Preview: Purdue

The Essentials

*(NCAA football lines courtesy BetUS sportsbook)

Run Offense vs. Purdue

One thing seems near-certain:

Michigan will rush between 40 and 43 times. And this is the 92nd-ranked rushing defense nationally, so you'd think they'd pick up a bunch of yards doing so but that's what we thought last week and the big net was 84 yards, or just over 100 minus a number of Threet sacks. So… yeah. Excellent outing versus good Penn State defense; awful one against bad Michigan State defense yields what, exactly, against Purdue?

I just don't know, frankly. I think we'll see Michigan work on varying the snap count and that jump-the-snap advantage State had, which was a significant factor in their early dominance of Michigan's OL, will disappear. I also think the State game was the last straw as far as it goes for the competence of the offensive line: there ain't much of it, and it's not a unit that is going to light itself on fire and get better late in the year.

At running back, Sam McGuffie is out with a concussion so we'll see plenty of Minor and Grady; Michael Shaw should see some more time after a couple of initial successes were followed by a groin injury.

I expect something between the average of the numbers above and what happened against State: four or so yards per carry, a half-dozen or so runs that slash into the secondary and may go for touchdowns depending on how poor Purdue's safeties are, and a number of instances where someone eats a tackler in the backfield.

Key Matchup: McAvoy and Moosman on second-level blockers. Michigan State's linebackers killed these two guys, which meant that whenever Minor did get a crease he was met by dudes at the POA.

Pass Offense vs. Purdue

As per usual, opponents of potential relevancy (again, I've omitted Pryor because he threw only 14 times):

These numbers are one great performance against Oregon that may have been first real game jitters for Justin Roper and three other poor outings, with the Minnesota game an okay day. Purdue is #36 in sacks with 2.25 a game, so the numbers here might be a little pessimistic.

Michigan, meanwhile… you know the drill: questionable tackles, questionable receivers, questionable elbows, #112 in passer efficiency. =DEATH. Some of that is the time spent with Nick Sheridan under center; more of it is just a generalized incompetence. Last week saw some bonus poor play when the tackles combined to pick up a –11 in PROTECTION METRIC, though some of that was on the aforementioned snap-timing by the State defense, which will presumably be fixed come tomorrow.

So, yeah, this doesn't look like a good pass defense but at this point the issues with the passing game seem so far beyond reasonable that the quality of the opponent hardly matters. One thing to watch for: a lessening of the wheel route's importance and perhaps something that plays off of it; State had clearly scouted the hell out of that and Michigan had few alternatives late in the game.

Key Matchup: Threet versus his elbow, his general freshman-ness, and the like.

Run Defense vs. Purdue

Purdue's never been one for the ground game and this year is no exception: the Boilers rank 97th in rushing. However, they're actually averaging a better YPC than Michigan and languish near #100 because of a serious lack of carries.

Kory Sheets is your starter with the loss of Jaycen Taylor this summer, and he's done well with his somewhat limited opportunities, averaging 5.3 YPC on 151 carries. No one else is going to touch the ball unless Siller plays: Purdue's handed the ball to other tailbacks a total of 18 times.

These numbers are potentially distorted: Sheets had a 76-yard touchdown in the Northwestern game and an 80-yarder against Oregon; his down-to-down in those games was much like it was in the other games you see above.

Michigan is coming off a game in which Javon Ringer got 2-4 yards every down except one, on which he got 64. Given Purdue's results to date and Michigan's, I think we'll see something similar Saturday: lots of carries snuffed out by the DL for little or nothing and a few where the line gets creased and Sheets gets into the secondary. These will be extremely important in the overall scheme of things. As you can see, Sheets has speed. If he rips off a long touchdown that's seven points Purdue was highly unlikely to acquire in any other fashion.

Key Matchup: Safeties versus TACKLING.

Pass Defense vs. Purdue

An enormous wildcard that rests on Curtis Painter's partially separated throwing shoulder. If there was ever a time to cut Michigan into little ribbons with a dink passing game, this was it: the linebackers can't cover and little slants get visited by the touchdown fairy.

Except, uh… Painter got pulled for his backup a few weeks ago, and there's an obvious reason why: he has six touchdowns this year and ten interceptions. Heck, he's only completing 56% of his passes, which is some sort of unholy sin for a senior quarterback at Purdue. And though you can't measure Purdue YPA like it's anyone else's YPA because of the dinking and dunking thing, Painter's YPA is under 6. WTF.

