Soooooo. In case you've been living under a rock, Michigan's marquee week two non-conference opponent, the one for the hyped under the lights Maize Out game, lost to an FCS team in week one. At home. And they scored 7 total points. And not to invoke <<redacted 2007 team that won a game in Ann Arbor>>, but this FCS squad ain't exactly a perennial juggernaut at that level. Montana's a good program, sure, but they're not a powerhouse like an Eastern Washington or a North Dakota State. The Grizzlies have made the FCS Tournament once in the last four seasons. This was, without a doubt, a stunner. Given that Washington's offense and its dismal performance got most of the blame for the upset loss in Seattle on Saturday, this FFFF has more or less one objective: to figure out what the hell happened, and what it means for Michigan. 

As a programming note, this is my first FFFF. I've received plenty of pointers for Seth, but it probably won't be as expert-level as his have been in recent years, since I'm just beginning, so bear with me, and feel free to provide any feedback. 

The Film: Washington has played one game this season, and thus has one game of film to go off of. It's also the only game anyone cares about in investigating this matchup. Even if I wanted to (for no reason) use a game from last season, everyone would be screaming at me to do this one. So Montana it is. 

Personnel: Click for big.

 

UPDATE: Here's the chart.

One story for Washington are its injuries at WR. The Huskies were without their top three WR's in returning production from last season in this game due to injury, and then lost incoming Texas Tech transfer Ja'Lynn Polk to injury on the game's first play. I don't think there's any question that it affected the way the Huskies played the game, but how much having those guys healthy would have affected the outcome is a question will consider later on. With those four players out, Washington leaned heavily on RS FR Taj Davis, who got his first six career collegiate catches in that game, as well as Old Friend Giles Jackson, at the wide out position. At TE they still had star Cade Otton, who, along with Jackson and Davis, got 18 of the team's 27 receptions. Seven of the other nine went to RB's, Richard Newton and Cameron Davis. 

Washington plays with a lot of TE's on the field. Otton rarely comes off, but in their two TE looks they often turn to Devin Culp. He got one reception and sometimes runs routes. Jack Westover is used in three TE sets as a blocking option. Their offensive line is a pretty set five in terms of who was used in this game. Four are returning starters. LG Julius Buelow beat out last year's starter Ulumoo Ale in camp but let's just say it wasn't the best day for him. Dylan Morris is the QB. He will be discussed frequently in this piece. 

[AFTER THE JUMP: How it all went wrong]

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A pretty standard offensive formation for Washington in this game

Spread, Pro-Style or Hybrid? Washington ran a largely pro-style offense in this game (as the pro-style has grown to incorporate more spread). There's virtually no threat of the QB rushing game, and they use so many two and three TE sets that lining up tons of bodies at the line of scrimmage was very common. Few deep routes, little air raid going on here. Simplistic, vanilla, no RPO's, calling a lot of slants and out routes for receivers, who, in part due to personnel, were often TE's. They tried to hammer the ball up the gut a ton, rarely running outside the tackles. In many ways the stylistic look of the offense from a bird's eye view was reminiscent of Harbaugh's first few seasons at Michigan. 

Basketball on Grass or MANBALL? This was definitely Manball. The above sort of formation was not at all unusual for what Washington was doing in this game. They weren't always trying to Manball it, and yes they lined up in the shotgun often, but they were definitely never playing Basketball on Grass. As a quick hint as to what went wrong for Washington in this game, this chart may provide a pretty big window: 

Formation	Run	PA	Pass	Total
Shotgun	8	-	42	67%
Under Center	16	8	1	33%

The predictability of formation wasn't something I honestly picked up on until compiling the data and holy cow. Then I jogged back through my memory and it does line up with the eye test. If Washington lined up under center, they were normally running it, and if they weren't, there was always going to be play-action. If they came out in shotgun, they were probably throwing it. And again, those throws were rarely anything resembling Basketball on Grass. 

