Formation notes: nothing new.

Substitution notes: Hemingway, Stonum, and Odoms split outside reps pretty evenly until Odoms was injured. Stokes got a few snaps after that but it was mostly the two juniors. Shaw played some at the start and then his PT trailed off, likely because of the injury. Hopkins got one drive as the primary back, seeing two carries; he also got some time as the second back in a two-back set but did not see the ball. OL was the usual.

Zone read metric note: MSU defended the zone read simply, by having the backside DE keep contain all the time. Denard never kept it on the read, so I got bored and stopped tracking it, though I did give him a couple minuses more from irritation than anything else.

We met a real defense and scored 17 points and our defense is tuberculosis in a uniform we're going to DIEEEEEE…

Aw, come on, you know Michigan left a ton of points on the field.

WE'RE GOING TO DIEEEEEEEEEE

It's not that bad, look at the—

CHAAAAAAART.

Chart. Hennechart:

DENARD ROBINSON

That success rate has to be wrong.

It's not wrong, it just doesn't weight passes based on how damaging the particular inaccurate ball is. Against MSU, Denard threw the following balls not to his receiver:

• Endzone interception #1 on route Roundtree had two steps on. [Zero points]
• Wide open Stonum on fly route about 20 yards downfield that's airmailed. [Three points]
• Hitch to Odoms on second and nine from the 11 that would have been first and goal. [Zero points]
• Endzone interception #2 on slant that Hemingway was open on. [Zero points]
• Covered slant zinged over Grady [Zero points]
• Bubble too far in front of Roundtree. [Seven points]
• Other interception on route where Grady had plenty of room to the inside of the field but the ball was way, way too far outside, allowing sinking corner to react and intercept. [Zero points]

How big of a deal is it to throw a bubble screen a step in front of a receiver? One unit of big deal. How big of a deal is it to throw a makeable 20 yard touchdown over someone's head on third and three? Two, three units of big deal. How big of a deal is it to throw endzone interceptions when you have open receivers? Five units of big deal.

The reason the rate is the rate is because a bad pass is a bad pass; in reviewing a performance we're trying to strip out the emotion from the game and use it as a predictive measure. If Robinson had thrown those balls out of the endzone instead of behind the receivers Michigan would have had maybe seven more points but the QB play would have been equivalent.

So Robinson has been exposed?

Not enough data so you make big. The terrible horrible no good very bad off day against Michigan State is a data point, but so is this:

And this:

The numbers above speak for themselves—Robinson's overall accuracy was much better than he showed against Michigan State.

Did Michigan State have anything to do with this, then?

Not really. Robinson had open receivers on all of those throws except the Grady slant; that slant was the only throw on which he was pressured, as well.

He just missed.

So he's inaccurate?

Maybe? I pulled those clips above because that's what it's been like when Robinson throws those sorts of passes this year. Against Notre Dame his four downfield INs were:

• an overthrown bomb on third and long,
• a turfed hitch identical to the one he left short of Odoms Saturday,
• a seam to Roundtree he threw accurately but on a line, allowing T'eo to knock it down, and
• a seam on the next play that was well high as he tried to compensate.

Against Indiana it was three overthrown bombs and another hitch in the dirt. That and one overthrown out to Terrance Robinson against UMass were the sum total of his bad passes to date. He hadn't thrown many of the above zingers but he'd had at least a dozen, maybe two. The passes well behind players were unprecedented.

Robinson's early enough in his career that randomness plays a major factor in how his accuracy is perceived. The Michigan State game knocks expectations down several notches but they are still high; I'm willing to wager small amounts of money or pocket lint that MSU is Robinson's worst performance of the year.

Meanwhile, other--

CHARTDIEEEEEE

--chart. Receivers:

Robinson's disappointing day statistically was compounded by some errors by his receivers. Roundtree dropped a 30-yard touchdown, Hemingway an 8-ish yard hitch; Stonum and Roundtree did not come up with a couple coulda-had-its, one a long bomb on Michigan's last drive. He did get some help from Odoms and Roundtree, who both reeled in big gains in tough situations.

