kj hamler

I don't know what to do with this.

Michigan fell in a 21-0 hole at Penn State and looked well on their way to yet another road debacle against a ranked opponent to add to that stat everyone mentions when Michigan goes on the road against a ranked opponent. Everything from the gameplan to the execution looked ugly. On one side, the Wolverines slammed into the PSU defensive line and dropped potential first downs; on the other, Sean Clifford started hitting shots downfield, including a slot fade to KJ Hamler, who Michigan should've recruited harder, for what looked at the time like an insurmountable three-touchdown lead. Jim Harbaugh called for a punt on fourth-and-one in PSU territory. The officials probably missed an offensive pass interference on the second PSU touchdown.

Then, in a way seemingly designed to inflict maximum emotional pain on both fanbases, Michigan clawed their way back into it. Patterson responded to the Hamler touchdown by leading an eight-play, 75-yard drive capped by a 12-yard Zach Charbonnet touchdown run—though only after an improbable Ronnie Bell snag-a-fumble-out-of-midair-and-run touchdown was negated by penalty. After a deeply bizarre sequence in which Harbaugh had Jake Moody attempt a 58-yard field goal—surprise, it was short—and James Franklin turtled with three timeouts at midfield, the teams went to the locker room with the score at 21-7, Penn State.

The defense set a different tone in the third quarter, limiting PSU to 16 yards, but it looked like the offense failed to take advantage until their final drive of the quarter, when Charbonnet accounted for 45 yards and a touchdown to pull Michigan, improbably, within seven points.

Like cats toying with prey, PSU batted the lead back up to 14 to open the fourth quarter; Hamler found himself one-on-one with Josh Metellus and Clifford made no mistake in taking advantage of a safety defending one of the country's fastest slot receivers. But Michigan fought back again; Bell took a screen 35 yards and Patterson banged in a QB sneak to make it 28-21.

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Ronnie Bell's teammates comfort him on the sideline. [Barron]

The defense booted Penn State off the field in three plays, setting up a drive for the tie. While nothing came easy, Patterson looked in his element, hitting receivers on time when plays worked as designed and creating with his legs when they didn't. A crossing route to Erick All set Michigan up with first and goal, but two runs and an incomplete pass only advanced the ball to the three-yard line to set up fourth down.

Patterson niftily escaped pressure, stepped up in the pocket, and found Bell with a sliver of space over the middle. The pass slipped through Bell's hands and fell harmlessly to the turf. Following a first down run by Hamler, PSU knelt out the clock.

All I know is I feel for Bell, who was shown crying on the sideline by ABC's cameras after the drop; he'd played a hell of a game to that point. Patterson's near-heroics inspired newfound confidence, though his stat line (6.7 yards per attempt, no TDs, one INT) looked familiar. The coaching of Harbaugh and Gattis often confounded, but the second-half gameplan looked sound. The defense looked like it was going to take a 2017-style pasting until they stiffened up considerably. Michigan looked overwhelmed by a night game in White Out conditions until they turned that crowd into a collective nervous wreck.

I don't know. Michigan is clearly not winning the Big Ten, and the rest of the schedule is going to be tough, and losing stinks. This time they went down fighting. Whether that's of great comfort is up to you.

[Hit THE JUMP for the box score.]

Resources: My charting, PSU game notes, PSU roster, CFBstats

It's a Franklin team: some ludicrous skill position players, a questionable offensive line, and five-stars all over the place. The main differences versus last year is the pass protection is a bit better, they have a ridiculously tough new top-100 running back we all remember from when Michigan was trying to get him, and the Speedy Eaglet is loose. A concern is the Joe Moorhead Space Ferrari stuff still looks very hard to defend, and Ricky Rahne is starting to get more comfortable at sticking to a few of them he understands instead of randomly punching buttons. Also the new "pocket" quarterback has transformed himself into a true dual threat. Also it's a white-out night game—yes, for the fourth time in five visits—because the rest of their home schedule is Idaho-Buffalo-Pitt-Purdue-Indiana-Rutgers, and heaven forbid Pitt ever think they're a rival.

The film: Iowa. At Kinnick. At night. Where they avoided getting Kinnick'd. Which might be the scariest thing. Also this was last week, Michigan is now a Cover 2 team, and even I wouldn't want to touch that game when they got outgained by Pitt at home and won because Narduzzi thinks math is for nerds.

For this they drew the notorious John O'Neill officiating crew, who were their usual, game-overshadowing selves. I usually try to avoid these clown shows because the players know how bad they are and start using it to get an edge. I did my best to try to ignore things that would get flagged normally unless it got too egregious.

