Essentials

WHAT	Michigan vs Northwestern
WHERE	Michigan Stadium Ann Arbor, MI
WHEN	Noon Eastern
THE LINE	Michigan –23.5
TELEVISION	FOX (Johnson/Klatt)
TICKETS	exist
WEATHER	partly cloudy, low 50s ~0% chance of rain ~8 mph wind

Overview

Ah, Northwestern. They have many assets. Julia Louis-Dreyfus. The best sports blog in the world. A soccer stadium right next to Lake Michigan that exposes teams to levels of wind capable of elevating sport to comedy. And a football program that defines "scrappy": there was that one year they won the Big Ten West by winning approximately 200 overtime games that ended 10-7.

Unfortunately for this year's Wildcats, what they don't have is any run defense. Departures shattered what had been an excellent unit. There's no Paddy Fisher, no Gaz, hell they just lost a first round cornerback(!!!) for the first time in program history. Pat Fitzgerald has not had much occasion to Price is Right it this year. No, it's been Charlie Brown shuffle all the way.

No you cannot make bets about whether I'm going to embed that in every Northwestern-adjacent thing I write.

[Hit THE JUMP for Everything's good until the special teams coach ruins everything]

Run Offense vs Northwestern

meep [Bryan Fuller]

Maybe Northwestern took a good hard look at itself during the bye week, figured a lot of things out, and has rebounded back to their usual level of competence. Or maybe Rutgers turns back into a pumpkin midseason when everyone figures out the limited suite of thing they're trying this year.

We're going to find out, because the Wildcats just gave up 15 yards on 12 carries to Isaih Pacheco and held Rutgers to 87 yards on 29 carries. This is a stunning turnaround if any part of it is real, because their other games against FBS opponents go like this:

• MSU: 37 rushes, 326 yards, 8.8 YPC
• Duke: 53 rushes, 211 yards, 4.0 YPC
• Ohio: 31 rushes, 179 yards, 5.8 YPC
• Nebraska: 53 rushes, 427(!) yards, 8.1 YPC

That is staggering incompetence against both a newfangled option system (Nebraska), an oldfangled power approach (MSU), and a MAC team.

In addition to massive personnel losses, Northwestern lost long-time DC Mike Hankwitz to retirement over the offseason, so there's some plausibility to the "bye week got better" theory, but Alex's take on their personnel is unsparing:

"So what's the biggest weak spot in Northwestern's defense?", you might ask. The answer to that question is run defense, and by extension, the front seven/the tackling of everyone not named Cam Mitchell. The 'Cats are currently giving up an average of 205.7 rushing yards per game, which ranks 117th in the FBS, one spot ahead of defensive powerhouse *checks notes* UConn. Between watching this game and doing Nebraska's offense vs. NU's defense for FFFF a couple weeks back, I now have a treasure trove of GIFs of Northwestern's edge defenders getting annihilated by the zone read/misdirection over and over and over again. … Of course, the edges aren't the only problem in run defense. There's also the fact that the defensive tackles are easily ejected from the line too. … It doesn't help when your edges struggle to read the play and your DT's are getting ejected, but it's a death sentence when your linebackers can't find the gaps or tackle.

Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln.

Remember how Alex thought the Washington defense could be had on the edge, and then Michigan blew through them by going off tackle repeatedly? Something similar beckons in this game even if Michigan does not have the kind of QB run game that Nebraska does.

For its part, Michigan's ground game came to a relatively screeching halt against Rutgers and Wisconsin before rebounding with a 5 YPC outing against Nebraska. Rutgers is weird and Wisconsin may be the best run defense in the country outside of Georgia and Alabama, so all signs here point to a paving.

KEY MATCHUP: CORUM AND HASKINS vs SAFETIES. Michigan is going to get their RBs to the last defender with some frequency, and could blow things open if Corum goes meep meep or Haskins hurdles a guy.

Pass Offense vs Northwestern

[Barron]

This is likely to be a 404 not found kind of game for the passing attack, which has been put in the barn for games in which Michigan can crush the opposition on the ground. For what it's worth, this has not exactly been a strength for Northwestern either. They gave up 7.1 YPA to MSU, 7.8 to Duke, and 11 to Nebraska. Those are the only passing attacks with a semblance of competency to them on the schedule to date. (The other three schools have all completed 60% of their passes and averaged under 5.5 YPA, which indicates all-screen-all-the-time stuff.)

