When Josh Gattis was hired this space got really excited for the incorporation of RPOs into Michigan's power running game. The very first spring game I was like "look at all the backside defenders who can't pursue the run!"

The first game I was giddy over the RPO reads that had been slapped on to every one of Michigan's base run plays, especially their meatiest of meaty running plays, Pin & Pull.

(I also spent way too long drawing on my videos back then)

There were a couple, especially early, but what that mostly became for this program was a gimmick. If they did actually turn on the reads it was for a big game or a rival.

Time and again, quarterback after quarterback, we'd see a Patterson, Milton, McNamara, or McCarthy look at a receiver apparently running a route before handing off. A year after the transition, even the rivals weren't getting it anymore.

By Rutgers last year everyone knew what Michigan was up to. It was a gimmick. A look. They weren't really going to throw it, or burn precious practice trying. As opponents caught on to the ruse, the team gave up on the ruse. Michigan wasn't reading anybody—they just wanted you to think it, and maybe to drive a blogger or two nuts. With the exception of Penn State, nobody thought they were getting read, so nobody stayed backside.

This week I found some guys who were buying RPOs that the offense wasn't throwing. Unfortunately it was our own.

[After THE JUMP: It would seem we're out of practice.]

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Before we get into this, let's disclaimer, because yeah, it's the second critical article in two weeks about 11-0 Michigan. I'm not here to cause controversy or be contrarian. I love this team. I'm picking this team to win on Saturday. It's just the format of this article. UFR gets long enough on its own, game columns do too, and I can't always be hijacking message board questions and turning them into mini-blog posts. Neck Sharpies is our chance to pick a thing apart that's happening on the field so that it all makes sense, and when it or the adjustment pops up, that makes sense too. Whether it's positive or negative doesn't enter into the equation. I choose what I think will be most educational. Then I add speech bubbles. /Disclaimer

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This was driving me nuts while charting this week:

This is a simple power run that gets a simple 4 yards. Power checklist:

1. Kick out the guy on the edge
2. Block down the next guy inside, and the next guy and next guy.
3. Bring a lead blocker for the unblocked guy.

Mazi Smith fought through that double, Eyabi Okie whipped his kickout block, and Michigan had two free hitters, yet it still got four yards. We've seen a zillion Michigan power runs and the rare times they lose those kinds of battles they get nothing. Why is this four yards? Well when I looked at who was arriving where, Smith was moved out by his double, and the backside LB wasn't where he's supposed to be.

Barrett ends up thunking the puller well enough, but he's on the puller's outside shoulder, which seems to be his intention. That's how Michigan's defended all year: put it back inside where the DTs are constantly winning. That's especially true today because they don't have Morris to crush the outside and they usually aren't being given safety help. This one time however that worked against Barrett, because his edge (Okie) won the kickout, his safety (Moten) was actually down in the box for once, and Mazi Smith got worked through by one of the best run blockers (#63 Alex "Big Palc" Palczewski—I told you about him!) they've faced all year.

Still, on a simple power play like this you want Junior Colson to be following that pulling guard. You are the backside linebacker. He is pulling. You have to react to that. Except here in 2022 you also have to react to a mesh point.

Is Illinois actually running an RPO slant behind him? No. Those WRs are blocking the whole way. But they are set up that way, and the quarterback is looking right at Colson, and he's got to hedge until the handoff is made, which gives Big Palc time to come off the Smith double and get in Colson's way.

Brown cuts into Barrett and Smith and falls forward for four yards. I have lots of sympathy for Colson here, because how is he supposed to know there's no threat when he's being read? Illinois ran a bunch of RPOs early in this game, so the threat was established. So unlike every dang linebacker that's been gumming up Michigan's power running game (before he's defeated by Corum), Colson is a bit late to the party, and they get a blocker on him, and Mazi can't replace him well enough to prevent momentum.

If only someone had told Junior he could go with the puller.

Did they fix it?

No. Here's another from right before Illinois's first touchdown.

It's a Pin & Pull or "Buck" run, not too dissimilar from what Michigan's been paving the Big Ten with for years. It's got a cool wrinkle in that backside TE's block that we most definitely have to steal.

Okay, quick sidetrack. The TE starts like he's going to have a hinge block on the backside of power. That's pretty normal and signifies to the edge back there that he's mostly going to have this play off, as he can't abandon his edge and the hinge doesn't want him to.

