11/4/2023 – Michigan 41, Purdue 13 – 9-0, 6-0 Big Ten

It is a measure of how spoiled Michigan fans are that when their quarterback completes two-thirds of his passes for 9.1 yards an attempt—with some drops in there—everyone is perturbed about What Happened To JJ McCarthy. In a larger sense, nothing at all, get a grip. In a smaller, paranoid sense: well, yeah. Purdue's defensive approach did pose some questions to a Michigan offense that was dead-set on not providing answers after going up 17-0 before the PSU-MD-OSU gauntlet to end the regular season.

The number one thing Purdue did was rush a bunch of DTs. The third guy in the middle rarely did anything directly, but he eliminated the possibility of those "look for work" blocks you see when an interior OL doesn't have anyone to block and decides to hog-wallop someone engaged with one of his buddies. Also because he was rarely getting any rush, Purdue did a much better job than anyone else on the schedule at keeping McCarthy in the pocket.

The results alternated between downs where Michigan got the man-to-man they expected and McCarthy could just throw it to Roman Wilson for 20 yards and ones where Purdue popped into a zone. On those snaps McCarthy hesitated, and then his Let's Break The Pocket And Fire All The Missiles timer went off. He'd move to do that, find that the doors were closed, and then fire inaccurate balls because his feet weren't in the right place. He was caught between states.

This is to say that a big chunk of the problems that caused JJ McCarthy to only complete two-thirds of his passes for 9.1 yards an attempt are fixable, and will probably be fixed.

-------------------------------

The rest of the game went like they all have so far: the defense gives up approximately nothing. There are a couple mistakes that set the opponent up for their desultory first-half score, and then the opponent gets to have a touchdown after the stadium has emptied out. The only unusual things were a couple of fourth-quarter drives for the starting offense, possibly because they haven't played a full four quarters all year and Michigan wanted them to get that under their belt before Penn State, and the relative wobbliness of McCarthy.

Afterwards, Ryan Walters was mad. Was he mad that Connor Stalions had somehow robbed him of victory? Was he mad that Illinois didn't win last year? I don't know. Everyone seems absolutely furious about Stalions going overboard on an activity that is everyday, commonplace, and Walters personally participated in.

Everyone is just as mad as they can be, except Michigan fans. That last outpost of sanity is set to fall in a couple days if and when the Big Ten levies an unprecedented suspension to the head coach of a team that would have won every game they've played this year by multiple scores if Connor Stalions happened to be a massive Colorado School of Mines fan instead of Michigan. At this point, Michigan will join the frothing masses. The already frothed will be furious that Michigan's players are still allowed to compete for a championship. They will fulminate about how desperately unfair it all is, and Michigan fans will fulminate about the same thing.

All of this because of the idea that Michigan has somehow ruined the sport because one guy got a marginal advantage in a part of the sport that can easily be defeated by writing things down on a piece of paper and sticking it on your wrist. This is going to go down as the stupidest moral panic in the history of the sport.

We are headed for the biggest Die Mad of all time. Nothing can stop it. The only question is who will in fact be Dying Mad. The stakes have never been higher, or dumber.

AWARDS

Known Friends and Trusted Agents Of The Week

[Fuller]

you're the man now, dog

#1T Michael Barrett, Braiden McGregor, Jaylen Harrell, Derrick Moore, and Josiah Stewart. Michigan's rotate ALL THE GUYs approach on defense has made it difficult for anyone on the defense to dislodge offensive players, particularly JJ McCarthy from the top spot. And, yeah, the highest number of pass rush snaps any individual defender got in this game: 17. But Michigan collected 20 pressures on 30 dropbacks, so I'm sticking all these guys in at the top. Three points each. McGregor and Harrell get bonus points for combining on a third and short stop.

#2 Roman Wilson. Nine catches on ten targets, and while the tenth was a low but catchable ball the important thing was that no Purdue defensive back was able to even make it a contest. Zero of his targets were contested.

#3 Will Johnson. Interception, a couple more PBUs, ceded three yards a target per PFF. More discussion below.

Honorable mention: Well okay yes JJ McCarthy completed two-thirds of his passes for 9.1 yards per attempt. Colston Loveland had a beautiful back-shoulder catch and nearly brought in a circus catch; Semaj Morgan is fast. Rod Moore had an endzone PBU and a second PBU that was less salutary.