As for play call based on down: 

Down	Run	Pass
1st	14	19
2nd	9	15
3rd	1	14
4th	-	3

The first down category was pretty balanced until two separate two minute drill drives skewed the numbers to the pass side. Washington passed every time on fourth down, but that was largely because two of the three times they went for it were on 4th & long situations, and the other was a 4th & 2 in the game's waning moments, when running was largely off the table. Perhaps the most striking observation here is how they almost exclusively passed on 3rd down. Part of that was probably related to (as you will see) the fact that UW couldn't do a damn thing on the ground, but they also were in a lot of 3rd & longs. 10 of the 15 third downs they faced were 3rd & 5 or longer. 

Hurry it up or grind it out? Grind it out. Washington's first drive of the game (which really gives you a feel of how they wanted to play before situations taint the approach) saw the Huskies fully huddle up before nearly every play and use plenty of the play clock. They continued to huddle up throughout the game until the two minute drill late. This has been a thing for years now for Washington. In terms of plays per game, Washington has finished 102nd, 102nd, 78th, 119th, and 99th over the preceding five seasons. Again, from the bird's eye view, this offense really resembles a 2015-16 Harbaugh offense. 

Quarterback Dilithium Level (Scale: 1 [Navarre] to 10 [Denard]): Dylan Morris did not have a single run for positive yardage in this game. The only time he showed up on the rushing sheet was for sacks. This is pretty customary for him. Last season he had 17 rushes across four games, which includes sacks. He can move a bit and they did like to roll him out of the pocket on play-action, but utilizing Morris' legs is not a major part of the offense whatsoever. There were no designed Morris runs in this one and so all you really have to think about is the scramble, but even there he wasn't dangerous at all. Sure he can dance in the pocket a bit, but you don't really need to practice QB contain for this one. Give him a 3. 

Dangerman: Welllll, this is a bit difficult. Going off of this game alone, there was no one worth starring as the Dangerman, but since the format of this column makes me pick somebody, I have to go with (based off of last season) Cade Otton. Otton was 1st team All-PAC 12 last season and was a preseason All-American. And should Washington's WR injuries persist another week, Otton is really the only offensive skill position player worth worrying about. This wasn't his best game, but he still led the Huskies with 8 receptions in this one, going for an average of 10.3 yards per reception, the most YPR of any Washington player to catch at least two passes. Most of the routes he ran in this game weren't terribly complex because (as you will see) this was The Training Wheels Offense, but Otton's mammoth 6-5, 250 frame make him a useful target even if he's well covered by a linebacker on a 6-yard curl route or an 8-yard out. 

Otton's best catch came late in the game on a huge fourth down, which also happened to be the best throw Morris made in this game: 

#87 in the slot to the top

I wasn't overly enthused with Otton's blocking, which surprised me a bit, but his value to the offense— and to Morris— cannot be overstated. And he's got plenty of more highlights from last season as a receiver to justify me starring him: 

Otton is a good player and it will definitely be interesting to see how Mike Macdonald's new defense plans to cover Otton, since we really have no previous evidence to go off of, given that WMU had precisely 0 notable TE receiving targets. 

 

HenneChart:

With ~5 minutes to go in the first quarter, PAC-12 Network PxP announcer JB Long exclaimed "Dylan Morris has come to play!". 

**Narrator**: Dylan Morris had actually not come to play. 

At that juncture, Morris was 5/7 through the air, Washington was leading 7-3, and even though all the passes Morris had thrown up to that point were generic checkdowns and short, easy completions, Long made sure not to let cautionary evidence get in the way of making a flashy declaration that would quickly turn into fodder for your author on blogs such as this one. After starting 5/7, Morris would close the game 22/39 with 0 TD's and 3 INT's, getting much of the heat from the Washington fanbase for the loss. 

