secondary

left: Bryan Fuller

Earlier this offseason I stumbled onto an old article where Bill Walsh wrote what qualities he looks for when drafting various positions. Meant to be a one-off on the offense, I took requests for a defensive version and broke it up into D-Line, linebackers, and now, finally, the defensive backs. The idea is since the coaching staff is building a "pro-style" team with principles more akin to the Walsh ideal that dominates the pros than the collegiate evaluations made on scouting sites and the like, we shall re-scout the 2013 roster for Walsh-approved attributes.

Since coverages have changed the most since Walsh's day—a reaction to the spread—this is probably the least valuable of the series. To bring it back on point, I've gone off the page a little bit to note some of the attributes that NFL defensive coaches are looking for nowadays, and what those changes mean.

Strong Safety

Plankamalu / Shazorvacs/ M-Rob if all quarterbacks were Brian Cleary

Walsh Says: 6'3/215. Now hold your horses before going all "SHAZOR?!?" on me—I'm making a point: The type of player you have at safety depends on the type of system you want to run and the type of player you have everywhere else. If you're going to be playing more odd coverages (cover 1, cover 3) then you want your strong safety to be more of a run support guy, in many ways a fourth linebacker. If your base coverage is even (cover 2, cover 4) the strong and weak safeties will be more similar:

"There are other systems of defense where both safeties play a two-deep coverage and only occasionally come out of the middle to support the run. They basically play the ball in the air, the middle of the field and the sidelines. When you do that, then the stress is on the cornerback to be the support man.

So you must keep in mind these various philosophies when considering what types of cornerbacks and safeties you want to put together in forming a defensive secondary."

The attributes of your defensive backs should be complementary. Here's what Walsh is getting at: your backfield has to be able to defend the pass first and the run second. And here's the key: the more you can trust one player to handle coverage without help, the more you can stock up on extra run defense with the other guys. If your backfield already has plenty of coverage, you can have a strong man:

"The strong safety is historically the support man. He must have some of the traits you look for in a linebacker. In fact there have been some hybrid players in that position. Cincinnati had David Fulcher [right], who was as big as some linebackers but could function also as a safety. The Bengals moved him weak and strong, inside and outside and he became that extra man that the offensive run game had to account for but often could not block.

…

"But the typical strong safety is someone who can hit and stop people and respond spontaneously and go to the ball. Naturally, the more coverage talent the man has the more you can line him up on anybody."

Today, defensive coordinators sit on porches, remember when you could play a guy like Fulcher, and say "those were the days." The epitome of this type of safety is former Buckeye Doug Plank, who defined his position to such a degree that the defensive system itself was named for his number (46).

It's also called the "Bear" defense because it was the Bears

This defense was at the height of its popularity when Walsh joined the 49ers in 1979, and it was this defense his model passing concepts shredded. The defense played to Plank's strengths as an overly aggressive, hard-hitting run stopper with some coverage skills. The SAM linebacker in today's anti-spread sets (e.g. the 3-3-5's "Spur") is a closer analogue to the Plank-style player than the modern strong safety, with the key difference being that, as a safety, you couldn't put a blocker on a 46 without removing one from a lineman or linebacker, meaning the SS could flow cleanly to the point of attack and wrack up ridiculous tackle numbers.

College teams loved this, since passing quarterbacks were hard to come by and the big boys were running three yards and a cloud of dust (and later the option). A lot of cool names for linebacker-safeties were passed down from this period, such as the "Wolf" on Bo's teams, or the "Star" (names which today are coming out of retirement for the nickel-SAM hybrid position in base 4-2-5 anti-spread defenses).

Walsh's Favorite Wolverine: Why does a mid-'70s response to off-tackle NFL running games matter to a collegiate defense in 2013? Well because we have a really good free safety, and play tight end-heavy outfits this year in UConn (T.J. Weist, a rare member of the Gary Moeller coaching tree, is taking over there), Penn State, Michigan State, and Iowa, with the outside possibility of a Wisconsin if we make it to the conference championship. Also because the coaches have been subtly putting safety-like objects (Woolfolk, Gordon, and now Dymonte Thomas) at nickel, and recruiting a few linebacker-sized safeties.

