will campbell

file

Opening remarks:

“Well are we on game 18 or what? It seems like, hoo boy. Every week. This next one is as big as any of them or bigger because one, you’re in the title hunt. You’re still playing for a championship. And two, these seniors deserve to play a great game, deserve to have things be like they should be when you’re a senior at Michigan and you play your last game there.”

What do you take from surviving Northwestern?

“Well the thing that we saw in that game -- people wouldn’t have seen it -- that defense played unbelievably hard. There’s a play in the fourth quarter when there are 11 helmets truly hitting the ball on our sideline, and ironically the next play Craig Roh got a sack and it held them to a field goal rather than a touchdown. And you never know when that’s going to happen. I’m not a stat guy. Never have been. The only stat that matters to me is whether we win or lose. I don’t like it when teams run the football, but the thing that you also saw on that tape, one, that quarterback is a tremendous football player and a tremendous athlete. I think there were four or five legitimate sacks that we had them -- any other quarterback you probably would have had a sack -- that he changed from being a third or a second and long to a first down.

"And that’s where the perception is that you’ve got to get off the field. We’re not talented enough, and there aren’t many [teams] that are good enough, to be able to say, ‘We could have gotten off here, but we’re going to let you play three more plays.’ That happened too many times where you had just what you wanted and he made a play. And I won’t say that our guys didn’t, even though they could have, that young man Colter is -- he’s got my respect, I’ll tell you that. That guy is a football player. And their running back was a very good football player also. The greatest thing is that there are some mistakes again that we have to have corrected on some blitzes and things like that, but they played hard and they stuck together and gave us an opportunity, and our offense did a great job at the very end there and we came out with the win, and that’s all that matters.”

Iowa: not very good. BHGP on the Hawkeye depth chart at guard and RB:

IOWA FOOTBALL TAKES ON MICHIGAN SATURDAY (/GROAN).Here's the two-deeps. Conor Boffeli is your left guard this week. Jordan Walsh, Austin Blythe, Nolan MacMillan and Boffeli have all had a turn playing turnstile there since Brandon Scherff and Andrew Donnal left the Penn State game due to injury. Neither Mark Weisman nor Brad Rogers are listed at running back or fullback.

Last week, Damon Bullock got to play an Iowan version of Poor Damn Toussaint, rushing for 1.9 yards a carry against Purdue, the #85 rushing D in the country. Iowa is not good. FWIW, the game was off the board yesterday but has now been set at Michigan –20. Iowa is not good.

YAHHHHHHHHHH / Bryan Fuller

Basketball: possibly very good. I took in my first non-tiny-stream version of Michigan basketball last night*, and this happened:

"I probably should've dunked it," the Michigan freshman forward joked. "I missed a little tip-in, I was kind of upset about that."

It was awful. I'm so depressed.

The Wolverines' freshman forward showed off every facet of his game, and his potential, scoring 21 points on 8 of 9 shooting. He went 3-for-3 from behind the 3-point line, he finished off alley-oop dunks and even grabbed six rebounds.

Oh right that part well you guys just aren't demanding enough excellence. It is only by doing so on the internet that excellence can be achieved.

But seriously folks. !!!

Let us take a brief moment to consider Jordan Morgan, who continues to lose weight and get more athletic. He uses this additional athleticism to be incredibly annoying. Here is a screen in your face. Here is a hedge of your screen that puts you in the corner six feet from the three point line. Also it comes with free batting at the ball. He is going to rotate back now and not block your shot but just make it so that when you jump you're bouncing off him a little. And then he will run the floor.

Morgan's still undersized and may still be foul-prone against better competition, but this year Michigan can turn to Mitch McGary and Jon Horford when that happens instead of a badly miscast Evan Smotrycz, so I don't even care that much except Morgan does seem a step or two better than those guys because of the aforementioned embodiment of the most annoying noise in the world.

Big guys have a tendency to make that senior step up—Chris Young, Pete Vignier, Graham Brown—that makes them loveable lunch-bucket little-coaching-squee machines, and Morgan is in that year even if he's a junior thanks to the redshirt. There's a reason he's starting.

