third and short

11/13/2021 – Michigan 21, Penn State 17 – 9-1, 6-1 Big Ten

Sean Clifford sat down on the sideline and let his demeanor crack briefly. Unfortunately for him, this moment was caught by ABC's cameras and broadcast nationwide. He collapsed on the bench and looked like he'd spent several hours in a car wash, without a car. Weary. Bone-deep weary. His jersey looked like he was wearing one of those HOUSE DIVIDED half-and-half monstrosities, this one split equally between Penn State and Grass & Splintered Bone Tech.

GASBTU has a regionally competitive meat judging team [Barron]

He was in the midst of getting sacked seven times and running for his life another couple dozen times. He'd flung passes to receivers who merrily dropped them. He was big parts of the third-and-medium ground game. He'd watched his coach call for a fake field goal on the two yard line. At some point, he knew, he would have to go out there again and pretend for exactly 2.1 seconds that the useless pylons the OL coach insisted were the starting tackles would block the two demons Michigan insisted were college students instead of stygian nightmares conjured up in a foul act of summoning prowess. (Michigan's position: "why not both?")

Sean Clifford sighed a sigh. He sat and calcified on the bench. He sighed again. Eventually got up.

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Opposing fans are not known for empathy. Anything short of psychotic narcissism generally qualifies you as one of the good ones. But as Penn State lurched into a fourth quarter lead, Michigan Twitter thoughts evolved from "how is he doing this" to "I hope he stops doing this" to "I'm glad he stopped doing that" before finally landing on a sort of elegy.

When your opposition fights like a lion and then has the courtesy to die, you parade him around, lauding his heroism. Appreciating his martial spirit, which was perfectly calibrated: just enough to lose valiantly. Well done. Now we get to feel the exhilaration of a close win. You get to wonder if Clifford's sanity meter is going to overflow against Rutgers.

Michigan fans saw the same thing happen to one of the most physically promising quarterbacks to ever land in Ann Arbor. Devin Gardner looked like a Heisman contender while batting away 300-pound defensive tackles under the lights against Notre Dame; several games later he had the same jersey Clifford does above, except worse.

[Bryan Fuller]

He was no longer the same quarterback. Nobody is when the expectation moves from the possibility of improvisation to the necessity of flight. Clifford isn't, either. Penn State was on their way to a win over Iowa when he got crushed by an unblocked blitzer. When Clifford came back his running ability was put on the shelf, and Penn State went into a tailspin.

Even in this game when PSU turned his legs back on and he started off brilliantly he faded down the stretch, overthrowing open receivers and finally jacking up a hopeless, inaccurate fade as RJ Moten tore at him just like the Iowa defender had a month ago. It's not clear whether Clifford had time to realize that his mesh routes had been obliterated. Watching it again, it feels like Clifford saw Moten charging at him and had an octopus nope moment. Not because he's not tough enough—the preceding 57 minutes are evidence enough—but because he is a human and you can only endure so much blunt force trauma in a short period of time before you are a human who very much does not want to continue having a football attached to his person.

These are the works of Ojabo and Hutchinson. Look on them, ye quarterbacks, and despair.

AWARDS

Known Friends and Trusted Agents Of The Week

"not in the face" [Bryan Fuller]

you're the man now, dog

#1 Aidan Hutchinson/David Ojabo. We're just flipping the Hutchinson/Ojabo pairing and Haskins until further notice. Five sacks between Michigan's twin towers of destruction to go with three fumbles forced and a critical holding call drawn by Hutchinson. Hutchinson was so terrifying that at one point a PSU running back looked straight at Junior Colson charging upfield unmolested, decided that he should block Hutchinson instead, and may have been correct to do so since Hutchinson just went through both guys to share a sack with Colson. Meanwhile Ojabo leads the country in forced fumbles. Full points for both, because you try explaining to them why they don't get full points.

#2 Hassan Haskins. Michigan's bell cow again with Corum out. Rough start, smooth finish with 31 carries for 156 yards and another 45 yards on 5 receptions. Making Michigan's garbage short yardage package work through sheer will. Ripping through linebackers on the regular. Just a miserable bastard to tackle all around.

#3 DJ Turner. Yeah PSU got him on the TD and the two point conversion but those were throws that were uncontestable, particularly the two point conversion. Turner had in fact done a terrific job to give PSU nothing but a tough ball down and to the outside; Dotson and Clifford executed it. Outside of that Turner got in two PBUs, one on the first snap and one on Dotson in the fourth quarter, while providing at least solid and usually very good coverage the rest of the day.

