post route

Sponsor Note. Had ol' Richard Hoeg on the podcast a couple weeks back, whereupon he both gave us an excellent Gimmicky Top Five topic and executed it well. It was about restoring the credibility of the NCAA with some rule changes, and he impressed with the depth of his thought. "Probity," I thought. "This person would be a good lawyer to have." And he can be your lawyer too, if you're starting up a small business and have a need for founding documents, contracts, and the like.

Also he had no preference between Rich, Richard, Rick, Ricky, and Dick, so if you're picky about names that's five options right there.

Turkeys on the loose. Via Bakers and Best, The Great Markley Turkey Hunt Of 1967:

In January I came across these two photos while browsing through the Bentley Historical Library image bank (the Bentley serves as the historical library and archive for the university).  In the past ten months I have told anyone who will listen (and then some) about these pictures. Each time I find myself incapable of fully describing my thoughts on them. Most people react in the way that Ben Wyatt did to Li’l Sebastian. I fear the same will happen here, but I have to try anyways.

I mean, how ridiculous are these? Perhaps it was the fact that it was 4 AM and I had long since given up on falling back asleep, but all I could do when I first saw these was laugh. I was scrolling through a collection of photos from The Michigan Daily, and juxtaposed against campus protests and national conventions they became even more absurd. This feeling of delight and joy quickly moved into deep curiosity. I suddenly had to know everything I could about the story behind these pictures.

Someone had, presumably intentionally, released several turkeys for students to catch in the muddied Markley courtyard. Why? Who sponsored it? Whose idea was it? How many students participated? Where did they get the turkeys from? Was this an annual event?

Some 30 students…celebrated Thanksgiving early yesterday with an Interhouse Assembly-sponsored turkey hunt in the Markley courtyard. Winners were awarded four complementary Thanksgiving dinners – turkey of course – and a splendid time was had by all. – The Michigan Daily, 11/18/1967

From the Bentley Library I knew that both photos were taken by student photographer James Forsyth of The Michigan Daily. Scrolling through several years worth of microfilm turned up an advertisement on November 15th (at right) and a front page photo and description (quoted above) on November 18th. I found no other record in the five years before or after, leading me to believe this was a one-off event.

Perhaps one of the descendants of these unfortunate fowls became the Insane Killer North Campus Turkey of 2015, thus restoring his family honor. The moral of the story is that turkeys should be loosed upon campus more frequently than once every 48 years.

Going long. There have been rumblings about Michigan doing something to tamp down the Harbaugh Goes Somewhere rumors for a year or so now, and... uh...

@gregghenson @mgoblog @SamWebb77 You can’t make this stuff up... Go home ESPN you’re drunk pic.twitter.com/m1o7C2TuDh

— Pete Gothard (@PeteGothard) November 21, 2017

...yeah, now seems like an amazing time for such a thing. So naturally it's former Notre Dame quarterback Brady Quinn who first broaches the possibility of a conversation-stopper:

Brady Quinn says Michigan is working on a lifetime contract with Jim Harbaugh. His full comments to @TheJonasKnox on Fox Sports Radio: pic.twitter.com/NaYfnmMLhm

— Mike Sullivan (@MikeSullivan) November 21, 2017

What that would look like is unknown. How much oomph it would have depends on the buyout, and all that, but since the yammering about Harbaugh's job is invariably done by dim bulbs a LIFETIME CONTRACT(!!!) should be fairly effective at silencing the noise even if it isn't absolutely ironclad. Those people ain't reading the fine print.

Going deep. Hopefully this Smart Football post will be relevant to our interests going forward. It's about the post route, which we've seen Donovan Peoples-Jones wide open on a ton without results until last week:

The trick to throwing the ball deep down the middle past all eleven defenders is (a) find a way to bring up the defense’s deepest defenders so you can throw the post behind them and (b) if those defenders stay deep, don’t throw the post. The way to accomplish both of those goals is to construct a sound concept around the deep post that can provide answers versus a variety of coverages — and strike like lightning whenever the opportunity is right. And for my money, there’s no better way of accomplishing those goals than the Mills concept.