I don't know what he'd think of Kovacs. We loved him, but Jordan had two weaknesses: 1) his lack of overall athleticism made exploitable if left in wide coverage (see: his abusing by Ace Sanders on the last play of the Outback Bowl, and the utter disaster that was GERG's attempt to play Kovacs as the free safety in 2009), and 2) his lack of size made him blockable if a lead blocker could get to him (see: bad things happening whenever Mouton abandoned contain).

He would have loved Ernest Shazor, a knife blade listed at 6'4/226 with a scatback's acceleration who loved nothing better than demonstrating the force equation. Brian calls Shazor "the most overrated Michigan player of the decade" because he has to live with the bolded subconscious of UFR, and nothing pisses off a figment of a blogger's imagination like a safety who gives up a big play in coverage.

Here's the point: the ideal safety would be a dude with the size and stopping power to pop a lead blocker and make the tackle or lay out a guy like Shazor, read and react like Kovacs, and cover like Charles Woodson. That human doesn't exist. A combo of epic athleticism with plus headiness and serviceable tackling and size equals Ed Reed or Sean Taylor. Epic headiness with plus size and serviceable everything else nets you Doug Plank, with plus athleticism: Ronnie Lott, Troy Polamalu or Rodney Harrison. The trick is to have epic everything between your safeties; for strongside then it's not Ernest Shazor or Jordan Kovacs; it's SHAZORVACS!

What to look for in a Scouting Report: At either safety position, instincts rate highly and speed after that (less so for the strongside). You're looking to first make sure you have enough coverage in the entire backfield, and once you do you can use this position to stock up on linebacker traits: tackling, size, taking on blockers, personal contribution to local seismic activity, that sort of stuff.

What you can learn on film: Everyone loves those bone-jarring hits and coaches are more than happy to put them in a recruiting video, but not all hits are created equal. Sometimes they're generated by another defender cutting off the lead blocker, other times it's your guy reading the play so early he can go all-out on the hit. More important is what happens to the ballcarrier: he needs to go down. Safeties are going to be left in space, and making that tackle is more important than making the offensive player wish he'd never met this oblong brown thing.

What could signal bust potential: Remember you want a safety, not a horse, i.e. overrating the secondary, linebacker-y attributes and expecting the rest to come along. Adequate coverage and good instincts need to be there or else this guy is just a platoon player. "May be a linebacker on the next level" is a red flag, unless he actually becomes a linebacker. Brandon Smith's recruiting profile is instructive.

It's usually good policy to discount ESPN's opinion when it's in wild disagreement with the other services, but here I tend to give their rip job ($, "he's not a fast-twitch athlete and lacks explosive quickness and speed"; "Takes too long to reach top speed"; "He can be late, takes false steps and doesn't see things happen quickly enough") some credence. Reasons:

• Rivals started off very high on him, ranking him around #50, but steadily dropped him as the year progressed despite his status as a high-profile uncommitted player.
• Despite all the guru accolades Michigan's main competitors were Rutgers and South Carolina; other offers came from Maryland, NC State, Wisconsin and West Virginia. He wanted offers from Florida and Ohio State which never came.
• You always risk looking like a tool when you rely on your super awesome scouting skills and six plays on youtube to discern a kid's fate, but... yeah, I didn't think he was all that.

The guy left in a huff after they tried to wring the last bit of value out of him as a Doug Plank-like extra linebacker vs. Wisconsin, and Wisconsin ground us to dust, but then Smith was a high school quarterback whose development as a defender had to come almost entirely from the Rodriguez-era coaching staff. Anyway you've seen this again and again: rave reviews for the guy's "frame" and a profundity of attributes that would make him seem a really nice horse, combined with not nearly enough "makes plays." First have all of the safety stuff: can read and react, cover, and tackle in space. Then care about the size.

How our guys compare: Jarrod Wilson (6'2/196) remains my favorite to start at this spot because he is adequate (not yet plus) in coverage and the other guys aren't. Like the Jamar Adams he reminds me of, Wilson doesn't stand out in any category but doesn't have any major holes in his game other than being young.

The other leading candidate is Marvin Robinson who scares the hell out of me. He was a big-time recruit early in the process thanks to apparently having an early growth spurt, and his profile was filled with horsey metaphors. The same player still hangs on that frame (he arrived at 203 and never deviated more than 3 lbs from that) and hopes for him hang on the comparative competence in coaching plus the fact that being behind Jordan Kovacs is a perfectly reasonable excuse for not seeing the field earlier.

