9/17/2022 – Michigan 59, UConn 0 – 3-0

After the opener someone complained in the comments that this bit above the fold was a utilitarian bit of text that didn't tell anyone how to feel. This is a completely fair criticism and also the work of an utter lunatic. It puts the emotional prose on the internet or it gets the hose again, sort of thing.

I don't know what emotion to communicate here in the aftermath of a third straight beatdown of Baby Seal U. It was generally pleasant to be out and about in the stadium on a not-too-hot day, watching helpless oompa-loompas grasp fruitlessly at our valiant warrior-poets. All conclusions, thoughts, feelings, and idle thoughts are polluted by the quality of opposition, with a few limited exceptions. It was… fine. Any attempt at a grand conclusion is a stretch.

But, lo: it is demanded. So I will stretch.

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If there's anything to take from this game going forward it's that we might be on the verge of Denard, But Also Brady. Michigan dumped more wide receiver screens on UConn than they did for the entirety of the Josh Gattis "speed in space" era if you ignore that one Penn State game, and one in particular jumped out. It this one from just before the half:

I have to assume this is a bust since there's no reaction from the boundary corner when Bell goes in motion and then the LB to the field just tears at the QB. But!

I've seen this mania before. That is eight guys in the box or environs, two guys worried about the quarterback, and acres of open space where the ball is actually going. We saw it when Denard Robinson was at full power.

Denard-esque quarterbacks had a moment induced by the introduction of the zone read in college football but have receded to the background as defenses adjusted. These days you need to have both halves if you're going to make it work, and if you have to sacrifice one it's the legs. Very few quarterbacks have enough of both to see real defenses set themselves on fire like this. One of them happens to play for the Baltimore Ravens, where Matt Weiss came from. Another one hung out with Jim Harbaugh at Stanford.

I am heartened to see the easy yards taken, and the easy yards become easier because the opposition is overreacting to something else you put on tape. Michigan is iterating, and it puts something else to deal with on the opposition's platter weekly. I already pushed all my chips in last week about JJ McCarthy being another level of quarterback than any we've seen under Jim Harbaugh. This week I am pushing a smaller stack in on a different table about Michigan's ability to take advantage of the surfeit of weapons they've assembled. We approached a 50/50 split between run and pass on first down in this game, and as we go along here confidence in McCarthy should only grow.

Now, onto opponents who are at least flopping around as you try to whack them between the eyes.

AWARDS

Known Friends and Trusted Agents Of The Week

guess who's back [Patrick Barron]

you're the man now, dog

#1 Ronnie Bell. Eight targets, seven receptions, and the eighth was almost the catch of the year (decade?). In addition to that was a key component of Michigan's blizzard of WR screens. Is clearly the #1 receiver, which says something after a year layoff and re-emergence into a crowded WR room.

#2 JJ McCarthy. 15/18, 214 yards, one chunk run, opened up space for WR screens. Even grading on a UConn curve that's worthy of landing here.

#3 Kris Jenkins. Had one blowout suffered but racked up five tackles as a DT in limited snaps. Got off blocks and showed some explosion.

Honorable mention: Blake Corum did score five touchdowns, but almost all were one yard and this isn't fantasy football. This is KFaTAotW! AJ Henning had four catches and one notable punt return but coulda shoulda done better on his carry. Caden Kolesar took a punt off someone's foot. Junior Colson was everywhere on defense. Gemon Green had a PBU and was ruthless on opposition screens.

KFaTAotW Standings.

(points: #1: 8, #2: 5, #3: 3, HMs one each. Ties result in somewhat arbitrary assignments.)