He'll probably see his minutes reduced against teams that can put out a post guy who can simply outhuge him; other than that it's going to be hard to get him off the floor.

Other things:

• Vogrich > Stauskas at the moment because of defense, Stauskas > anyone in terms of three point shooting ever. Totally not getting ahead of myself based on three games.
• The defense started off a little ugly, but after it was 26-25 ten minutes in the Jags scored only 29 more points in the final 30 minutes. It doesn't seem like it will be a strength, though. That's the tangible thing Michigan will miss without Novak/Douglass.
• Jon Horford thunderdunk + Tim Hardaway thunderdunk + GRIII alley-oop festival == John Beilein looking at his team, thinking about the dudes he coached at Cansisius and wondering if it's even the same sport.
• Not a huge fan of the two post setup. If you're going to do that one of them has to be able to operate out of the high post or shoot—not necessarily threes, but midrange jumpers—and I'm not sure Michigan's posts are prepared to do that yet. McGary might be a high post guy in time. They'll probably run it 10 minutes a game or so.
• McGary's blown layup thing definitely looked like a guy used to having more up than he currently has. Looks like he'll have time to round into shape.
• Fact: Spike Albrecht is better than half of the guys Amaker recruited.
• Hardaway took no threes. In fact, there were exactly two shots all game that irritated me, one a long contested heat check Burke three, the other a long Hardaway two with 20 seconds on the shot clock. Two is kind of an amazing low number.

*[Defensive defense of self: It's hard for me to carve out the time to go to Crisler early in the week because I am working so hard for you, reader, and hockey versus MSU against BBball versus Slippery Rock is no contest.]

The vexer is now the vexee! Or maybe vice-versa. I'm vexed.

Will Campbell wrapping up vexing career by playing his best football

Commence the Rodriguez rabbling!

"It's been bumpy, it's been up and down," Campbell said. "I wish I was under this coaching staff all four years, but I wasn't, so the opportunities they gave me I just tried to capitalize on.

"I'm not saying that (the previous staff held me back). I was just lazy and young, and didn't realize the opportunities in front of me."

You could have had a stuffed animal rubbed on your face, man. That was the opportunity you missed in favor of eating cheeseburgers and playing video games. Verdict: good call.

Format set, mostly. The people who made the playoff thing got together to hammer out some playoff details. They are:

• A 12-year contract featuring a bucket of money delivered by ESPN.
• The Rose, Sugar, and Orange Bowl all have set lineups, with the Orange featuring the ACC champ versus the highest ranked SEC/Big Ten/Notre Dame entity that did not make the playoff or the Rose/Sugar.
• The highest ranked team from a minor conference—Big East now included—gets an auto bid to an "access" bowl. In years when the Rose/Sugar/Orange are all out of the semifinal business that means there is essentially one slot up for grabs.
• It's unclear what happens when the Rose hosts a semi and the Fiesta/Cotton/Peach bowls are acquiring teams. When the Rose/Sugar are hosting semis they will not allow the Big Ten or SEC champ to be in the Orange Bowl to make the Fiesta/Cotton/Peach setups more attractive in a long term TV contract.
• There is another bucket of money coming for the title game.

More documents, more facepalming for the NCAA. Get The Picture has been all over every document released as part of the Ed O'Bannon case's discovery process, and here's the latest palm-to-forehead moment:

Davis then writes: "Here's my concern -- Eil [sic] is a current player on the Ole Miss team. Is using his actual number and attributes (height, race, etc.) too close to reality thereby using Eli's likeness (if not his name) and causing an eligibility issue?"

Another NCAA staffer, Melissa Caito, wrote in response: "Pls be cautious as you move through this -- any more 'watering down' of the video games will likely move the manufacturers to cease operations with us."

I'm not a lawyer, but that seems bad.

BONUS:

Another document made public Monday by the plaintiffs lawyers showed the results of an NCAA commercialism and licensing survey in which 12 of 150 responding Division I schools said they "engage in the sale of licensed products bearing a current student-athlete's individual likeness."

This was 2004 to 2006. I wonder what constitutes "likeness" here—it's possible some schools admit that putting 16 on a jersey and selling it is enough, while others are like "16, never heard of him, who's named 16 lol nobody."