The redshirt freshmen at this position are stiff and linebacker-ish with instincts, more Plank than Polamalu. Jeremy Clark is all of 6'4/201 and did an okay job against the run in the Spring Game I covered in this space a few weeks ago, but lacks speed. Allen Gant also had instincts praised as a recruit, but also lacks the kind of athleticism and would at best develop into a slightly bigger and less heady Kovacs. If going forward Michigan can develop a superstar at the other safety spot or with a corner, they might be able to Plank it with one of these guys—when Woodson gave us that opportunity in '97, Daydrion Taylor and Tommy Hendricks went ham.

Thomas Gordon is super-instinctive and would be a perfect fit here except he's needed at the more important free position he's been playing.

[The rest, after the leap.]

A few rows in front of me at the Western game was one of those guys who exasperatedly yells out a piece of football wisdom he's picked up over the years whenever he is affronted by its lack. His wisdom was "turn around for the ball," which he yelled at Herron a couple times and the cornerbacks a couple times.

I was with him, but then a funny thing happened: no one could complete a fly route on these mediocre corners. Here's everything I've got marked fly/go/fade (which I am totally inconsistent about) from the first two weeks:

Your score excluding the miscommunication: two legit pass interference penalties, one horsecrap call, one 26-yard completion to Michael Floyd, five incompletions. What's more, in each case save one pressure-forced incompletion and the two legit PI calls the corners are 1) there and 2) making a play on the ball.

That's seven out of nine legitimately good plays from the DBs on accurate deep balls. On all but one—the legit Avery PI—the corners were on an island as Mattison sent at least five. No bracket here. The Avery PI was a zone, the rest of it was man coverage, much of it press.

Michigan's press-ish coverage success in fly routes in 2011 including a game against Michael Floyd: 88%. The exception was virtually unstoppable and still drew a plus from the ol' softie who does these things. That's miraculous in last year's context. Hell, it's miraculous in a lot of contexts. How has this happened?

Michigan Press Coverage As Explained By Underpants Gnomes
IN STEREO

STEP 1: Line up a yard off the LOS with inside leverage.

STEP 2: When receiver releases outside, turn hips and run with him real fast.

STEP 3: NOBODY CARES WHEN RECEIVER LOOKS FOR BALL

STEP 4: NOBODY CARES!

STEP 5: When receiver reaches up for ball, punch him in the face.

OPTIONAL: grab his jersey a bit and get away with it
OPTIONAL: scream SHORYUKEN.

STEP 6: Profit: arm-waving motions indicating that the pass was incomplete.

OPTIONAL: shake head to indicate "no."
OPTIONAL: pick up horsecrap pass interference call.

Videos

Floyd on Floyd action:

Avery on Jones action:

Interesting Items

Why it works. That whole find-the-ball thing is hard. Todd Howard was coached to do it but always did it late, whipping his head around just in time to see the ball zing by. When you do that you've given yourself an even tougher job than the WR, who's been tracking the thing since it left the QB's hand. Lots can go wrong there. He can slow up and you bowl him over. He can slow up on a deliberately underthrown ball. He can slow, then extend a la Manningham. Or you can just not find the ball quickly enough.

In contrast, the shoryuken technique seems pretty easy. Focus on the WR's chest. When his arms go up, get your arms/head/body in between those arms. Faceguard the guy for bonus points. Net result: incompletion or spectacular Prothro-style catch. Mostly the former.

It's hard to get lost because you're following the WR's chest everywhere, and the only bomb you can't defend is the one that's just past your outstretched arms. That's hard to throw and hard to catch.

Gibson –8. Two games in I am a believer in Tony Gibson Was The Worst. These are the same guys as last year making these plays. Notre Dame clearly identified these fades as a weakness to exploit, especially in press coverage, but got little out of them. If you discount the Avery PI, on the eight fade attempts against press coverage opponents got 41 yards, just over five yards per attempt. Even if you count the Avery PI that hops up to 6.9 YPA—still worse than the NCAA average of 7.2 YPA.

Compare that to last year, when even doing something right meant you did something wrong:

Small sample size disclaimers apply, but Tony Gibson? The worst.

Downsides and low upsides. So this style of coverage seems pretty effective, obviously. There are two major downsides to my eyes:

1. Low upside. Since you are never looking for the ball you are highly unlikely to intercept it.
2. A tendency to pick up PI calls. Refs give you more leeway when you are looking for the ball. Bumping a guy with your back to the ball is always going to be an issue, but you can get away with "look and lean," as Spielman calls it.

