Previously: Hawaii Offense

I hope you enjoyed reading about the Hawaii Offense yesterday because that piece, as rough as it was, is significantly better than what you are about to read. During my The Enemy, Ranked series, I ranked Hawaii's DL, LB, and Secondary as the worst on the schedule and now you are going to see why. The Rainbow Warriors are 0-2, and their defense has been the culprit. They are near the bottom of Bill Connelly's rankings and at 506.5 yards per game allowed, Hawaii's defense is already on track for ghastly counting metrics. This one is going to get ugly.  

The Film: Still using the Vandy tape for reasons stated in the previous piece, namely the Commodores being a closer analogue to Michigan from a talent standpoint than Western Kentucky and the accessibility of the tape. The consequence of this decision is I had to watch a game in which Hawaii gave up 600 yards to Vanderbilt.  

Personnel: Click here or on the graphic to make big. PDF.

It's a record! Seven of eleven starters received the cyan circle and twelve total players received it, breaking a record of eleven players held by the 2019 MSU Offense. There were more who may have merited it, but I felt that this was sufficient to get the point across. After all, the record has been set. 

The defensive line features probably the best player on the defense, Blessman Ta'ala. He's not great, and he didn't merit a star, but Ta'ala is also the least problematic piece on the defense. He's a big beefy nose who doesn't really move. Which is good when fellow DT starter John Tuitupou is getting ejected from the line on seemingly every play. Jonah Kahahawai-Welch is the primary starter at one EDGE position, often playing from a stand-up position, and he provides little pass-rush while struggling to set the edge. Mataio Soli is a rotational EDGE playing opposite JKW and is the nominal starter, doing a better job at staying disciplined in run defense while also providing zero pass-rush. Andrew Choi spells Soli and is a clear downgrade, while Ezra Evaimalo rotates in when Tuitupou has been whipped too much, giving the Hawaii coaches a replacement who will get whipped marginally less per-snap. 

The LB level has two consistent starters, Penei Pavihi and Isaiah Tufaga. Pavihi, the returning starter, is the better player but that's like saying Zavier Simpson is a better free throw shooter than Shaquille O'Neal. Technically true, but not much of a compliment. Pavihi graded out poorly in my charting and deserved the cyan, but Tafaga was an unmitigated black-hole disaster. Neither of these guys come off the field, but the coaches likely wish they did. Younger reserves Noah Kema and Logan Taylor have only played small roles so far and both would likely be eaten alive if they were pressed into larger duty. 

Hawaii plays a true 4-2-5 on nearly every play, using two outside corners + a nickel and two safeties. JoJo Forest did alright in coverage in the game I saw but was a poor tackler and his PFF grades against WKU were ugly enough for me to feel comfortable giving him a cyan. Hugh Nelson and nickel Malik Hausman get my votes for the 2nd and 3rd best players on the defense, though even Nelson was on the borderline of a cyan from the game I saw. They can mostly do okay against a team like Vanderbilt (don't ask about Michigan). Virdel Edwards II is a HSP who comes on in place of Hausman from time to time and was a disaster in every phase of the game against Vanderbilt. Reserve corners Noa Kamana and Devyn King should not see the field in meaningful moments. 

Safeties Leonard Lee and Matagi Thompson were much like the LBs, in that one was not great and the other catastrophe. Thompson reprises Tufaga's role as the black-hole disaster, while Lee resembles Pavihi in the "disappointing eyesore" category. Both struggled in taking proper angles to ballcarriers, supporting the run, or tackling anyone in a Commodore uniform. Peter Manuma is the third safety but you probably won't see him much. 

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Base Set: This is pretty boring. Hawaii plays a standard 4-2-5, as described above and it looks like so: 

The ends often play standing up, as they can occasionally drop into coverage. Sometimes they'll play with a hand in the dirt. Two LBs in the middle, a deep safety and one who plays closer to the box, and then corners lining up across from their receiver assignments. I will throw out a quick peak at a 3-2-6 they ran one time: 

One down lineman with two standup ends + two LBs and then six DBs. This is a look you may see on longer passing downs, should Michigan ever be in those situations. 

Man or zone coverage: In the game I saw, Hawaii was primarily running Cover 1, which leaves the corners in man but gives a little safety help over the top. They have zone installed, which was shown a little bit in this game, particularly on 3rd & long, but was mostly in the garage. Against a pass-first team like WKU, they rolled with Quarters, placing them in the zone category. The discrepancy is probably related to the kind of offense the two opponents ran. Vanderbilt is a run-first offense with a QB who attempted as many rushes as he had completions last year. WKU is only a year removed from passing for 6,000 yards. Against Vandy, Hawaii was trying to Don Brown it up against a running QB. Against WKU they knew they had to back off more. Remains to be seen what they do against JJ McCarthy and Michigan. 

