Previously: Minnesota Offense

We're finally heading into conference play, which means this hopefully will be the last film breakdown of a body-bag game, in this case Minnesota's 24-7 steamrolling of San Jose State.

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I'm not quite ready to deploy the "I have the sinking feeling this is totally useless" tag, which I waited until last year's Northwestern game to unleash for 2013, but it's getting close.

A pump-fake interception on a botched WR screen!

Tag deployed.

San Jose State managed 254 yards of offense in 11 possessions on 5.6 yards per pass and 2.1 per rush. They turned it over five times, on three fumbles and two ghastly interceptions. I'm going to attempt to keep this from being a total waste of time by going over the basics of Cover 4, which Minnesota ran a lot of in this game, to the great confusion of SJSU's quarterback.

But first...

Personnel: Seth has accounted for the uncertainty at quarterback by turning this into a GIF—click to embiggen and see who we expect will start on Saturday:

Fine, fine, we went with Morris, because that seems to be the gut feeling of those closest to the program today, as well as the common sense choice given Brady Hoke's presser comments (why keep the uncertainty if there isn't going to be a change?). Anyway, I'm sure this won't dominate the comments of a post that otherwise has nothing to do with M's quarterback situation.

Base Set? Against SJSU's multiple attack—which actually resembles Michigan quite a bit in terms of formations utilized—Minnesota had a dedicated nickel set against three wide, which is depicted in Seth's chart, and went to a 4-3 over against two receivers:

Their corners stayed to a dedicated side of the field except when SJSU went with a trips formation; that's the strongside LB between the hashes and a CB hanging out on the boundary next to the DE.

[Hit THE JUMP for the rest of the breakdown.]

Man or zone coverage? Almost exclusively Cover 4 (aka quarters). Much more on this shortly.

Pressure: GERG or Greg? Minnesota brought plenty of heat, especially on first down, when they blitzed on practically every opportunity in the first half until SJSU noticed the tendency and nearly broke a halfback slip screen to the house—a Gopher linebacker had to trip up the back while on the ground or it would've gained all of the yards as opposed to a solid ten.

The Gophers also brought an extra man or two on most third down plays. SJSU adjusted to this, as well:

That would stand as the lone Spartan score of the day. When not RPS+3-ing Gopher blitzes, they couldn't find a way to consistently move the ball.

Dangerman: Seth made one of the best picks of this year's Draftageddon (yes, it really is useful) when he grabbed Gopher CB Eric Murray in the 18th round. A true junior in his second year as a starter, Murray hadn't recorded an interception in his career until SJSU's QB gifted him the one at the top of the post, but picks aren't the be-all-end-all of stellar cornerback play; this is stellar cornerback play:

Murray doesn't just lock down his man; sometimes he managed to play his own deep quarter in Cover 4 and still come over to bail out a safety when they mess up their deep quarter—I believe that's the case here, when he shows off his excellent pass breakup skills:

Murray shut down receivers of all shapes and sizes last year, and with Michigan struggling to get anybody outside of Devin Funchess going in the passing game, that creates a major concern for Saturday.

PLAY BREAKDOWN

Since SJSU is not good and Minnesota ran a ton of quarters coverage, I'm moving this section up to help explain everything that follows. Cover 4 looks like a very conservative deep coverage when you call it in a video game, but in fact it's quite the opposite. As usual, Chris Brown (aka Smart Football) has a great breakdown of the concept behind the coverage [emphasis mine]:

At first glance, Cover 4 looks like an anti-pass “prevent” formation, with four secondary defenders playing deep. But therein lies its magic. The four defenders are actually playing a matchup zone concept, in which the safety reads the tight end or inside receiver. If an offensive player lined up inside releases on a short pass route or doesn’t release into the route, the safety can help double-team the outside receiver. If the inside receiver breaks straight downfield, it becomes more like man coverage. This variance keeps quarterbacks guessing and prevents defenses from being exploited by common pass plays like four verticals, which killed eight-man fronts. The real key to Cover 4, however, is that against the run both safeties become rush defenders (remember, the outside cornerbacks play deep). This allows defenses to play nine men in the box against the run — a hat-tip to the 46’s overwhelming force.