Personnel: My diagram:

PDF version, full-size version (or click on the image)

I charted the running back rotation because they're trying to find snaps for four guys. True freshman RB Noah Cain (+23/-2 on 44 snaps) got the slight majority of snaps due to taking over the 4th quarter. He's the next one of Those guys. Classmate Devyn Ford (+1,-0 on 17 snaps) is a high-acceleration complement, and Journey Brown (+2/-0, –1 pass pro in 15 snaps) should settle into a 3rd down back role—he's a quasi receiver already and the most effective blocker the rare times an RB stays in the backfield for that. Former five-star Ricky Slade (+1/-0 on 4 snaps) appears to be the odd man out. For now Franklin's going to try to keep them all happy until circumstances force him to use Cain.

The receivers are hyper-talented, starting with slot KJ "Speedy Eaglet" Hamler (455 yards, 65% catch rate, 5 TDs, 11.4 YPT, +9/-0, one drop in this game), who is justifying every time we've had to hear Ace bitch in our Slack chat about Michigan not pursuing the slippery local prospect these many years. A lot of the offense goes through him or the tight ends. The #1 is "Baby Gronk" Pat Freiermuth (203 yards, 68% catch rate, "3" but really 4 TDs, 8.1 YPT, +7/-2 as a blocker) a very lengthy New England dude with a nose for the end zone who's maybe another offseason of weights away from Mackey-level. The comparison gets senior TE Nick Bowers (136 yards, 1 TD, 17 YPT, +2.5/-2, –1 pass pro) called a blocker, which is unfair to a 60/40 receiver-type who flexes outside a lot. Shortish sophomore WR Jahan Dotson (261 yards, 67% catch rate, 3 TDs, 12.4 YPT) is effective at finding spots underneath coverage. He's very different from classmate Justin Shorter, the composite 8th overall prospect last year because he's a tight end-sized person with the speed of a 4-star outside prospect. Shorter occasionally lines up as a tight end as well. The backups only get a handful of snaps; Chisema was stolen from the track team.

[after THE JUMP: Happy trails]

Resources: My charting, PSU game notes, PSU roster, Bill C profile, CFBstats

There's a kind of football coach who revels in the engineering of it. These coaches love to understand how a play works down to the barest detail, then design something new from it that works because of all these other reasons. Inevitably most of these tinkerers are victims of their own success. Mouse Davis ended his career the wide receivers coach of Hawaii. Hal Mumme is currently the OC of Jackson State. And Joe Moorhead is the latest in a long line of football coaches whose families severely regret not pulling up a Google Map street view of Starkville, Mississippi before agreeing to live there.

The neat gadgets and new ways to toy with read options are all still in the playbook, as are the RPOs, the play-action off RPO, the screens, every running play ever conceived with a zone read added to it, a thing that might be a fake screen to the backup quarterback tied to an inverted QB belly dive, and the quarterback they built to operate all of it. What it's missing is the architect. Also the bombs.

The film: I used the bye week to get ahead and watched the Indiana game, again because they run the closest thing to Michigan's base defense and Michigan's level of blitzitude. I also had the MSU game that I'd already charted for the Spartans previews.

Personnel: My diagram:

PDF Version, larger version (or click the image)

The new offensive lineman is C Miichal Menet, a top-30 2017 guy who pushed RG Connor McGovern out to guard. LT Ryan Bates was a PFF star last year and he's decent but not a great pass protector. RG Steven Gonzalez is a big leaner and was a few more bad plays from a cyan. Keeping him from hit was RT Will Fries, who was bad for a freshman last year and seems to have gotten worse. These guys all got worked against MSU's good defensive linemen but Fries struggled against everybody.

The receivers have struggled as a group despite some individual stars. Slot KJ Hamler is great but very much a slot. WR Juwan Johnson is way too fast for a guy his size but also has been a big part of PSU's league-leading drop rate. He's spelled by WR Cam Sullivan-Brown, a redshirt freshman who flashes both tantalizing potential and obscenely bad routes (WR at the bottom of the screen). The other receiver position rotates more slot guys. WR DeAndre Thompkins is spending his last year out of position and losing snaps to WR Brandon Polk, who's even smaller and droppier. The tight ends are alright—like Michigan they're receiver types. True freshman TE Pat Freiermuth has future star potential, runs excellent routes, and already stole the job from TE Nick Bowers, who still gets half the snaps.

The backfield is stocked for the foreseeable future with 5-star running backs. RB Miles Sanders isn't Barkley but he was a top-25 recruit, is a receiving threat out of the backfield, and can put on a show:

He was a bit of a fumbler last year and that popped up against last week against Iowa. Since QB Trace McSorley carries half the running load RB Ricky Slade, a scattier version of Sanders, doesn't get a lot of run.

[the rest of the breakdown, after THE JUMP]