For the first time ever, we have Fiesta Bowl Fee Fi Foe Film! Michigan has played in one prior Fiesta Bowl, 1986's contest against Nebraska, so it's safe to say there was no FFFFing going on for that game back then. It's also Michigan's first ever game against the TCU Horned Frogs, meaning we're now in uncharted waters. TCU is 12-1 after completing a perfect regular season before falling to Kansas State in the Big XII Championship Game. Nonetheless, it was enough to earn the #3 ranking and a ticket to the CFP and this Fiesta Bowl.  

 

The Film: As many know, the Big XII is not a league known for playing defense. Of the teams TCU has played, only a few qualify as a defense anywhere close to the caliber that Michigan is. Per SP+, there are three teams fitting that bill, Iowa State, Kansas State, and Texas. The ISU game is not usable because it was much like the Iowa/OSU game, a good defensive performance marred by a catastrophically bad offensive one, with the Cyclones taking the role of their in-state rival Hawkeyes. So that left us with two KSU-TCU meetings and one with Texas. Since it was the most recent, I decided to go with the Big XII Championship Game between TCU and KSU, but I decided to watch tape from all of the games under consideration to help with this evaluation. 

Personnel: Click the pic for big or here for PDF. 

TCU's offense revolves around its star QB, Max Duggan. Though not proclaimed the starter at the beginning of the year, an injury to Chandler Morris quickly led to Duggan ascending to the top job. After taking over, Duggan ran with it, in both the figurative and literal sense. A dual threat scrambler, Duggan is an old-school, backyard football gunslinger, the perfect mix of athleticism and arm talent to work in an Air Raid system. He is a star and is the catalyst for TCU winning as many close games as they have this year. Duggan finds a way to make plays in big moments and this was on supreme display in the game I charted. 

The other piece that has this offense 6th in the country (per SP+) is their skill position talent, and that starts with RB Kendre Miller, rushing for 1,342 yards on 216 carries (6.2 YPC), racking up 17 TD. Miller does a chunk of his damage outside the tackles, getting into space and breaking free, not always getting the most help from his OL. Miller is starting to make a real appearance on NFL Draft Boards, and for good reason. He is a fine feature back and also has chipped in 16 catches this season in the passing game. It's more common for TCU to use its RBs as pass blockers when they pass, but sometimes he will run routes. The #2 RB is Emari Demercado, who is definitely a step down from Miller. Outside of those two, no other RB has gotten more than 30 carries this season, so not much else to talk about. 

Like any good Air Raid offense, the receivers are plentiful and talented. The superstar is Quentin Johnston, with 53 catches and 903 receiving yards this season. Johnston has been projected as a 1st round NFL Draft talent, with prototypical size for an outside guy, 6'4" and 215 lbs. That works well opposite Savion Williams, who can line up on the outside on the other side of the field and also cause matchup problems for corners, standing 6'5" and 215 lbs. himself. Those two guys are thrown fades and jump balls by Duggan and are a primary driver of this offense's explosivity. In the slots you have Taye Barber and Derius Davis, both 5'10" and under 200 lbs. While the outside guys go deep, these two carve up the middle on 4 Wide alignments. 

TCU does have TEs, with one major one who is worth mentioning in the passing game. That would be Jared Wiley, 21 catches and 225 yards on the season. A solid blocker and a good receiving option, Wiley doesn't play all the time due to the nature of the offense, but he makes his snaps effective. Geor'Quarius Spivey (this week's name of the week candidate) is also a receiving TE, though he receives limited snaps, while Carter Ware rounds out the group as the blocking TE, playing a FB-type role with zero catches on the year. Rounding out the receiving corps at WR are Jordan Hudson, Blair Conwright, and Incarnate Wood transfer Gunnar Henderson. 

