museday

Meta: New interim column name is interim. Rhymes with "talkin' points" if you have a heavy Midwest accent. Hakn means to nag in Yiddish, literally to bang on […a pot or teakettle]. The reference.

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Every touch is a little bit of magic. [Fuller]

Early last month Brian forwarded me a reader question about the relative experience of Michigan's players, and asked for a lot of research:

What has been the average age and game experience of each of the teams’ skill groups over the course of the season for each of Hoke’s years coaching here?

I’d love to see a table or graph that showed age/game experience by skill group by year of tenure for all the skill groups.  Just data.

Everyone says – players aren’t developing.  I’m not sure whether it’s true or a function of getting better but younger less experienced guys on the field.

My impression Defense is improving – and that’s where Hoke started recruiting (if memory serves) – those are some of his third year guys now (still juniors and RS Sophs) – getting better all the time.  Offense – a year behind defense from age/experience.  Mostly Sophs and RS Fresh.  If that pattern is right and holds, a defense of 4th and 3rd year guys next year and an offense of 3rd and second year guys should continue to improve the product.  No?

Off the cuff, we were plotting out age progression of Hoke's recruiting classes back in 2012 (when most of the 2013 class was signed) and concluding that 2015 was the probable germination point. I think a big part of why Hoke was let go was Michigan doesn't at all seem on track for that to happen. As Hackett mentioned in his press conference, the 2015 team should be one of the most experienced we've fielded in memory across the board (provided there's no mass exodus, which is hardly a guarantee).

Yay for Good News! How Good's Our GNews?

To get a real answer I really think we'd need other teams to compare it with, and that's way too much work. Also not all positions are created equal and relative experience does not say how quality the experienced players are: the 2003 and 2005 teams were nearly identical, but the 2003 was one of the best under Lloyd while the latter we thought of at the time as painful. Deciding which positions mature at what rate and have which effect of outcome is beyond the scope of this study.  But I found two ways to approximate an answer:

1) Long ago I started keeping a spreadsheet of players, going back to the mid-'90s, with what years they were on the roster, when they left, and why. With some updating that was able to produce a list of how many scholarship players Michigan had available each year back to '97, broken up by year-in-program and eligibility and whatnot. By that count Michigan has the oldest team in 2015 in the post-championship era, with 85 accumulated years (average at UM for 1997-2014 is 68) since high school on offense and 83 (average is 61) on defense.

2) I scoured the Bentley team history pages (the links at the right on that page), for how many starts each player had. This turned out to be quite the rabbit hole, hence why it took me so long to produce a response. After fixing a bazillion duplicates and spelling errors and whatnots (like for example they have the Gordons mixed up), I had a list of starts by season of every Michigan player going back to 1994, which I've put on Google Docs for your perusal.

There's some other good tabs at that link if you like exploration.

[Money chart and more after the jump]

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Of the totally surreal and unnecessary things that could ever happen, Denard Robinson issuing an apology for his play against Notre Dame ranks right up there with Ryan Van Bergen claiming fault for the 2010 defense. Not so much that he took responsibility—I wrote in my HTTV article that personal culpability is one the hallmarks of this team—but that watching from above I felt like he wasn't entirely at fault.

Part of that was the drunk dude in my section yelling "awwww c'mon!" at Denard, to which I felt responsibility to point out things like "play-action out of the I-form" or "Schofield just got beat bad." Part of it to was my own culpability for last week's article being all "hey Denard can pass and Borges is doing an incredible job!" So in the mea culpa spirit of the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur (pretty much our Christmas) which begins tonight, I admit I have sinned, and that I'm not quite sure who sinned on all of our six turnovers this week. Let's find out where responsibility lies in this six-play al chet, using a combination of Seth's pathetic attempts at UFR-ing, with a bonus chart of culpability.

1. For the sin we have committed against you by trying to get too cute with Vincent Smith, who is not Tom Brady

Ln Dn Ds O Form RB TE WR D Form Type Play Player Yards
O10 1 G Ace TE Trips 1 1 3 4-4 under Pass RB Pass Dileo INT
Dileo and Roundtree lined up as H-backs on same side. Since it's a pass Dileo doesn't block Te'o, who shot into the gap the millisecond he read pitch and pressures Smith. Funchess blocked down an irrelevant crashing DE instead but that's the play. The CB bites hard so Dileo can leaks out into the end zone, where he has the safety beat to the corner, but Smith is 5'6 with the world's best college LB in his face. He jump-balls it way inside of his receiver, so when the safety looks back he is all "ooh, football--take." (INX, 0, Protection N/A, RPS –2)

When Michigan tried this against Minnesota it was from 30 yards out, and against Minnesota. It did get a guy open in the end zone, and was set up a little bit I believe by some pitch plays earlier. However leaving Te'o unblocked versus a tiny RB is a risk, but Smith has shown in games (and presumably many more times in practice) that he 8013857982_cf5e4abbb5_ocan throw the ball accurately enough.

