Grantland

Michigan is ranked #2 on Mark Titus' power rankings on Grantland:

http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/8873373/mark-titus-top-12-ncaa-power-rankings-how-butler-turned-irritating-style-play-wins-indiana-gonzaga

Even though he's an OSU alum and can be annoying at times, I've enjoyed his column this season as he mixes intelligent basketball comments with snarky jabs at various people or schools. 

His take this week touches on the OSU-UM game and was pretty interesting:

If you're wondering how good this team is, here's all you need to know: I'm an Ohio State alum who has been trained over the course of the past six years to hate everything about Michigan. Yet when my alma mater jumped out to a huge lead against the Wolverines last Saturday, a small part of me was hoping they'd claw back into the game, because I love watching this team at its best. Of course, I didn't want Michigan to win, and they came closer to pulling off the comeback than I would've preferred, but I'll admit that when Ohio State was handing their asses to them in the first half, the basketball fan in me was bummed I wasn't seeing the Trey Burke & Co. that I've grown to admire.

There's more about Michigan in the full column as well as Indiana and Minnesota. 

Pretty solid read over al, grantland ranks the top 12 college teams each week and this week we have jumped into the #1 spot. 

http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/8828729/mark-titus-top-12-ncaa-power...

In case you don't frequent Grantland, they've added a picture-pages esque feature called the "Trenchies" that details OL and DL play from the past week in the NFL.

Since many on this blog can't consume enough football info, I figured I'd pass along a link:

http://www.grantland.com/blog/the-triangle/post/_/id/44528/the-trenchie-awards-some-vintage-john-abraham-and-the-play-of-the-year-from-j-j-watt

That's this week's, focusing on John Abraham and JJ Watt, and here's a link to all the previous stories:

http://www.grantland.com/search?query=Trenchie

http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/8631595/the-success-chip-kelly-oregon-ducks-offense-more-familiar-seems

Chris Brown (@smartfootball) has an excellent read up on Grantland about Chip Kelley's philosopy regarding offense. 2 things that really stuck out to me (besides the great scheme and play breakdowns) is that Kelly was actually an O-Line coach to get his start, and he really only had 4 blocking schemes for his OL in 2008. Thing 2 was that his absolute goal is to run the ball up the middle on you. Give it a read.

While the coach-player interaction may be limited during Kelly's practices, it's significant before and after them, mostly in the teaching of scheme. At its most fundamental, Kelly's system is a carefully organized, carefully practiced method for forcing defenses to defend the whole field, and then exploiting those areas left exposed. And the first tool Kelly uses is a surprising one: math.

"If there are two high safeties [i.e., players responsible for deep pass defense], mathematically there can only be five defenders in the box. With one high safety, there can be six in the box. If there is no high safety, there can be seven in the box," Kelly explained at the 2011 spring Nike Coach of the Year Clinic. The easiest case is if the defense plays with two deep defenders: "With two high safeties, we should run the ball most of the time. We have five blockers and they have five defenders."

Courtesy of Chris Brown

As Vanderbilt's excellent offensive line coach, Herb Hand, recently told me, "I tell my offensive line that if the defense plays two safeties deep, it's like spitting in your face — it's a lack of respect for your run game." Oregon's run game doesn't suffer from any lack of respect; as a result, they rarely face two-deep defenses except on obvious passing downs.

When a team brings that extra defender into the box, the calculus for the offense changes. "If the defense has one high safety and six defenders in the box, the quarterback has to be involved in the play," Kelly explained. "He has to read one of the defenders, in effect blocking him. We can block five defenders and read the sixth one." Marcus Mariota, Oregon's dynamic freshman quarterback, has been an excellent blocker without hitting anyone at all.

Yup, we appeared on the WWL's actual writing site.

http://www.grantland.com/blog/the-triangle/post/_/id/41171/nfl-run-shootaround-deserves-got-nothing-to-do-with-it

talking about us talking about Stevie Brown. "Michigan Fans Included" is a link on the site to our thread on how Stevie is good. Congrats MGoBlog, we're the internet's go to for Michigan Fans' opinions.

Brown has now caught five interceptions for 168 yards; only Chicago's Tim Jennings has more. It's a minor miracle that he was on the field at all. After being drafted out of Michigan in the seventh round in 2010, Brown was waived by Oakland and Carolina and had a stint with the Colts before signing with the Giants this summer to provide depth. But when Kenny Phillips sprained his knee and Tyler Sash and Will Hill got suspended for Adderall (how millennial of them!), Brown found himself in the starting position, where he's made a case to remain — to the surprise of just about everyone, Michigan fans included.

Nice little interview with Simmons as they chat CWebb. The story about how Jalen met Chris was great, and it's really interesting to me that both Jalen and CWebb are now so very active members of the media.