Western Michigan

2/18/2011 – Michigan 6, Western Michigan 3 – 20-9-4, 17-7-1 CCHA
2/21/2011 – Michigan 5, Western Michigan 4 (OT) – 21-9-4, 18-7-1 CCHA

Sometimes being at a hockey game is an exercise in wishing you were watching the thing on TV where the camera angle is consistent and the replays are repeated ad nauseum. This is especially true at Yost, where events just happen and evaporate without the benefit of video replay.

An example: at the end of the first period the puck was behind the net and suddenly the ref was feverishly pointing at the puck in the net without the thing seemingly ever reaching a spot where that was physically possible. The ref went to check it out. A few moments later the part of Yost directly behind the penalty boxes stood up and craned their collective neck to see the review as I plotted to relocate there next year, and a few moments after that he waved the thing off.

Last year I would have had to trudge through the deep, useless recesses of the USCHO board to find out what happened. Five years ago a Saturday game against Western probably wasn't televised at all and no one would really ever know. Since it's 2011 I just pulled out my phone, tweeted at the Daily's hockey beat writer*, and found out within ten minutes that the puck had indeed gone into the net from behind the goal.

I didn't see it, though, and that's kind of the point of being a spectator.

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Sometimes hockey collapses itself into a universe just for you. You have to be sitting along the sideline between the blue lines for this to happen. If you are, at certain points you can draw a perfectly straight line from you to the guy shooting the puck to the goal.

An example: when Michigan came back against Denver in the NCAA tournament I sat right behind the Michigan bench and watched Eric Werner plunge into the slot to flick a puck over Wade Dubielewicz** to tie the game. I saw it the whole way and my mind blew up.

I shelled out for old fogey seats this year so when Lee Moffie entered the zone I saw Hagelin behind him and thought Moffie should drop it, and he did, and there were two seconds left so there's only one thing for Hagelin to do, and as he let the shot go and I drew a straight line from me to him to the net as the puck slid past the defenseman clean and rose. I could see where it was heading, see the goalie throw his glove at it but not get there in time, see the puck ricochet the right way as the great clank filled the building. It was one of those moments where the angel comes down from heaven and says "you there—God has selected you to have the deep-seated, socially awkward fandom of the concealed lunatic." It was pure.

And while I've been craving video boards at Yost for years there's something beautiful about not having the thing you just experienced altered by someone else's perspective. Since the Werner goal isn't on youtube no one can tell me he wasn't wielding a scimitar, wearing an eyepatch, and screaming "hhhhhyarrrrr" as he swashbuckled towards the net. I'm pretty sure the unicorn he was riding was named Steve.

Those days are over—see the youtube clip above—but thanks to Carl Hagelin Yost got one last opportunity to walk out of the building buzzing about the thing that just happened in your head, and only your head.

*[Michael Florek was beaten to the punch by the Hoover Street Rag.]

**[Google's spellchecking was heroic here: I typed "wade dublevicz."]

Pairwise

mfan_in_ohio has again broken down the pairwise so I'll just point you to his analysis. Michigan flew up to sixth after the sweep, but it is a tenuous, tenuous sixth. Here's why:

That's Ohio State barely nosing above .500 in RPI after taking a win and a tie from LSSU. Michigan's 3-1 record against the Buckeyes thus counts in the TUC category. This tiny difference in the season of a single opponent swings comparisons against Boston College and UNO. If OSU had split over the weekend Michigan would be eighth and we'd be wondering what a man has to do to get some respect around here.

As it is, OSU's nose getting over the line combined with a couple of wins over a WMU team that did well in its nonconference schedule gets you halfway to a one seed in one weekend. That and a lot of help elsewhere—Dartmouth, RPI, UMD, UNO, and Denver all lost over the weekend. Denver lost to Michigan Tech(!), which is huge because that's a common opponent and a terrible team.

While this is almost Michigan's ceiling, the stumbles of Denver and UMD have opened the door to the last one seed. Michigan easily beats Denver in COP now and is within striking distance in both TUC and RPI—outperforming them by a game down the stretch will do it. UMD, meanwhile, is close enough in RPI to drop if they lose and the six remaining regular season games between the two teams are all common opponents—NMU for Michigan, CC and UNO for UMD. If they take those two comparisons and Ohio State and Ferris can walk the tripwire so that both of them finish the season under consideration, they can slide up to fourth. This will take some luck but if Michigan sweeps Northern and wins the CCHA playoffs I think they'll be 50-50 for the one-seed.

