zone read

Are they worried about me? They should be worried about you. [Bryan Fuller]

Schedule note: Sorry this is getting up late. It, uh, ran long.

Well, Brian went and Joel Klatt'ed* me again. I was going to use this space this week to talk about how the threat of a McCarthy keep opened up the two big runs for Corum and Edwards, and then Brian went ahead and Neck Sharpied in his game column. That piece (with his embed replaced with a more permanent clip):

It changes things. I mentioned that JJ McCarthy's legs were an important factor in Michigan's ground game in the Indiana UFR, even and maybe even especially when he didn't have the ball. That's going to come up again in this week's edition because hoo boy the threat of McCarthy keeping the ball was a major factor on both of Michigan's long touchdown runs. The Corum one is obvious; just watch the cornerback to the bottom of the screen:

 

Brian then asserted the threat of McCarthy keeping created the block that sprung Edwards the drive prior. Since it's bound to come up a lot more, and has been a hammer point of ours for years, I figured I might as well dig all the way in. And by all the way in I mean ALL the way in. This isn't going to just discuss a concept or two. We're going to put a lot of pieces together that make up the Michigan QB threat run game, because it was all relevant, and all worked in concert to create a 400+ yard running day against what, in the not too distant past, was considered one of college football's better run defenses.

* [Fox analyst Joel Klatt frequently breaks down events during broadcasts immediately after they occur, preempting our core content that does the same several days later.]

[After THE JUMP: First they crashed, then they burned.]

Unpacking why there seems to be a lot of unread space. [Bryan Fuller]

So yeah, I'm UFRing the Spring Game. Did you want recruiting roundups instead? Yeah, that's what I thought. Anyway you're not supposed to read much into spring stuff except I noticed they were still doing a thing that annoyed me a lot last year.

If you missed all that, there was a running question through these exercises whether Cade McNamara's keep reads were hot or if they were determining what their post-snap mesh results were going to be beforehand. This was true for RPOs as well as zone reads. And it made life hard because I couldn't tell for certain if the coaches were telling McNamara to give no matter what, or if that was just how he was reading things, or maybe he was reading something else.

With the benefit of an offseason and Sherrone Moore's recent coaching clinic, where he echoed Josh Gattis's claim that they put reads on all this stuff, I think I can say it was mostly on McNamara.

However there were a few instances where his coaches gave him a read that wasn't the thing that turned out to be wide open. And I wanted to call attention to that, not because Michigan's missing out on some easy yards, but because I think they're making a conscious decision about this, and…you're going to laugh…it kind of makes sense.

The Wide Open Bubble

Let's begin with this play from the spring game.

Maize has Darrius Clemons in the backfield (the one on top) as a split-back flanking McNamara with Donovan Edwards. Clemons takes an orbit motion to the opposite flat, but nobody goes with him. The defense is blitzing the slot safety, Caden Kolesar, behind a crash from the OLB, Jaylen Harrell. That means there isn't anybody for Clemons until the deep safety.

image

McNamara is clearly looking at Kolesar. Kolesar is clearly the slot defender in the best position to be running outside with Clemons. Kolesar is clearly blitzing. And yet McNamara gives. Why?

We're going to ignore the play's result (it's a risky but successful demolition of Counter GT by Kris Jenkins) to focus on what McNamara does after the handoff. First thing he does is look at Clemons. And probably feels kinda bad.

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But it's what Cade does next that interests me. This is a trot, but he's clearly been practicing this as a rollout/QB run.

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The look to Clemons suggests that's an option. But given his reaction to Kolesar, I think I can say with some confidence that McNamara wasn't reading Kolesar on an RPO bubble to Clemons; he was reading Kolesar on a QB keep with a pitch option to Clemons.

[After THE JUMP: There's also something every familiar about all this.]
[Patrick Barron]

FORMATION NOTES: All gun, and the vast majority was three-wide with Eubanks and three WRs in.

snap the ball

Indiana responds by having a box that looks light and then sending someone down to either blitz off the corner or adding a safety to the linebacker level. Or just running a light box and hoping to get away with it.

SUBSTITUTION NOTES: With Hayes and Mayfield out the line was Barnhart/Filiaga/Vastardis/Zinter/Stueber. Eubanks returned and got the large majority of snaps; Erick All was involved somewhat but after another drop he barely saw the field.

The usual at WR with Bell leading the pack; felt like Cornelius Johnson slid into the #2 role both by targets and snaps. Sainristil, Wilson, and Jackson were tightly bunched behind. Henning continues to get snaps; here he had more than his previous bare handful.

Same near-even four-man rotation at RB. Ben Mason's role was significantly reduced.

[After THE JUMP: Milton is legitimately promising, at least]

A DT in the backfield, an MLB on the line to gain, and a QB run for a 1st down on a play Michigan can finally feel proud of. 

Hassan Haskins

First make them respect you.

in before "i refuse to read this" 

404 keep not found.

MOVE

a tactical blowout obscured by some wonky execution

hail hail to Ed Warinner, the ol coach who's best 

Shea Patterson

Haha, foiled, you silly tight end. I am inside you and your running back is…wait whereareyougoing?

A pull, a man, a plan, a canal, Panama, llupa

it wasn't as bad as you remember: it was only almost as bad