cover one

[Bryan Fuller]

FORMATION NOTES: There will be no marveling about how passive the opponent was this week. Illinois did not have a single standard down in which they were not +1 in the box. Their three DL barely left the field, and it was cover one about 70% of the time. Against one TE Illinois responded with a pretty standard 3-4 look:

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When Michigan went with two TEs in the box Illinois usually responded with a 6-2 formation with a linebacker folded inside one of their OLBs:

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There is a safety off screen on both these snaps. Illinois would occasionally stem into cover two, and occasionally send that safety who's off screen down either presnap or just before it; usually his job was to clean up anything that popped outside of contain, allowing the Illinois defense to collapse on the interior run game.

SUBSTITUTION NOTES: Welp. Keegan out again so El-Hadi started; Barnhart maintained the starting job at RT. Jones got in for some goal line plays. I think he's healthy and they're just rolling with Barnhart. Schoonmaker out again so Loveland was TE1 with Honigford and Bredeson mixing in as blockers, mostly. Hibner got his first non-garbage time reps in a while.

WR pretty much the usual. No Edwards at RB and Corum went out near halftime, leaving Stokes, Dunlap, and Gash. Stokes got the most run early but by the time it was crunch time they were using Gash, apparently because they think he's their best option out of the backfield.

[After THE JUMP: stiffer resistance]

Harbaugh would never endanger Al Glick [Marc-Gregor Campredon]

Hey folks! Got some content on deck. Probably. Kobe Bufkin and Xavier Worthy are committing this afternoon within minutes of each other so we're either going to be pretty happy to step on one of our posts or consigning another writeup to the Bin Of Wasted Effort. Patience today.

Today in how to go viral and lose everyone's trust. Not even the Jim Harbaugh contretemps* have the same gusto these days. Here's the thing he said in a press conference:

“Yeah, my thoughts would be, it’s a different conversation if there’s no students on campus. If students are on campus, then my personal belief as a parent of a daughter who would also be on campus that this is a safe place. As safe as possible, would be within the University, in our athletic buildings and complexes. That safety precautions that have been put into place.

“I would feel good with the medical oversight of the students, student athletes. I would want the responsibility. I would want the responsibility of keeping our players safe and also educating them. I would not want to come off of that guard tower of educating and keeping our players safe.

“Now, if it comes to a point in time where you say that we can’t play, it’s obvious, it’s clear, then everybody would be reasonable and know that was the right thing to do. COVID is part of our society. Wasn’t caused by football or caused by sports. And there’s no expert view right now that I’m aware of that sports is going to make that worse. It’s part of our society, we’re going to have to deal with it.

“These kids are going to have to do the same thing. They’ve got to go to school. They’ve trained their whole lives for the opportunity to play their sport. That is my view with the knowledge that we have and time to learn more about it. It would be my responsibility, our responsibility and the players’ responsibility also, to keep themselves safe and get the schooling and training that they need.”

Here's the thing that got retweeted thousands of times:

It's hard to regard the above as anything but malice when literally the previous sentence is "if it comes to a point in time where we can't play, it's obvious, it's clear, then everyone would be reasonable and know that was the right thing to do." Harbaugh is saying that he doesn't think it's a given that playing sports is unethical but he's perfectly willing to defer to the experts; the cut-off quote makes it sound like he's saying the opposite.

*[I was today years old when I learned this is a fancy French word that has no business ending in "emps"]

[After THE JUMP: Tschetter's full… of quality stories!]

Cross my heart and hope to die. [Patrick Barron]

So last November

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SO LAST NOVEMBER Michigan's Cover 1 system was badly exposed against Indiana and Ohio State with crossing routes. IU showed you could double-team Winovich and Gary and get away with it because Michigan's DTs weren't going to win the 1-on-1 battles that created. That gave their quarterback enough time to find their receivers on crossing routes that exploited the lack of speed of some of Michigan's defenders. It worked for IU until Michigan was expecting it. It worked for Ohio State because there were speed matchups like Brandon Watson vs. Parris Campbell/KJ Hill/Chris Olave and JK Dobbins/Parris Campbell vs Devin Gil that vastly favored the Buckeyes, and Michigan's five-man pressures couldn't get home before those came into play.

I'm bringing this up now because Michigan just played another offense—one with a receiver on par with those at Ohio State—that wanted to run mesh plays with elite speed, was able to protect their quarterback, and yet got virtually nothing. I'm not talking about a patch—doing something unsound to stop Mesh is a good way to get your defense torched by all the other things. Michigan now has multiple responses to crossing routes from a multiple-looking defense. I know it's still early—no sports fan should ever have to go through The Rehabilitation of Urban Meyer twice—and there's no shame in not wanting to face it again. But if you're ready, I'll show you what I think happened, and why it's not happening anymore.

[After THE JUMP: Crossing routes. The bad ones.]