Rooting guide:

• OSU plays Ferris this weekend and can remain in the TUC zone by splitting. However, sweeping will actually put Ferris about where OSU is now, leaving them vulnerable to dropping out in the CCHA playoffs. You probably want a split here but root for OSU on Friday because they're more vulnerable. You want both of these teams to do well in the playoffs.
• You hate Denver and Minnesota-Duluth with the burning fiery passion of a thousand suns.
• Also Boston College and UNO.

Everything else is up to Michigan.

CCHA Race

It's Michigan and Notre Dame with ND maintaining a one-point lead. They have a home-and-home with this Western team; Michigan goes to Northern. Agonizingly, neither game in Marquette is televised. Michigan will win the tiebreaker if the teams end up even in points.

Non-bullets of !!!

Kind of mad, kind of awesome. Shawn Hunwick was not so good this weekend. On Friday it didn't result in much damage because the team had already gotten the other guy's goalie pulled but on Saturday he was off on both of the breakaways. They were breakaways so it's hard to be too mad but he gave up a weak five hole goal on the first and was way too deep in his net on the other. On the other hand, this is what he tweeted immediately afterwards:

Thank you Carl Hagelin for saving my ass. Great senior class. We had a phenomenal four years.

It wasn't that bad. We still love you and the fact that on shots from the point you end up halfway to the blue line.

Also, Hunwick made three clutch, clutch stops in the third period Saturday.

Need moar Swede. There needs to be another Swedish guy on the team ASAP. We've got the flag, we're very enthusiastic about the word "Bork"—let's make this happen.

Marissa McClain/Daily

Muppets. I totally should have muppetsed. Sorry. I had some people over afterwards and it slipped my mind.

With an assist to Lee Moffie. Moffie's fought for playing time most of the year despite having quite a knack for scoring because he's not that great defensively. Late in the third period as Michigan was trying to tie, however, he was ridiculously good. He's at his best when it's desperate and he can pinch and use his skill and wheel around the zone.

Other defensemen. It was a weekend full of defenseman thoughts:

• Greg Pateryn had a goal and three first assists on Friday. He essentially beat WMU by himself. As a bonus he would have had a fourth assist if you could assist on your own goals—he made an excellent play to control the puck and make a cross-ice pass in to the zone to set up the scoring chance. He still gets too aggressive at the blue line.
• Jon Merrill was really really good Friday—my friend just kept saying "he's really really good"—and then had probably his worst game as a Wolverine Saturday. It wasn't just the breakaway; he probably had more turnovers Saturday than in any two games he'd played this year.
• Mac Bennett is now leading the rush like 25% of the time there is one when he's on the ice.

What does he have to do? Lindsay Sparks was fast out there and looked as dangerous as he usually does. He hasn't put up much in the way of points but I'm continually surprised he can't get in the lineup regularly.

Exploding Lynch. Two on Friday, then two very fancy moves to get to his forehand Saturday. After the first I thought "that's the most dangerous thing he's done as a Wolverine" even though the shot was stopped; he did the same thing a period later and scored. Let's throw everyone down on the fourth line.

BONUS. Googling for Denver goals did turn this one up:

I'm hoping Hagelin channels Ortmeyer in his final games at Michigan.

Elsewhere

Yost Built with a weekend recap. The flag is apparently headed out with Hagelin:

As the crowd honored the seniors after the game, the Swedish flag that has flown at Yost for three seasons was tossed over the glass to Hagelin. The students had passed it around throughout the game, autographing it and writing thank yous and words of encouragement to our Super Swede.

I wondered what all the stuff on it was. Also: this is a bonus from having Senior Night on a weekend where the students aren't on break.

Michigan Hockey Net has press conference recaps from Friday and Saturday. Berenson:

On what Berenson said to Carl when he gave him a hug after the game… Well, I just told him “Aren’t you glad you came to Michigan?  And aren’t we glad that you came?”  And good for him.  He set a standard here. He’s been a terrific kid, student, player, teammate—you know, just a terrific kid.  It’s the first Swedish player we’ve had and we’ll always remember him.

AnnArbor.com has a slideshow. Daily slideshow. Florek's column. Photos from Michigan Exposures. Full highlight package.

2013 commit JT Compher will join the NTDP, which should lock him up for college—it also suggests he's a high-end guy.