When I was doing The Enemy: QB back in early August, I didn't quite understand why UW fans were clamoring so aggressively to replace Morris at QB, when his stats last season seemed passable. Then I watched this game and understood why: Morris is an extremely limited game manager with wavering accuracy, limited in part by his 6'0" height. He would not look out of place as the QB on a vintage Wisconsin team, or, again, an early Harbaugh offense. Let's take a look at the chart: 

UW vs. MT	Good				Neutral			Bad					Ovr
Quarterback	DO	CA	SCR		PR	MA		BA	TA	IN	BR		DSR	PFF
Dylan Morris	1	22	-		4	5		-	1	10	3		62%	-

The 62%, while not great, also isn't a ghastly Joe Milton Against Wisconsin 47%. Morris wasn't horrific, but his flaws constrain the offense considerably. Those 22 catchable balls were exactly that: basic, adequate throws to receivers that almost never went more than 10 yards past the line of scrimmage. His 1 DO was that throw to Otton I showed earlier.

Morris' spiral was not particularly tight and there were plenty of wobblers thrown in. The coaching staff tried to get Morris on the move by rolling him out of the pocket on play-action, but I was not overly impressed by his ability to deliver in those situations. His arm did not seem strong enough to deliver good balls on the run, when his feet were not set. His five marginal throws are a pretty good indicator of this: several of his throws were catchable but were not great throws that knocked out the ability for YAC or made it harder on the receiver than it needed to be. And then yes, there were plenty of inaccurate balls and a few instances where he tried to force it into double and triple coverage when better options were available. Those IN/BR instances ramped up late, as Morris' performance deteriorated considerably as the game went along, hence why the ill-advised "Dylan Morris came to play!" came 10 minutes into the game and not with 10 minutes left to the game. We'll dig more into Morris' performance below. 

OVERVIEW

So now that we've talked about stylistic components to the game... what the hell happened? Why did Washington have an egg on their face and lose to an FCS team at home, becoming the shame of college football and the laughingstock of the PAC-12? For me it breaks down into four factors: 

1.) The supposedly-heralded OL getting downright clowned by Montana's defensive front

2.) Dylan Morris limiting the offense's potential and shrinking into a pumpkin as the game went along  

3.) The lack of healthy WR targets removing the deep shot from the playbook 

4.) Sometimes baffling play-calling from OC John Donovan 

Let's go through each and figure out what exactly went wrong. 

 

1.) OL Meltdown 

I have to admit it now, folks: I got hoodwinked. I ranked Washington's OL 3rd on my The Enemy: OL piece, and at the time it made sense. They were returning all five starters, including an All-PAC 12 player at LT. Much of their line were sporting good PFF grades, they averaged a healthy YPC on the ground last season, and allowed few sacks. There had been a few issues in pass pro inside, but they weren't anything horrendous. I felt confident ranking Washington in that #3 position. I put all my chips in the middle of the table with that ranking, but went bust in week one. After digging into the film of this game I can firmly say "hoo boy that was bad". 

After allowing just 0.25 sacks per game last season in the PAC-12, Washington allowed Montana to sack Dylan Morris three times in this game. After averaging 4.5 yards per game on the ground last season in the PAC-12, they rushed for 2.41 yards per carry in this game. They had a small bit of success running to the outside, but between the tackles it was a horror show. Though I can't say how much of this game was Washington's OL being bad vs. Montana's front seven being good, what is blindingly clear is which unit won the battle here. 

The first drive (ya know, the one where Washington scored) was good from the OL. Beyond that, it was ugly. The two main culprits in this game were the two guards, RG Henry Bainivalu and the aforementioned LG Julius Buelow. I didn't grade the OL in UFR fashion, but the grades for those two would have been very poor, and probably atrocious in Buelow's case. Their tackles, LT Jaxson Kirkland and RT Victor Curne were better, with Kirkland being the stronger of the two. C Luke Wattenberg was fine in terms of blocking, but I have questions about him since there were lots of issues regarding assignments. There were multiple instances where free rushers were completely unaccounted for off the edge. Whether that's on Wattenberg because the center typically handles the line calls, or on Morris for not recognizing potential blitzers and notifying the OL, I'm not sure. But it was bad, and the sort of basic mistakes I didn't expect to see from a veteran OL like Washington's. 