The receivers and offensive line must play a part in this. I mentioned in the Purdue preview—woo I actually did a preview!—that the receiving corps looked incredibly dire once you got past Greg Orton. They've all got a bunch of catches now but none is averaging much per catch. The line, meanwhile, has Purdue down at 73rd in sacks allowed, which is a really high number for the Boiler quick-strike passing game.

Even so, Purdue must have Painter play to win. His backup is out for the year with a shoulder injury and the third string guy, Justin Siller, had been moved to running back this year. Against Minnesota he was 10-17 for 73 yards and an interception; Purdue netted just 109 passing yards. If he's in, Purdue basically has to run 75-80% of the time.

Key Matchup: Safeties versus TACKLING. Obvs.

Special Teams

From last week, the futility of these previews in two sentences:

One advantage for State: Brett Swenson is 15 of 16 on the year. Don't expect a lot of misses from him.

Oy. Anyway, on with this week. Michigan's special teams took a small step forward a week ago with a couple good kickoff returns and a blocked field goal with no commensurate disaster on their part. They still hover towards the "yuck" end of the scale with the obvious exception of Zoltan the Inconceivable: Michigan has returned to #1 in net punting. The major awfulness is the punt returns: Michigan is 111th.

Purdue, on the other hand, has been thoroughly wretched in all phases of special teams. They're 110th in net punting—on average every time the two teams exchange punts you can expect Michigan to pick up 11 yards!—74th in (irrelevant) punt returns, and 55th on kick returns. Kicker Chris Summers started the year five of ten and got yanked for Carson Wiggs, who is five of eight in his limited time so far. Adding injury to insult, Wiggs strained his groin a couple weeks ago and has limited range:

"Right now I'm not 100 percent," he said. "It still gets sore and real tight real easy, so I'm still trying to take it easy on the field goals, with nothing over 40, 45 yards."

Key Matchup: Michigan punt returners fielding Purdue's short punts. We've seen a lot of balls bounce in front of Mathews this year; he needs to come up a bit and make sure he fields the ball, otherwise the punting advantage is likely to disappear.

Intangibles

 garfield minus garfield 

Cheap Thrills

Worry if...

• Anyone other than Steven Threet takes a snap at quarterback.
• Michigan has no new wrinkles to the offense.
• Painter looks healthy.

Cackle with knowing glee if...

• Justin Siller is the starting quarterback for the Boilers.
• Minor Rage returns with a rageful ragy vengance.
• There's a lot of punting, and Odoms is returning them.

Fear/Paranoia Level: 5 out of 10. (Baseline 5; –1 for They Might Start A Nick Sheridan Equivalent, –1 for And Even If They Don't Senior Heroman Has a 6-10 TD-INT ratio, +1 for And They're Favored!, +1 for I See Missed Tackles In My Sleep.)

Desperate need to win level: 3 out of 10. (Baseline 5; –1 for I Am Henri, The Otter of Ennui, –1 for There's Not Even The Vague Hope Of A Bowl Game, +1 for Lord I Just Want One Or Two More UFRs That Make Me Not Want To Jump Out A Window, –1 for .)

Loss will cause me to... throw massive "we're the worst team in the Big Ten" party.

Win will cause me to... throw massive "we're not the worst team in the Big Ten" party.

The strictures and conventions of sportswriting compel me to predict:

If Painter doesn't play or does so in a Henne-vs-OSU-last-year fashion, in which he is crippled but playing anyway, I don't see how Purdue can possibly score more than 10 points without serious assistance from Michigan's offense and special teams, and if this degenerates into a punting battle Zoltan has a huge advantage over Not Zoltan on the other team. In that scenario, I foresee an uncomfortable but ultimately solid Michigan victory of 10 points or so.

If Painter does play and is healthy I think Purdue wins because they'll take away the Michigan DL, dice up those Michigan linebackers, and one of the safeties or cornerbacks will screw up at some point, providing the Boilers a free touchdown that will stand as the difference at the end of the game.

So… yeah. Given that Tiller said Siller would see a significant number of snaps Saturday no matter what, I lean towards scenario #1: Painter is not going to be okay to play. But I'm splitting the difference below.

Finally, opportunities for me to look stupid Sunday:

• Cissoko sees a lot of time spotting Trent and as a third corner.
• Minor cracks 125.
• Michigan, 16-13.