don brown

I assume this was Brown's reaction to hearing the news [Patrick Barron]

Per Bruce Feldman, Michigan has fired defensive coordinator Don Brown:

Brown came to Michigan after a successful tenure as defensive coordinator for Boston College in December 2015 to replace DJ Durkin. His first season went well, as Michigan posted one of the NCAA's top defenses and "Dr. Blitz" made his mark in the maize and blue. Brown's defenses posted elite SP+ numbers up until, well, you know what date in 2018. Suffering from heavy attrition in 2019, the defense regressed but still put up solid stats as a unit. This season, though, the bottom simply fell out and Michigan ranks 56th in yards per play allowed.

For all the great defensive players Brown coached in his time in Ann Arbor, his memory to most Michigan fans will probably be his inability to adjust to Ohio State's mesh concepts and athletic skill position players in 2018-19, as well as recruiting failures that sunk this year's team. That fateful day in November 2018 triggered this slow fall and frankly, it's been a long time coming. After his cornerback room was ruthlessly exposed by MSU on Halloween, the end was clearly near and today it arrived. The situation with Jim Harbaugh's contract is still yet to be resolved, but regardless of who is the head football coach next year, Michigan football will be searching for a new defensive coordinator. There is no content after the jump.

shant fall behind rutgers i say [Marc-Gregor Campredon]

The mood is not good. The latest update from MVictors sees the Mood just about bottom out:

Mood-week-4-2020

The only thing keeping the Index off the 40 floor is the notion that it could actually get worse against Rutgers.

Oh look, it's me:

Going Even Lower. Many on Twitter chimed in with ratings below 40. Under 40 represents the Trough of Disillusionment. You are beyond rage, despair, feeling…you’ve completely checked out. That’s fine, but in this state you won’t care about a silly Mood rating anyway.

I feel nossing.

[After THE JUMP: behind Rutgers: not as bad as it sounds]

Last year Wisconsin messed with Michigan gap defense plenty, but even that wasn't as bad as Michigan's Lovie Smithian edge defense on Saturday. As you might have guessed, such a wholesale disaster was the result of many issues. But I did find one play that included most of them.

This is a simple jet sweep, and a fine example of what an absolute disaster Michigan's run defense has become this year. The simple explanation for what went wrong on this play is that Michigan cracked but did not replace. They spilled without an edge. Gemon Green was the main issue but other culprits here who had a chance to make a play and didn't were Daxton Hill, who got crack-blocked by the WR, Brad Hawkins, who instead of funneling back to help got taken for a donkey ride, Donovan Jeter who didn't read the handoff and pursue, Carlo Kemp who didn't do enough to keep his LB clean, Josh Ross who got caught inside and then shoved to the ground, the refs because the shove was in the back, and Vincent Gray because he's Vincent Gray. Blame goes on the players yes, but also very much on their coaches, particularly whoever's coaching the safeties, because these issues were chronic.

[After THE JUMP: Spilling to nothing]

got rushing rutger'd, fire everyone

time to burn all our content from last week

asking questions like "are the ends all-americans or merely excellent?" feels pretty good

passable for eight games

Michigan has three defensive commits in the 2021 class, none of whom's ranked in the top 750. Can this work?

humanity had a good run but now Rutgers is ranked in basketball 

it was not, after all, in the face

could've called the race after 11 seconds

Two linebackers. One to create pressure, one to pop up where a guy under pressure might throw it.

under no illusions