Northwestern does have a couple of safeties people like, with Brandon Joseph a prospect of serious interest to the NFL:

Brandon Joseph in coverage last season (@NUFBFamily safety):
15+ yard catches allowed: 1
Interceptions: 6

#2-ranked safety on the PFF College 50 pic.twitter.com/vnKIetcjr2

— PFF College (@PFF_College) July 6, 2021

Alex was also impressed with CB Cameron Mitchell, albeit in context—his praise topped out at "surprisingly functional." Northwestern plays a lot of cover two and tend to give up underneath stuff, so this will be a test of McNamara's ability to hit in those middle areas of the field where his accuracy has been questionable to date.

The Wildcats do have 14 sacks on the year despite facing a relatively paltry number of attempts and pose a reasonable level of threat as pass rushers. Old Dominion transfer Jeremy Meiser has four on the year and graded out well enough at ODU that PFF put him on their preseason All Big Ten second team. DE Adetomiwa Adebawore has 3.5 but all of those came against Indiana State, Ohio, and Rutgers so his rush ability against functional OLs is an open question.

Michigan has a surprising amount of fan consternation about QB play for a 6-0 team whose starter is averaging 8.3 yards an attempt, but a paucity of attempts and stretches of play where it feels like McNamara is completely busted tend to spook people. It would be encouraging if Michigan didn't just stick to paving the Wildcats and mixed in enough passes to suggest they had some confidence in their starter.

KEY MATCHUP:  MCNAMARA vs CONSISTENCY. This goes for both reads and throws; there's been a lot of talk from folks with All-22 access that McNamara is checking down instead of going after open guys downfield. With Northwestern likely to be panicking about the ground game there should be more opportunities for downfield shots.

Run Defense vs Northwestern

[Barron]

This has been pretty grim for the Wildcats outside of one massive outburst against Ohio. They barely cracked 3 YPC against MSU and were held to 2.8 by Rutgers—which is a weird, hard to deal with defense that Michigan struggled against—and 1.4 against Nebraska. They did have good output against Duke (4.9 YPC) but that's a clear outlier against largely middling P5 rush defenses.

Carries are being split between sophomore Evan Hull, senior Andrew Clair, and freshman Anthony Tyus III, with Hull the clear #1 back and the other two combining for slightly fewer carries than Hull has by himself. Hull is kind of nondescript. Alex on him:

Clair and Hull will get close to even snaps and I think they do a good job finding hidden yards that are not handed to them by their blockers. PFF agrees.

They're not terrible, but they're just kind of guys. Clair is the short yardage back and a straight-ahead bull reminiscent of Indiana's Stevie Scott but with some more open-field ability; Hull is… definitely a running back. He gets some yards. He doesn't jump out as anything in particular.

The Wildcat OL came in with one touted left tackle, sophomore Peter Skoronski, but is struggling to get it together. Alex found a lot of one-guy plays against Nebraska where things were blocked for some yards except for one guy messing up—and often those were two-guy plays. They're a long way away from getting hats on hats consistently and grinding forward, which puts them in long yardage too often, and then their blitz pickups aren't great.

On the other side of the ball every game is a testing ground for Michigan's unexpectedly decent-to-good interior DL. This might be the first game in which they've passed enough tests to expect that things will go well, especially since this is a spread offense that won't test Michigan's depth much; RJ Moten is going to get most of the snaps instead of a nose tackle. Add in the total lack of a QB run game and Northwestern is unlikely to make much consistently.

KEY MATCHUP: LINEBACKERS vs TACKLING. They're going to have opportunities near the LOS but Clair in particular will bounce off if you don't wrap up; Northwestern's best chance for significant gains is a missed tackle. 

Pass Defense vs Northwestern

Hill time again [Bryan Fuller]

Northwestern's improved significantly since Hunter Johnson (5.7 YPA, 4 TD, 4 INT after having a 4.0 YPA, 1 TD, 4 INT season in 2019) got injured and returned to the bench, probably forever. Andrew Marty came off the bench, seemed much better than Johnson, and then got hurt, leaving third-stringer Ryan Hilinski to take the reins. Hilinski has been… decent-ish at 6.5 YPA, 3 TDs, and no interceptions, and he's been at his best in the two games against B10 opponents.

Hilinksi was actually South Carolina's starter for almost all of 2019, racking up a whopping 406 attempts. These didn't go particularly well (5.8 YPA, 11 TD, 5 INT) but you have to wonder what the hell the Wildcat braintrust was looking at when they made this decision:

Wow, Northwestern news coming in fast and furious as Hunter Johnson named starting QB. Had competed with Ryan Hilinksi and others in camp.