Honorable mention: Cade McNamara had some hiccups but put up 7.5 YPA against a very good defense. Roman Wilson scored a couple of TDs, one on a skinny post he won decisively on. Colson and Josh Ross put in yeoman work with little support for most of the day and turned in important TFLs. Brad Robbins out-dueled Jordan Stout in the punt-off.

KFaTAotW Standings.

(points: #1: 8, #2: 5, #3: 3, HMs one each. Ties result in somewhat arbitrary assignments.)

42: Aidan Hutchinson (HM WMU, #2 Wash, #1 Rutgers, #1 Wisc, HM Neb, #2 NW, T3 MSU, T2 IU, T1 PSU)
30: Hassan Haskins (HM WMU, T3 Wash, T2 NIU, #2 Neb, T1 NW, #1 IU, #2 PSU)
21: David Ojabo (#2 Wisc, T3 MSU, T2 IU, T1 PSU)
18: The OL (#1 Wash, #1 NIU, HM Neb, HM NW)
17: Blake Corum (#2 WMU, T3 Wash, T2 NIU, HM Neb, T1 NW)
10: Cade McNamara (#1 MSU, HM IU, HM PSU)
8: Ronnie Bell (#1 WMU), Brad Hawkins (#1 Neb),Dax Hill (#3 WMU, HM NIU, HM Rutgers, HM Wisc, HM Neb, HM MSU)
7: Brad Robbins (HM Wash, #3 Rutgers, HM Wisc, HM PSU), Josh Ross (HM Wash, HM NIU, HM Rutgers, HM Neb, HM NW, HM PSU)
6: Nikhai Hill-Green(HM NIU, #2 Rutgers), Jake Moody (HM Wash, HM Wisc, #3 Neb, HM MSU), DJ Turner (#3 NW, #3 PSU)
5: Cornelius Johnson(HM NIU, HM Wisc, #3 IU), Andrel Anthony (#2 MSU)
4: AJ Henning (HM WMU, #3 NIU), Roman Wilson (#3 Wisc, HM PSU)
3: Donovan Edwards(T2 NIU)
2: Erick All (HM NW, HM MSU), Junior Colson (HM IU, HM PSU)
1: Andrew Vastardis (HM WMU),Mike Sainristil (HM WMU), Mazi Smith (HM Wash), Gemon Green(HM NIU), Chris Hinton (HM Rutgers),  Taylor Upshaw (HM IU)

Who's Got It Better Than Us(?) Of The Week

Michigan runs the Mother Of All Mesh Routes against cover one to pop Erick All open for the game-winning touchdown:

TD WOLVERINES !

Quelle réponse de Michigan ! Un drive parfait conclu par ce TD sur réception de TE Erick All.

Penn State 17, Michigan 21pic.twitter.com/JFQ1QQp1KL

— TBP College Football (@thebluepennant) November 13, 2021

FYI, this was the biggest swing play of the week in college football, spiking Michigan's win percentage by 24%.

Honorable mention: Macdonald calls the Mother Of All Mesh Beaters on PSU ensuing drive; McNamara drops a dime to Wilson; the other dime to Wilson; any of various Robbins mechapunts; any of various Hutch/Ojabo pass rushes.

​MARCUS HALL EPIC DOUBLE BIRD OF THE WEEK.

McNamara is violently blindsided on third and eleven for a sack strip that eventually sends PSU ahead for the first time.

Honorable mention: Fourth and six fake punt conversion after timeout; third and seventeen conversion earlier on that drive; four different false starts put Michigan behind the eight-ball on offense.

[After THE JUMP: well it's M-PSU so we have to talk about someone deciding something absurd]

9/7/2019 – Michigan 24, Army 21 (2OT) – 2-0

Welcome, BPONE sufferers! A double-overtime game against Army has everyone back in the pit, and even in the cold light of day 48 hours later it's hard to argue. A week after it felt like Michigan had added a bunch to the arc read package that saved their running game last year, Michigan QBs kept once and Zach Charbonnet trundled towards a very 1982 line: 33 carries, 100 yards.

Back in 1995 the shotgun was understood as an offensive gambit limited to passing downs because attempting to run out of it sucked. It would continue to suck until Rich Rodriguez accidentally invented the zone read when his QB at Glenville State screwed up. Once the option made spreading the field a run-game advantage instead of a disadvantage… [gestures at college football].