Yost Built provides ten things.

The Michigan Men's Lacrosse team took on a pair of in-state (and in-conference) opponents this weekend, squaring off against Western Michigan Friday night, and Central Michigan on Saturday. As is often the case against weaker opposition, the Wolverines took no prisoners, pounding both teams. I was only able to make it to Friday's game, the that report will be in a little more detail.

Western Michigan

In front of a packed house at Oosterbaan Fieldhouse, the Wolverines struggled to start the game. Though they finished the first quarter with a 7-3 lead, expectations are a bit higher against lower-tier CCLA squads. Michigan responded with a strong second quarter, outscoring the Broncos 11-1, while taking 11 shots to the Broncos' 3, winning 10 of 12 faceoffs, and holding Western to 3/7 on clears.

Freshman goalie Conor McGee took over for Mark Stone after the break, but the second half was no different, as Michigan continued to dominate, putting up 11 goals, while holding Western Michigan to just one - the first score of the half. The half was not as high-scoring as the first two quarters, as Michigan was content to keep the Broncos from scoring, and dominate possession of the ball - as well as try a number of behind-the-back passes and shots.

As should be the case with such a dominant performance, there were a number of statistical firsts and season-highs. Freshmen Sean Sutton and Joe Hrusovsky each recorded their first career goals in Michigan uniforms, while their classmate Thomas Paras collected career-highs in points (11) and goals (6). Senior attack Josh Ein set a career high in points with eight, as did midfielder Jamie Goldeberg, with with five.

Also the Wolverines did the old man-up-hidden-ball trick to score. Twice.

Official Site Recap.

Central Michigan

On Saturday night, the Wolverines made for their slow Friday opening frame by blitzing Central Michigan with seven goals in the first seven minutes, fueling a 19-1 blowout over the Chippewas. Junior goaltender Andrew Fowler got the start in net (more on the goalies later), yielding to McGee for the fourth quarter.

Trevor Yealy (pictured at right) notched one assist to go along with seven goals, giving him an even 200 scores for his career after the weekend. Joey Hrusovsky scored for the second consecutive game, and his big bro Anthony tied his career high with three assists.

The Wolverines dominated statistically, winning 22 of 24 faceoffs (including a perfect 8-for-8 by Edward Ernst), taking more than four times as many shots as Central, collecting a 62 to 29 advantage in Ground Balls, and riding the Chips to a dismal 8-20 success rate on clears.

Official Site Recap.

Weekend Thoughts

It's always nice to see the team dominate a pair of lesser opponents, not only because that's what a squad of this caliber should do, but also because it gives young guys a chance to step up and show their stuff. With Michael Bartomioli and Clark McIntyre out injured, some youngsters were going to get a chance to prove themselves either way, but improving the depth by giving bench players some experience is always a positive.

While talking about young guys, I'd better point out that Thomas Paras looks like he's going to be a special player. just a freshman, he is a huge threat to score at any time, and he's significantly more likely than other attackmen to rack up big assist numbers as well. When Michigan returns to full strength, the number of offensive options will be astounding.

As for the goalies, I'm still a little confused as to what to rotation is. Andrew Fowler seemed like the better goaltender last year until he suffered a foot injury midway through the season (though he would come back healthy by the end of the year). That confidence was shared by the coaches, as he went wire-to-wire in the National Championship game, despite a poor first half. This year, Mark Stone is the clear #1, and I'm not sure if it's because Fowler regressed, Stone improved, or some combination of the two.

Up Next

Next weekend, the Wolverines hit the road (as they've been doing a ton this year, with only four home games out of a 13-game schedule) to take on Colorado and Colorado State. Colorado is pretty bad this year, but a win over the Wolverines could spark a run to salvage their season. With #2 Chapman falling to Oregon, Colorado State will likely be the #2 team in the country going into this weekend, for a huge #1 v. #2 matchup in Fort Collins.

I'll preview both teams in more depth in a diary later this week.

