Previously: UNLV Offense

If you liked yesterday's breakdown of the UNLV Offense, a detailed examination of a fun and free-wheeling offense that hasn't been fully showcased at the FBS level, you're going to hate this one. Where the offense for the Rebels is neat and funky, the UNLV Defense against Bryant was bland as white bread in scheme and because of who they were playing, it's hard to glean much about individual players. Why am I still writing this? More importantly, why are you reading this? Because you have an unhealthy attachment to Michigan Football. Now let's get down to it. 

The Film: Bryant again. Video quality best described as "2005" again. Bah. 

Personnel: Click for big.

UNLV played a 4-2-5 in week one against Bryant on nearly every non-goal line snap, so it was simple making this diagram. The defensive line looks like a modern defensive line, a couple tackles in between a heavier EDGE and a lighter EDGE, the latter of whom is a stand-up who drops into coverage. On their starting unit, Jalen Dixon is the heavy EDGE and Elijah Shelton is the lighter one. Of these two I liked Shelton, the Utah State transfer, quite a bit more. Zavier Carter spelled Shelton at weakside EDGE and seemed to be a gadget passrusher, while an assortment of other players made up the rest of the depth chart at the position. 

Defensive tackle was the most heavily rotated position on the defense (not a surprising statement), with four players playing the following snap counts: 35, 35, 34, 26. Tatu Martinson and Darius Johnson are the starters, but Alex Whitmore was right there as the third option and Cooper Webb was used plenty as the fourth guy on the depth chart. I didn't see the biggest differences between these players quite frankly. 

Jackson Woodard followed head coach Barry Odom from Arkansas and played pretty much every snap until the starters were lifted at the end of the game. There were some kinks but he had a solid showing. Marsel McDuffie suited up next to him and was a regularly used starter. If McDuffie came off the field, Fred Thompkins was typically the one coming on. Fourth on the depth chart is not a notable player in anyway but a name that has to be written down: Blesyng Alualu-Tuiolemotu. 

UNLV ran with two corners, two safeties, and then a nickel who did a little bit of SLB stuff in this game, with a major presence rushing the passer. That player was Jerrae Williams, our Dangerman today. He didn't get a star because you don't get a star for showing out against Bryant, but he was the player I had the best clips of to register for that section. The player with the star is returning safety Jonathan Baldwin, a fine player in the '22 season who was rather quiet in this game, so I couldn't make him the Dangerman. Baldwin is joined at the safety spot by an Arizona transfer Jaxen Turner, who I thought had some rough moments. The outside corners are returner Cameron Oliver and Thomas Anderson, who transfers in from Independence CC in Kansas. There was very little rotation beyond these five DBs

[AFTER THE JUMP: what can we learn from Bryant? (not much)]

Base set: As I said, it was 4-2-5 alllllllll day.

Maybe they'll trot something funky out against Michigan but outside of goal line sets, there was very little intriguing variation to speak of from the Rebels against Bryant. 

Man or zone coverage: UNLV fell very comfortably in the zone category in this game, running a base coverage that was so soft that some might deem it porous. The LBs dropped deep, exposing the flats and giving Bryant the ability to check it down frequently, which the Bulldogs obliged to take advantage of. When they ramped up pressure, you started to see Man/Cov1 come out of the garage, but it was the complement, not the feature. 

Pressure: The Rebels were pretty blitzy in this game and relevant for Michigan, a good chunk of them were run blitzes. UNLV rushed more than 4 on 35% of snaps against Bryant, which is not our all-time record. Indiana 2022 clears the Rebels by a sizable margin, but it still registers towards the blitz-heavy extreme on one side of the scale. Conversely, UNLV rushed fewer than 4 players on 6% of snaps that I charted, which is basically nothing. Every so often you'd have the WDE drop into coverage and no one replaced him, but that was rare. Typically if the WDE was dropping, a corner or LB was rushing. 

Dangerman: As I noted, our Dangerman today is Nk Jerrae Williams, but I'm using this term rather lightly. He is merely the player who had the flashiest/most interesting game against a bad FCS team. As a nickel, Williams had a lot on his plate. He was the DB most frequently rolled down and blitzed by the UNLV defense, but also had plenty in coverage. This was his best coverage moment, on one of the only downfield shots Bryant took all game: 

DB #1 in the end zone

Here he is blitzing and getting enough of the QB to disrupt the pass on 3rd down: 

DB #1 lined up at the first down line to start, rushing to the top of the line

When UNLV was teeing off against the run, you often saw Williams knifing into the backfield for TFLs: 

#1 at the top of the line

Williams flashed a wide range of skills and was UNLV's most noticeable player in this game. Is he someone that Michigan really needs to "watch out for", as the Dangerman label implies? Probably not. Williams was a decent Group of 5 player last year but nothing incredible. But I gotta list somebody here and this defense isn't Hawaii 2022 level bad, where I skipped the section altogether (justifiably). So this is who I went with. 