This coverage allows the safeties and linebackers to play the run aggressively while the defense remains sound against vertical passing plays. On SJSU's second offensive snap of the game, the quarterback appeared to read man coverage, but in fact he was facing quarters, and it cost him dearly. Here's the pre-snap alignment:

SJSU motions the back to the other side of the quarterback before the snap, with no formation adjustment needed from Minnesota, then run play-action. The defensive back guarding the outside receiver—actually starting free safety Briean Boddy-Calhoun, who also lines up at cornerback, where he's played much of his career—starts to go vertical with the receiver, while the safety lined up over the slot (cornerback Derrick Wells) sees the slot receiver start a vertical route of his own and doesn't bite on the run fake. The inside linebackers both move up towards the line, but that's fine in this scheme—just ask Pat Narduzzi.

The QB pulls and starts to roll out towards the field side. Both defensive backs to the top of the screen remain in man coverage, while the near-side safety (#2 Cedric Thompson, an actual safety) has already keyed in on the tight end leaking out of the backfield into a crossing route and pursues in man coverage. With nobody else going into a route, Murray (#31) also chases the tight end. Meanwhile, nickel Damarius Travis (#7), essentially playing the role of a weakside linebacker on this play, heads to the flat. This will be key.

SJSU's quarterback pulls up to throw, and you can see the very bad idea as it's happening—he thinks the receiver at the 40-yard line is breaking open underneath the safety playing man coverage, and totally fails to account for Travis covering the flat and getting great depth in doing so:

As a result, the QB tosses a pick directly to Travis:

This is Minnesota doing fine work in Cover 4. They had the run accounted for with their front seven. The safeties read their keys correctly and stayed in downfield coverage. MIKE Damien Wilson (#5) managed to hop up against the run—as he's supposed to do—and still cover the H-back leaking across the formation into the flat. Finally, Travis correctly read that he didn't need cover any short flat routes, dropped back underneath the two downfield routes, and came away with an easy interception.

OVERVIEW

Minnesota is by no means perfect with their quarters coverage, however, as they showed on back-to-back plays from the first half. First, the Gophers come away with a sack, which is fortunate since Thompson could've given up an easy touchdown by getting completely turned around on a simple post route:

On the very next play, SJSU gets a big play up the middle when Thompson (the near-side safety this time) again gets way too far outside, and the defensive back in the slot, Wells, isn't in position to bail him out:

I wasn't particularly impressed with Minnesota's safety play in this game; they're definitely susceptible to the occasional coverage bust, and I also thought Boddy-Calhoun took a couple poor routes to the ball in run support that could lead to big plays for Michigan, as well.

The Gophers are solid up front, albeit not particularly big. SDE Michael Amaefula spent much of this game in SJSU's backfield, and WDE Theiran Cockran is a dangerous edge-rusher. Cameron Botticelli is a penetrating three-tech who's tough to single-block. Only the nose tackle spot looked particularly susceptible—SJSU managed to pancake true freshman starter Steven Richardson a couple times and found what little running success they had when they bashed him out of his lane.

The linebackers are led by Wilson, who's a very instinctual player—he doesn't hesitate, makes the right reads, and plays tend to stop dead when they reach him. I also liked what I saw from Jack Lynn, who enters the game when Minnesota goes to a 4-3; he had a couple nice shed-and-tackle stops in this one. The other LB, De'Vondre Campbell, looked decent against the run; he can cover a good amount of ground, but looked out of position in coverage a couple times, so Michigan may be able to target him underneath and in the flat.

The secondary is covered pretty extensively above. They seem generally solid, but susceptible to the big play; the question, of course, is whether Michigan can take advantage if Murray is shadowing Funchess and another receiver—not to mention the quarterback—needs to step up his game.