Pressure: Hawaii rushed more than four guys on about 28.6% of plays in this game that I charted, and rushed less than four on <5% of plays. In other words, Hawaii generally rushes four, though against a run-first team like Vandy, their LBs were trained to slam into the line at the first sign of a run, so the boxes were crowded and the line was more filled with bodies than that number suggests. As you will see, though, it was probably a good idea they didn't blitz that often because the ones they did use were mostly ineffective. 

Dangerman: This is where we start to sink our teeth in. There were no stars on our diagram, so who is the Dangerman, you may ask? Nobody. There is no Dangerman. When you give up 600 yards to Vanderbilt, 180 more than FCS Elon would allow to the same team the following week, you do not get a Dangerman. When you are the #130 SP+ defense (out of 131), you do not get a Dangerman. Instead, I am going to use this section to show you the few good plays that Hawaii made in this game while both team's starters were on the field. Here's the first: 

Isaiah Tufaga finds the hole and plugs it with a strong run stuff. Wooooo! Second: 

This one is helped by the fact that Vanderbilt declines to block Jonah Kahahawai-Welch off the edge, giving him a free rush, but shoutout to JoJo Forest for solid coverage down the sideline and it forces a punt. Huzzah! Third: 

Please ignore the LBs being fooled on this one and enjoy that sweet, sweet stick by Leonard Lee. He was the only guy preventing it from being a TD and he held it to no gain. Pop the champagne! Fourth: 

Awesome thunder-tackle here from Hugh Nelson II. I hope you enjoyed it, because this might be the last good tackle I show you. 

Alright... did you enjoy that? Yeah? Buckle your seatbelts, because it's all downhill from here. 

Overview 

Let's just put it directly about what I watched. The Hawaii defense's performance against Vanderbilt was one of the most embarrassing and humiliating showings by an FBS defense I have ever seen. The players are completely overmatched in their 1-on-1 matchups, yes, but the organizational errors I witnessed, and the complete inability to tackle anybody on the first try, was shockingly bad. This is a roster cobbled together from cast-off transfers after the 2021 defense was nuked by the Todd Graham investigation and subsequent firing. They have very little talent and most players here are still wearing name-tags. I knew going in it was going to be bad. It was still surprising how bad it was. 

Some quick hitters on this game: 

• Removing two kneel-downs, Vanderbilt rushed 42 times for 412 yards, a cool 9.8 YPC. Last year Vanderbilt averaged 3.5 YPC. 
• Starting QB Mike Wright completed 13/21 passes (62%) for 6.95 Y/A and 2 TD and 0 INT. Last year he threw for 6.0 Y/A (53% completion) with 8 TD to 6 INT. 
• Over their first three drives of the second half, Vanderbilt ran nine plays for 225 yards and 3 TDs. 
• Vanderbilt turned it over on downs four times, yet still scored 49 offensive points. Last season the highest total they scored was 30, and it came against UCONN. Their average was 15.8 points. 
• Removing two kneel-downs, Vanderbilt gained 609 yards of offense. Last year's high was 454 yards, and they averaged 313 yards per game. 
• In total, Hawaii lost 63-10 to Vanderbilt. Vanderbilt was 2-10 last season and 0-8 in the SEC. 

Look, I assume that Vanderbilt will be better in year two of Clark Lea's rebuild, but this cannot happen. I also know that Hawaii did somewhat better against WKU (only 412 yards allowed!), but these are remarkably grim numbers. This is indicative of a team that is going to get bulldozed by Michigan- and most all teams on their schedule for that matter. And yes, I know what you're about to say having read all these stats about the Vanderbilt game... "let us see how it happened!". Your wish is granted. 

Hawaii got blown up by Vanderbilt because of plays like this one: 

The interior defensive line gets sat on, both the edge and the lone LB in the middle think the QB has pulled it and are out of position, and the RB runs virtually untouched for an 11-yard TD, slightly breaking a failed tackle from the safety. This was a routine sort of play.

The DTs, especially John Tuitupou, struggled to hang in there against anybody. He was regularly ejected from the line and that created running lanes for the Vanderbilt RBs. Here the Rainbow Warriors cede six yards on 1st & Goal from the seven because Tuitupou gets manhandled: 

DT #90 lined up with a hand in the dirt, third from the top of the line

On the next play, it was Tutitupou as well as the usually steady Blessman Ta'ala who get blasted back to Maui, opening a crease which then leads to a tackling sequence that should have Yakety Sax placed over it as background music for effect: 

That's 245 lb. LB Penei Pavihi (#1) getting run over 203 lb. RB Rocko Griffin, failing to grab a hold of any part of the RB, and then deep S Matagi Thompson (#25), over-running the play and allowing it to go for an extra 20 yards. Tackling in space and over-running the ballcarrier was a nightmare for Hawaii, which you can see on this clip: 

Vanderbilt draws up another interesting play here, but Hawaii is ready for it. They've got EDGE Jonah Kahahawai-Welch (#42) out in space and corner Hugh Nelson II (#3) in the area, but both over-run the play. A simple cut inside creates a huge running lane, and then there's another two missed tackles at the first down marker by corner JoJo Nelson and Thompson, which give Vandy another five yards. Hawaii was easy fooled by Vandy's trickery, but even when they were ready, a simple cutback or stutterstep caused the defenders to go flying by like a bug past your car windshield on the highway. 