Here are some examples of the OL troubles. First we start with Buelow and RT Victor Curne getting beat, resulting in a sack: 

#77 LG and #79 RT

Yes that's a blitz, but Washington picks it up and has one blocker for every rusher. Morris is sacked because two players couldn't block their assignments. 

Buelow again (and Kirkland) had trouble in this next one, as four rushers against five OL gets home and would've ended the drive had the DE not roughed Morris: 

LT #51 and LG #77

And one more clip of The Great Buelow Disaster: 

Although I suppose it's worth noting that though Buelow was beaten the worst here, RG Bainivalu (#66) also has a lot of trouble and the whole line allows the Grizzlies' blitz to collapse the pocket. 

Eventually they tried to rotate backup guards into the action and that went no better, and in some cases, worse. Here's Nate Kalepo at RG whiffing and forcing Morris to rush a throw to an open Cam Davis in the flat: 

#71 at RG

But more concerning than the individual performances was the frequency with which this experienced OL just straight up biffed protection assignments, resulting in free rushers getting a straight shot to Morris. Here's one coming off the left side of the line: 

And here's one with a free rusher coming off the right side, resulting in a drive-killing sack: 

And here's one coming right up the middle, this time with the game on the line during Washington's ill-fated final two-minute drill: 

These dudes are legitimately coming completely untouched.

This should not be happening to any OL. When it happened to Michigan's 2017 OL it was still inexcusable and resulted in the dismissal of that season's OL coach (no need to shout him out, but his name rhymes with Jim Prevno), but at least you could understand it with four new starters (several of whom were RS FR), including a new center. But again, this is a line that returned all five starters (one displaced in camp) and was considered one of the best in their conference. What is going on here? 

The struggles weren't limited to pass pro, though. Long runs between the tackles were as rare as 100° days in the Arctic in this one. Here Buelow is beaten badly again and Curne gives up the inside angle to allow a TFL: 

#77 LG and #79 RT 

When you have to write "__(insert RB here)___ does a magical job to shake tacklers and only lose three on this play" in your game notes, as I did in this next clip, that's generally a bad sign for your OL. It was for Washington's, as the left side of the line (Kirkland and Buelow) are culprits on this one, being driven back 3 yards each: 

This next clip was Newton's best run of the day and it still saw him have to weave through bodies and bounce off tacklers like he was flying the Millennium Falcon through an asteroid field: 

To me, the OL debacle was the #1 reason why Washington lost this game. The thing about having a game manager QB is that it is hard to win a game with a game manager QB if you're doing absolutely nothing on the ground. Washington's OL troubles meant they had no viable rushing attack, forcing Morris to have to do more of the heavy lifting, something he is not equipped to do, especially not when he's without multiple of the best WR's on the team. And the OL had troubles there, too, resulting in sacks and rushed passes from Morris that needed to be completed in order to counteract the lack of a ground game. It's hard to win, even against an FCS team, when you're putting your QB under siege and stonewalling your RB's at the line. It's just pretty concerning when all that is happening against an FCS team. 

 

2.) Dylan Morris' limitations and deterioration 

Speaking of that game manager QB, here we go. Dylan Morris did not impress in this game. He was playing with the training wheels on and not asked to do all that much in terms of throwing difficult balls, but there were still problems. I mentioned the five marginal balls earlier, here are some of the examples of him making life more difficult on his receivers than it needed to be: 

This is not high degree of difficulty throw, it's just a ten yard pass to the flat to a 6'4" target in Devin Culp who is open, yet it turns into a circus toe tap catch.

The next clip I marked as inaccurate since it's thrown way too high and results in Giles Jackson getting crushed, but it could've gone down as a bad read given that #19 Sawyer Racanelli seemed far more open than that tight window: 

Below is another instance where Morris again throws a tough pass inaccurately, and also again misses an open Devin Culp as a checkdown option that would've picked up 5 at least on first down (also peep the 7-man pass protection!): 

The three INT's that Morris threw highlighted some of these issues: 

In this first one, Morris has time to throw, rolls to his right, finds an open receiver for a first down (all good), but just throws it behind him and it's a tip drill INT (bad).