Offensive UFRs come with a bit more lingo you have to understand. So, on passing plays you'll see (CA, 3, protection 1/1) or something similar. The first item is how I classified the throw. This goes in the Hennechart, which I guess is now the Tatelace chart or something. The second item is what I rated the ball for the wide receiver. 3 is routine, 2 difficult but catchable, 1 a circus catch if made, and 0 is totally uncatchable. The last number is a protection rating assigned to the offensive line. Depending on how long the QB stuck in the pocket and how many rushers there are, the OL can get from 1-3 points. When the opponent gets pressure the OL will lose points and I'll assign the negatives to either a single player (if he was beaten) or the team (if there's a missed blitz pickup that's not easily localizable). I do hand out +/- but don't aggregate them because they don't mean much on offense. For the last couple years Genuinely Sarcastic has been putting together RunFRs that focus just on the ground game and do provide systematic evaluations for the OL and backs; hopefully that will continue.

UPDATE: It was already posted by the time I got it up. You win this time, GS.

A note on Western's defensive alignments: their smallish slot-covering OLB/S guy may technically be a linebacker, which would make all the "nickel" packages below 4-3s but he was real small and the distinction doesn't matter much.

 I think I remember this, but what is it called?

Football.

Ah yes. I suppose there are charts?

Charts.

Quarterbacks of all descriptions (Hennechart again; MA is "marginal"):

TATE FORCIER

DENARD ROBINSON

NICK SHERIDAN

Robinson and Sheridan obviously didn't do much throwing. I have Forcier down for five screens, all catchable, which leaves his downfield success rate (DO + CA / DO + CA + IN + BR + TA + PR) at 58%. That's not Chad Henne at his apex but it's far, far better than the average performance last year and also far better than Ryan Mallett's debut.

And as far as Forcier equaling accuracy go: two incompletions were throwaways, two were drops, and one was pressure-induced. The only throws on which Forcier was inaccurate were

• a long bomb to Webb after rolling out of the pocket that probably would have been complete if it wasn't thrown to a TE,
• an out to Kelvin Grady that was wide, and
• the Koger circus catch.

That is stupid. Forcier has a bunch of issues with reading defenses and having patience and dealing with scrape exchanges and etc etc etc but hot holy damn, man. Everything we were led to believe about Forcier's accuracy is true after one game.

Also note that all five screens were filed CA, and none were remotely close to anything else. That's a huge leap from last year, when Threet actually threw one backwards in the Notre Dame game and was hugely erratic much of the rest of the year. It's sad that we're talking about screens as a huge leap forward, but it's sad about the past so ooookay.

Receivers:

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

Only one straight drop, that from Kelvin Grady on his first catch opportunity in three years, and then there was, of course, Koger's circus catch. Items that jump out to me: look at the distribution. 11 players were targeted in one game. And look at the large reduction in 0s and 1s. Last year there were 28 opportunities to make a circus catch; Michigan is on pace for 12 this year.

and PROTECTION CHART: 22/25, Moosman –2, Ortmann –1.

Michigan spent the game in a lot of rollouts, holding these numbers down. Good performance overall.

What about that Odoms call?

I'm pretty sure it was wrong. There's even a call-out in the rule book for that specific situation:

A30, lined up legally as a back, starts in motion legally. He then turns
so that he still is legally in motion but is facing his line of scrimmage
using a “side-step” motion. At the snap, A30 is bent slightly forward
at the waist and is either continuing his “side-step” motion or is
“marking time” in place. RULING: Legal.

Odoms had definitely not taken more than a step or two and was not moving towards the line of scrimmage; at that point he hadn't even turned his shoulders upfield. I think the ref was anticipating forward movement instead of seeing it.

Anything particularly worrying?

Michigan's zone stretch game kind of stank, didn't it? Michigan picked up numerous holding calls, never broke a long run (in the framework of the offense), and had more success on quarterback runs or straight ace or I-form pounding. From under center Michigan ran 13 times for 62 yards before charting ceased, which is 4.8 YPC. Tailbacks from the shotgun had 13 carries for… uh… 61 yards. Wait. Nevermind.

Okay, you should still give an advantage to under center because five of those carries came at the end of the game when Michigan was just pounding the clock out and three others were short-yardage situations. Also, Moundros missed most of the game and when he returns you figure he's best at isos and whatnot.

In any case, 4.8 YPC against a MAC opponent isn't stellar.

Is there anything in what WMU did that future opponents can emulate?