But as soon as he gives the backside edge a good wallop the TE is heading downfield to pick somebody off.

Because they brought the G and T from that side Illinois was able to save an eligible receiver for this job. A TE releasing downfield is a major threat to the secondary until the ball crosses the line of scrimmage. Even an RB pop pass has to be respected. But this guy is just going downfield to block. The RB already has the ball. The TE is just another downfield blocker. But he's a TE, not an offensive tackle, who usually gets that backside hinge. He's got more points in agility and speed. He's a threat to block downfield in space that most TEs are never.

He finds one Michael Barrett trying to flow to the ballcarrier.

And erases him. Very cool block. Also….

What was Michael Barrett doing all the way back there????

And herein lies what I was getting at with the introduction. Watch the play again but keep your eyes on LB #23, the top LB on the 11 yard line.

Now watch this again and see where the QB is looking.

Except there is no pass to his side. It's just a ruse to hold him back there with the threat of receivers because he's the one free hitter in the box the blocking doesn't have an answer for. The next guy who could do anything is the free safety (Rod Moore) who's not even on screen he's so far back.

Also Michigan has the wrong personnel for this. Sainristil is a nickelback but is going to either get the kickout blocker or the lead blocker. What the Wolverines do have going for them here is the setup on the defensive line, with Derrick Moore set up on the LT's outside shoulder then coming inside of it and trying to two-gap him.

With Michigan committing a safety deep, committing a nickel to the flat, three guys to the three pass threats on the backside, and down a man because Okie got kicked and went into the backfield. they really need D.Moore to both-sides that guy until help arrives.

Why are we putting this on a true freshman?

It's a tough ask, but so is moving a 290-pound DE out of the lane.

The way they set up their DEs is Michigan's best defensive mechanism against Power. Remember how these plays work:

1. Kick out the guy on the edge
2. Block down the next guy inside, and the next guy and next guy.
3. Bring a lead blocker for the unblocked guy.

The Michigan defense's whole thing is setting up a heavy guy on either side of the formation. On a power run that heavy end usually ends up the kickout man, because OT or TE doesn't have an angle to block down on him. Illinois had success at it, but Michigan was without Mike Morris, who typically *crushes* that edge. Almost every time the Illini ran power it was at Jaylen Harrell, who's 50 pounds lighter.

Harrell is not on the field this play, so they ran it at Derrick Moore. But a weird thing happened: Moore was not the guy they were kicking out with the first puller.

Illinois actually managed to get him moved out of the way with the left tackle, who first tried to block down on him then when Moore fought back outside the LT zone blocked him outside and they had a lane. I think Illinois did that on the fly too—the LT reacted to Moore going inside and took him, then had to adjust. Moore probably needed to just stay in that gap he was defending and let things play out outside of him, even if that meant Sainristil was taking on the RT. But still, none of that matters if Barrett can get to the play.

I've got one more play. This one is going to hurt.

A few things went on here. Note that Illinois went to multiple TEs on the front (right) side. Michigan does this too when they think they're going to get a better kickout/blockdown matchup if they move the point of attack a gap further outside. In this case that means a TE/RT double through Mason Graham that works because Graham tries to spin off and ends up falling down. The kickout also gets Taylor Upshaw, who's not Mike Morris but usually sets a pretty strong edge.

The thing is Michigan didn't react with numbers. Note that before they had a free hitting safety over the top. Here they're expending two DBs (Turner on the right) to be high safeties. There's a WR way off to the left and Makari Paige, the free safety on the left hash, is getting over to help. So that guy is taking two defenders out entirely. Michigan's other safety, Rod Moore, is down in the box and blitzing off that same back edge. So that's three defenders out of the play.

Michigan then needs to have somebody going with that crossing TE. If Rod Moore can't catch him from behind that needs to be Junior Colson. Effectively Moore is playing the role of the backside linebacker who buried himself in a gap to the backside. Colson has to trust that Moore will catch any cutback, and that wherever the crossing TE ends up is now Colson's responsibility. In other words, he's the safety now.

This doesn't register.