...

The basics of the play are straightforward:

• the outside receiver runs a post route, breaking towards the near goalpost (hence the name “post”) somewhere between 12 and 15 yards;
• the inside receiver runs to a depth of 10 to 12 yards and either breaks inside (known as a “dig” or “square-in”) or runs a hook or curl back to the quarterback;
• the backside receiver runs some sort of route to draw away the coverage, such a corner route, a fade or “go” route or a hook; and
• the remaining eligible receivers (runningbacks, tight-ends or slot receivers) run underneath routes to be checkdown options if the defense covers everyone else.

Together, the play is typically run with play-action to further pull up the linebackers and safeties. And, as the Fun ‘n Gun heyday era clips below show, Mills could be as beautiful as it was devastating.

Michigan's currently getting DPJ open by being very very bad at passing, but if you see DPJ on a post while a TE runs a dig or 12 yard hitch under him, that's Mills.

Getting rid of it. One of these things is not like the other, from PFF via 24/7:

1. Brandon Peters: 5-8 for 112 yards and zero turnovers when blitzed

Before the redshirt freshman went down with an injury on Saturday, he was excelling when Wisconsin would bring pressure, hitting plays to Donovan Peoples-Jones and Zach Gentry down the field among others and had a strong feel for the pocket throughout the game.

By comparison? John O'Korn went 0-5 in similar situations and looked like he has most of the season when the pressure starts to collapse the pocket a bit.

Small sample sizes but the larger picture looks much the same unless O'Korn is able to break the pocket.

Oh. Right. Cease panic. Bill Connelly once again futilely attempts to calm the raging waters with his logic, stats, and whatnot.

S&P+ projected Michigan to win, on average, about 8.9 games in 2017. If I had taken returning starting quarterback Wilton Speight — lost for the season with injury back in September — out of the equation, their projected wins probably would have fallen to about 8.5.

They are currently 8-3 following a loss to Wisconsin, and they will probably be 8-4 after Ohio State leaves town this coming Saturday evening.

Oh, the horror. Oh, the crushing disappointment.

When I wrote, “From a narrative perspective, though, 2017 will be interesting,” this is almost exactly what I meant. When we peer into the future, we can stomach some disappointments in the name of long-term success. When we’re living through those disappointments in the present tense, however, it feels like the sky is falling.

The defense is performing almost exactly as projected; Michigan was projected fifth in Def. S&P+ and is eighth. The offense has been a bit worse than expected (projected 40th, currently 69th), and Speight’s injury hasn’t been the only cause. But it hasn’t helped, and it probably isn’t a coincidence that the Wolverines’ hopes of an upset in Madison ended virtually the moment that emerging QB Brandon Peters also went down.

Good luck, Mr. Connelly. Let's just check the ol' comments to see how it's going. And...

Do we really expect Michigan fans to want to hear context when they're about to be 1-5 in 3 years vs MSU and Ohio State?

...why type anything ever?

Etc.: Jake Butt has music opinions. Larry Prout profiled. Preseason basketball tournaments are a racket, and here's the worst one. Nobody coaches kickers. That seems fine since they're all super good in the NFL? Braylon Edwards remains Braylon Edwards.

A few weeks ago, Devin Gardner was the king of turnovers, baseball existed, and no one other than Jeremy Gallon was the target of passes. None of these things are true anymore—NONE—thanks in large part to Michigan exploring the idea of using Devin Funchess as a large and generally in charge wide receiver. Michigan's second touchdown was an excellent example of what happens when you focus too much one one guy and how Funchess can be effective even if he's not as fast as a really fast guy.

It's third and fourteen after Chris Bryant got smoked for a sack on second and five; Michigan comes out with a trips formation with Gallon the lone receiver to the bottom of the screen. Jake Butt, Drew Dileo, and Devin Funchess are bunched to the top of the screen. Minnesota responds with a 3-3-5 stack look and one deep safety:

Minnesota's coverage is going to end up super inane. They'll rush three, leave all three linebackers in no-mans land neither pressuring Gardner or covering anyone, and bracket Jeremy Gallon, leaving one on one coverage on all three guys to the trips side.