I think they do so at their peril. As discussed in an earlier mailbag, WMU was shooting the DE down the line and having a scraper deal with the quarterback. This guy was the WLB or a corner, and the scrape opened up a lot of those holes on the outside that Michigan exploited with the zone-keep-to-screen series; it would have been worse if Michigan was used to the read, because there were three or four times that Michigan didn't chuck it to the WR where he was wide open. When Minor returns, Michigan loves that quick backside veer play, possibly with a pulling h-back or Moundros—that hits so quickly the DE can't do anything about it except watch the tailback shoot into the hole the scraper is vacating. Michigan clearly spent a chunk of the offseason devising counters to the scrape, all of which they put away once the score got out of hand.

Heroes?

Pick a quarterback, and Junior Hemingway was the first amongst equals at wide receiver.

Goats?

David Molk picked up two deserved holding flags and had numerous instances where Western's small, nimble defensive line hopped past him to disrupt plays. The rest of the OL also gets some mild disapproval.

What does it mean for Notre Dame?

The thing that leapt out during the Nevada game was a play on which two Nevada OLs double-teamed Ethan Johnson and deposited him somewhere around the first-down marker. Johnson's a DT who looks like a tight end, a hyped recruit who appears to be playing badly out of position. Unfortunately, this could be an advantage against Michigan since agile guys who can get down the line can fare better than your conventional pocket-crushing DT sorts. Meanwhile, NT Ian Williams is thoroughly mediocre, blown out time and again by Nevada and a primary reason Michigan was finding acres of space during last year's monsoon. He's not real mobile.

If both of those guys had the same flaws it would be easy. Finding a recipe that works against those two… well, it's probably ram it down their throat a lot. Nevada had good success doing that with their slow WAC backs throughout the game. Putting Johnson on skates and having faith that the backside can contain Williams with a candy bar seems advisable, and Michigan should have an opportunity to break several big gainers what with TAH-NOO-TAA going blitz mad in game one. Last time a TAH-NOO-TAA defense ran up against the spread 'n' shred things worked out all right:

(This video comes with a HORRIBLE MUSIC WARNING.) West Virginia put up 440 yards of offense and 38 points in a three-point win against a team that gave up 17 PPG to all other opponents. So… yeah, there will be the potential for explosive plays.

As far as the passing game goes, well… with all the blitzing Michigan will deploy a bunch of screens of all varieties; I'm looking for that bubble counter that Kelvin Grady dropped to make a potentially lethal return. Michigan will roll the pocket a ton, reducing the effectiveness of some blitzes and requiring Forcier to throw before his head gets taken off on others.

What in the hell is this? It's "Upon Further Review," MGoBlog's comprehensive, numbers-heavy breakdown of Michigan's previous game. It takes until Wednesday/Thursday because it's a lot of work.

A note on video: changes to the torrent format killed the thing I'd been using to cut clips out, unfortunately, and I haven't found a solution yet. I'm really trying to get this squared away and will add them to the post as soon as possible. For now, no video.

UPDATE! Video good to go thanks to askarpo.

A note before we start: attempted to assimilate the offseason knowledge I picked up about over, under, and 30 fronts and actually pick out which shift Michigan was in before every play. This did not go well, so take the below with something of a grain of salt. I do think I got the "Base 4-3" right but I was marking 30 fronts—two gap fronts akin to an NFL 3-4—4-3 under fronts most of the game. And I'm still a little hazy. This, I believe, is the 4-3 under we've talked about all offseason:

Roh is a stand-up guy outside the weakside tackle. RVB is in a 3 technique over the weakside guard. Martin is the NT, shaded slightly to the strongside of the center (a 1-tech). And Graham is in a 7 outside the strongside tackle. The linebackers have shifted to the strongside.

This is basically the same thing with Roh's hand in the dirt against an I-form tight formation; Michigan brings Mike Williams up for an eight-man front on short yardage:

And this is the under again against a balanced formation; you can see that Graham has taken a considerably more outside stance and the guard is "bubbled" over Ezeh, which means he can just run out and block him:

As for platooning: there was none. Michigan spent the entire game in a 4-3 if you count Roh a DE and Brown a safety. If you want to call it a 3.5-3-4.5 I wouldn't look at you funny. At least, not too funny. They did rotate in backups on the defensive line after the first few drives.

GERG!

Wait just a second, there's another caller on the line.

What do you make of the performance of the Michigan defense against Hiller and WMU?  My initial observation was that they just shut down a future NFL quarterback and that's a great sign for the rest of the year.  Upon further contemplation I got to wondering how much of a factor Hiller's health was.  He had off season knee surgery and when other players have ligament operations we tend to hear it takes them a full year to be completely confident in it again.  Is this the same for quarterbacks and if so, was this a contributing factor in Hiller's poor performance? 