13: JJ McCarthy (#1 Hawaii, #2 UConn)
11: Blake Corum (#2 CSU, #2 Hawaii, HM UConn)
10: Mazi Smith (#1 CSU, T3 Hawaii), Ronnie Bell (HM CSU, HM Hawaii, #1 UConn)
4: Junior Colson (#3 CSU, HM UConn)
3: Kris Jenkins (#3 UConn)
2: Mike Morris (T3 Hawaii), Kris Jenkins (T3 Hawaii), Roman Wilson (HM CSU, HM Hawaii)
1: Braiden McGregor (HM CSU), Eyabi Anoma (HM CSU), Derrick Moore (HM CSU), Jaylen Harrell (HM CSU), Rod Moore (HM CSU), Makari Paige (HM Hawaii), Rayshaun Benny (HM Hawaii), Mason Graham (HM Hawaii), Cornelius Johnson (HM Hawaii), Donovan Edwards (HM Hawaii), AJ Henning (HM UConn), Gemon Green (HM UConn), Caden Kolesar (HM UConn).

Who's Got It Better Than Us(?) Of The Week

AJ Henning goes Houdini.

It was coming. Now it is here. I think he's going to get another one this year.

Honorable mention: Various Blake Corum touchdowns. Caden Kolesar returns a punt to sender. McCarthy throws a rope to Luke Schoonmaker on the move.

?MARCUS HALL EPIC DOUBLE BIRD OF THE WEEK.

JJ McCarthy is tackled for loss on third and three, preventing Michigan from scoring touchdowns on all drives.

Honorable mention: Blizzard of TV timeouts at the beginning of the fourth quarter. Review does not overturn the Ronnie Bell non-catch on grounds of radness. Blocking goes AWOL on consecutive run plays.

OFFENSE

[Fuller]

Oblig McCarthy eval. Not literally perfect like last week. Still decent. The three incompletions:

1. Cornelius Johnson falls down on an out.
2. Gets instant pressure because El-Hadi thinks it's a run play, right decision to float one to Bell in single coverage, almost incredible throw/catch combo.
3. Has no one on third and goal, buys time, finds Wilson, but there's a UConn LB he either doesn't see or YOLOs who bats it down.

#3 was not ideal, so he did one wrong thing while throwing a football. (Also he took Bell off his feet once.) Summon the inquisition.

The other negative events were the TFL on a zone read pull and the sack McCarthy took on third and fourteen. FWIW, I thought the latter was a good play. He broke the pocket and was looking for someone who could convert the first down but the WR corps got an F- on their scramble drill. Open guys underneath were unlikely to convert; I prefer McCarthy waiting for the downfield throw that's actually got a shot of converting.

The zone read pull was bad but some credit is due the UConn DE, who ended up about three yards in the backfield, square and ready to go either way. I think he had a shot at the handoff if that's the way the play went. 

McCarthy did not take a downfield shot and a lot of his yards came on dinks behind the line of scrimmage, but if that's what they're giving you that's what they're giving you. Also as mentioned above, his legs created a good chunk of that room. Next week will be a step up.

[Fuller]

Speed in space. A couple years back I posted a picture of Shea Patterson's pass distribution:

red: many targets, blue: few targets

There was Josh Gattis rhetoric and then there was the reality that Michigan was one of the most screen-averse teams in the country. That always irritated me since it felt like the occasional bubble screen was free real estate, but it wasn't a big deal since Michigan didn't have the kind of quarterback who made those efficient (and was questionable as a pocket passer).

Now this: in addition to Saturday we've got a 61-yard Roman Wilson screen touchdown against Colorado State. WR screens are easy, require only a couple blocks to get working, and are efficient in moderation. Welcome back.

[Fuller]

A short yardage back. Michigan finally got a healthy dose of short yardage carries and it appears Michigan's top option here is Blake Corum. This will probably be less great than having Haskins grind it out but it'll probably be just fine. Corum dragged a couple guys for YAC in this game, showing off that extra ten pounds of muscle that makes him look like a tiny tank.

Meanwhile Isaiah Gash may actually be your second option here, as Harbaugh asserted just before the season. I doubt we see him in competitive games unless Corum's workload spikes. He's looked decent in that role so far, though.