I'm a little concerned about our corners' speed when asked to run real fast. Against Western Floyd gave up a yard or two of separation to a MAC receiver on his successful fly defense; in the second clip above it kind of feels like on a longer route Jones will pull away from Avery. Those are hypotheticals, though, and whatever limitations of Floyd and Avery have do not currently include a tendency to get burned deep.

This allows cool stuff. Michigan can press with one high safety because of this, which opens up the blitz possibilities that produce big plays. While the coverage style precludes big plays from the cornerbacks it allows them from other parts of the defense, and those big plays are bigger. What would you rather have, an interception 30 yards downfield or the quarterback fumbling the ball?

Tony Gibson. The worst!

Taking stock during the bye week.

Preseason

People thought I was depressive when the secondary preview started "what's the point of anything?"

WHO'S DEPRESSIVE NOW!?!?! YEAHHHHH. Score one for cold-eyed realism. This could be the worst secondary in a BCS conference. It's definitely the worst in Michigan history.

Anyway, cornerback got a 1 and I thought about breaking the rules to go lower:

Nothing has ever gotten a zero before even jokingly, not even the 2008 offensive line that consisted of seven guys who could plausibly play and actually started a defensive tackle who had been switched in the middle of fall camp. But I thought about it here. What Michigan has to offer at corner is going to be substandard unless a great miracle falls from the sky, and will probably be no better than last year's fare even before Woolfolk moved.

Some vague hopes were offered for JT Floyd despite his ugly, brief tenure as the starter opposite Donovan Warren once Boubacar Cissoko went ham. These were based on constant positive reinforcement from the coaches and the occasional mysterious practice observer, with the latter given more credence because they didn't have an obvious ulterior motive. "Average" was the "best anyone could hope for," though.

Opposite Floyd I took a wild guess that Cullen Christian would end up starting—if not immediately by the time the Big Ten season hit—because he was the most highly-touted recruit and was not James Rogers. Avery and Talbott were regarded as basically identical recruits who needed a year and 20 pounds before seeing the field. They wouldn't be allowed that luxury.

At safety 2 was offered, "generously." Jordan Kovacs was said to be totally incapable of playing a deep half but "pretty good as a tiny linebacker." In sum:

So Kovacs is going to have to cover a deep half sometimes. This won't go very well, and Michigan's defense will be limited by it. On the other hand, the run defense shouldn't be nearly as bad with Kovacs filling the weakside alley; last year he racked up 75 tackles despite the late start. Marvin Robinson will press Kovacs for his job, but probably not take it. Iowa and Wisconsin have gotten away with players like him for years.

At free safety, Cam Gordon was named the Grady Brooks memorial King of Spring Hype. The usual accolades were relayed, the thing about how he should probably be a linebacker mentioned, and a projection of a sort offered:

As a redshirt freshman, a "big year" would be wrapping up his tackles and not letting anyone behind him for crippling long touchdowns. … Repeating [Brandon Englemon's] +0.7 per game would go a very long way towards bringing Michigan's defense back from the dead. That's optimistic. Cam Gordon will chase more than a couple opponents into the endzone. But not on third and twenty-four.

Fast forward to NOW!

nothing really matters… anyone can see… that nothing really matters to meeeeeeeeeee

Depressingly accurate overall even considering the original depression that was depressing. Michigan is 118th in pass defense and 94th in efficiency.

Maybe the corners have been slightly less atrocious than expected, but Michigan's been limited when they try to play man coverage because things like Iowa's last touchdown happen when they do. On that play, Michigan sent the house and JT Floyd gave up a slant despite starting with inside leverage. They make plays on occasion, but lord they're not good. Michigan's defense is limited in the same way their offense was in 2008—with deficiencies that severe man coverage is a dangerous gamble every time it's deployed.

Floyd is significantly improved, so there's that. He's still below average. He's not a total liability. On the other side, Michigan hasn't been able to displace Rogers despite his tendency to go into anaphylactic shock whenever he comes within five yards of an opponent wide receiver…

OH MY GOD WHAT DID YOU DO BATHE IN CAT HAIR

…because the freshmen have been playing like typical three-star true freshmen: badly. They first started rotating into the lineup against BG; since then

• Cullen Christian was burned twice against BG and gave up an easy long touchdown against Michigan State,
• Terrence Talbott was primarily responsible for turning third and fifteen into first and ten on Michigan State's second touchdown drive and gave Indiana their last touchdown by dragging out of his zone, and
• Courtney Avery was personally responsible for large chunks of Indiana yards, gave up a touchdown on third and ten against Iowa by dragging out of his zone, and turned what should have been another third and ten stop into a whiffed tackle, 20 yards, and the field goal that was the final nail in Michigan's coffin.