Etc.: MGoUser hops on reddit to ask if people actually show up at other schools. Burke is now 20, also scoring and assisting. Billy Taylor documentary is FRIDAY FRIDAY FRIDAY. Even the most reasonable minds have to wonder about whether there is some conspiracy at Penn State. Oh… against Penn State? Oh. Safety blitzin'.

Bullets:

• If Denard were a rapper his stage name would be Day2Day.
• Hoke says decision on Denard's status for Saturday will be made based on health, not sentiment.
• Mario Ojemudia is "coming along," which probably means he won't be ready for Saturday.
• Will Campbell "probably played his best football game" against Northwestern.
• Hoke did think about going for a touchdown instead of a field goal at the end of regulation but decided not to.
• Whether Denard could play situationally even if he were unable to throw the ball is something Hoke may consider. (What does that even mean. Aye aye aye.) Take two: Hoke will talk to Denard about playing situationally or as a runner if he remains unable to throw the ball on Saturday. Maybe.

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

Presser

file

How are you doing?

“Better than the alternative.”

Opening remarks:

“Really proud of our football team. I’m proud of how they stuck together. I think I mentioned, I may not have -- they really stuck together the whole game. They believed in each other, believed in what we were trying to get accomplished. I thought there were some really smart decisions made by players and by some of the guys on the staff when the two returners at the end of the game on the punt, because of the way they tried to punt the ball, Gallon was able to get some real positive yardage and set up being able to get the ball to whatever yard line it was to try for the field goal to tie it. If you have one returner back and that ball bounces, you lose field position and those things. Kids executed it well.

“This week’s a special week. Number one, our seniors. Last time they get to play in the greatest stadium in this country. Get to wear that blue jersey here at home and so it’s really special for us as coaches and for those underclassmen who go out and play well. Iowa, as you know, they’re a very good football team. They’ve lost the last two games I think by a total of six points. Run the football well. I think they’ve had some nicked up people when you look at it earlier in the year, but I think they’re really coming together. James Vandenberg, I think, is a very good quarterback. We’ve got our work cut out for us, and we have a lot to do.”

[Note on these posts: Yes, gifs are very bandwith-heavy, which is why we put all but one below the jump. There's not really a way around this that doesn't involve people having to click through to a new page for every gif, which isn't exactly ideal. If your page is lagging severely, try hitting 'escape' on your keyboard (unless you have Chrome, in which case you're SOL), which will stop the animation, then you can right-click and hit 'view image' to open each gif individually.]

We're expanding the MGoGifs beyond recapping each game; starting this week, we'll be taking a look ahead with gifs of great (or at least gif-tacular) moments from past games against Michigan's upcoming opponent. So, today's One Frame At A Time features Northwestern gifs of yore, and there's only one place to begin—Jason Avant's absurd one-handed catch in 2003's 41-10 victory.

First, however, I just want to thank everyone who sent in suggestions on Twitter, and also express my eternal gratitude to WolverineHistorian, whose videos provided the source material for most of these. The man is a treasure. And now, here's Avant:

[When you've finished watching that on a loop for, oh, 20 minutes, hit THE JUMP for the rest of the gifs.]

Stuffing. Upchurch

Eleven months ago I used this space to discuss Michigan's crazy success in defensive short situations. That was brought on by a staggering performance against Illinois, at which point Michigan had stopped 15 of 27 3rd- or 4th-and-one situations, and 13 of 19 against real competition. This was up from stopping less than a quarter of such plays the previous two years, and almost as far above the going rate for all defenses.

This was huge. Getting one yard for any offense is far easier that stopping it for any defense—one good block can usually do it. Forcing a 4th down situation from 3rd and 1 or a turnover on downs on 4th and 1 is worth half a turnover or more. Jamie Mac addressed this further in his HTTV article, showing that the stoppage situation was affecting the happy margin between our yards-ceded defense and scoring defense as much as having a ridiculous year in turnover luck.

