Fee Fi Foe Film: Northwestern Offense Comment Count

Ace



This was Northwestern's second completion beyond the sticks. It wasn't their day.

Northwestern took on Iowa and their top-25 FEI defense last weekend. Let's see how that went:

Holy hell, Northwestern. Turns out that Kain Colter guy was pretty valuable.

Personnel. Seth's diagram [click to embiggen]:

I originally had center Brandon Vitabile as a dangerman, but removed that tag after watching the film—it wasn't a good day for the interior line.

Spread, Pro-Style, or Hybrid? Spread. Northwestern took every non-goal line snap out of the gun in the first half, which was as much as I was willing or able to watch for this one.

Basketball on Grass or MANBALL? The Wildcats actually mixed in a couple power runs out of the gun, but for the most part they were running inside zone and zone stretch, the latter of which was marginally more successful.

Hurry it up or grind it out? Northwestern varied their tempo a bit, mostly staying at a relatively pedestrian pace. They can go no-huddle if they want, but it doesn't seem like that's a huge emphasis right now.

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

Quarterback Dilithium Level (Scale: 1 [Navarre] to 10 [Denard]): Trevor Siemian, your receivers are all covered and your pocket is holding strong. What are you going to do?

Oh. I see.

You get a 2.

Dangerman: Northwestern pulled in probably their best recruiting class ever in 2014, and its already paying off in the form of top-200 four-star Justin Jackson, who's wrested the running back job away from returning starter Trayvon Green. He recorded three straight 100-yard games before tallying 96 (albeit on just 4 YPC) against Iowa, and while the Hawkeyes largely shut him down he showed flashes of what's made him so productive this season.

Jackson is a smooth, upright runner with quick feet, good patience, and surprising power for a back with his frame:

He's also a natural receiver out of the backfield; Jackson's 13 catches places him fourth on the entire team, and though those are almost exclusively dumpoff passes, he's got the open-field ability to do something with them.

Zook Factor: Nothing noteworthy here. Northwestern couldn't get themselves remotely close enough on third downs to make bad punts a factor.

HenneChart: Again, this only covers the first half, but given Siemian's final stat line—8/18, 68 yards, 5 sacks taken—I'd say it's pretty representative:

Opponent DO CA MA IN BR TA BA PR SCR DSR
Iowa 1 6 (2) -- 1 2 1 2 2 -- 45%

Northwestern barely tried to go downfield even though they were playing from way behind for almost the entire game. Two major issues prevented them from doing this: the offensive line struggled to hold their blocks and the receivers struggled to get open. That's a bad combo, obviously. Siemian wasn't exactly stellar, but he made a few very nice throws without much reward; one of his BRs came not on a bad pass, but the inexplicable decision to run into a sack that was clipped above.

OVERVIEW

Spread?

Formations Run Pass PA
Gun 12 14 --
I-Form -- -- --
Ace -- -- --
Heavy 1 -- --

Yup, spread.

The Wildcats tried to establish the run on early downs, but as you can see they were not at all successful in staying on schedule, leading to a lot of obvious passing situations:

Down Run Pass PA
1st 9 2 --
2nd 4 6 --
3rd -- 6 --

Only one of those third-down attempts came within remotely reasonable distance for a called run; Northwestern had these distances to cover to convert third downs in the first half: 18 yards (twice), 12 yards, 11 yards, 10 yards, and 2 yards. They convered the latter two, though the third-and-ten completion ended in the hilarious fumble at the top of the post.

So, yeah, this was bad. Northwestern's problems started up front, where Iowa dominated their interior line. This simply isn't supposed to happen:

This is also bad:

Siemian got a lot of pressure right in his face, resulting in a couple pass attempts being batted right back at him, and the Wildcat backs didn't have any room to operate on the interior. Iowa does boast an excellent pair of DTs in Carl Davis and Lucas Trinca-Pasat, but I think Michigan can replicate a fair amount of their success.

The tackles didn't fare a whole lot better than the interior line. Trinca-Pasat recorded one of his three sacks on a stunt in which he thoroughly manhandled left tackle Paul Jorgensen. The off-tackle runs didn't produce a lot and often required Jackson to pick through a fair amount of traffic. This isn't a strong group up front for Northwestern despite boasting quite a lot of experience.

It's tough to say a whole lot about the rest of the offense. Jackson looks good when he has room; he's definitely more explosive than Green, who's role has diminished to the point that he's seen just two carries over the last two games. Sophomore Warren Long ended up getting 11 carries against Iowa, but only after the outcome was long decided. For the most part, it's Jackson or bust for this offense.

That's in large part because the receiving corps dearly misses the presence of injured #1 wideout Christian Jones and Colter, who gave the team a dynamic option in the slot when he wasn't at QB. Nobody in this group is a downfield threat.