Thanks,
Andy Heck

Hiller was not as advertised. He yakety-saxed a couple balls, airmailed a few others, and was considerably less accurate than Forcier. But the Michigan defense had something to do with that. They got a considerable amount of pressure for such a dink-and-dunk offense and usually covered Hiller's first read unless they were intentionally playing soft. And they tackled much better. It's a lot easier to see this in a—

Chart?

Chart.

So there you go: big plus days in both the metrics, and if I'd remembered I wanted to add "tackling" this year I can tell you that tackling would have been hugely positive as well. When you're looking at the numbers, keep in mind that a large section of the minuses are directly attributable to JT Floyd, which says a lot about Michigan's corner depth but not much about the starting eleven, and that Michigan got pretty soft late.

What about Brown at his new position?

As Greg—

GERG.

As GERG said, possibly apocryphally, he's "a hell of a lot better player there." Stripped of the requirement to find cosines and the like, Brown was free to be a super-athletic linebacker who's good in man and good at short zone drops without being a touchdown magnet. He's a modern OLB. We've yet to see if he can hold up against big pounders but with Notre Dame missing its starting fullback and starting a wisp of a pass-receiving TE, that potential weakness won't get tested just yet.

Speaking of, initial GERG review?

His defense makes a lot more sense than Shafer's even if it's almost the same formation. Michigan never got away from its base set but that's a lot less infuriating when the guy you're running out on third and long is Brown, not Johnny Thompson, and you've got the flexibility provided by a deathbacker. Michigan never, ever went to a three-man line except on obvious passing downs, never found themselves on the wrong end of a hugely speculative playcall, and rarely found themselves uncertain of what to do before the snap. GERG simplified the defense, made it flexible enough to function against spread teams without getting out of base, and put his players in positions to do what they do well.

Thumbs up after game one; game two will be a much stiffer test.

So Warren's day was… interesting. Argh Michael Floyd?

Short of being totally awesome in all ways I thought Warren's day was as encouraging as it could be given the three penalties and a couple plays that came at his expense. His game looked like that montage in a superhero movie where the hero performs a slapstick routine of smashing cars, punching through walls, and burning innocent pedestrians to death before he gets a handle on his newfound powers. Warren was hyper-aggressive in his first game free from bone chip soup in his ankle; the results were mixed-to-encouraging.

Plays marked "Warren" above:

• Busts up long route with bump; has better position than the receiver.
• Good position on a third and four slant that was fired too high and hard.
• Thumps ball loose on a hitch. (Or, at least, helps a receiver who was already dropping the ball finish dropping the ball.)
• Leaves two hitches open on Michigan's soft pre-half drive.
• Immediate tackle on hitch.
• Running a guy's route for him and going to be in position to intercept when receiver trips him (not in a penalty sort of way).
• Running almost inside a guy's jersey and gets called for interference, which I think is a crappy call.
• Gets deserved PI on a slant he was too aggressive on.

So… yeah, Warren had a couple incidents where Michigan gave up yards but the bulk of his day was running Juan Nunez's routes for him. Sometimes this got flagged and once he got tripped. But I'll take that sort of aggressive clamp-down coverage any day when the opponent is Michael Floyd. If Warren ends up a yard in front of Floyd the three to thirty times Notre Dame attempts to hit him deep, Michigan's going to be in good shape.

What happens when Notre Dame goes to three-wide?

Nothing. Michigan spent the entire day its base set and has no corner depth. They do have guys on the edge who can cover Robby "That's Racist" Parris or whoever; it's not like Notre Dame's backup WRs are speed demons.

Heroes?

Graham is the most obvious answer, and everyone shared in an all-around excellent performance before the D got backup- and vanilla-happy late.

Goats?

JT Floyd looked overmatched by a MAC team, which bodes very unwell for Michigan's corner depth. Jonas Mouton didn't have a strong game, though as mentioned it's tough to tell how good his zone drops were and the way the game went suggests they went pretty well.

What does it mean for Notre Dame?