KFaTAotW Standings.

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

44: JJ McCarthy (#1 ECU, #1 UNLV, #2 Rutgers, HM Nebraska, #2 Minn, #1 IU, #1 MSU, HM PUR)
23: Kris Jenkins (HM ECU, T2 UNLV, #1 BGSU, HM Rutgers, #1 Neb, HM MSU)
15: Mason Graham (HM ECU, T2 UNLV, #1 Minn, HM IU, HM MSU)
14: Roman Wilson (T2 ECU, HM UNLV, HM BGSU, #3 Nebraska, #2 PUR)
13: Mike Sainristil (T3 ECU, HM BGSU, #1 Rutgers, HM IU, HM MSU)
11: Mike Barrett (HM UNLV, T3 Rutgers, #2 IU, T1 PUR)
10: Blake Corum (HM ECU, HM UNLV, #2 BGSU, HM Rutgers, HM Neb, HM IU), AJ Barner (HM BGSU, HM Neb, HM Minn, T3 IU, T2 MSU), Braiden McGregor(T3 UNLV, #2 Nebraska, T1 PUR)
9: Colston Loveland (HM Rutgers, T3 IU, T2 MSU, HM PUR)
7: Cornelius Johnson (T2 ECU, HM UNLV, HM BGSU, HM Minn), Derrick Moore (T3 UNLV, HM Neb, HM MSU, T1 PUR)
6: Kenneth Grant (T3 ECU, T2 UNLV), Junior Colson (#3 BGSU, T3 Rutgers, HM MSU), Jaylen Harrell (HM UNLV, HM BGSU, HM IU, T1 PUR), 3: Will Johnson(#3 Minn, #3 PUR)
4: Ernest Hausmann (T3 ECU, T3 Rutgers), Max Bredeson (HM Rutgers, HM Neb, T3 IU), Josiah Stewart (HM Minn, T1 PUR)
2:  Josh Wallace (T3 ECU), Semaj Morgan (HM Rutgers, HM PUR)
1: Tommy Doman (HM ECU), Donovan Edwards (HM ECU), Tyler Morris (HM UNLV), Quinten Johnson (HM Rutgers), Kalel Mullings (HM Minn), The Offensive Line (HM Minn), Keon Sabb (HM Minn), Ben Hall (HM IU), Rod Moore (HM PUR)

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

Donovan Edwards gets one on one with a linebacker, signaling that Ryan Walters's stuff isn't going to work in this one.

Honorable mention: The ease with which Michigan converted their goal to go opportunities. Semaj Morgan puts the game to bed with the world's most wide open jet sweep. McCarthy nails a back shoulder to Loveland. Will Johnson gets a pick somewhat reminiscent of his first against Purdue last year.

MARCUS HALL EPIC DOUBLE BIRD OF THE WEEK

Purdue stuffs a fourth and one near the end of the first half. This was not the first gaffe in the period of gaffes but it was the one that established it was going to be an annoying quarter and a half.

Honorable mention: Punt hits a gunner, leading to a turnover and a Purdue field goal. DJ Waller gives up a long reception. Purdue scores with 30 seconds left, robbing Michigan of the cover and giving a thousand screeching Ohio State fans on twitter the ability to say THEY DIDN'T COVER.

NICK SAMAC PATHETIC DOUBLE BIRD OF THE WEEK

Ryan Walters gives Jim Harbaugh the drive-by handshake because he's just so mad that Michigan may or may not have had their signals. Expect news to break this week about Walters; there's a reason Michigan was using wristbands in this game.

Dishonorable mention: N/A

OFFENSE

[Fuller]

A good plan. Michigan came out in this game with an idea of what Walters wanted to do and an excellent plan to attack it. There's a lot of frustration with the run game after this, which we'll get into, but to my eye Michigan knew that Purdue was going to be in a bunch of exploitable man-to-man on third and medium so wasting downs was not really a problem. The yo-yo stuff where a guy runs into the flat is one thing but this early conversion is a more subtle version of the above:

That late motion completely bones the defense and the box safety ends up executing a 360. Michigan's first TD was set up by another yo-yo:

That lateral edge is always going to be there if you get man-to-man.

