Essentials

WHAT	#2 Michigan (10-0) vs Maryland(6-4)
WHERE	Autograph: Rewarding Fans Stadium College Park, MD
WHEN	Noon Eastern
THE LINE	M –19 (Vegas) M –19.5 (Bill C)
TELEVISION	FOX PBP: Gus Johnson Color: Joel Klatt
TICKETS	From $97.
WEATHER	sunny 10-15 mph wind mid-50s

Overview

Here's a nice thing you can say about November 2023 Maryland: I have no idea what to expect from this team. That's a huge improvement from previous editions of November Maryland, where you expected a shop teacher in a helmet to play quarterback and for a series of silly things to happen en route to a 58-14 final score.

The Terrapins are bowl eligible at 6-4 but got there with a 13-10 win over Nebraska in which the Cornhuskers had three different quarterbacks throw boggling interceptions; they were competitive into the fourth quarter against Ohio State and then ran off consecutive losses to Illinois, Northwestern, and Penn State. That latter isn't a huge surprise except for the fact that Penn State scored 51 points thanks to 4 turnovers and a total of –49 rushing yards. It's been weird.

[AFTER THE JUMP: same OL as always]

Run Offense vs Maryland

[Fuller]

Yeah, so about the weird part. Alex summarizes:

No team's side of the ball I've charted this season has a more confusing collection of results than Maryland's defense, with a handful of games that indicate a pretty good defense and an equally large handful of games that indicate a godawful defense. The game I charted against Ohio State was quite strong, a performance good enough to win (it was the offense's penchant for disastrous turnovers that did them in). They also easily muzzled teams like Indiana early in the season and Nebraska last week. On the other hand, there was a three week stretch where the QBs Luke Altmyer, Brendan Sullivan, and Drew Allar combined to eviscerate their pass defense.

This is the most Jekyll and Hyde team in the Big Ten, and since this is the week before Ohio State you can expect Michigan to come out flat, keep everything in the barn, and look pretty bad for the duration. It's a tradition. And this defense is good enough to take advantage. They crushed Ohio State. Chip Trayanum and Miyan Williams combined for 84 yards on 26 carries with a long of 11. Most other teams have been held around 3 YPC, but the exception is the last two weeks when Penn State and Nebraska were able to crack the Maryland front somewhat.

How they have done that is a bit of a mystery if you look at PFF's grading. They like LB Jaishawn Barham, who's rounding into an All-Big-Ten-ish player in year three (at least when he's not in coverage), and a couple of defensive linemen. But their most-used DE, Kellan Wyatt, gets a 49, and they've got a lot of guys in the mediocre middle rounding out the front seven.

It looks like there's a big drop from the starting DTs, Jordan Phillips and Tommy Akingbesote, to their backups, so Michigan might throw the jumbo package out there and see how Maryland responds. If they add DL they'll be trading down with Trente Jones and Myles Hinton, but what choice do they have?

Michigan's coming off a slow-motion paving of Penn State in which they averaged 6.1 yards a carry and, after a brief dalliance with the forward pass, spent almost a third of their offensive snaps with 7 OL on the field. Given the context it was Michigan's best rushing performance of the year by some distance, and there's no doubt Michigan will look to continue the momentum. This time with play action?

PS: Projected JJ carries: 0.

KEY MATCHUP: BLAKE CORUM vs DON'T LET ME GET IN MY ZONE. Woop!

Pass Offense vs Maryland

[Barron]

If you're wondering if there will be one: yes, there will be one. Maryland does not have the insane five-star get off guys that PSU has (at least not anymore) and the stadium environment will not necessitate that Michigan goes to a silent count. Maryland has 28 sacks on the year because they blitz a lot; they do not have anyone with more than 4.5. PFF has one DL with a double digit win rate; that's DE Donnell Brown. Nobody with an appreciable number of rushes has a PFF pass rush grade better than 74. Michigan isn't going to see three Barnhart pass protection incidents and pack it in. Alex:

[the pass rush] had a decent day against Ohio State, but I don't see any real NFL caliber pass rushers the way Purdue and PSU have had. PFF's team pass rush grade for Maryland is near the middle of the country and that jibes with what I saw. They had a few sacks, including this one:

Barham the LB is blitzing there and I thought he was pretty good in that role. None of the DL jumped out as superb organic rushers but they all had their moments here and there. On the interior, DT Tommy Akingbesote was probably Maryland's best passrusher, while the EDGEs were all about as good as each other. If they want to get sacks, they're better off blitzing from the second level,

Even the sack embedded above is a 2/2 protection event where Kyle McCord basically sacks himself by holding the ball forever. Take a breath. It'll be fine.

