ED (Seth): Looks like Ian posted this when he published his draft. This is the author of FLYOVER FOOTBALL, one of the spiritual heirs to Neck Sharpies, and he and I lately have been sharing the X's and O's sector of HTTV. He's going to be doing a few of these while I adjust to a UFR schedule. 

​​​Jim Harbaugh has always had a keen mind for matchups. It’s a necessary mindset in the NFL, where everyone is working under a salary cap and teams are differentiated on Sundays by who has the best front office or who best schemes matchups to their advantage. In the past he’s been able to do his quarterbacks favors by flexing tight ends and running backs out wide to confuse assignments for opposing defenses and create matchups to exploit.

In Michigan’s home opener against Western Michigan he took things in a new direction, one more akin to how they used to do things at Stanford back in the day. Harbaugh rotated through multiple personnel packages on offense geared around putting some serious beef on the field.

Let’s start with the base 11 personnel offense, typically a starting point for any spread team who intends to put any kind of emphasis on the run game. The Wolverines had a few varieties of 11 personnel against the Broncos.

[After THE JUMP: The comments work now.]

The most common one was to play the three starting receivers Ronnie Bell, Cornelius Johnson, and Mike Sainristil with tight end Erick All (6-foot-4, 245). This was their typical approach on third down or when they wanted everyone on the field to be particularly effective when running patterns. They also had another set with converted offensive lineman Joel Honigford (6-foot-6, 257 pounds) in at tight end to offer a little more oomph in the run game.

The opening set though? 12 personnel with two tight ends, and one of those tight ends was Honigford while the others was...Zac Zinter. Yes Zinter, the 6-foot-6, 334 pound redshirt freshman who was competing to win the starting center job. Michigan also went for it on fourth down in their initial drive and did so in a “13 personnel” set in which the three tight ends were Honigford, Zinter, and 6-foot-4, 307 pound junior offensive lineman Trente Jones.

Why tho?

I mean by all means, load the field with huge bodies when you’re looking to move people on 4th-and-1 and the defense knows no pass is coming. What’s with the 12 personnel sets which leave little to the defense’s imagination? They know the ball isn’t going to be thrown to Zac Zinter too often and perhaps not to Honigford either.

It’s all about the matchups. Even before Ronnie Bell tragically went down with knee injury, the early moments of this game made clear Michigan’s path to victories in 2021 is going to require heavy doses of Blake Corum.

The former blue chip recruit, of which there are precious few among the Michigan skill positions (you’re up, A.J. Henning!), is now probably the most explosive player on the team with the ball in his hands. So how do you make sure he has the ball in position to have maximal impact in a game?

One way is to spread the field with quality receivers and give the quarterback options to throw the ball on the perimeter or down the field if extra defenders get nosy around the box. With Bell now gone, this isn’t a great option. Another way is to disempower any number of extra box defenders by adding extra blockers to the field.

“You know we want to give it to Corum, we know we want to give it to Corum, if this is going to be a brawl in the trenches then we’re going to bring ogres.”

The “ogre” was literally the name of a position Stanford has used when putting seven or eight offensive linemen on the field. For years, offensive line depth has been an issue for Michigan but the Wolverines now have a number of quality linemen and Harbaugh intends to play them.

Their 11 personnel package with Erick All flexed out has a similar logic to it. “We all know we want to throw the ball, so we’re going to get into flexible personnel with a tight end and running back who can line up anywhere and we’ll hunt your weakest defender.” Early in the game they even hit Western Michigan with a 4x1 set of the sort Dan Mullen used to flummox Don Brown in the 2018 Peach Bowl.

I’d expect to see this matchup-conscious approach be utilized all season. Unfortunately for the Wolverines, Minnesota already tried the “ogre” approach against Ohio State and gave the Buckeyes a chance to stress-test their defense against the approach.

MacDonald’s Menu

In the same fashion Michigan clearly intended for Ronnie Bell to be featured as a weapon in the slot, you can expect Daxton Hill at nickel to be a fixture of the defense this season. Hill is the best athlete in the Michigan defensive backfield and his ability to either erase a slot in man coverage or to roam in the wide spaces of the field perimeter in zone is something MacDonald will be relying on.

Inside of Hill, MacDonald had some new options on the menu. Michigan made the most of a deep collection of quality defensive linemen and outside linebackers and played two different nickel defenses throughout the game. The main set-up was a 2-4-5 set-up with Aidan Hutchinson playing as a field end/linebacker and David Ojabo across from him as the boundary end/linebacker. It’s a shame Michigan didn’t have this scheme back in the Jake Ryan days as he would have been a natural...or the Josh Uche days…

Hill is your nickel, safeties R.J. Moten and Brad Hawkins were strong and free safeties, Vincent Gray and Gemon Green started at cornerback. Josh Ross played middle linebacker and sophomore Nikhai Hill-Green was next to him at weakside linebacker.

Western Michigan was able to run the ball a few times against this look and was just managing in protection, until MacDonald downshifted into the other nickel package. A 46 “bear” front which took young Hill-Green out of the game and replaced him with a defensive tackle.

This ain’t Gerg’s 3-3-5. The value of this set-up was the confusion it caused for Western Michigan in determining who to block and the 1-on-1 matchups it created across the front. There’s a defensive lineman or linebacker across from all five offensive linemen and the two outside linebackers are standing up, so it’s easy for them to drop back into coverage OR stunt and hit a different gap than the one they’re lined up in.

If the ball should spill out somewhere, Ross was following the off-ball tight end Western Michigan was using to find the point of attack while strong safety R.J. Moten (who btw at 6-foot-0, 221 pounds is basically as big as Hill-Green) would drop down into the box.

MacDonald turned to this set early in the second quarter when Michigan was still up just 10-7 and it changed the game. Here’s how it looked when Western Michigan saw the set and audibled to the same split zone run they’d just scored on.

Inside zone isn’t as fun when you don’t get double teams or anyone in position to block the middle linebacker. They managed a four-yard gain here but the game was effectively over.

Western Michigan went three’n’out on their next two drives and did very little on offense for the rest of the game. Before the adjustment, WMU quarterback Kaleb Eleby was 7-12 passing for 89 yards at 7.4 ypa. Afterwards? 13-25 for 102 yards at 4.1 ypa as Michigan ramped up the pressure, even getting a sack-strip by Aidan Hutchinson.

Following the logic the staff utilized in this game, I’d venture to guess they have other personnel packages as well. Perhaps shifting Moten into a full-time dime linebacker when teams go ultra-spread, or getting bigger and playing a 3-4 defense with only one deep safety and Hill still glued to the field perimeter.

Michigan has a fair amount of talent on the roster, but what should encourage Michigan fans from the opening blowout win over WMU was how multiple the staff was in getting their talent into favorable matchups.