Michigan last year was really good at stopping the short stuff, but folks chalked it up to Martin and Van Bergen playing to their strengths and figured it was a blip. Except it wasn't just those guys. Here's last year's chart for short situations, through OSU:

Two thirds of Michigan's short-down production from last year returned (as did bad refs). Demens, Roh, Ryan, Kovacs, and Campbell were all key role players in that ridiculous shutdown rate, and if the UFR can be trusted, they weren't getting it just because of things the Team 132 seniors were doing.

This doesn't even count things like stopping Ohio State on 3rd and goal from the 2. Actually it doesn't count goal line situations at all, though 1st and goal from the 1 is as hard to stop as 3rd and 1 from the 40. So I revisited when updating the UFR database. Get ready to be happy (through MSU):

It's still happening. It's happening more. We replaced Martin and RVB with Washington and Campbell, and if anything got better! And like last year Michigan's short defense seems to be getting tougher as the season goes on. Since Big Ten play started, the non-stops have read thusly: Purdue converting with 16 seconds left in the half while down 18, Illinois benefiting from a terrible spot, two plays where Bell was forced to cut back into the pile and just managed to squeak through, and one bust.

[After the jump, what's causing it, and the plays vs. State]

Formation Notes: Michigan actually spent a lot of this game in the plain old 4-3 even, which seems to be a spread adjustment for M.

That's Ryan to the top of the screen at LB

This is against a 2TE set, which usually saw Michigan go to their default under; against three- or four-wide going even (with Ryan at DE) was the play.

In the past I've used "Diamond" to indicate a formation with four skill players to one side of the field in a diamond formation—invariably used for a screen or surprise backside TE thing—but I had to pull it our for the Holgorsen pistol thing that is a backfield diamond like so:

Note that Michigan's in the under there.

Substitution notes: Secondary same as it always is: Taylor/Floyd/Kovacs/Gordon with nickel Avery. Marvin Robinson came in once things got out of hand to replace Kovacs, thus giving us a hint of what next year's safety configuration is likely to look like.

The vets have fended off the challenge from the two freshmen at linebacker, it appears. Ross got a few snaps before garbage time; Bolden got none. Ryan was omnipresent until things got out of hand; Cam Gordon came in and did pretty well for himself.

Rotation on the line was more frequent. The starters were the same (Roh, Washington, Campbell, Clark) but both Beyer and Ojemudia took their turns at WDE; Pipkins and Black featured frequently at DT. Roh was replaced far less frequently. He gave way to Heitzman for only a few snaps before garbage time.

Scow scow.

I AM ENJOYING THIS A GREAT DEAL

Hey remember the 67-65 game

NO

It just happened two years ago

WHAT IS THIS TWO YEARS AGO BUSINESS

2010

THE BIBLE SAYS FOOTBALL STARTED IN 2011

No it doesn't

MY BIBLE IS GREG MATTISON'S WIKIPEDIA PAGE

Oh then it probably does… n't

DO YOU HAVE A PROBLEM WITH MY CHOICE OF BIBLE

No not at all, I mean—

HOLY SCRIPTURE ANNOTATIONS

--chart?

So that's what a UFR chart looks like when I do a whole game in which Michigan holds the opponent to 130 yards.

Again, Demens has Stepped Up with capitals after picking OL out of his teeth for many of the first three games. Demens had an easy outing with Illinois OL virtually incapable of getting to him, and made the most of it with a series of third down stops and the track-and-follow INT. While I seriously doubt he'll ever scrape a +13 again if only because the opponent has to cooperate extensively for that to happen, this is a third straight game in which he has performed well as Michigan throttles an opponent's ground game (and everything else game).

Ryan is basically what we expect of him now. I would like to emphasize that sometimes when he comes on blitzes and accelerates through a hole in the OL after a change of direction, the feeling in your scalp is not entirely unlike that when Denard does it. He is a man of unusual speed. I mean, goddamn he hits this hole HARD:

And hey hey hey, defensive tackles. We has them, at least against OLs like Illinois. Let's check the schedule… yeah, lots of Illinois type outfits on the docket, not many Alabama's.

The metrics are pretty much irrelevant but a big part of Illinois's inability to pick up more than a couple yards per passing attempt was Michigan flinging its way at O'Toole whenever he tried. 11:1 is a pretty good ratio there.