Kyle Prater—yes, finally starting—is averaging 9.8 yards on his team-high 29 receptions; Tony Jones is at 9.9, slot Miles Shuler at 8.3, and H-back Dan Vitale leads the top targets with an electric 10.9-yard average. Shuler, who sat out practice on Wednesday, may not even be available. Pat Fitzgerald isn't mincing words about this group:

Asked to evaluate the recent play of [the receivers], Fitzgerald replied, "Horrible."

Dropped passes, running the wrong routes, blocking?

"Sure, keep going," Fitzgerald said.

So that's not good.

Northwestern's offense ranks a hair below Indiana's going by the advanced metrics, and that seems about right; IU has the worse quarterback situation even with Siemian struggling mightily, but they also have Tevin Coleman, and Jackson isn't on that level yet. If Michigan allows 20 points to this group, that would constitute a major disappointment.

Comments

Space Coyote

November 6th, 2014 at 2:10 PM ^

Northwestern's interior run game has been pretty non-existant all year. They rarely even tried to go between the tackles against Wisconsin (whose DL isn't as good at Michigan's) or Nebraska (whose DL is a little better than Michigan's) or Penn State (whose DL may be the best run DL in the conference, if not the country). So yeah, expect Northwestern to run a lot of OZ; and I'd expect Michigan to play a lot of base 4-3 Over in this one.

It's interesting to note that Michigan almost always played Colter with Cover 4, and Siemian with Cover 3. They certainly won't go Cover 3 this year, and I'd expect them to go to Cover 4 when in base and Cover 1 when in nickel. The goal really has to be to play the receivers tight, make the correct adjustments against the bunch, and don't give Siemian easy throws to get in a rhythm. Siemian still tends to get happy feet a bit, he looks down at the pass rush a bit, and his timing is often late (so tight coverage can be difficult for him, especially if you can mix up coverages a bit). But if he starts completing a few passes he can still get red hot and turn into that unstoppable-throw guy you've seen before. Knock him off his set point (which Michigan should be able to do), play everything inside and in front, and force Northwestern to work down the field and you should be able to get the behind the chains eventually and get off the field.

MeanJoe07

November 6th, 2014 at 2:25 PM ^

Rhonda Jones was thinking we'd get the tickets in a convenient resealable pouch for the weekend unless otherwise the same building where they will complain about you is on fire.

BlueKoj

November 6th, 2014 at 3:26 PM ^

Its starting to feel like confirmation bias on Jake not having a star. Back-to-back DPOW, but Frank Clark is the only "star". I don't know if anyone on the team is a star, but Jake is as much as anyone.

Ace

November 6th, 2014 at 3:42 PM ^

Okay, here goes. Jake Ryan would get a star if Jake Ryan still played strongside linebacker in an under front. That's not the case. He's a MIKE in an over, and while he's decent, he's not a star at that position—this site prides itself on the UFRs, which bear that out, and not relying on stuff like Big Ten Whatever Of The Week. (Remember Brandon Herron, National Defensive Player Of The Week? He started one game that season.)

Seth does the diagrams each week. He put Jake Ryan on the cover of HTTV. If he thought Ryan merited a star, he'd have one. He doesn't, and I agree with the decision.

ifis

November 6th, 2014 at 3:51 PM ^

Last week was a great game but it was against Indiana.  However, if he plays like that again this week, he certainly deserves a star.  'It was just Northwestern' won't hold much water from my perspective.  He seems to be be adjusting and improving over time.

Magnus

November 7th, 2014 at 12:48 PM ^

Jake Ryan is tied for 13th in tackles for loss with 12.5 (2nd in the Big Ten). He didn't rack those up against Appalachian State and Miami, either. He has 6.5 in the last three weeks against Big Ten competition. He is also tied for 36th in total tackles with 79 (5th in the Big Ten).

Justin Jackson deserves a star, apparently, but he's #45 in rushing yardage, #39 in rushing yards/game, and not even in the top 100 with his 4.59 yards/carry. 

This is absolutely confirmation bias. Somebody was expecting Jake Ryan to be a world-destroying star with 110 tackles, 20 tackles for loss, and 8 sacks by now. And since he "underperformed" for the first couple weeks while adjusting to a new position, some people think he's just a Joe Schmoe.

FWIW, I agree that Justin Jackson deserves a star. He's a pretty good running back, and I think he's probably the best player on their offense. But Jake Ryan is having a pretty darn good year and is statistically superior. Just because Brian says his pass drops need work doesn't mean he's an average, run-of-the-mill player. Mike Hart didn't have top-end speed. Would he not be worthy of a star? Denard Robinson was inaccurate and turned the ball over too much. Would he not be worthy of a star?

RJMAC

November 6th, 2014 at 7:51 PM ^

Michigan should have this game without too much trouble. There is one caveat though. Just when you thought Northwestern is not a good team and lacks energy, they reeled off impressive back to back wins against Penn State in Happy Valley, and Wisconsin. Important for Michigan to stomp on them early before NW gets some momentum.