The OL has improved significantly for TCU this season, though they are still not a top notch group in either run blocking or pass blocking. LT is held down by Brandon Coleman, an ex-JUCO guy. Coleman graded out this season as TCU's best offensive lineman per PFF, but I felt he was their worst pass protector against Kansas State (in fairness to PFF, his pass block grades, particularly in true passing downs, are very questionable). The other OT is Andrew Coker, a returning starter who I thought had a solid game against the Wildcats. The center job belongs to Alan Ali, while the guards are Steve Avila (LG) and Wes Harris (RG), the latter being the lone top 200 recruit on the TCU OL. I thought Harris was TCU's best (or at least mistake-prone) lineman in the game I charted, while Ali and Avila both had bumpy rides. No one here was bad enough to get the cyan designation, but no one was good enough to get a star and there are some reasons to be a bit skeptical against a good DL like Michigan's. 

[AFTER THE JUMP: Explosive]

 

Spread, pro-style, or hybrid: As an Air Raid team, TCU is a fully spread offense operating almost completely out of the shotgun, as you can see by the below table: 

Formation	Run	PA	Pass	Total
Shotgun	28	5	42	97%
Under Center	2	--	--	3%

Their only under center snaps in the Big XII Championship Game were goal line snaps, both of which they got stuffed on because they are not an under center, grind you down team. They are a pass-first squad, as seen by the play type by down table: 

Down	Run	Pass
1st	17	17
2nd	9	14
3rd	2	14
4th	2	2

They run it some, but it skews heavily towards the pass as the downs roll along. 

Base Set: TCU has two base formations, either 4 Wide or a generic 11 Personnel look. 4 Wide: 

You have your big outside WRs, Savion Williams to the bottom and Quentin Johnston to the top, and then your little slots, Taye Barber to the bottom and Derius Davis to the top. 

Here's 11 personnel: 

Normal stuff. TCU can also make 11 personnel look like 4 Wide by flexing the TE (normally Wiley) out. 

Basketball on Grass or MANBALL: TCU does a decent mix of gap and zone blocking. They do their fair share of bread-and-butter zone concepts, but they also run a lot of gap, with power and counter GT being two of the staple plays in the playbook. I don't think they necessarily fit either into either camp, although if we're using the definitions I used for this section last year, TCU is the definition of Basketball on Grass. They are not trying to beat up anyone in the trenches.   

Hurry it up or grind it out: I didn't notice anything particularly interesting with TCU in terms of pace. There wasn't a ton of tempo going on and the Horned Frogs were generally snapping it with between 10 and 20 on the playclock. Nothing to see here. 

Quarterback Dilithium Rating (Scale: 1 [Navarre] to 10 [Denard]): Max Duggan is perhaps our most interesting QB for this category, because he does not necessarily have the look of a profound weapon in this area of the game, but he absolutely is. Duggan is the most dangerous running QB Michigan has seen all season in your author's opinion, sneakily athletic and with such a great feel for evasion and scrambling, not to mention a That Dawg In Him willingness to lower the shoulder once he's in the open field. It was his legs that dragged TCU back into the game against KSU, and it was Sonny Dykes' decision to take the football out of Duggan's hands on the goal line that cost the Frogs a Big XII ring. 

I suppose we ought to just start with a bang. This was Duggan's longest run of the game, a 40 yard scramble off a five-man blitz (with a sixth watching): 

KSU played a lot of 3-3-5 stack in this game and here you get the sixth player way too slow to properly spy, and the edge loses contain. With TCU running a four verts-derived play, all the DBs are miles downfield, and the result is Kansas State getting toasted. That's the challenge of dealing with Max Duggan's scrambling, and why a mobile QB can be a nightmare when put on an offense that sends the opposing secondary so far downfield with its vertical passing game. 