This is disappointing, especially Christian's failure to beat out not only Rogers but apparently his classmates. Talbott and Avery feature in the nickel and dime packages while Christian backed up the outside guy; he has apparently lost that job. too—Avery came in against Iowa when JT Floyd missed a few plays.

At safety, Kovacs has been Kovacs. He's small, he's not very fast, but he's probably the team's best tackler and he's been in the right spot more often than anyone on the defense. This has resulted in a bunch of UFRs where he's got several half-points in each direction and comes out at zero. He could be the fifth-best player on a good defense.

Cam Gordon has been rough, honestly little better than the mess Michigan threw out last year. He racked up a double-digit negative day against Notre Dame and followed that up with another one against Michigan State. His angles have been too aggressive or too conservative with little porridge in-between, and he's failed to shake a nasty habit of not wrapping up his tackles. He's pretty good running downhill, and that's about it. Preseason hype has given way to cold reality. Gordon is a redshirt freshman converted wide receiver who should probably be playing linebacker. He plays safety like he's a bowling ball: he goes fast in one direction and hopes to knock over the pins with momentum because he has no arms.

Fast forward to LATER!

What can we expect the rest of the year? Pain, but less of it.

Rodriguez made an offhand comment about maybe moving someone from one safety spot to another when discussing the possibility of a Will Campbell move, but that would either be Jordan Kovacs or Marvin Robinson. Kovacs's tenure at deep safety last year was hardly less disastrous than that of Mike William or Gordon; Marvin Robinson is yet another freshman who is likely to make the same sorts of mistakes.

Gordon's it unless Michigan wants to turn to true freshman two-star Ray Vinopal, who picked off a pass from a third-string Bowling Green walk-on and has therefore made the best play by a Michigan safety in the last ten years. I'm not sure if that's a joke.

Floyd's not very good, Rogers is what he is at this point, and the freshmen are clearly not instant impact types, except insofar as they give up an extra touchdown per game than a Michigan secondary featuring Troy Woolfolk. That is an impact, just not the one you're hoping for.

Your best hopes the rest of the year:

• Courtney Avery learns WTF a zone is and how to play it.
• Cam Gordon's angles and tackling improve marginally.
• JT Floyd progresses towards average and at least gets basic things right.

Actually, your best hope is this: Michigan did okay against the two rookies and/or flat bad quarterbacks they've faced to date. Zack Fraser didn't do anything. ND's three-headed QB was contained. Bowling Green couldn't do much of anything. Michigan's next three opponents all feature freshmen at QB; they're ranked 104th (PSU), 105th (Illinois), and 107th (Purdue) in passing efficiency. They're bound to be less effective than the last three guys, a senior returning starter, junior returning starter, and senior returning starter who are all in the top 30 in passer efficiency. Tolzien will shred, but who knows what Terrelle Pryor will do? (Probably shred, actually—he has no problems against awful Ds this year.)

By the end of the year Michigan's numbers will be slightly less grim as the schedule eases and the freshmen learn WTF a zone is. They will still be grim.

“There are times where there are four true freshmen out there and we want to do more,” Rodriguez said, “but at the same time, you can’t confuse those guys and make things even worse. We’re kind of in a little bit of a conflict.”

So the Indiana game was water torture interspersed with electric Japanese schoolgirl sex. The latter was great but the former was almost 75% of the game, and against teams with non-theoretical defenses a repeat will mean sad faces and rage. How likely is this? Eh… pretty likely at some point. But maybe not consistently.

Indiana is probably the most competent—and is definitely by far the most deployed—passing offense in the Big Ten. Last year Indiana was the only team other than Purdue to pass more than half the time. They did so at a 54% clip. This year they're up to 58% with the return of their entire passing offense, and that's despite a big chunk of the schedule being against tomato cans in which clock-killing runs are plentiful.