So… things.

Yeah, I don't know man. Illinois was turned into goo, and helped the process themselves.

Any things?

Well, the Illinois offense hasn't been this throttled yet.

• vs Wisconsin: 284 yards
• vs Penn State: 364 yards
• vs Louisiana Tech: 324 yards
• vs Arizona State: 332 yards

The Arizona State game is particularly relevant since Scheelhaase missed it. Illinois put up 14 points, which is more than Utah and three less than Cal and Colorado have managed on ASU.

I mean, things happen to defenses. Guys blow stuff and then yards are acquired. Michigan hardly blew anything except a couple of contains on Scheelhaase; safety blanket Jordan Kovacs went virtually unused. This is kind of like picking through a UMass game for something useful, but even in that context what Michigan did was impressive.

Any, like, other things?

It does seem like Michigan's getting a bit better at containing short stuff. Illinois's screen game was non-existent:

RPS somewhat, also Kovacs beating a block like whoah. Gordon had a similar event late. I wonder if that will continue against teams that have a prayer of completing a pass longer than five yards.

So sort of a thing.

Personnel things?

Hey, here's Will Campbell getting under the pads of what's probably an awful guard:

And doing it again:

Also, the other DT there eats a double team without giving more than a yard—that's Pipkins. We'll all be watching for signs of progress from him over the next few games, as a Pipkins-Washington DT combo next year seems like the best available option. Both are nose tackles now, but Pipkins moving to the three-tech may be possible.

Also, add another to the pile of Craig Roh plays that don't show up in the box score:

I just love how effective he has been. That's pretty nice above; the TE chuck featured in picture pages is an elite play. Just Illinois disclaimers, sure—he's already made more plays this year than he did last year. That development is another data point for what we'll call the Heininger Theory: Michigan's DL is going to be awesome at technique for the foreseeable future. [UPDATE: Heiko suggests "Heininger Certainty Principle," which SOLD."

What about that extremely disturbing section of the game in which Illinois gained like 30 yards?

Just random stuff. On this play the end-around fake opens up a lot of room and holds Gordon outside; Demens and Morgan end up in the same gap:

Remember yesterday's picture pages? This is the same thing from M—note Beyer folding back. The difference? Ryan is way way outside because of the end around fake when that's probably not his job. Thus… seven yards. And a stop two plays later incorrectly overturned by replay.

After that overturn Michigan gives up nine yards when it looks like Desmond Morgan gets the wrong call and does not blow up a play by stunting inside. These things happen. For Michigan they are turning into 8, 9, 10 yards and that's it. Anemic opposing offenses, yes yes. We pillage the lemonade stands.

A couple of times they got RPSed by draws:

They'll figure that out, in all likelihood. After zero(!) shotgun runs from MSU a week ago they will undoubtedly break tendency a couple times.

Aaaand… that's all.

Heroes?

Essentially everyone but Ryan and Demens bear special mention; DTs and Roh are vying to show.

Goats?

GTFO

What does it mean for MSU and beyond?

Demens and Morgan are about to get a stiff test against LeVeon Bell. Even if they're getting in clean, Bell is more than capable of juking you or running you over. Bell YAC is the key stat for Michigan's defense, and I don't know how that's going to go. For all of Demens's excellent play in the last three games he has not faced a back of that caliber.

I am pretty confident that Demens will get his chances, though, after watching the Michigan DL and the post-injury Spartan OL. Chris McDonald has been getting knocked back a lot, and he's their #1 guy. Both MSU tackles were susceptible to slants against Iowa, which means guards won't be getting where they're going and holes will be filled by clean linebackers.

On the outside, Burbridge will be a challenge. He's probably the best receiver Michigan has faced to date—yes, already—and if Maxwell is protected (maybe) and dry (probably) M will probably get some yards in its face that you wouldn't expect given the stats. Other than that?

Ignore the part at the end where he catches one.

MSU will be a step up from the previous two offenses—I know I know you don't believe it—but I'm expecting them to score under 20.

I TOLD YOU ABOUT THE BIBLE

Yeah, yeah.