Purdue adapted to this at halftime, dropping into zones on third and medium. On Michigan's first drive of the second half McCarthy got the worst of all worlds when Purdue dropped eight and Scourton got blocked by AJ Barner and then got an ineffectual chip from Edwards. That is eight guys covering three routes and the two guys you left in—far worse pass blockers than anyone on the OL—trying to deal with an NFL DE. That one goes in the ol' RPS column.

An oddity. PFF's passing grade for McCarthy in this game? 84.3. That is his second-best grade in a Big Ten game behind the 90.9 from MSU. They had him with 5 big time throws and charged the WRs with 3 drops.

Why just once? The Michigan universe was Leonard DiCaprio Pointing At Television when Purdue belatedly motioned out a linebacker wearing 47 to cover Donovan Edwards 1 on 1:

Hooray touchdown, effectively, but I am a person who predicted that Edwards would get 100 yards receiving in this game and he did not and I am cross. I'm not sure Edwards split wide again in this game.

 

[Fuller]

Catch the ball? This week's UFR is going to have more passes in the difficult catch zones than any other McCarthy start, and probably by some distance. I'm going to have to make some CA/MA distinctions, but I think most of them are going to land on CA. Barner had a ball hit his arm, and there was a high ball to Johnson that went through his hands and is still in must-catch territory.

This one is going in the other bin, though:

Not everything from McCarthy was because he reset his feet. This is a rhythm throw that he just missed. Loveland actually has the circus catch made until the corner dislodges the ball.

The ground game. Frustrating day attempting to run the ball, and one that can be chalked up to a few different things. One is that by the end of the first quarter Michigan had all the points they needed to win the game so there was no reason to put anything extra on tape or risk getting McCarthy hit. Purdue was +1 in the box all game and focused so intently on stopping the interior run that when Michigan did pop a constraint play it was easy money. Both the Johnson end around and Morgan jet sweep saw the playside end roar to the interior. Morgan's was so vastly wide open that as soon as he got the ball the only question was whether he'd beat the free safety with a 20-yard head start. Answer: yes.

If Michigan had wanted to run McCarthy they would have trashed the run defense because that free safety is nowhere near the play and now you're even in the box on every snap. See: DJ Durkin vs JT Barrett.

Why? Aaaargh. The fourth and one had a few different things go wrong. One is that Darrius Clemons was asked to block Kydran Jenkins, a 260 pound defensive end. Two is that Karsen Barnhart gets slanted under. Three: is it possible that Mullings screwed this up?

This is tackle over, so it makes some sense to deploy like this if Mullings is supposed to bounce outside of Barnhart. He just runs it like it's a dive. Michigan had already converted one dive earlier in the game so this would be a good spot to change it up.

I still loathe putting Clemons in this spot when you have a perfectly good Trente Jones sitting on the bench.

[Barron]

Semaj-date. 13 snaps for Jukebox, and three targets. he had a downfield catch and run, further distancing Morgan from gadget guys past. Also the above touchdown on which Morgan's outrageous speed really popped. He beat a safety at 20 yards to the corner of the endzone. Blackledge criticized the safety's angle, but if the guy takes a deeper one he's tackling Morgan in the endzone.

Henderson test: passed. Henderson gave up a sack but was otherwise solid against DEs that are amongst the best in the country. He wasn't outstanding—PFF graded him out at 60 and charged him with a couple other hurries—but he was good enough. With this team you just have to not have a big hole, and pass pro against big time DEs was about the last thing to test.

DEFENSE

[Fuller]

Secondary: so back. One thing I appreciated about this game is that Purdue tried to run a real offense. That was not good for their chances of winning the game but it did allow us to have opinions about members of the Michigan secondary for about the first time all year. We had events from both Rod Moore and Will Johnson. Johnson's INT was helped by the pressure Jaylen Harrell got but the coverage was such that IMO zero throws are cobbling out a completion:

Johnson also jumped a slant and forced an incompletion by grabbing the WR as the ball arrived (it's hard to tell; ball did get deflected by the WR) and was able to break up a desperation heave from Card that one of his WRs turned into an improvised comeback route.  He would have had a second interception if not for Rod Moore getting a finger on the ball just before it got to him.

Moore, meanwhile, had a PBU on a corner route in the endzone that looked like vintage Rod Moore. He was less involved than Johnson—PFF has Johnson for eight targets and Moore, somehow, with two PBUs and no targets—but that's life as a good safety. I'd say both guys are all the way back after injury and rust early in the season.