Duggan doesn't just scramble, and he didn't on the very next play. On 1st & Goal Dykes dials up QB stretch and Duggan takes it in himself: 

That clip shows the vision and why they trust Duggan to JT Barrett it up from time to time, pick a hole, lower the shoulder, and fall forward through contact. Duggan's legs also allow TCU to call the QB Draw with the skill position guys spread out, doing so on a crucial 4th down: 

Against Max Duggan, you have to know that some designed QB runs are coming, particularly in short yardage or when there's an element of surprise. You also have to know that he could scramble any time, with a desire to scramble that sometimes impedes his ability to read the field as a passer, and thus cannot lose contain. Duggan has 112 carries on the season and TCU has allowed 23 sacks as a team, so you're looking at 6-7 non-sack carries per game. I suspect that number may be higher against Michigan, but for TCU, it's about maximizing those carries, since they often come on high leverage plays, picking up crucial third and fourth downs, or scoring in the red zone. It's near the top of the scouting report and thus I give Duggan an 9 on our scale, only held back by his lack of Denard speed.  

Dangerman: I'm going with WR Quentin Johnston. If you show up in the first round of mock drafts, you get the Dangerman designation for our column. Johnston is a big, leapy contested catch demon who stretches the field vertically as a deep ball receiver, Duggan's most favorite target. When Johnston is firing on all cylinders and Duggan is on point, it is a sight to behold, as it was on the second offensive play of the game for TCU: 

As you may suspect, they can run the Jane Coaston All-PI offense with Johnston, because he's such a threat that a lot of DBs will panic: 

Johnston made a rare mistake in fumbling this next one after he caught it, but it's an example of Johnston's ability to find holes in an opposing zone to get open: 

And here's the highlight reel for your educational purposes: 

The play starting at 1:31 is some Calvin Johnson-like stuff. Michigan's WR gauntlet that started with Marvin Harrison Jr. and then was followed by Charlie Jones will roll along to include Quentin Johnston. Another tough test up ahead. 

HenneChart: Now we get to circle back to Max Duggan as a passer. We showed him as a runner, but he has a legit arm. Chart:

TCU vs. KSU	Good				Neutral			Bad					Ovr
Quarterback	DO	CA	SCR		PR	MA		BA	TA	IN	BR		DSR	Screens
Max Duggan	3	15	6		4	5		--	1	6	4		69%	1

As you expected for this game, a high scramble component. Also a high pressure number, which is related to OL issues we will investigate soon. His weaknesses are inaccuracy and bad reads, something that will be detailed extensively. But he is a very good college QB with a good arm, make no mistake. The throw I showed you to Johnston deep was a hell of a toss, and that was one of several excellent throws he made in this game. This one on a 4th down is a laser in a tiny window: 

TCU's successful vertical passing offense is created by Duggan's willingness to stand in despite pressure. This next play is the combination, a hell of a toss and complete fearlessness while getting CRUSHED: 

That's Johnston getting free from his coverage to locate the ball and come down with it. 

Duggan is not a perfect QB, and that's important to point out. His arm isn't always the most accurate, and he has his share of bad reads and bad ideas (which I'll get to in a second), but he is the QB that Mike Valenti was howling about during his famous "MAKE PLAYS" rant after the 2006 MSU/Notre Dame game. If you want a QB to MAKE PLAYS, Max Duggan is your guy. Many have already made the comparison to Sean Clifford and it is a correct comparison: Duggan is Clifford with a better arm, a little bit better athleticism, and more of a clutch gene. Duggan is not the QB for a Jim Harbaugh, risk-averse coach who wants to minimize turnovers and let the running game go to work. Rather Duggan is the QB for a team that wants its signal-caller to go out there and win the damn game in crunch time. As I wrote in the Dilithium section, it was Dykes' decision to not let his QB go win him the game in OT that lost him the title. 

Accuracy can be an issue: 

But his biggest fatal flaw is trying to do too much. Duggan wants to be a hero all the time, which isn't the worst idea because he often is the hero. But the willingness to stand in and absorb contact that I was praising a minute ago can get him into trouble. Multiple times against KSU he jacked up throws off the back foot moments before a blitzer arrived, throws that either were or should have been intercepted. Here's one: 

3rd & 7 in the red zone, down four points with a full quarter to play. The one thing you can't do there is turn it over, and Duggan throws a fade that doesn't have any oomph on it since he's stepping backwards. That ball needs to be thrown away or just take a sack.