[Fuller]

WR #1, no A. I can't say I saw this coming: Ronnie Bell leads Michigan with 14 catches. Roman Wilson has six; Cornelius Johnson has four. I imagine that'll balance out a bit as teams shift coverage to Bell—or at least cover him sometimes so that McCarthy has to go elsewhere. Hiccups from the first couple games were gone here, and now it's time to see what Bell can do while fully healthy and being targeted by an upper-echelon QB.

Speaking of…

Petition based on awesome. This should be ruled a catch because it would have been cool.

[Fuller]

Vibes based officiating now.

Hybrid needs work. AJ Henning got more run in this game than he has for most of his career to date, grabbing an early out from McCarthy and being involved on those WR screens. He also got a snap as a running back, which didn't go that well:

On the podcast Seth was asserting that Hayes should have also cut up and taken that linebacker, but even if that's true when Hayes doesn't do that you have to follow your blockers. The outside looked pretty good there.

Not sure we'll see much of this going forward unless Donovan Edwards doesn't return promptly.

OL hiccups continue. I'll wait for UFR to make any bold proclamations but since we've got to worry about something it seems like we've all settled on the offensive line. I, too, spend my Thinking About Unreasonably Pessimistic Things time on Trente Jones pass protection and a potential lack of leap from Zak Zinter.

DEFENSE

Obligatory shrug. I'm going to put all "but UConn" caveats in this bullet. They're understood for the rest of the section. When you've got third and eight and your field corner is sitting on tunnel screen…

…without any backup behind him, you might be playing a slightly limited offense.

[Fuller]

Coming. Kris Jenkins has not blown up yet and may not this year; I still think he's real good and getting better. He made multiple plays near the sideline (or at least the opposite hash) when UConn was trying to stretch Michigan vertically. Historically that has been "is this guy a dude?" stuff. One third and three attempt saw Jenkins turn in a stretch play inside of him; Jenkins then disconnected to initiate a tackle. All he needed was a little support from the LB level to prevent YAC. Otherwise that stop was all him.

UConn went heavy a bit so Jenkins got some SDE snaps on which tight ends tried to block him. This did not go well for the tight ends.

I don't believe you. I know some people are crabbing about PFF's grades—particularly blocking grades—but this is just a useful stat they track that doesn't have a whole lot of subjectivity behind it:

According to PFF, Michigan EDGE Jaylen Harrell ranks third nationally with a 17.6 pressure rate (minimum 29 pass-rush snaps). Mike Morris slots 13th in the country at 13.9 percent.

— Clayton Sayfie (@CSayf23) September 18, 2022

In addition to the SOS caveats we also have sample size here since Harrell is rotating heavily. Before the season we were tossing Harrell in the bin with Taylor Upshaw and other "guys" who are just guys and don't have upside like your Braidens McGregor, and that's probably still true. I don't expect this to carry over into Big Ten play. At this point I am going to hedge that prediction, though. I'm saying there's a chance.

[Fuller]

Getting after it. I'll be interested to see how Junior Colson grades out this week. Live and on a rewatch it felt like he was running very fast in the right directions now. One thing an all-WR-screen offense does let you evaluate is how good your LBs are at getting to the sideline; Colson gets an A in this department.

So too does Michael Barrett, who should be a useful piece on the interior even after Nikhai Hill-Green returns. There aren't going to be a whole lot of teams who are going to combo through to him, so his viper-ness might not be that big of a deal.

Must disagree. Seth tweeted about that PI call on Turner:

I hate this flag so much. Ball thrown a little behind the WR so he pulls up and the CB breaking on it runs into him early. DB should be entitled to his momentum. https://t.co/ui7g30aqL0

— Seth M. Fisher (@Misopogon) September 18, 2022

I have all the sympathy in the world for dudes running in trail position on a fly route who suddenly find the opposition stopping. Underthrows should never be PI unless someone's getting grabbing. Here Turner is looking directly at the WR and is yards away as the ball is out. It's a flag. I'm fine with Turner's play here—this is the cost of being pretty good at football sometimes—but it's a flag.