Below here is an approximation of what they do. Linebackers have been designated "blorp" in an attempt to get the reader thinking about the walrus defensive coordinator accidentally blowing bubbles with his own spit instead of whether he should have called this defense on third and fourteen.

Now, two of these guys seem to have obvious tasks. One is in man coverage on Toussaint. The other is spying Gardner. The third, the top-most blorp, seems to be in a robber zone type thing to the trips side of the field.

A moment after the snap, Michigan's plan is revealed:

Butt runs an out at the LOS; Dileo tries to get up the seam. He'll be held and thrown to the ground, drawing a flag. Funchess releases upfield, well past the blorp zone, and is one on one with Martez Shabazz, a senior JUCO transfer who hasn't started for Minnesota in his career.

Shabazz has already turned to run with Funchess at this point, when Funchess is five yards off of him:

That's because Funchess is angling for the corner of the endzone, selling fade.

This evaporates from the screen shortly after, but on replay you can see Funchess flip the defensive back entirely around as he breaks to the post.

You may remember "defensive back turns 360 degrees" from such things as the 2010 defense. More likely you made sure you do not remember that by liberal application of whiskey. Either way, your result is separation.

Gardner's throw is high and a little behind, but Funchess don't care, and the defensive back is trying to get a PBU on a guy who's 1) a half foot taller than him, 2) leaping, and 3) made of solid material.

GET ORF ME

It is now 14-7.

Video

Slow not really necessary here. Here's a couple of replay angles, the first of which does a good job of showing Funchess selling fade and his quick transition to the post. That's a quality route even with the stumble.

Items Of Interest

This defensive call is ridiculous. It's third and fourteen and you don't give your crappy backup corner any help against Devin Funchess. I get bracketing Gallon, sure. But going straight man against three WRs without any help at all is asking for a facepunching. Here is a facepunching.

I also get spying Gardner, and covering Toussaint out of the backfield once you've scouted Michigan's wheel route predilection. It's that third linebacker hanging out nine yards downfield that really gets me.

Devin Funchess can turn around Minnesota defensive backs. This was far from an isolated occurrence. Here it seems like the CB is thinking "oh crap oh crap oh crap this giant robot thing is going to put a fade on my face," bails super early to the corner, and then gets turned around easy on the post. At that point it's all over even if Gardner's throw is less than perfect, as it is, because anything up high requires the DB to go through Funchess's butt (not that Butt) to even get a finger on his arms.

Can Funchess do this to better opposition? That's the question. It was interesting to watch Michigan State go up against 6'5" Admiral-spawn Corey Robinson in the Notre Dame game, as he presented a lot of the same issues. State had those safety things in the middle of the field, though, which limited Robinson to sideline routes on which he was fairly successful, catching 3 balls for 54 yards and drawing a couple of pass interference calls. Funchess is pretty much the same guy.

He'll have to prove it down the stretch here. I think his route running skills are quality enough to make him an option, and even when guys get over the top, the Hemingway Option always remains on the table.

Better behind and high than on target. What is the nature of "on target"? This not-perfect throw works out perfectly because of the nature of Devin Funchess. If it hits him in the hands in stride there are defensive backs other than this one who will be there to break it up. If you lay it up and let the guy get the rebound, nobody's defending this.

The nature of on target varies with the target. Gardner seemed a bit off with his timing in this one, resulting in a number of balls that forced receivers to reach behind them. Funchess has proven very good at this in his career, and his general enormousness moves throws that are definite incompletions to Gallon into big chunks of yards:

That's why Michigan's receiving corps is about to be land of the giants.

With Funchess threatening, it will be a struggle for defenses to cover everything. Minnesota tries to play it safe by rushing three, which gives Gardner time. Despite the fact that they have eight guys in coverage their fear of Gardner's scrambling ability pulls guys out of relevant coverage, and while they could still put one of those safety guys back there, Dileo's route up the seam will give hypothetical safety a choice between those two folks and Gardner should have an option either way.