— Adam Rittenberg (@ESPNRittenberg) August 17, 2021

Hilinski has a bit of a pop-gun arm and is emphatically not a mobile quarterback with –87 career rushing yards. Alex charted him with a decent 62% downfield success rate against Nebraska; his accuracy is iffy with 13 inaccurate or marginal throws versus 18 DO/CAs but one thing he did not do much was throw into coverage or make giant mistakes.

Speaking of South Carolina, remember that bowl game Michigan played against them where all their receivers were Micro Machines? Same deal here. Kansas transfer Stephon Robinson Jr caught Alex's eye, and no wonder:

Robinson has excellent hands, is able to make tough catches outside the frame of his body, and probably should not have been at Kansas. Malik Washington is a Gallon-esque slot guy being used on the outside because of necessity; no read yet on his ability to go get jump balls.

Northwestern has given up 13 sacks this year and Alex caught them having trouble with Nebraska's rushers, who are good but not on Aidan Hutchinson's level. Hutchinson also won't have to spend a lot of his time being optioned, as he was against Nebraska, and will be able to go full-bore after Hilinski. He's likely to arrive there with frequency.

KEY MATCHUP: CORNERS vs DOUBLE MOVES. Northwestern will pop Robinson outside from time to time and he got free for a touchdown against Nebraska on a nasty double move. Dax Hill probably has whoever's in the slot under control, but after a couple of ominous PI flags from Michigan corners it's easy to see Robinson doing some damage on the perimeter if Michigan gets in a single high look.

SPECIAL TEAMS

For the third straight game Michigan finds its opponent struggling on special teams. The Wildcats are in triple digits according to FEI largely because their field goal kicking has been abominable—128th. Charlie Kuhbander is 4/8 on the year with most of the misses inside 40.

Northwestern kick returns have been ho-hum but I'm not sure what's going on with their punt returns in FEI, because they've averaged a whopping 19 yards a return so far but rank in the 80s. Muff? I imagine that's a muff issue. Either way it doesn't seem likely Northwestern will get many opportunities with Brad Robbins skying everything.

Northwestern punting has been very average to date, but Corum should get a crack or two at a kickoff return since Northwestern's getting touchbacks on just 31% of kickoffs.

KEY MATCHUP:  AHHHH YOU CONTINUE DOING EVERYTHING WELL

INTANGIBLES

CHEAP THRILLS

Worry if…

• Michigan corners can't stay in contact with the wee folk on the outside.
• McNamara's accuracy remains a source of fanbase contention.
• Robbins hits a returnable punt?

Cackle with knowing glee if…

• Hutchinson is loosed on a non-mobile QB.
• Michigan's first carry goes for 12 yards.
• JJ McCarthy is running free on the edge.

Fear/Paranoia Level: 3 (Baseline: 5; –1 for Ye Gods That Run Defense, –1 for Northwestern's Whole Thing Is To Do Rockfights And They Aren't Built For It This Year, –1 for Can't Even Field Goal, +1 for Uh Oh Rutgers Renaissance, +1 for Functional-ish Passing Game, –1 for I Mean The Run Defense)

Desperate need to win level: 9 (Baseline: 5; +1 for I Mean Undefeated Everything To Play For, +1 for We Must Win This Nerd Fight, +1 for Crushing Pat Fitzgerald's Soul Will Produce Gifs, +1 for Losing Four Score Spreads Is Bad IMO, +1 for Top Ten Paul Bunyan Game At Stake, –1 for Lucy Football Trepidation)

Loss will cause me to… re-enact Fitzgerald embed up top.

Win will cause me to… show Michigan State bounteous respect.

The strictures and conventions of sportswriting compel me to predict: 

Unless they had a miracle bye week this is the worst rushing defense in the conference and they're going up against Haskins, Corum, and a bunch of road graders. I expect things will be less out of hand than they were against MSU and Nebraska, but not that much less out of hand.

On the other side of the ball NW may be able to piece some things together and have a few drives but this is another team whose best offensive weapon sits squarely in Dax Hill land and doesn't have the uber-tackle needed to keep Hutchinson from wrecking shop; here they don't even have the semblance of a QB run game to slow him down.

Finally, three opportunities for me to look stupid Sunday:

• Donovan Edwards cracks 100 yards.
• Aidan Hutchinson is held so elaborately that they flag it.
• Michigan, 37-11.