devin gardner will be the starting quarterback

No, Upon Further Review series is not comprehensive. Most years are absent Ohio State and bowl games (including last year), and 2014 checked out after Indiana. That said, I challenge you to find a greater cache of free data than Brian's masterful charting of Michigan plays going back to the DeBord Throws Rock age.

Every so often I pull all that into a massive Excel file and try to learn things like how spread the offense was, favorite plays, etc. Let's dive in shall we?

What're those pie charts at top? Shows the relative efficiency (by yards per play on standard downs) and the mixes of Michigan's backfield formation choices. For "standard downs" I mean 1st and 2nd downs when the offense wasn't trying to do a clock thing or go a super-long or super-short distance. So no garbage time, no two-minute drills, no goal line, and no going off on Bowling Green and Delaware State. The idea is to show which offense did they get in when they had the full gamut to choose from, and how many yards did it get when the goal presumably was to get as many yards as possible.

Nothing very surprising there. Rodriguez ran his shotgun offense, Borges inherited Denard and Devin and still managed to jam them half-way into an under-center offense in three years. Then Nussmeier ran his zone melange single-back thing. Harbaugh did what Hoke always dreamed of doing, and the offense climbed back to about where Hoke's offense was with a senior (but oft injured) Denard.

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[Hit THE JUMP for each year's most charted play, visualized Hennecharts, how many TEs Harbaugh used, how many rushers defenses sent, and LOOOOOTS of charts.]

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[Note: I wasn’t in South Bend, so this was all transcribed from the video provided by the Athletic Department’s site.]

Opening remarks:

“Obviously Notre Dame played a very good football game and we didn’t. You’ve got to give them a lot of credit. A lot of credit to what they did on third downs, either defending us or their third down opportunities that they converted on.

“We’ve got to go back to work, and we will as a team. You don’t want to have four turnovers in a game. That doesn’t help you. The red zone, we didn’t help ourselves in there. From the penalty side, we put ourselves behind the sticks offensively. And again, you’ve got to give them a lot of the credit too. But we will bounce back because this is a very resilient, hard-working group of young men who know what it takes to win.”

After [Devin] Gardner started fairly quickly, I think six-for-six, and then did they bring more pressure, did your offensive line struggle; what fell apart?

“I think a little bit it’s never one guy, it’s never one piece of the offensive line, or the quarterback, or the routes, or whatever. When those things happen I think they happen as a team. He started six-for-six. I think we’ve got to give them- we crossed the fifty and they were going to bring more pressure. That’s what they did.”

 

Can you talk about Ray Taylor and any update on his status?

“I’m not going to talk about any of those injuries. Number one, I don’t know enough about them.”

 

And then Jabrill [Peppers], he dressed. Could he have played?

“If he could have played we would have played him. We evaluated all those guys before the game.”

And then you dressed him?

“Well, he went out because we were evaluating him before the game.”

 

You said you’re pretty confident this team will bounce back. How do they bounce back from such a- I mean, this was a pretty humbling loss here.

“Yeah, it is but I think they’ve all been humbled sometime in their life. It’s part of the resiliency this group has.”

 

Your guys were pretty adamant about how bad they wanted this because of this possibly being the last game. Were you surprised at how lopsided this ended up being?

“This game? Yeah.”

 

[After THE JUMP: Gardner is still the starter, why Countess was pulled, and bouncing back from adversity]

 

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News bullets and other items:

• The team scrimmages in Michigan Stadium on Wednesday
• Mason Cole really, truly might play. Really.
• Funchess was held out of practice but Hoke didn't even call it a boo-boo so he's likely fine
• Csont’e York is still part of the program
• Devin Gardner is expected to start against Appalachian State
• The coaches will probably know their  starting offensive line after Saturday's scrimmage
• Jake Butt being back by the Notre Dame game is “a little nuts”
• Ross Douglas is a wide receiver

Opening remarks:

“Thanks for coming out. We continued, I think, as a team to practice hard. We continued as a team to take the incremental jumps that we want to keep making every day were out here I think from all positions. Again, the competition is such that it just creates a great competitive environment in everything we're doing. Happy with the effort we've had throughout camp, happy with the improvements and the progress. We need to keep getting better, I think that's a big part of it. The jump that we make this week as a team, because this is really a grind, is important. Tomorrow we'll put it together up at the stadium, we'll scrimmage up there. We'll see how many plays. Would like to get 120 in, 130 plays. We'll talk a little more in-depth what we want to get from each unit, from the first defense to the first offense, seconds, thirds, all the way down so that we can see – we're getting everybody some reps and also a good idea of guys playing up in that stadium.”

We've heard a lot about Mason Cole. What has he done to impress you guys and is it a good or a bad thing or are you concerned that you might have a true freshman starter on the offensive line?

”I think I'll take the back end of it first. If he's good enough, he's old enough. To this point so far he's been good enough. When you look at the people that he's gone against with Frank and those rush ends and the people that he's blocking, five techniques, he's held his own very well. I think I mentioned earlier sometime but he came in a little differently. I give a lot of credit to his coach and his high school team and their preparation. He has a great passion about playing the game.”

Any update on the injuries?

“Yeah, everybody was back. The only one, obviously Jake is still not full speed but the guys who got banged up – Funchess is the only guy that we held out a little bit but other than that I can't think of another guy. I'm just trying to think so I can give you accurate information.”

What happened to Funchess?
”He just got bumped up a little bit. He'll be okay. He probably could have gone today but we're trying to be smart. We've got a scrimmage tomorrow.”

Any update on Csont’e York and is he still a part of the program?
”No question. We are going to go through the process. You know, he's a guy who has been a part of this team and we'll go through this process. His status hasn't changed.”

So he's still part of the program?
”Yeah. Status hasn't changed.”

[Hit THE JUMP for more on Jake Butt, Devin Gardner, the inside linebackers, and a complete lack of clarity regarding the offensive line]