Flashes. Kenneth Grant is not Mason Graham ready, and that's fine. This year is about finding little flashes he can build on and he had a fair few in this game. His first snap was a stretch play from UConn where he flowed down the line and then met a blocker, who was ejected from orbit. That combination of ability to move and what happens when contact gets made is probably a large portion of the offseason hype.

McGregor improvement. We saw Braiden McGregor get decked by a couple of TE/OT doubles in the opener. Here when he was threatened with the same he got wide, attacked the tight end, held the edge, and then was able to be useful coming back off the block.

Safeties could be real good. We're not seeing a whole lot from the safeties for opposition reasons but when they've been involved they've been good. In this game:

• Rod Moore shoots down to blow up a run play like he's a Hawkeye or something.
• Makari Paige ends up shocking back an OL(!) on a run play that goes nowhere.
• Michigan runs a ton of dime with all three guys on the field.

Paige also had a thump on an angle route that was ultimately immaterial—the back had dropped it before Paige arrived—but nonetheless impressive.

Meanwhile I love the ability to go to a dime package on passing downs. I can't remember the last time Michigan had enough confidence in six different DBs to make that a realistic possibility, and it gives you all sorts of coverage/blitz options.

[Fuller]

Suggestion: handoff drills. Ye gods, UConn.

SPECIAL TEAMS

[Fuller]

Le punt return touchdown. I think we may have settled the "AJ Henning is great at this/AJ Henning is terrible at this" 2021 punt return debate. Henning made some tough catches on the fly, didn't have a mental mistake, and lol TD out of this:

I put odds of a Breaston takeoff at 32%.

Le punt block. Michigan overloads the boundary with five guys against four blockers. UConn motions in their gunner, and Michigan brings in the guy covering him. That guy comes too, so it's still five versus four and one of the shield guys goes for Cornelius Johnson, who blocked two last year, leaving a path up the middle for Caden Kolesar.

This led to discussion on the podcast about whether Jay Harbaugh has to go somewhere else before he can be a coordinator here, which caused Seth to say "shut up." Point taken.

Le field goal. Jake Moody's attempt from 62 yards would have been good from 55. I applaud the team for giving Moody a shot at a FEI special teams bomb with close to no downside—that ranking system is not going to seriously downgrade Michigan's field goal unit for not making a 62-yarder.

My moon, my man. It is a perpetual outrage that FEIST does not get updated before this column goes up. Michigan is still idling at 62nd because this game has not yet been accounted for.

When protection goes too far. Henning made a dubious decision to not fair catch UConn's second punt. He got lit up immediately upon catching it, drawing a kick catch interference flag. I'm sure that's correct by whatever iteration of the rule we're currently on; I don't think it should be correct. Henning caught the punt. Then he got nailed. His opportunity to catch the ball was not interfered with.

Catch interference got tightened up some years ago because punt returners were getting annihilated and people weren't comfortable with that. With the targeting rule in place I don't think we have to keep that rule in solely for the protection of the returner. Henning got hit but his head was untouched. Ideally that would just be a good play from the gunner, not a flag.

Henning actually had a much better case for a flag just before halftime when he was moving up to catch a punt and a guy ran across his face, disrupting his momentum. Henning ended up awkwardly sliding on the catch. It is possible the flag would have come out if Henning had missed it. There was a controversial Steve Breaston muff back in the day that drew a flag because a defender had disrupted his path to the ball without actually touching him. That incident caused  a lot of huffing and puffing on the internet so I dove into the rule book and noted that you don't actually have to touch a guy to draw that flag.

MISCELLANEOUS

So this happened. I feel like Miggy should be shorter?

[Fuller]

He's standing next to a 6'10" guy there. The internet says he's 6'4", I guess. Wonder how much that hoodie cost. Probably $GDP of Cuba.