Michigan took the portal back to 1995 this weekend, and now we're back to crabbing about Michigan's offensive system while Lloyd Carr's on the field. RIP Speed In Space, 8/31/2019-9/7/2019. Cue the spittle, and the condescending media columns about how spittle is unbecoming.

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In the aftermath Harbaugh was asked about the lack of reads from his quarterback and made some assertions that I hope are not true:

On Shea Patterson potentially being dinged up and not running on option plays

He ran a couple. He was better. He was able to work through what he had and felt 100 percent for the game.

The read was not there for the quarterback to pull it.

If this is a 100% Shea Patterson, Michigan isn't doing anything this year. And it probably isn't. Patterson's lone called run of the game went four yards; Patterson was not hit but dove forward onto the ground. There he stayed. Dylan McCaffrey came in for the next two plays. Patterson returned for OT, hitting a couple of short throws across the middle in Michigan's first drive before three consecutive bad misses in OT2.

That certainly feels like a QB who Michigan is attempting to protect, because as soon as they stop doing that he goes out of the game briefly and then airmails all his passes of any length. (The OT1 throws were inside the hashes; the OT2 throws were on the sideline.)

The frustrating thing is that Army's approach never got tested. Michigan's rock paper scissors wins in this game were close to nonexistent. Army swallowed a fourth and two play with two guys in the backfield. Patterson's lone zone read keep ate a corner blitz. Michigan ran out of ideas late and kept returning to a no-read power play. This wasn't a return to the sometimes clunky early Harbaugh days—those had tons of different run plays and regularly popped guys through big holes by misdirecting linebackers. This was a near-total abdication of the idea of coordinating a run game.

So, like, what the hell? Why did game two of Josh Gattis become a debacle on par with Let's Put Denard Under Center? If Patterson is hurt why isn't Dylan McCaffrey playing? If Army is messing with Michigan's reads in basic scrape exchange ways, why don't you have a plan for that?

Like the title says: no good answers.

There's a lot of people extrapolating from not enough data and deciding to jump out of a plane; it's too early for that, but getting approximately zero coordinator wins in a tight game against Army while both quarterbacks get their offseason hype blown up is cause for concern.

Football's weird and Michigan has a bye week to get healthy and figure some things out. They'll have to.

[After THE JUMP: slomka, slomka, slomka, egg, and slomka]

Stuffing. Upchurch

Eleven months ago I used this space to discuss Michigan's crazy success in defensive short situations. That was brought on by a staggering performance against Illinois, at which point Michigan had stopped 15 of 27 3rd- or 4th-and-one situations, and 13 of 19 against real competition. This was up from stopping less than a quarter of such plays the previous two years, and almost as far above the going rate for all defenses.

This was huge. Getting one yard for any offense is far easier that stopping it for any defense—one good block can usually do it. Forcing a 4th down situation from 3rd and 1 or a turnover on downs on 4th and 1 is worth half a turnover or more. Jamie Mac addressed this further in his HTTV article, showing that the stoppage situation was affecting the happy margin between our yards-ceded defense and scoring defense as much as having a ridiculous year in turnover luck.

Michigan last year was really good at stopping the short stuff, but folks chalked it up to Martin and Van Bergen playing to their strengths and figured it was a blip. Except it wasn't just those guys. Here's last year's chart for short situations, through OSU:

Two thirds of Michigan's short-down production from last year returned (as did bad refs). Demens, Roh, Ryan, Kovacs, and Campbell were all key role players in that ridiculous shutdown rate, and if the UFR can be trusted, they weren't getting it just because of things the Team 132 seniors were doing.

This doesn't even count things like stopping Ohio State on 3rd and goal from the 2. Actually it doesn't count goal line situations at all, though 1st and goal from the 1 is as hard to stop as 3rd and 1 from the 40. So I revisited when updating the UFR database. Get ready to be happy (through MSU):

It's still happening. It's happening more. We replaced Martin and RVB with Washington and Campbell, and if anything got better! And like last year Michigan's short defense seems to be getting tougher as the season goes on. Since Big Ten play started, the non-stops have read thusly: Purdue converting with 16 seconds left in the half while down 18, Illinois benefiting from a terrible spot, two plays where Bell was forced to cut back into the pile and just managed to squeak through, and one bust.

[After the jump, what's causing it, and the plays vs. State]