What I really hated about this play call is there was no reason to get cute. This was meant to be a dagger play, just like the fake dive on 4th and 1 vs. Michigan State was meant to be the dagger in the trash storm game.

Borges likes his daggers. When Brian queried my UFR database on Michigan passing from Ace 3TE sets, I found the Funchess 30-yard (PA TE corner) and Gardner (Waggle) TDs, plus a PA dumpoff for good yards (until it was fumbled) against SD State last year. Daggers. Thing is about the grab-bag and dagger offense is that it doesn't adjust for things that are working, and until that point the offense was working. When Pompey backed out of Rome because he didn't have the troops to defend it, Caesar didn't say "oh waitaminute, this is a trap, I'm gonna go attack the Barbary Coast—ha ha they'll never suspect!" He walked into damn Rome.

Chart of culpability: Borges x2, ND Te'o is that good, Smith isn't Joe Montana

Mitigating Mitzvah: Jake Ryan sticks a receiver after he gains just 1 yard on 3rd and 4 from the ND37 to force a punt. ND shanks the punt.

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After the jump, five plays more depressing than using a day off of work to fast and contemplate what a terrible person you've been all year.

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There was once a dream that was called Denard Robinson: Accurate Passer. You could only whisper it; anything more than a whisper and it would vanish…it was so fragile. And I fear that it will not survive the fall.

Last Saturday while watching Andrew Maxwell derf another derpity doo, I half-rhetorically asked the assembled a room full of Spartan fans who's the best passing quarterback in our conference this year. Answers, in order of appearance:

  1. "CHHIIIRP CHIRRRP" –insects with that leg-rubbing noise
  2. "Howl" –wolf in the distance
  3. "How about that little dude on Northwestern?" – a Sparty
  4. "No he graduated." –another Sparty
  5. "Shit. Really?" –first Sparty

After three weeks the stats (min=25 attempts) say it's Denard and ol' Tyranno-arm:

Rk Player Team Att Cmp Yds Yds/Att Ys/Gm TDs INTs Rating
1 Denard Robinson Mich 75 41 699 9.3 233.0 6 4 146.3
2 Taylor Martinez Neb 79 56 713 9.0 237.7 7 1 170.7
3 MarQueis Gray Minn 44 26 398 9.0 132.7 5   169.2
4 Reilly O'Toole Illini 48 38 394 8.2 131.3 6 2 177.3
5 Braxton Miller OSU 78 48 611 7.8 203.7 7 2 149.1
6 Robert Marve Pur 56 41 414 7.4 207.0 4   156.7
7 Tre Roberson Ind 50 33 368 7.4 184.0 2   139.8
8 Cameron Coffman Ind 57 40 410 7.2 205.0 3   146.4
9 Matt McGloin PSU 104 59 688 6.6 229.3 8 1 133.5
10 Danny O'Brien Wis 71 44 454 6.4 151.3 3 1 125.5
11 Trevor Siemian NW 47 32 292 6.2 97.3 1 0 126.7
12 Andrew Maxwell MSU 114 65 710 6.2 236.7 2 3 109.3
13 James Vandenberg Iowa 103 59 593 5.8 197.7 0 2 101.8
14 Kain Colter NW 56 37 321 5.7 107.0 2 0 124.9
15 Caleb TerBush Pur 43 24 237 5.5 118.5 3   123.0

His interceptions are dragging down the passer rating, but half are explained by an accurate throw Vincent Smith deflected, and Roundtree getting shoved into last Tuesday by a Bama cornerback. It's just three games in, and the Big Ten competition this year isn't exactly the NFC South, but raise your hand if four weeks ago you thought there might be even a flimsy statistical case for saying "Denard is the best passer in the Big Ten right now."

In last week's Mailbag article Brian remarked upon a Mike Rothstein study that claims Denard has been way more accurate under center than from the shotgun. The Power Rank made a chart:

Denard_Robinson_completion_percentage1_thumb

We've been over his higher efficiency as a runner from the gun ad nauseum, and charted his regression last year as of December, but is he really a better passer when dropping back? Brian's suggested explanations were Pressure, Situation, or Luck (ie sample size). Let's dig into the UFR database and see if there's an answer.

[ROLL'D OUT AFTER THE JUMP]