Here's interception #2: 

Morris has Cade Otton open for what would've been a chunk gain on 2nd & 10, but again he puts the ball behind the receiver and is perhaps a bit unlucky that Otton touched it, because that's what tipped it into the waiting arms of yet another Grizzly. 

And interception #3 to seal the game: 

I had a bit of trouble figuring out how to score this, because while throwing into triple coverage is definitely a bad read, it's also not like he had many other open downfield options, and with only 37 seconds and no timeouts needing to go 43 yards, Morris was also required to try and force the ball down the field situationally. I marked it as a bad read because he would've been better off throwing to Culp down the seam (standing at the Alaska Airlines logo), but that wasn't going to be a particularly easy throw either. 

Just for the record, let's look at the only deep shot that Morris threw the entire game: 

Yes, that's Giles Jackson running a sideline fade. Yes, that's a difficult throw to make. And yes, Morris badly underthrows him. 

In totality, a few things were going on for Morris in this game, which can best be summarized through a bulleted list: 

• He threw a good number of catchable balls to easy, low-stress targets who were rarely more than 10 yards past the line of scrimmage (The Rutgers Offense) 
• He also threw a solid number of plainly inaccurate balls that were uncatchable, some of which were also on bad reads
• He had a tendency to make life harder on the receivers than it needed to be
• He was also without any viable outside downfield targets and faced considerable pressure due to a leaky OL. 

All of these items are true simultaneously. It is not solely on Morris that UW lost this game, but his poor play, which got continually worse as the game went along, was a major factor. 

Let's show one last clip that showcases a lot of Washington's problems on offense in this one. This is a fourth down late in the game (the second to last UW drive) that they need to convert: 

Morris knows he has to get the ball out in a hurry as LG Buelow and C Wattenberg are driven back quickly. He throws to an open receiver (Giles Jackson) who probably wouldn't have been terribly high on the depth chart if everyone were healthy. Giles probably should have caught the ball, but it also isn't a very good throw. That's how Saturday night went for the Huskies. 

 

3.) Wide Receiver Injuries

Let's talk about those receiver depth issues for a minute. There won't be any clips in this section, but it's worth contemplating how much of a difference having Polk, Bynum, Odunze, and McMillan would have made. For one, you wouldn't have Giles Jackson running a fade down the sideline. In that vein, Washington may have been compelled to take more deep shots if they had any competent downfield receivers healthy, and thus they may have deleted some of those plays from the playbook due to the roster configuration in this game. 

That said, I'm not particularly convinced that it would've made much of a difference. First off, it's not like the receivers Washington is missing are Garrett Wilson and Chris Olave. Washington did not rank highly on my The Enemy, Receiver post, being largely bolstered by Otton because the WR room, even when I assumed it was healthy, did not inspire confidence in me. Odunze, McMillan, and Bynum combined for 15 catches and 0 TD's in four games last season. Bynum may have been the one to potentially make the most difference if healthy, but these WR's are not game-breaking players with long track records of experience. It's still better than lining up a 5'9" slot bug outside for a fade, but to me, it's not a massive, game-altering addition. 

Secondly, what evidence do we have from the tape I have shown you and watched with my own two eyes that Dylan Morris would have been able to hit these deep passes, had they been called? I don't see much of any. He way underthrew his one deep shot, and had trouble delivering accurate balls to open receivers underneath. Do we really think he would be able to bomb it 20+ yards down the field consistently, even if he had a screamingly wide open receiver? I don't. Of course, any QB can ball out deep in any given game (just ask Rocky Lombardi), but the tape here does not suggest that if a few mediocre outside receivers were added to the offense that suddenly this turns into Graham Harrell to Michael Crabtree 2008. Just my observations. 