Three guys out of the play means we're down to a blocker for every hat. Colson, who's also got the safety job, has Big Palc coming off the double on Graham. He can win that block with only minimal delay, which would be fine if he's not the last line of defense, and a big concern since he is. Barrett is taking on the pulling TE, and getting the outside shoulder, which would be fine if the cut behind him is covered by Graham and Colson, and also fine if Upshaw has the other side of his gap closed down enough that Brown can't get through. Upshaw…does not. He was way too slow recognizing the puller coming to kick him, only set up to put a shoulder into him, and then #78 gave him a good bonk to move Upshaw even further outside. Way downfield, it dawns on DJ Turner that he's actually the "downblock" that the outside TE was going after.

Let's check in on everyone one last time. Colson is still working his way across Palc. That's way too late for this play, since Brown is already at full speed and about to pop out of the edge. Mason Graham is falling down even if he's on the correct side of his blocker. I don't think that influenced Michael Barrett, who's got one chance to be a hero and end this, since Brown is technically coming out of his gap. But Barrett's in tough—he just took on contact from a fullback/TE with a head of steam, and has zero momentum while facing forward. His options are lay out and hope he gets a foot, or try to chase and hope he isn't instantly edged. He'll go for the tackle.

And there's the reason that gap is so huge: Taylor Upshaw is setting the edge of the play closer to the numbers than the hash. As he tries to spin off #78, the guy got his right arm hooked so Upshaw couldn't work back to close down the gap. Is that a hold that should be called? Yeah. You really want to leave this up to the refs? Lastly we have DJ Turner, who is set up way way deep and not at all acting like getting around this tight end is for all the yards. He's also Michigan's tiniest starter versus a tight end, so that's not ideal.

What it comes down to then is a race. Can Junior Colson, who hung backside protecting a lane that Rod Moore had, then had to work his way past a very good right tackle, get to Chase Brown before Chase Brown can turn the edge on him?

No.

So why is Colson so late if he's got nothing but a pulling TE to worry about? Let's rewind a bit:

Yeah, until the ball is in the RB's hands, Colson still thinks there might be a pass coming behind him. There isn't. But there might be. And in the fractions of seconds that a linebacker lives in, even a little hesitation can mean everything.

What does this matter for the only thing in the universe that matters?

On both sides of the ball, the way Illinois was able to use the mere threat of RPOs to open up its power run game should give Michigan a lot to think about. We talked after Penn State about how adding McCarthy's legs to the equation helped create explosive runs. Those deal with a free hitter, and so do RPOs.

On offense, Michigan's lack of RPO game has taken the pressure off the free hitters of the more aggressive defenses (Indiana, Rutgers, Illinois) they've gone against. Those are the defenses that had more success against Michigan, and did so by being much more aggressive than Colson/Barrett when responding to pullers, whether or not McCarthy was looking at them. Putting that element back in the offense this week would be a good idea considering Ohio State—if they've watched tape on Michigan at all this year—is going to be looking to shut down the power run game first.

On defense, this soft approach was exactly the wrong answer for Illinois, so I have to imagine it was meant as preparation for Ohio State.

I think Michigan wants to be able to beat these runs without the extra hitters. Even when they brought down a safety, Barrett didn't try to spill to him—he funneled back inside. They didn't really want Colson having to run it down either—the plan each time was to have the guy being blocked down be the wall that the RB runs into. I believe they've been able to play that way all year because of Mike Morris on the TE side is so damn good at playing the kickout. So good that they've barely tried him this year. Here he is versus a Nebraska split zone.

I've seen enough flashes from Okie that suggest he can do this responsibly (it's hard) enough for Michigan to get away with it with him, but the rest of the DEs can't routinely turn that into a +1 for the defense.

Most coaches don't have the luxury of a Morris, nor an entire secondary they want to trust in man all the time. So they preach communication. That would help with the RPO ghosts, e.g. tell Colson to go with a puller unless he hears "INSIDE!" or something from the defender set up over the threatening receiver. 

If you're not getting your playmaking from somewhere, you have to unbalance something or get perfect execution every time. Ohio State's offense isn't going to necessarily do it with Power, but they run off-tackle more than you think, and plenty of RPOs. Even before we talk about the pass rush, this isn't the matchup it was last year when you could trust Ojabo and Hutchinson to consistently cave in the edge of the defense and save your material for soft coverage and linebackers dropping into slants on the backside. Not all the time, but to a greater degree, they're going to have to trust their cornerbacks (who aren't on Marvin Harrison Jr.) to get the job done, ans allow the safeties to help out the front.

If they do have Morris back, well, put him on the TE side and roll. Ohio State has some good players but they're not power runners. How that matchup looks early on might be a big deal.