Raw stats suggest that this unit is pretty bleah. OSU averaged 11 yards an attempt, Illinois 7.4, and Northwestern 11.5 (!?!). Perhaps most damningly, Drew Allar averaged 6.3. That's his average depth of target! Bro. Bro.

Despite that, the secondary grades out pretty well on PFF save for third corner Corey Coley Jr, who gets a 58. The linebackers are a major trouble spot, with the top three options in the orange zone. The two starters have seen 40 targets on the season and given up a 77% completion rate; this combined with the Michigan ground game presages a monster day for the tight ends. Also, I don't think anyone in this secondary is keeping up with Roman Wilson.

Michigan is likely to be conservative here, as the last thing they want is to get McCarthy dinged up or worse the week before Ohio State. I would expect most plays that take a while to develop to be max-pro play action; Michigan can and will block the Maryland defenders but it is always the case that Michigan tries to not play a football game the week before playing Ohio State.

KEY MATCHUP: JJ MCCARTHY vs HIS BONES. Keep 'em intact please.

Run Defense vs Maryland

[Barron]

Michigan is likely to sit back and practice their bend-but-don't-break Ohio State defense for the 11th straight week, so be prepared for Maryland to have some success running at light boxes. Unless they forget to. Maryland is 119th in rushing plays per game. If they do not forget they are surprisingly solid for a team that's always been finesse-oriented. They're 46th in EPA/play.

Roman Hemby is the main back; he's averaging 4.7 YPC on the season; he's similar to the Penn State backs in that he has a nice size/speed combo but is unlikely to make anyone miss in the backfield. They use Antwain Littleton as their short-yardage guy; he is a bruiser but limited otherwise.

The line… hoo boy. They're not exactly bad—Michigan has faced many worse OLs this year—but they are confusing. Alex summarizes:

[Delmar] Glaze at LT is the only player to start every game at the same spot, while the rest has been moving around. At C it's either Aric Harris or Teddy Purcell, but Harris is definitely the better of the two (Purcell started against OSU and was very poor). The RT is normally Gottleib Ayedze, a transfer from D2 Frostburg State who I had grave concerns about in the preseason. He's been better than I expected but is a long way from being good. Sometimes Ayedze slides to G when Andre Roye Jr. or Connor Fagan come in at tackle, both of whom are not ready for primetime.

The G spots have most frequently been NC Central transfer Corey Bullock (has played both LG/RG) and Amelio Moran, the latter of whom has been a weak spot for the "starting line". Another G in the mix is Kyle Long, who got extensive work against OSU and was bad.

Remarkably, most of this is not due to injury. Maryland is just swapping guys in and out as they play games. One week they'll rotate at guard, the next week at center. It's weird.

This shuffling has mostly stopped with Glaze, Harris, Bullock, and Ayedze playing all of Maryland's snaps against Nebraska, but Long and Moran were rotating and the week before the centers rotated. We're assuming Maryland goes with the four relatively good players they have and then Mr. Oopsie at guard. FWIW, Maryland plays two tight ends and they're both pretty bad on the ground.

As mentioned above, I'd expect Maryland to have some first down success as Michigan plays with two deep safeties and plays six man boxes against Maryland's near-universal 11 personnel. Michigan was first percentile in stuffed runs (0 or fewer yards) against Penn State but held PSU to 2.5 "highlight yards"; IE you could get five yards a fair bit but explosives were off the table. Michigan bowed up on second down and the result was just one PSU power run attempt in the game. Was there any reason to play Penn State like that? No. Will they do the same thing against Maryland? Probably.

KEY MATCHUP: MARYLAND vs SHORT YARDAGE. They're going to be in it a fair bit because of the way Michigan plays D and then it'll be up to Littleton.

Pass Defense vs Maryland

actual QB alert [Barron]

As far as tune-ups for OSU go, this is a pretty good one. Maryland has a legitimate passing offense—12th in passes per game, dead average in EPA/play, above-average success rate—unlike everyone else on the schedule not named Ohio State.

