thursday.
• The secondary didn't play its best on Saturday, but a lot of the stuff can be corrected. They want to be able to play JT Floyd, Teric Jones, and Justin Turner to build a little more depth there.
• The QBs are still listed with an "OR" on the depth chart. Tate has earned the right to take the first snap each week so far, but the competition in practice has been pretty close. Denard is a QB now, and will continue to be in the future. They aren't looking at moving him to another position.
• Rodriguez gave some veiled criticism to Charlie Weis's excuses about the refs. "I didn't see anything." He typically will send a couple plays into the conference office, though he didn't after the Western game. The refs do a god job, and they'll call things if they see them. When the Armando Allen touchdown was overturned, Rodriguez called a timeout instead of a challenge because he wanted to save his challenge for later in the game in case they needed it.
• Rodriguez talks to CMU coach Butch Jones twice a week. He's a good coach and a good person. Rich knows he'll have
• Rodriguez interviewed the entire football staff (not just coaches) when he came to Ann Arbor. He didn't re-hire Coach English, though he was an outstanding defensive coordinator. Rodriguez had something else in mind defensively, and now he's happy where they are. He talked to Coach E to congratulate him for landing the EMU job. "I know he's got a lot of friends here, and as you'd expect, when you spend a couple years at a neat place you're going to make some friends."
• Rodriguez wants fans to not only be at the game, but also to be active participants. The piped in music is art of that, along with exciting things like the Circle of Death, aka the "Team Unity Circle."

Troy Woolfolk

• The defense was playing off receivers for most of the game, but they got a little more aggressive because they got sick of giving up the underneath stuff.
• English was Troy's primary recruiter at Michigan. The two don't talk anymore, because Troy has lost Coach E's number, but he wants to play well this Saturday to show that he was worthy of being recruited.
• "I'm just glad that we got a chance to show the nation that Michigan is back."
• Some day in the future, Troy and Denard are going to race to settle once and for all who the fastest player is.

Stevie Brown

• Brown wasn't surprised to see ND go deep on second down with a chance to ice the win late in the fourth quarter. "That's what they'd been doing all game, and that's what was working for them."
• Stevie doesn't keep in contact with Coach English. They talked when Ron was hired at Eastern, but not really since.

Tate Forcier

• Although the team is ranked, they're only at the very last spot (35). The team needs to continue working hard if they want to move up. The team made lots of mistakes (Tate's fumble on the 2 yard line, a missed field goal), so there's definite room for improvement.
• Tate had 400+ text message following the game yesterday. He doesn't have a big lecture until tomorrow, but he's sure lots of people will talk to him about the game.
• He caught the big nighttime tilt and saw Matt Barkley (the nation's other golden boy frosh) perform pretty well. "It was kinda hard; I didn't know who I wanted to win because I don't like USC or Ohio State."
• The rushing touchdown was a pass/run option, and the defensive end forced him to head back inside "Right when I cut it up, I didn't see anybody. Right away I knew it should be pretty good." He was confident on the final touchdown to Mathews as well. "I thought it was a perfect play call." The corner was playing with inside leverage, giving Greg room to the outside.
• Tate said he wasn't really going to look at Michigan until the new staff came in.
• There's no animosity between Tate and Denard, and Tate expects a big play every time Denard hits the field. He hopes Denard will get more chances to shine in the next couple weeks.
• "Just beating Notre Dame is great, but beating them the way we beat them made it even better." Tate's family was in the crowd,and he heard they were all so happy they cried. "I wish [Jason] could have been out there playing with me."

Spring practice continues and there's the usual mix of unwarranted excitement and unwarranted doomsaying; that combined with the incestuous nature of the whole enterprise makes information wobbly. But wobbly is better than nothing.

A rundown of scuttlebutt received in my inbox and published elsewhere:

Tate Forcier

The conflicts start hot and heavy with Forcier, who has articles like this written about him:

"Coach Barwis, he's shown me a whole different life," Forcier said, chuckling. "But I'm getting a lot stronger, and that's a good thing."

On the field, Forcier, who is expected to compete with Nick Sheridan for the starting QB job, said one of the biggest challenges is adjusting to the snap, which he's had some trouble hanging onto during spring practices.

"It's just getting comfortable with how they snap it to you," he said. "In high school, you get these slow shotgun snaps. Here, these come back like rockets."

Yikes. There have been plenty of reports citing the usual harsh transition from college to high school, with balls zinged into linebackers' chests and hilariously arrogant attempts to reverse field resulting in 20-yard sacks.

On the other hand, multiple attendees have noted the positives to Forcier's game, especially in relation to Rodriguez's offense: he's elusive, extremely accurate on the run, and has enough zip to get the ball where it needs to go. Much of the practice time has been devoted to tougher passes—no bubble screens—and things the offense isn't good at yet, which makes them look worse than they might if they were operating with some of the easier stuff to execute.