Another tackling blooper reel: 

That's two more missed tackles, one by LB Isaiah Tufaga (#17) and yet another from Thompson, and it's only the ill-advised decision by the RB to spin instead of plunging forward that results in Vandy not picking up a first down on that screen. The Rainbow Warriors might've missed more tackles than I've ever seen in a college football game, which is really the most damning part of this defense, namely the total lack of fundamentals. The aforementioned Tufaga and Thompson were the biggest culprits of this malaise, though it afflicted everyone on the defense. I want you to watch Tufaga on this clip: 

LB #17 lined up above the stand-up edge at the top of the line 

First he is fooled by the Vanderbilt play design, drifting off to his right, then realizing what's going on. At this point, he decides to go under the potential block from Vandy OL #75, even though it will make it a harder angle to get to the ballcarrier. Nevertheless, he does a decent job getting to the guy, but then embarrassingly whiffs on the tackle and forces Pavihi to come over to knock him out. The LBs and safeties had trouble recognizing the play, especially with Vandy running as much misdirection as they did. When they did manage to be in the right spot, there was less than a coin flip's shot that the tackle would actually be made. 

Before we move on, since I did shame the interior defensive line, the edge guys ought to be shamed too. The only pressures they got in this game where when Vandy declined to block them and they seldom recorded even a hurry. Hawaii's defense has zero sacks on the season, and their blitzes made little impact on the Vandy offense. When it came time to set the edge, their edge defenders were mostly incompetent. Watch how easily Andrew Choi gets sealed off here: 

EDGE #96 playing from a stand-up position at the bottom of the line

On this next play, Hawaii manages to muck up the middle, but they leave the edge exposed for the QB run thanks to Tuitupou getting blown up again and Wynden Ho'ohuli (#12) crashing into the backfield hard. At this point, because Hawaii has no athletes on their team, nobody in the back seven can A) get off a block or B) catch Vandy's QB: 

With the way this play is defended from the jump, it was always going to be a solid gain, but it turned into an 87-yard house call because of Hawaii's athletic limitations, which is an important thing to keep in mind and another central problem with the defense. 

I will wrap up my thoughts on their run defense with this simple clip: 

JKW gets manhandled on the edge, Tutitupou is sealed off, creating a big hole, and the two guys with a chance to prevent a TD, nickel Malik Hausman and Tufaga, are blocked with ease and in the wrong gap, respectively. A defensive catastrophe. 

The pass defense was a bit better in this game, I will give them that... however there were still many warning signs which were exposed against a WKU team that has a good aerial attack (WKU's QB posted 71%, 8.7 Y/A, 3 TD), even with the coverage scheme change. Example A: 

That's a TE running between the LBs and the safeties, with no one picking him up until it's way too late (also peep the delayed blitz doing nothing to bother the QB). Another one:

I mean, come on man. Playing base Cover 1 when you have no athletes on your defense is probably a bad idea: 

Let's tie together this clown show with this: 

Yeah. 

What does this mean for Michigan?

I know I didn't give you a terribly detailed breakdown of the key players like I normally do, but that's because it's not necessary. There are no key players. Everyone here is bad. The ends can't pass rush, at least one DT gets thunked every play, the LBs and safeties can't diagnose the play and can't tackle, and the corners are athletically limited. This is a group that will be in a battle for the worst defense in the FBS all year long. 

What it means for Michigan is it's another game to get out your copy of the roster because a lot of guys who you may not be familiar with will be getting snaps. I struggle to see how this Hawaii defense is going to do anything to slow Michigan down on the ground or through the air. JJ McCarthy should have an easy time making quick work of this defense, and the same will be true for Cade McNamara when it is his turn. And probably for Alan Bowman and/or Davis Warren. Hawaii was a decent team to schedule a few years ago, normally around the 6-6 mark, but this version of Hawaii should not be playing a team like Michigan, for we will learn next to nothing as a result of this matchup. 

Indeed, I decided to close out this piece by doing a bit of research: I wager that Hawaii is likely the worst team Michigan Football has played since UMass in 2012. Hawaii's current SP+ rating confirms that that is the case, though there still is quite a bit of preseason projection priced in. We shall see how it changes as the year goes along, but despite all the horrendous teams Michigan has played since 2012, Akron and CMU in 2013, Miami (OH) in 2014, Rutgers from 2015-19, UNLV 2015, etc. this Hawaii team probably takes the cake. They have a creaky offensive line, skill position guys who are just guys, a star RB who can't stop fumbling, and two overmatched QBs who would not be third string on nearly all P5 teams. On defense, well, you just read this piece. It's extremely grim. 

I know Jim Harbaugh generally doesn't run up the score on teams, but I seriously think that even if Michigan tries not to, the Hawaii tackling might allow it to happen. We are officially on 78-0 Watch, folks.