I've sort of gone from thinking this is a bad matchup for Michigan to thinking it's an okay one or even good. Stick Warren on Floyd and Cissoko on Tate, give them deep halves help, spare the blitzing and let Michigan's diverse and sundry rushers attack the Notre Dame defensive line… I can see this working out. The prospect of a max-protect bomb still worries given what happened against Western, but if Warren's as ready to live up to the five-star hype—and he looked far more likely to in the Western game than any other to date—and Michigan can get away with shifting the coverage over to Tate and pulling up a safety into a robber zone to bracket Rudolph, I like Michigan's chances to hold Notre Dame into that 20-24 point range where victory seems a strong possibility. Notre Dame's run game has always been a finesse sort of thing heavy on screens and draws, which plays into the hypothetical strengths of Michigan's slimfast defense

I watched the Nevada game and a lot of ND's first half production was based on exploiting Nevada's "explosive pass rushers" at defensive end, which rushers also happened to be completely irresponsible. Graham isn't likely to be as exploitable, but Roh or Herron might be. I'd line up Graham on the strongside, which might induce ND to have Rudolph stay in to block, as they're going to double him lots anyway.

The key will be the safeties. Woolfolk is going to have to think deep first and not get caught flat-footed like he did on the Western touchdown; if Michigan loses to Notre Dame because of ND's ground game, well… that will be a surprise.

9/5/2009 – Michigan 31, Western Michigan 7 – 1-0

Melanie Maxwell, AnnArbor.com

Towards the end of the third quarter, a guy in the row behind me started grumbling about Michigan's offense being boringly ground-based. By the fourth, cramped quarters had given way to roominess. After it was over, I was disappointed that Michigan's first-half outburst gave way to a near-scoreless second half and thought Michigan should have given the kids a little more rope via which to test their skills.

In short, it was a typical game against a MAC opponent. At least it was for a given, thoroughly inaccurate definition of "typical." Michigan's seldom had an easy time of it against anyone since the Carr era started flagging. MAC or MAC-ish opponents since 2004:

Over last five years, Michigan has been just as likely to be in an actual game (6) with a supposed tomato can as the expected blowout (6). (I am counting the '07 EMU game as an actual one, as it was 16-14 halfway through the third; the others need no justification.) Hell, even in 2006—when Michigan was a Crable helmet hit away from driving to the national championship game—Ball State had first and goal with an opportunity to tie late in the fourth quarter. In no way is a 31-0 halftime lead typical in the recent history of Michigan football except against Notre Dame.

It was just a MAC team, but think of how good those words sound rolling off your lips. Just a MAC team. Couldn't be expected to cope with our freakishly accurate quarterback or our freakishly speedy quarterback or the zippy skill position players who seemed bountiful and endless. Couldn't be expected to cope with Brandon Graham or Craig Roh or Mike Martin. No chance. Just a MAC team with a quarterback who might go in the first-round of the NFL draft and four-fifths of its offensive line back. No chance.

Yes, okay, there remain plenty of concerns. There were folks that the MAC team could cope with. These were the backup quarterback—and think about how good it sounds to have the identity of that person be utterly uncontroversial, no offense to said backup—and any cornerback not named Cissoko or Warren. Oh and any defensive end not named Graham or Roh. Or… well, you get the idea. The defense is paper-thin and can fall off a cliff with a single injury. So can the quarterback position until such time as Denard Robinson develops into something a more than a beautiful freakshow.

But today there is a thread about Michigan on every opponent message board across the internet where some guy says "looks like all that extra practice paid off lol."

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Last year, the Utah game was an opportunity to radically reassess Michigan's immediate future. It was far uglier than the final score, and I remember going on WCBN—which BTW I will be on at around 5 today—and telling the assembled folk there that the Notre Dame game would be "critical for bowl eligibility," whereupon we mused ruefully about how far Michigan had fallen in such a short period of time without anyone coming close to realizing how optimistic we still were.

The one piece of good fortune coming from that game was the handy metaphor:

Every rational thought in your head suggests that the whole walk-on or freshman-the-coaches-are-panicked-about at quarterback, the line of baling wire and the occasional confused chicken, and freshmen everywhere at the skill positions will combine to yield an offense worthy of Yakety Sax, but until you actual see the damn thing in action you can hold out hope it will be otherwise.

We have seen it in action. It could have gone better. At least we have an incredibly direct metaphor all around us:

This program is under construction with a completion date around 2010. 

This program is still under construction, and the completion date is still 2010. But those shabby exposed girders are now sheathed in brick and lightning, shiny in the afternoon sun. As the season goes on we'll undoubtedly see the unfinished parts within brought to the surface. There's no insulation, and if you peer into the windows you can still see the girders that were plain to all last year.