A look at Michigan's opponent and what they're likely to do to Michigan's secondary:

Michigan State

Pass Percentages: 50% in 2009, 40% in 2010.
Quarterback: Kirk Cousins, a senior redshirt junior returning starter.
Last year's performance: Cousins split time with Keith Nichol, with the two combining to go 20/29 for 220 yards and two interceptions.
Last year's run/pass split: 49 rushes and 29 passes, though a number of the MSU rushes were QB scrambles.

Cousins had a strong junior year, finishing 25th nationally in pass efficiency. He seems to have made the incremental improvement you'd expect him to; this year he's 13th and in two games against actual opponents he completed about two thirds of his passes for about 250 yards with a solid or better YPA. He also threw three interceptions.

However, State is an old-school I-form heavy conventional offense that looks almost identical to Lloyd Carr's and they set up a lot of their passing yards by running play action. Cousins isn't going to come anywhere near 64 attempts and MSU isn't going to pass 75% of the time. How the run defense holds up against this is an open question, but that's not what this post is about.

MICHIGAN SECONDARY : OPPONENT PASS OFFENSE :: bunny : somewhat unreliable wood chipper
CHAPPELBOMB RATING: 4 of 5. Michigan State was balanced last year, and that was with a terrible running game. This year they've got a stable of impressive backs and somewhat iffy hands in the receiving corps, so the bigger threat is probably getting gashed all day on the ground. Hurrah?

Iowa

Pass Percentages: 46% in 2009, 40% in 2010.
Quarterback: Ricky Stanzi, a senior returning starter.
Last year's performance: Found breathtakingly open tight ends but was erratic, going 20 of 38 for 284 yards and two TDs. Did deliver a Rick Six directly unto Donovan Warren.
Last year's run/pass split: 34 rushes, 38 passes. It should be noted that due to a Jewel Hampton ACL injury Iowa was thin at tailback oh wait that happened again this year except worse nevermind.

Stanzi's primary game of note this year was a 18/33, 278 yard 3TD-1INT game at Arizona where he was almost literally the Iowa offense. The Hawkeyes ran for 29 yards on 26 carries, and though plenty of sacks distort that the two tailbacks combined to average under 2 YPC. He was also efficient against PSU (16/22, 227 yards, 1TD-1INT) on a day when after a couple of quick touchdowns Iowa put it in neutral since they correctly believed Penn State could not score.

MICHIGAN SECONDARY : OPPONENT PASS OFFENSE :: raccoon : sports car with gore-smeared grill that spends a lot of time in the garage
CHAPPELBOMB RATING: 4 of 5. Stanzi may not be headed for NFL riches but he's been around the block and seems to have shaken his touchdown entitlement program. He's top ten in pass efficiency against a pretty decent schedule featuring Penn State, Arizona, and an Iowa State team that just won a Big 12 game (yay!!!). Here, it's the same story as Michigan State: they might be able to replicate it but the old-school coach is likely to split run and pass down the middle instead of letting fly most of the time.

And Now A Picture Of Denard For No Reason

Penn State

Pass Percentages: 46% in 2009, 49% in 2010.
Quarterback: True freshman Robert Bolden.
Last year's performance: N/A
Last year's run/pass split: 40 runs, 27 passes as Darryl Clark had four touchdowns in just 27 attempts.

Surprise! Penn State's quarterback situation is terrible. The Nittany Lions are 103rd in passer efficiency. To be fair they've gone up against the brutal defenses of Iowa and Alabama, but Bolden threw two interceptions against Kent State and a pick-six against Iowa on a day when people say he could have thrown four or five.

Their offensive line is really hurting, the tight ends are all injured, and Penn State will probably avoid passing too much as long as it remains relatively close.

MICHIGAN SECONDARY : OPPONENT PASS OFFENSE :: eucalyptus tree : koala bear
CHAPPELBOMB RATING: 1 of 5. Penn State's offensive line gets more hypothetical by the day and now they're down to freshmen or wide receivers at tight end. Meanwhile, Bolden is talented but error-prone, the perfect thing against a Michigan defense that is pretty good at watching others succeed or fail without having much impact either way. Expect gentle chewing.

Illinois

Pass Percentages: 40% in 2009, 33% in 2010.
Quarterback: Redshirt freshman Nathan Scheelhaase.
Last year's performance: N/A
Last year's run/pass split: 11 passes, 56 runs, dead kittens all over the state.