 

4.) Playcalling 

The last component here is OC John Donovan and the playcalling. Seth was not kind to Donovan in the Washington preview in HTTV and there's reason for that. His PSU tenure from 2014-15 did not produce many great memories if you're a Nittany Lions fan. Donovan's Wiki page has a section about his PSU time that sums things up but also has quite a #take: 

In January 2014, Donovan followed Franklin to Penn State as the offensive coordinator. Donovan came under heavy criticism from the Nittany Lion fanbase for questionable play calling. In November 2015, he was fired from the Penn State program. Following the firing ... PennLive.com's David Jones wrote an article headlined "John Donovan was a scapegoat for a rebuild that will take longer than fans can accept". Surprisingly, Penn State would go on to win a Big 10 championship the year after Donovan was fired, as new OC Joe Moorhead had the benefit of implementing his own system and employing a more mobile, accurate quarterback, Trace McSorley. 

I would not use the word "surprisingly" there, nor would I say that Donovan was scapegoated. Personnel was still an issue on those 2014-15 PSU teams, but there's also a lot of reasons to think he wasn't a scapegoat, and rather that firing him was solving a problem that was holding the team back. Having watched the film of this game, I would generally agree. 

Donovan's playcalling in this game was extremely conservative and it became quite clear that either the team does not trust Morris to air it out, or that they're chaning the approach because they have no receivers, or both. UW got the ball back with 17 seconds and two TO's left in the first half on their own 29 yard line. Not a ton of time, but with the timeouts in your back pocket, you had a chance to pick up a few chunk plays to set up a Hail Mary. Instead, they just dink and dunk it and head to the locker room: 

This continued on the first of their two 2 minute drills late in the game. Here they are, needing to go 74 yards in 2:24 and choosing to check down for seven yards in the MIDDLE OF THE FIELD: 

They wouldn't snap the ball again until the 2:00 mark, meaning they burned 24 seconds in that sequence to gain six yards. And then, this was the next play(!!!!): 

WHAT ARE YOU DOING?

When the ball was snapped, Washington needed to go 67 yards in 2 minutes even, and they called A RUN BETWEEN THE TACKLES in a game where they had yet to consistently generate yards on the ground in that fashion whatsoever. If you wanted to call a Giles jet sweep to the sideline, I still wouldn't like it, but at least you assume he can probably get out of bounds. But this play call is completely indefensible. Even if you assumed that Newton was going to get the first down and thus stop the clock (a terrible assumption to make if you read through the OL section and looked at the YPC stats for the game), you'd still be burning ~8 or so seconds to gain ~4 yards, which is a poor trade off in this situation. Instead, Newton gets stuffed for a gain of one. The ball wouldn't be hiked again until the 1:41 mark, which means that between these two plays, the Huskies burned 29.9% of the remaining seconds in the game to gain 12.2% of the yards needed to win. 

This is a team that simply is not built to come from behind. They want to get a lead, run the ball, and grind the game out. If you can stop the run and take a lead, and thus make Morris have to beat you through the air, Donovan & Co. signaled they are not interested in even trying to do that, even against an FCS team. 

 

So what does this mean for Michigan? 

It's hard to know if the OL disaster for Washington in this game is a mirage or indicative of a broader problem, but if I'm Mike Macdonald, I'm dialing up the blitzes. Montana had great success rushing five and six guys, overwhelming the OL, and Morris is such a limited passer that you can pull the old tricks you could use against QB's like Alex Hornibrook and just stuff eight in the box and make Morris beat you. If you can key in and stop the run and then get a lead offensively, we've seen in this article that Washington has no recourse for recovering from that.

The WR injuries are all week-to-week and it's unclear how many/if any of the injured wide outs will be back for Saturday. If none are, then this is honestly a situation where you should just Don Brown the Huskies, blitz and play man, load the box to stop the run, and see if Morris beats you. Based on this game, he almost certainly wouldn't. If he starts to show some success, slink back into a more conservative defensive approach. Should no WR's come back, and honestly even if a few do, the only thing to focus on defensively is covering Cade Otton. If you can keep your eye on him and then stuff the run, you're in a good position to win this game.