For now, for right now, it's reassuring to look up and see a modern version of Yost on the way. Through controversy and people with ill-considered protests Michigan comes, echoing the past with a back-to-the-future offense and West Virginians in charge and beautiful brick arcs and, Angry Michigan BLANK-Hating God willing, a point per minute.

BULLETS

• Man, JT Floyd looked like he'd have no chance of ever being a legit Big Ten corner on that bomb. I watched him go from two steps ahead to two steps behind the Western WR and immediately shivered at the safety depth. Maybe I'm leaping to too many conclusions from one play, but I see a safety move in his future.
• Also, and you are going to hear this thought a half-dozen times in this space over the next week, but: man, that Western touchdown was a bummer for a lot of reasons but none more foreboding than its extreme resemblance to the one-man-route Golden Tate touchdown from last year's Notre Dame game. Cissoko's health and Michigan's ability to ignore the Notre Dame ground game will be key.
• Brandon Graham must be livid he doesn't have a sack. Or three.
• How dumb does last year's "Rodriguez refuses to adjust his offense" meme look now? Michigan used a thousand different formations, including intermittent deployments of the I-form and a heavy dose of 2 TE ace sets. He's been presented with solutions and has gone in search of the problem.
• You know, if Michigan compliance is right and they can release a detailed report about offseason activities that results in zero and Michigan does pull out of its steep dive, it's possible the Free Press will be directly responsible for dissolving the gap between Michigan fans and Rich Rodriguez, which would have to go in the Alanis Morrissette Ironic Hall Of Fame. (Note on the linked article: claims that students chanted "keep united" after the game, which would have been awesome if it was true. It wasn't, though: it was "beat the Irish.")
• No, none of the things in that song are ironic, which makes the fact that the hall of fame is named after her ironic. Obvs.
• I think everyone needs to go back into that thread posted by that guy who said Craig Roh would start and posbang him like whoah. Also, I was backing two recruits out of proportion to all reason this year: Roh and Vincent Smith. Remember this when the predictions I make in the future are all hilariously off base.
• Wait just one more before we return to your regularly-scheduled wrongness: I'm telling you about Drew Tate, man. That first touchdown, where Forcier moxied his way away from a defender and then signaled Hemingway to go deep, was vintage Tate. Hopefully it will be vintage Tate again.
• Similarly, Sheridan's interception was a perfect demonstration of the difference between the two QBs. With the safety pulled up, Sheridan actually had plenty of room to hit Mathews in the back of the endzone if he floated it a bit; instead he attempted to rifle it and the ball was undercut.
• I twittered this but if you weren't around: I saw someone carrying around a sign that said "In Rich And Staff We Trust." This is banner fail.

ELSEWHERE

This this was interesting from Touch the Banner:

In the second half, WMU quarterback Tim Hiller started getting rid of the ball quicker. He found a rhythm and started hitting underneath passes to his receivers. Greg Robinson might be served well by disguising coverages on the outside, changing the look from cover 2 man to a cover 2 zone. Suddenly, instead of driving the cornerback off with his initial burst, that cornerback is sitting underneath the quick hitch to the outside. A couple well orchestrated disguised coverages might be just enough to make Hiller think twice, which would give Brandon Graham, Mike Martin, and the rest of the defensive line enough time to get to the quarterback.

Michigan's defense in the opener seemed very simple. There was little rotation down-to-down. Michigan went the whole way in the same 3-4/4-3/4-2-5 hybrid thingy, occasionally rotating in a backup on the defensive line (this was done per series, so the series Graham was out he was just out except for a couple of third downs, IIRC) and yanking Cissoko for Floyd once things got out of hand. Everyone else played almost every snap. So it seemed like Michigan wanted to get their guys doing a limited number of things well; I assume they'll expand on that as the season goes on.

Also, by the time Hiller got going the game was out of hand and I can understand the impulse to shelve the exotics with Notre Dame coming in next week.

Meanwhile, MVictors got a field pass and put out a bunch of killer content. There is also a thorough breakdown of Zoltan biffing the banner run.

The Diag asks if Kelvin Grady has stolen Odoms' job, which probably not but he seems a viable option. I was surprised Roundtree was invisible—only came in with the Conescrubs at the end—after his spring game; even Laterryal Savoy and James Rogers got more run.