On this next play, Duggan is in trouble on 3rd down, starts scrambling, sees a possible open receiver but with KSU defenders surrounding him, trying to throw is extraordinarily risky: 

They ended up ruling this (controversially) an incomplete pass, sparing TCU the safety, but it was very nearly catastrophic. It's another situation where as a coach, you'd like to tell Duggan "just throw it away or take a sack". Don't always try and be a hero because it can end very poorly. 

Of course, you live with those moments, because Duggan also makes throws like this: 

Combine that with the danger posed by his legs, and he's electric. Duggan will make some great throws. He's going to hurt Michigan with his legs. But he is far from invincible, and frankly, despite the low INT count (4), I'd be surprised if he doesn't throw one against a disciplined Michigan defense. Duggan makes a lot happen, most all of it good for TCU, but there are enough iffy moments to think it will also cause problems for the Horned Frogs when faced with a tough Michigan D. 

 

Overview

As I usually do, I'm going to go through the weapons for TCU first, showcasing what the Horned Frogs have to offer. After Johnston, their other important threat is RB Kendre Miller. There wasn't a lot of OL push (and when there was, LBs for KSU were filling the gaps), so a lot of Miller's damage in this one came from bouncing it outside the tackles. This next play is counter GT but there's no room where the play is designed, so Miller bounces and runs for 21: 

Here's another bounce, this one in OT, that picked up a chunk: 

Miller was held reasonably in check by KSU's good defense (82 yards on 17 carries), largely due to the blocking in front of him, but against a wasteland of pathetic Big XII defenses for much of the season, Miller torched his competition and compiled this highlight reel: 

Miller has good acceleration when he gets space in the open field, and his shiftiness to juke is fun to watch. He's not an obvious bruiser, but at 220, Miller isn't the easiest to bring down either. 

At the receiver level, Savion Williams has a similar profile to Johnston, but with much diminished ability. They weren't able to find him down the field against KSU, but that wasn't for a lack of trying: 

TE Garrett Wiley impressed me several times by bailing Duggan out when he left throws high: 

At a towering 6'7", he has a very large catch radius, which helps a QB with sometimes iffy accuracy like Duggan. The flip side is I didn't see any dynamic ability from Wiley in terms of being a burn-down-the-seam guy, but running the Air Raid, they don't necessarily need that from the TE anyway. If he can be a big target on medium to shorter stuff, which he is, he's doing his job.  

The slots Taye Barber and Derius Davis are running shorter routes, coming up in my charting for stop routes, out routes, and occasionally jet sweeps. Here's one example: 

Neither are particularly noteworthy, and a bit of a stepdown from Wiley, Miller, and especially Johnston as a weapon. They get catches because this is a prolific offense. 

Now that we've talked about the weapons, let's talk about the OL, which is the relative weakness of this offense. At surface level, the OL is fine. They are in the 50s-60s in most of Football Outsiders' adjusted line yards metrics, and are tied for 51st in sacks allowed this season. Fine, and I think an accurate depiction of their caliber of play overall. However, you again have to consider the quality of competition they have seen playing in the Big XII and what it looked like when this OL went up against the few good defensive lines on the schedule.