Illinois was already wildly run-biased but they've managed to slide further away from the mean despite graduating half-Desmond, half-duck quarterback Juice Williams. A man named Scheelhaase might sound like a 6'5" pocket passer with a background in soccer and the mobility of John Navarre, but he's actually a highly-rated dual-threat quarterback with FAKE 40 times in the 4.5 range. The play distribution makes some sense.

It also makes sense because in three games against I-A competition Scheelhaase's best outing is 8 of 16 for 70 yards against Northern Illinois. In his first start against Missouri he put up an amazing, amazing stat line: 9 of 23 for 81 yards, a TD, and three INTs. If Michigan gets shredded by Illinois it won't be in the air.

MICHIGAN SECONDARY : OPPONENT PASS OFFENSE :: confused goat : equally confused goat.
CHAPPELBOMB RATING: 0 of 5. If Michigan can contain one passing offense this year, it will be this one.

Purdue

Pass Percentages: 54% in 2009, 47% in 2010.
Quarterback: Redshirt freshman Robert "Rob" Henry, at least until such time as Angry Purdue ACL-Hating God gets bored.
Last year's performance: N/A
Last year's run/pass split: 39 passes, 29 runs as Joey Elliot went for almost 400 yards.

Henry is Purdue's second-stringer, and to add injury to injury (to injury) he'll be operating without his top receiver, top tailback, and possibly his third option at WR if Justin Siller can't make it back from a badly sprained ankle. Information on him is limited. In most of a game against Toledo he was 17 of 31 for 140 yards, a TD, and an INT. He's probably not that good if he was behind Robert Marve to start the year, especially since he's apparently a much better runner.

MICHIGAN SECONDARY : OPPONENT PASS OFFENSE :: chicken : fox with three peg-legs and eyepatches over both eyes hyyyarrr.
CHAPPELBOMB RATING: 2 of 5. Purdue is still a passing spread but their offensive line is in shambles and by the time the Michigan game rolls around they might be starting Random Student somewhere.

Wisconsin

AnnArbor.com

Pass Percentages: 37% in 2009, 35% in 2010.
Quarterback: Senior returning starter Scott Tolzien.
Last year's performance: Fire and brimstone falling from the sky as Tolzien averaged 10 YPA on 24 attempts, throwing 4 touchdowns to one INT and causing me to swear bloody revenge on Jay Hopson. Yes, again.
Last year's run/pass split: 52 rushes, 24 passes.

This was a complete debacle last year, causing me to fear Wisconsin even after they almost blew it against Arizona State; I'm still swallowing hard at the idea of going up against them again. Tolzien was awful against MSU but very good against ASU. In the games against patsies he's been efficient… and seldom used… kind of like he was last year against Michigan.

MICHIGAN SECONDARY : OPPONENT PASS OFFENSE :: abdomen : scalpel
CHAPPELBOMB RATING: 4 of 5. Yes, this again: efficient senior game manager who carved up Michigan's crap defense a year ago and has a good shot at doing it again.

Ohio State

Pass Percentages: 36% in 2009, 40% in 2010.
Quarterback: Terrelle Pryor, junior returning starter.
Last year's performance: Did virtually nothing: 9/17, 67 yards, 1 TD, 1 INT.
Last year's run/pass split: 53 runs, 17 passes.

That line from last year might have been more interesting if Tate Forcier wasn't busy throwing the game ball at various members of the Ohio State pass defense. As it was OSU had the Tresselball on full throttle. This year Pryor's nuked the patsies (though he did throw a couple interceptions against Ohio) and been somewhat limited against real opposition. Take out a shovel pass to Dan Herron that went for 47 yards and Pryor was 11 of 26 for 186 yards against Miami, with 62 of those on a single bomb to DeVier Posey. Last week against Illinois Pryor had another epic Tresselball stat line: 9/16, 76 yards, 2 TD, 1 INT. Apparently it was windy or something.

While I can totally see that Posey bomb happening against Michigan, I'd rather this defense give up a big touchdown and then a bunch of nothing than get Chappelbombed.

MICHIGAN SECONDARY : OPPONENT PASS OFFENSE :: London : V1 rocket
CHAPPELBOMB RATING: 2 of 5. Tressel will probably Tressel it, leaving Pryor a spectator and runner most of the day. Also… wind or not, his stats are not indicative of a guy who anyone is going to put a game on in a Chappell sort of way. Doubt he even gets to 25 attempts against M.

People who spell his name with a D in it are paying ironic tribute to everyone who thinks it's Troy Woolfork, right? Right?