The UMass kid. It's about to be crunch time for Josh Wallace, who has fended off all competitors and locked down the #2 corner slot. I'm not sure how we feel about this, but so far so good: surrounded by more talent and asked to do less by himself his PFF grade has significantly jumped in his final season. He's given up just 7 completions on 20 targets and is the PFF's #6 cover CB in the Big Ten. (Johnson is #3, Sainristil is #12).

I know the next statement will be "ain't played nobody," but it's the Big Ten: almost nobody's played anybody when it comes to pass coverage. I think he'll be fine.

[Barron]

Sacks: not a very descriptive stat. Michigan had one sack in this game, and that's one of the worst misrepresentations of pressure applied I can remember. Card was under siege on approximately every dropback:

That's not a sack. It is a punt.

Per PFF, Michigan had 20 pressures on 30 Purdue dropbacks. 17 of those were mere hurries, but if you can't set your feet and throw it cleanly on two-thirds of your attempts you're gonna die.

Send him. FWIW, Barrett led Michigan with five pressures in this game. He rushed nine times. This was not Michigan scheming him up free, either: PFF has his win rate at 62.5, which means all five of his pressures came through a blocker. (I guess he was unblocked but didn't get a pressure on the other one?) Colson got two pressures but has a win rate of 0%, because he never drew a blocker. On the season, Barrett has 13 pressures on 31 rushes and a 43% win rate. That win rate is 14 points higher than the #2 guy nationally. His pass-rush grade is second nationally among LBs.

I think we're going to see Barrett sent while DEs drop out quite a bit down the stretch.

Stretch again. Michigan ceded some decent chunks to Mockobee and Tracy, mostly on stretch. The two backs combined for 99 yards on 24 carries, which isn't exactly bad but neither is it as dominant as we've come to expect. Michigan started foiling this by blitzing Sainristil on the playside, which is a nice changeup; ideally Michigan would be better at defending this straight up. This is an artifact of Michigan's DTs being so quick into the backfield. On the first one Jenkins went straight upfield and got reached.

One exception to the secondary so back part. DJ Waller's controller disconnected on the Purdue offensive play:

This is fine, because DJ Waller isn't going to be playing against Penn State and Ohio State. At least he's not going to be playing at the beginning of the second quarter. Amorion Walker also got first-half snaps,

Okay. Now is the time? Michigan had 60 defensive snaps in this game. Graham had 31. Jenkins had 17(!?!). Those guys are the #3 and #9 DTs in the Power 5, per PFF's reckoning. Are they going to get the majority of the snaps against Penn State? I guess I should point out that Kenneth Grant and Cam Goode(also ?!?!) are tied for 17th, so the dropoff is not large.

SPECIAL TEAMS

Ah, well, that's why. Jake Thaw had seemingly lost the punt return job to Tyler Morris and then:

Morris neither aggressively comes up to field the punt, which he could, nor aggressively starts yelling whatever FIRE or POISON thing Michigan has to alert gunners to get out of the way. Thaw re-emerged and even had a nice return.

In the stands I was all like "Shaq meme dot jpg, amirite?" and everyone around me subtly edged away. But now we're on the internet, so I can do it.

I have done it.

Ah, routine field goals. Lovely. Michigan's been scoring so many touchdowns that James Turner's ability to hit in the 30-45 yard range has not been tested in a month.

WTF, routine field goals. Purdue! You are not allowed to go 3/10 on the season and 2/2 against Michigan.

The kick return decision. Alex pointed this out on Twitter: Michigan has three more yards and seven more seconds if Morgan does not attempt to return the kickoff at the end of the first half. That means they have another play to improve their look at what would have been a 57-yard field goal. Instead they tried a Hail Mary that didn't come off. In a late clock situation it's better to take the free yards instead of using up a play at a very low chance at a meaningful return.

Free Doman. Dave wanted Tommy Doman to get a shot at a sixty-yarder instead of the Hail Mary and he sold me. Free Tommy.

[Barron]

Got away with one? I did look like Michigan should have been called for running into the kicker on the above punt, which would have given Purdue a first down. On the other hand, Doman got hit in the gobblers and that was only adjudged a running into the kicker when it seemed clear that should be roughing. You can't get blasted in the danger zone and not take contact to your plant leg.