Overview

This is going to be one of the shorter FFFFs I've ever put together simply because there's very little that we can learn from this kind of game. It reminds me of the Delaware State 2009 game, where you're bringing a bad FCS team in to earn an easy win but largely are thinking "what's the point?". On offense, it was interesting to see the scheme, and some elements of offense are opponent independent. Defense, it's much harder and the gap in quality of competition between Michigan and Bryant is so large that it renders charting this game almost irrelevant. Tendencies you can glean something from but individual players? It's really tough. 

That's why no cyans were handed out on the diagram even though I don't think this defense is good at all. I assume some players are weaker than others and will be exposed mightily by good teams on UNLV's schedule. It's just impossible to tell which in a game against an FCS team that went 4-7 last year. As a result, I will mostly be filling you in on tendencies I noticed and will be light on those player dives I typically provide. So be it! 

Among the tendencies I noticed, we have to start with the coverage. As I noted, UNLV sat in this soft zone that rendered this game difficult to watch, as Bryant was very willing to Checkdown Charlie to the flats: 

UNLV was leaving those quick stop and out routes open and Bryant was hitting them to move the chains at 4 yards per pass when they needed to. 

First game of a new head coach bringing a new system is the only think that justifies this for me, because too often the Rebels were covering grass, dropping seven guys into coverage and yet still leaving players wide open at the sticks on 2nd and 3rd down. They weren't immune from big busts either: 

And another one: 

Bryant's QB was 19/29 for 230 (7.9 Y/A). He is a pretty decent QB for the FCS level, don't get me wrong, but it's probably a bad sign when an FBS team is allowing a better completion% and a better Y/A clip than the FCS QB threw for the previous season. It was tough to come away from watching UNLV's pass defense in this game with the belief that they're going to inhibit JJ McCarthy in any way, shape, or form. 

The other reason I say that is because when UNLV got incompletions, it was from pressure. Which I expect a lot less of against Michigan compared to Bryant. For example, their one INT was a blitz from LB Jackson Woodard forcing the QB to throw off his back-foot: 

Blitzes generally came from Woodard or from the aforementioned Jerrae Williams. They were also the most likely players to be the fourth rusher when WDE Elijah Shelton dropped into coverage, which you do see happen from time to time. A downside of UNLV's blitziness and aggression in this game was their tendency to lose contain and create scrambling lanes for the QB: 

That's SDE Jalen Dixon and DT Tatuo Martinson losing their lanes there. Another example showcases tackling issues from the Rebels, which was another theme: 

Dixon is the one whiffing there on the sack, allowing the scramble gain, but it was a team-wide issue in this game. The combination of spotty tackling and loss of contain allowed the Bryant QB to also rush for 94 yards on 9 attempts (sacks included). 

As for standard rush defense, UNLV was okay. Non-QBs for Bryant rushed for 126 yards on 31 attempts, 4.1 YPC, doing damage in particular against the second team DL of the Rebels. The first team was alright, but propped up by RPS wins resulting from their blitzy nature giving them +1s in the box. Example: 

Still, there were a few too many plays like this from the starters on the ground against *again* a (likely) bad FCS team: 

Their DTs are bigger than ECUs, but I don't see that as a particular hinderance for Michigan. If Bryant's OL could get some push, I expect Michigan's to shove bodies around just fine. On the above play it's WDE Shelton and DT Martinson the victims. LBs were up and down for UNLV, good plays from Woodard and Marsel McDuffie, but also ones like the above where Woodard gets moved by a block. 

Ultimately, while there were good moments and stuffs, at the end of the day, the factors I cited between QB scrambling and vulnerabilities in the front seven combined to allow Bryant to rush for 220 yards on 40 carries for a cool 4.5 YPC. I don't think that's a good formula against Michigan!! 

[Patrick Barron]

What does this mean for Michigan? 

I saw very little from the UNLV Rebels defensively in this game to suggest to me that they will pose much of a threat to the Michigan offense tomorrow. The stats speak for themselves: Bryant gained 409 yards on 71 plays for 5.8 yards per play. Look, a bit of it was against the second team defense for UNLV, but a lot was against the first team. That's not an impressive defensive showing, even if timely stops on fourth down and one turnover was enough to limit the Bulldogs to only 14 points. 

Michigan will probably be able to shove UNLV around on the ground, but if the Rebels ramp up their blitzes even more and try to tee off in the run game, I saw almost nothing to suggest JJ McCarthy will have trouble ruthlessly punishing them through the air. Their zone coverage is incredibly soft, with glaring busts and wide open checkdown options and scrambling opportunities should be there as well if JJ wants them. If UNLV backs off in the box, Michigan should be able to ground-and-pound as well with ease. This is game two of a new head coach and defensive staff and if this is indeed the best offense of the Jim Harbaugh era for Michigan, Saturday should get ugly for the side from southern Nevada on defense.