At least that's the positive way to look at it. The other way to look at it is basically "we're going to die." One viewpoint is in relation to what happened last year—even skeptics have been very clear that the quarterback situation is vastly improved over DEATH. The other is comparing freshman Forcier to quarterbacks who are actually, like, good. The overall impression is that Forcier isn't a 9-3 QB, but neither is he a 3-9 one.

Vincent Smith

In addition to participating in the handoff with the greatest height disparity between participants in Michigan history (right), Smith is building quite a hype train for himself.

Brandon Minor:

"Out of the freshman, they're all doing good, doing what I expect them to do, but Vincent Smith is showing a lot of potential. He's not backing down ... He's got real used to hitting early on. He does that very well."

Forcier:

"Vince, whewwwww. Vince Smith, he can move, he can run. He's out there running like the wind. He makes a lot of guys miss. I think we might be able to use him this year."

(Note the assumption in Forcier's quote there.)

Rodriguez:

"He's really come along," Rodriguez said earlier this week. "He's still confused sometimes, as all the freshmen would be, but he's shown some flashes in (Tuesday's) practice and he's a guy that's probably going to play some as a true freshman. I love his attitude, he loves playing and he's a quick learner on the field and he's got some natural ability, so I'm pretty excited about him."

This isn't wholly surprising. Smith's initially lukewarm reviews gave way to a more positive take after his impressive senior season. Though he didn't scrape his way out of the three-star ghetto, he moved way up on both major sites as they refined their rankings and Smith powered Pahokee to another state title. A couple of Florida correspondents said he was a terrific back whose ratings were held back by his size and a lack of pure white-hot speed, much like Oregon State's Jacquizz Rogers without the Name of the Year potential. (Vote for Mingo!)

Smith's got a number of veterans in front of him and isn't going to be an instant feature back with Minor looking like a beast and Brown (mostly) healthy, but it sounds like he's hopped in front of Cox and Grady and will spend this year vying against Michael Shaw to see who starts next year.

Argh Safeties

(At right: Brandon Smith tackling… uh… Brandon Smith? Is this like that A-Rod picture? Or one of those mirror universe episodes of any sci-fi show that goes on so long the writers get bored to tears with the characters?

One thing I definitely know: that's not some walk-on. Nope, it's definitely Brandon Smith in some sort of weird temporal vortex.)

This won't be surprising to anyone even vaguely familiar with Michigan football since Marcus Ray, but, yeah, argh safeties. Stevie Brown has been moved down into a nickel/OLB spot, much to the relief of everyone. This Free Press article says Brown "didn't have the impact many expected," which is a nice way of saying "had exactly the impact everyone feared." Now he's elsewhere:

"He's going to be a multipositional player for us," coach Rich Rodriguez said before practice Thursday. "Obviously, he's playing a lot of nickel back, in kind of a nickel-back situation. It's kind of a hybrid of an outside linebacker/strong safety position, which I think he's perfectly suited for."

Actually, he does seem well suited for that sort of role. Brown only got more frustrating last year when he started making the occasional sweet play to go with his free touchdown per game. Highly rated out of high school, Brown's a capital-a Athlete and seems an excellent fit for this coverage/blitz/tackle hybrid spot. An emailer reports back from the coaches' clinic:

Also there was some promising news on Stevie Brown.  Greg Robinson talking about Stevie Brown said “He’s a hell of an athlete and he’s a hell of a lot better football player where we have him now (strong side LB)."

So hurray for all that.

However, moving him leaves just two returning players at the position: Mike Williams, who saw some playing time a year ago and didn't do anything of note good or bad, and redshirt freshman Brandon Smith. That's a horrifying lack of depth at a position we're all well aware can be an instant 60-yard touchdown for the opposition.

That was ominous enough. Then various reports came back that neither was starting. Longtime Michigan insider Maizeman:

Starting safeties (Thursday) were Woolfolk and Vlad. Yes, Vlad as starter. He looked, on Thursday, to be our best safety -- not even close.

Oy. That's a true freshman and a position switch starter at a position where Yards After Mundy can rack up in a hurry. When I profiled Emilien I noted he was an early enroller, an honor-roll student, and had a serious flirtation with Ohio State (which unearths functional-to-excellent unhyped safeties on a frustratingly regular basis). All of these things point to a sunny future for Emilien and I think sooner or later he'll be a good safety for Michigan. But by "sooner or later" I mean "later".

Woolfolk, meanwhile, was running at corner as of a week ago. With his departure the current two deep there is:

1. Cissoko and Warren
2. JT Floyd and Floyd Simmons, redshirt freshman walk-on.

Argh. It's hard to see the position switch as anything other than a condemnation of the projected starters at safety. The chatter now has Smith moving to linebacker eventually due to a lack of speed. You can see a hint of that in this Rodriguez quote:

"He has not played, he's a redshirt freshman, but he's got a lot of ability," Rodriguez said. "He's still got to get in shape to be able to play on the back end, like our safeties have to do sometimes. You've got to be able to run a lot, a whole lot, and they're still adjusting to that. But I think he's going to be able to help us in a lot of spots this year."