Taulia Tagovailoa is back for a final season, and he remains more or less the same guy he's always been. His raw stats are solid: 65% completions, 7.4 YPA, 22 TD, 8 INT, but he remains merely functional, not transcendent. PFF has him as the Big Ten's #5 QB with at least 100 attempts, behind McCarthy, Drew Allar, Kyle McCord, and Tanner Mordecai. His 75 is actually a decline from last year (79) and and even bigger drop from his sophomore grade (89!), as his YPA continues to slowly tail off.

One improvement: Seth has asserted that Tagovailoa is a guy who can't let a play die and gets himself sacked as a result, and while that has been true in the past—PFF charged Tagovailoa with 25% of the pressures Maryland suffered a year ago—he's cleaned that up significantly as a senior, and is now middle of the pack.

One reason Tagovailoa may be backsliding is that he doesn't have the weapons he's had in previous years. TE Corey Dyches is still an upper-echelon receiving tight end and Jeshaun Jones is a solid top option, but Kaden Prather and Tai Felton are just guys with low catch rates (around 60% for both) and a high rate of contested catch opportunities—they struggle to get open.

PFF thinks Maryland has four legitimate pass protectors: Glaze, Bullock, Ayedze, and Harris. The other four guys are all abominable. This is a problem because you have to play five guys. Moran appears to be the guy with a target on his back for Jenkins, Graham, etc. 

Michigan's defense has been excellent against all comers this year but they have not faced an actual, functional passing offense yet this season. Purdue tried but couldn't protect Hudson Card with backup tackles. Nobody else has really bothered to test the Michigan safeties. It'll be interesting to see if Michigan has Will Johnson follow Jones around like he followed KeAndre Lambert-Smith against Penn State. This is another situation where the opposition has a clear #1, and if Michigan is using this as an OSU tune up the deployment of Johnson is likely to be something that recurs next weekend.

The other thing to watch for is what happens when Josh Wallace gets targeted. Wallace has been about as anonymous as Johnson this year despite not being headed for the first round of the draft; this might be the first game where we get to see what happens when an opponent goes at him.

KEY MATCHUP: THE MICHIGAN SECONDARY vs FORGETTING HOW TO DO FOOTBALL. "Wait… what? They're throwing it farther than ten yards? Can you do that?"

SPECIAL TEAMS

Maryland is 15th in FEI largely on the strength of their return units. Jeshaun Jones and Tarheeb Still have, remarkably, been locked in a punt return battle for three years now. The last time someone else returned a punt for Maryland was before COVID. This year it's advantage Jones; he's got an 11 yard average on, uh, 7 opportunities. Still just has 4.

Kick returner Braeden Wisloski took one back against Virginia and will enjoy sticking his arms out when Tommy Doman puts them in the endzone.

The specialists are middling. Kicker Jack Howes is 11/17 but all but one miss is from 40+ so he checks in as a more or less average college kicker. Just 4/9 beyond 40 is a potential issue, though. Punter Colton Spangler(!) is dead average in net yardage and in FEI.

KEY MATCHUP: AHHH YOU PUT IT THROUGH THE UPRIGHTS

INTANGIBLES

CHEAP THRILLS

Worry if...

• Michigan takes their annual pre-OSU malaise a little too far this year what with coach suspension.
• Josh Wallace is getting dunked on.
• Karsen Barnhart has suddenly turned into a pumpkin.

Cackle with glee if...

• Michigan follows Jones with Johnson and he shuts Jones down.
• Michigan executes the Big Big Boys package better than last week.
• Deadly accurate McCarthy re-emerges after his brief hibernation.

Fear/Paranoia Level: 3 (Baseline 5; +1 for Pre-OSU Suck Week, +1 for No Harbaugh, +1 for Program Chaos, –1 for Blake Crush Offense Back?, –1 for Taulia Gonna Taulia, –1 for Another All Meh Team, –1 for You Gave Up 400 Yards To Penn State?, –1 for Good Team Vs Bad Team)

Desperate Need To Win Level: 11 (Baseline 5; +5 for Burn It All Down, +1 for And Then Piss On The Ashes.)

Loss will cause me to... uhhhhh I know I just checked in with an 11 in desperate need to win but does it actually matter?

Win will cause me to... release video of Marvin Harrison Jr doing bad karaoke during halftime of OSU's game. 

The strictures and conventions of sportswriting compel me to predict: 

 

Finally, three opportunities for me to look stupid tomorrow: 

• Will Johnson pick-six.
• Michigan looks like 2022 Michigan, with a heavy run focus and grinding gameplan; Corum gets another 25 carry  day.
• Michigan, 34-15.