MISCELLANEOUS

Jesus Christ, Patrick. PATRICK WHAT HAVE YOU DONE

[Barron]

OUR DOOM IS UPON US.

Harbaugh explains to Not Kyle [Barron]

Mars 2.0. I am far from the first person to suggest this but the holding call on Blake Corum in this game takes its place next to Karan Higdon vs Northwestern in the annals of all-time insane penalties levied against Michigan:

this is a penalty
.
.
.
on a school playground. Maybe.
But not here. pic.twitter.com/pwlDfktJ6M

— Due# (@JDue51) November 5, 2023

I still think the Higdon penalty tops this because at least this is Corum attempting to block a guy. Higdon was literally tackled after the quarterback kept the ball. The only thing that makes me waver is apparently the rest of the officiating crew was desperately attempting to talk Kyle out of the call but he insisted:

“Yeah, different officials saw it different ways, and the official that made the call stuck with it,” Harbaugh said. “They told us they would look at it after the game and get back to us.

“I've never seen that play in football. I've never seen a guy launch Superman style over the line of scrimmage on a pass play. And he was really coming down — he was on a downward angle to Blake.

“I agree with the ones that didn't think it was holding penalty.”

Goddammit, Kyle.

HERE

We have not yet fielded a Best and Worst, but bronxblue did one on Signs a few days ago:

Colin/Manuel Excel is one of the better X’s and O’s guys on X/Twitter in my experience, and he highlighted one of the silver linings around this whole sign stealing scandal: it’s helped to identify who understands how football teams are run today versus those who don’t.

I’ll get into the specific reporters/journalists who have fully exposed themselves as basically access merchant and stenographers, but what really surprised me especially early on when this scandal broke was how many people were seemingly caught off-guard by the notion that “sign stealing” was, in fact, legal and quite common in football.  Now, some coaches and individuals have argued that scouting future opponents in person is a bridge too far, and while others have argued that’s basically just “scouting” and people arguing about the mechanism by which this information is gleaned are missing the forest for the trees.  But to virtually every person connected to football from high school and college, the idea that one side is trying to decode what is the next play coming up is just part of the game, like studying the color of a player’s knuckles to determine if he’s rushing or not* or an offensive lineman’s spacing relative to his teammates.  It’s all about eking out the tiniest bit of advantage possible against your opponent.

And yet, to read rival fans’ responses to these revelations you’d believe this was unique to Michigan and had sullied the good name of collegiate football.  It had seemingly never crossed their minds that the reason teams throw up nonsensical arrays of images or have multiple backup QBs flopping around during games is to hide what plays they’re calling in because they’re concerned the other side might deduce what they are.  Or the simple fact that you can’t claim proprietary knowledge of your playcalls when you’re broadcasting them in front of 100k people a week.  Again, we can argue about whether or not such advanced scouting by Stalions exceeds the rules as written but it was sort of crazy to see people somehow read the word “steal” and not just mentally replace it with “recognize” or “pay attention at all during a game”.

State of our Open Threads:

I keep mentioning it in passing, but participation has changed in these threads over the years. Rule changes, home versus away, times, even the schedule itself change how everyone uses them, but they are still used. Indeed, last night, we ended up with the second largest thread we've had all season at 1,855 posts (as of the clock hitting zero, which is went the count ceases in this study). We also hit our season high in fucks given at 158, a tribute to a slightly wobbly JJ and three quarters spent slowly trying to figure out that Purdue was in Cover 1 almost the entire time. In fact, speaking of JJ, we also hit a season high for mentions of his play at 215 times (this covers both positive mentions as well as more neutral or negative observations), so the spotlight, in part, was definitely on him in that thread, and rightly so considering what is coming this month for us.

The trend this year is actually very interesting - in the past, fucks and shits given would more or less stay elevated through the conference schedule, and while that has happened here to some extent, it has only begun to occur in the last two games.

Iowatch!

RB Receptions are Moneyball, Dammit

Iowa threw two passes to their RBs…for negative 5 yards. Thankfully, fullbacks exist, so their 15-yard pass to the fullback increments this graph by 10 yards. Not even 100 total Moneyball yards in WEEK 10! Ready for a keyboard mash? Djklfdsakjlfdshjklg. That doesn’t do it justice. Fsiewklnjdfsnlmfds. Still not enough.