The KSU game was an example of that. The 'Cats didn't bring heat all that often, sometimes only rushing three within their 3-3-5 shell, but four man rushes gave TCU some trouble on occasion, and blitzes were an outright mess. Max Duggan was only sacked once in this game, but considering his scrambling ability and willingness to throw while absorbing contact, that doesn't say all that much. A simple look at the game tape reveals that he was under fire a lot. Duggan took several bone-rattling hits, a few of which you've already seen in clips in this piece. Here's another example: 

That's LT Brandon Coleman in trouble, and he was put on skates often in this game against KSU's edge rushers. Coleman was the most common culprit, but a number of plays had many culprits. On the lone K-State sack it was Coleman getting smoked in tandem with an iffy effort from RT Andrew Coker and a blitz being sent by the Wildcats that gets home: 

I thought about sharing this next clip during the HenneChart section, because this was another near-INT caused by Duggan trying to do too much, but he's only trying to do too much because he's under siege again: 

Center Alan Ali and LG Steve Avila had their share of issues too. If we go back to the DPI call on Johnston from the Dangerman section, watch the IOL disintegrating under the pressure of a blitz and Duggan getting hit again: 

Pass pro was also a problem against Texas, where Duggan was sacked five times by a good Longhorns defense: 

That clip is of one Duggan sack. If you watch the full highlights, you'll see several more like that, a rapidly collapsing pocket that leaves Duggan with few options to escape or avert disaster. 

On the ground, the TCU OL was only getting minimal push against KSU, and even when they opened holes, the run fits of the Wildcats were excellent. I told you that most of Miller's successful runs came outside the tackles, which was because his runs between the tackles looked like this: 

Here's another example: 

This game reflected the line yards stats in terms of a TCU OL that is not a disaster, but a group with major reasons for concern against good front sevens, creaky moments in pass pro and not a ton of push on the ground. TCU's offense is 6th in SP+ because they have several skill position studs, are well organized and coordinated, and their stars at QB and RB (Duggan and Miller) are the sorts of players who don't necessarily need good blocking to succeed. 

 

What does this mean for Michigan? 

TCU's offense reminds me in a lot of ways of a better version of PSU's offense. Harkening back to our comparison, Max Duggan and Sean Clifford are similar types of QBs, gamers who are willing to absorb contact and sacrifice themselves for their teammates. They are mobile QBs who can hurt defenses with their legs through both scrambling and designed runs, and both have some degree of accuracy questions as well as decision-making. Duggan is the better of the two (pretty clearly so), superior arm, legs, and less mistake prone, but that's the sort of QB we're looking at. Then you add in excellent skill position talent, which again, TCU has a little bit better of (Miller > Singleton/Allen; Johnston > Washington), as well as two decent but not great OLs, and voila. Penn State's issues in the trenches require their RBs to make yards on their own and when faced with defenses with a pulse, it was some degree of a similar story for TCU. Likewise, both teams see their QBs take major shots against good pass rushes, although TCU's OL doesn't have the massive weak spot that PSU does at RT.

My biggest concerns for Michigan against TCU are two things: Duggan's mobility and willingness to play outside structure, and the explosive deep ball, particularly on contested catches and fade routes. After watching the KSU and Texas games, I feel pretty good about Michigan's ability to beat TCU in the trenches on this side of the ball. Michigan probably won't be going 5-2 with their 3 DTs against an Air Raid offense like TCU, but even two DTs of the caliber Michigan has should be enough, especially if a run stuffing anchor like Mike Morris is back healthy. I also trust Michigan's ability to get passrush in this game, largely because defenses worse than Michigan were getting consistent pressure on Duggan. Thus, TCU's ability to beat Michigan's strengths will be Duggan nerfing the pass rush by going on the run and his willingness to just punt it up to his receivers before pressure arrives. 

We've seen Michigan's DB group have some trouble with fades and contested catches at times this season, with the MSU game in particular coming to mind. They did much better against Ohio State, but it is still something to watch. Will they bracket Quentin Johnston? I do expect Michigan's corners to get beaten a few times on jump balls and backshoulder stuff, because TCU is going to throw those routes, more than any opponent Michigan has seen this season. Likewise, Duggan is going to be the most dangerous scrambling/rushing threat Michigan has seen. Keeping contain and spying the QB when possible have to be top of the scouting report notes for the Wolverines. There are ways where TCU can beat you where you tip your cap, but one of them can't be that Duggan is scrambling for 20+ regularly. That has to be addressed from the jump.