Spell your name. This came up on the podcast: we do not need a stadium host at Michigan Stadium. I have no ill-will towards Anthony Bellino, who massively improved the PA situation at Crisler when they finally got rid of the FREEEEE PIZZA guy, but I do not need to be told that when the lady holds up the sign that says "blue" I am supposed to say "blue."

[Fuller]

I have already cracked this code.

HERE

Best and Worst:

Worst:  Poor Damn Cade

I don’t know what deity Michigan fans either pissed off or made an awful deal with for last season’s success but apparently it’s all coming out of Cade’s body this season.  He’s already lost his starting job after some uncharacteristically poor performances, he’s been booed by (some of) his own fans at home, and has been the sole recipient of weekly thundersacks thanks to awful pass blocking breakdowns by an offensive line that otherwise seems to know what it’s doing with every other QB in the backfield.

State of Our Open Threads:

We even achieved a record low number of fucks given - all of nine, in fact. Combine that with the 12 shits given and the mere nine mentions of firing someone - the ABC / ESPN feed was apparently shitty (I was there, so I didn't know that), so that's who we apparently wanted to sack - and this really was one of the quietest games we've ever had in the ten years of tracking all this.

MGoTarot readings: a thing. And your moment of zen from GIFs:

ELSEWHERE

Maize and Blue Nation:

Michigan leads the country through the first three games in scoring offense averaging 55.3 points per game. First year co-offensive coordinators Sherrone Moore and Matt Weiss have Michigan's offense seemingly taking what they learned in the latter part of 2021, and evolving with new weapons. Now, yes, their first three games have come against the 103rd, 125th and 108th overall defenses in the country, respectfully. But you still can't deny how sharp Michigan's offense has looked under their new coordinators.

Nick Baumgardner on Blake Corum's NFL prospects:

The No. 8-ranked draft-eligible underclassmen RB on Brugler’s preseason list, Corum has NFL traits and seems like he could be a day-three value at the moment. But an explosive season could elevate his stock.

MVictors on the actual-actual touchdown record:

Five times in the endzone – but there are others and more.

You know that Blake Corum tallied five TDs in this one. The official #1000SSS postgame notes wrote: “Only Corum, Ron Johnson (1968, Wisconsin) and Hassan Haskins (2021, Ohio State) have scored five times in one game in Michigan history.”

a

Well, there are certainly others so perhaps add the word “modern” before history. (And in fairness, the official game notes mention “modern” history in the previous bullet on Corum’s achievement). But notes like this get people running with it, like this from WXYT’s Brad Galli:

Famously Michigan’s Neil Snow also scored five rushing TDs in the first Rose Bowl (1902).

Rose Bowl HOF

This very conspicuous feat landed Snow in both the college football and Rose Bowl Halls of Fame. (Snow is also in my personal hall of fame for being part of arguably the first verifiable instance of the use of Name, Image, and Likeness with a Detroit brewery).

And five is not the Michigan record. I believe this distinction belongs to Yost-era back Albert E. Herrnstein who tallied seven (7) TDs against Michigan Agricultural College (later MSU ofc.) in 1902.

BHL

Go ahead, Albert.

Hoover Street Rag:

Leon Franklin scored a touchdown today.

Yes, it was the touchdown that made the game 58-0 in the fourth quarter, but consider this: In the 1,365 games in Michigan football history, there have been 34,781 points scored by Michigan all-time.  Leon Franklin is responsible for six of those, and no one can ever take that away from him.

Leon Franklin is a senior who lettered last year and had been a special teamer.  He played at Southfield A&T and had a touchdown against NIU called back last year.  He's a Computer Science major and now, Leon Franklin joins the hundreds of other Michigan football players who scored a touchdown in their career.

I love this for him.  I love today for every Michigan player on the roster who got to see game action today because Michigan's starters handled their business.  Because Michigan's special teams handled their business with a punt block and a punt return touchdown.  Because Michigan knew the assignment and crossed all the ts and dotted all the is.