With Brown a senior and Smith a little ponderous for safety we might see the latter move to this hybrid spot during the year if Emilien and Woolfolk work out.

About That Defense

I got a number of emails from people smarter than me about football in regards to this 4-3/3-4 distinction; happily, none of them call me an idiot. A coach who attended the clinic a few days ago:

The report that the defense would come to resemble a 3-4 seems a little off base.  After attending the Coaching Clinic and seeing the defense in action it is the same thing that you see at a lot of programs.  First it is considered a 4-3 but it is a multiple 40 defense where you are going to see numerous adjustments (the same as any college program).  They will slide into some 3-4 sets by dropping their Quick (strong side end speed rusher/lb hybrid)  This can be called for coverage or zone blitz scheme. 

The biggest improvement I believe you will see come in the form of tackling and angles.  Greg Robinson has already overhauled the pursuit angles and has really stressed proper body mechanics when tackling.  You could visibly notice the change in tackles and finish.  Jay Hopson also commented that “Greg has really made a huge improvement to how we tackle.  It’s night and day from last year.” 

This sounds much like what was mentioned in What Is It. Michigan is basically going with a 4-3 that has the flexibility to drop into a 3-4 when the situation warrants it or Robinson just wants to throw a curveball. To do this you need a chunky linebacker at the standup end spot, a guy who can hold up (or penetrate) against a tackle on a run to his side, rush the passer, and credibly drop into a short zone. Shawn Crable would be an excellent fit. So would prospective recruit Will Gholston. (HINT HINT, MR. GHOLSTON.)

The closest analogue to what Michigan appears to be installing is the defense of the Arizona Cardinals, who run a "4-3 under" most of the time with a weakside DE/LB they call the "predator," thereby soundly defeating Michigan's nomenclature. As hybrids go, it's hybrid-y:

…in the 4-3 “under” front, like the Cardinals use as their base defense, which looks similar to the 3-4 to the naked eye, the biggest difference is in the outside linebackers. The strong-side linebacker is still outside the tight end. But the other outside guy — the Cardinals call this player their “Predator” — is almost always rushing the passer, although the Cards will occasionally drop him into coverage to mix things up. Other differences: The nose tackle shades to the A-gap (in between the center and guard) on the tight end side, and the end on that side moves between the tackle and tight end.

Davis explained that the 3-4 defense creates the most confusion for the offense in terms of which outside linebacker is doing what, and the standard 4-3 offers the least unpredictability. The Cardinals’ 4-3 “under” scheme is somewhere in between the two in terms of causing the offense to guess who is rushing and who is dropping.

There is one uncovered linebacker—eg, "man who must take on unblocked guard"—in the 4-3 under, which is different from the 4-3 (none) and the 3-4 (two). That's the MLB, meaning Obi Ezeh. Onus, meet third year starter who's been fairly disappointing so far. You'll be good friends all year.

Also, here's Tyler Sellhorn, who's sent in an email or two before and contributed to Doctor Saturday, on what the whole "rush end/linebacker" thing was:

FYI:

The Hermann era defense was better known in its day as a 5-2.  3 DTs and 2 DEs; however, the strongside and weakside specialized by personnel, tactics, or alignment.  The weakside DE was called the "drop end" an excellent deployment of a SS type player (Stevie Brown).  The strongside DE was called the "rush end", think Lawrence Taylor/Derrick Thomas.  Calling it a 3-4 is "sexier" because safeties and speedy big guys would be prefer to be called linebackers than defensive ends.  As an offensive line coach and former lineman, I hated playing "odd" fronts (with a nose guard).  The angles for your usual blocks change significantly and when the defense chooses it is easier to bring up support from the outside and from the safeties.  3-4 is more flexible in the secondary as well because linebackers can be put in coverage much easier.

IMO, I think the (very) early returns are good for GERG.

God Bless,

Tyler Sellhorn

So there you go.

A Brief Summary Of My State Of Mind

Look: we're not going to be good. There is a true freshman quarterback who, while as ready as he can be, is still not ready at all. The line is probably going to be okay, but not dominant. They're installing a new defensive package and holy God is the secondary thin. They'll get some reinforcements in the fall but it's like quarterback: when you've got six highly-rated options for two spots whoever wins that job is likely to be good. When you've got two, you're hoping that both pan out, stay healthy, and stay out of trouble.

Position switch starters—one of MGoBlog's primary "uh oh" heuristics—seem likely at safety (Woolfolk), DE/spinner (Herron), LB/SS (Brown), and LG (Schilling). None of those are huge deals in and of themselves as they don't involve flipping sides of the ball, like Ferrara did last year, and generally see players moving into spots where they are faster than the opposition or just plain better suited; together that's a lot of flux. Digging out of this hole is going to be a multi-year project, and I don't mean we'll only make the Alamo this year. Notre Dame went from 3-9 to 7-6 and though they had a bigger hole to dig out of they weren't starting over at quarterback. A similar improvement seems realistic.