Protection metric: PROTECTION METRIC: 30/41, Omameh –3, Schilling –3, Molk –2, Team –3.

This number is much larger than most metrics to date, and it's not so good. 75% is pretty bleah, though before the final drive when Michigan was forced to pass it was 30/37, which is pretty decent. The suggestion is that Michigan's pass blocking is greatly aided by Denard's run threat and when that goes away so does a chunk of the assumed competence in the line.

And, finally, a running chart that is a step back but not off a cliff or anything:

This seems about right to me since Michigan averaged 5.2 YPC. In any other year people would be delirious that Michigan managed that against a non-pushover Big Ten team.

Why do you hate Vincent Smith? He's adorable and tough.

I don't hate Vincent Smith. It's weird being critical of running backs because at most other positions you can make obviously bad plays, like missing a block or a tackle or a throw. Other than fumbling and the occasional obvious missed cut, mistakes running the ball are rarely obvious. It's just that some guys are just guys. Barking Carnival described Texas's running backs as a "bunch of JAGs" a couple weeks back, and that popped into my head as the perfect way to describe a meh tailback. Smith is just a guy*. I can't think of a better example than this:

Carlos Brown? Touchdown. Shaw? Touchdown. Baker or Bell? Touchdown, possible touchdown. Minor? Good chance to rage through the tackle and possible touchdown.

Meanwhile, there was that third and one on which MSU did a decent job of stacking it up but Michigan had a running back hit at the LOS by a single linebacker and got zero yards. He doesn't fumble, he knows the plays, he's healthy… I can see why Michigan is using him. I just hope that they can get Shaw to 100% and get Hopkins on the field at least as much as Smith as the season goes on.

*(At least right now. I can't shake the impression I had from the tail end of last year when he seemed really quick and exciting. He could get a lot better next year as he gets back to 100%.)

Denard did not get a billion yards. I am confused. Why?

Michigan ran a lot of zone read and they defended it simply by having the DE keep contain. This was a major reason Michigan's early drives went right down the field:

Without a scrape exchange or something similar that gap is always going to be open, especially when you can get a double team on that tackle. Michigan was content to do that for a while and Denard was content to hand off; Michigan State was content to let Smith and Shaw run, especially later when Shaw exited.

I still don't like this. Michigan could have played a ton of games with the backside end since they knew how MSU wanted to defend the read. Here is the complaint about midline: where is midline? That DE is begging to get kicked out and MSU's DT's got crazy aggressive in response to the constant double teaming. Letting one of those guys go would have seen Robinson get an opportunity in lots of space. Want midline.

You want more things?

In general I'm dissatisfied with what seems like a tendency to have this cool new package in the first half that works and then when the defense adjusts Michigan doesn't have the next thing. In the second half Michigan tried some more of the double-the-DT thing on short yardage and got it blown up when MSU blitzed into it. They needed to have a different thing to go to in the second half before the defense even tried anything.

I should say that the RPS was 9-6 = +3, which is good, but Michigan spurned most of those positive chances with drops and misthrown balls. They ran out to a big lead in that category and then gave it back as the game progressed. Part of that was being so far behind and getting out of their gameplan, I guess, but that didn't really happen until late.

I do like that Michigan anticipated that MSU would have some answers for things they'd already run and changed it up. The PA fake where Denard fakes the iso and they throw a slant was changed into an out/fly combination that didn't have the big play potential but I assume the safeties for MSU were ready to deal with that.

Heroes?

The interior OL controlled the MSU DL for the most part, and Webb had a great day blocking.

Goats?

Denard, first and foremost and close to only.

What does it mean for Iowa and beyond?

I'm not that depressed; the overall impression I got from the game was that Michigan's offense set them up for many big plays and because of poor execution—unusually poor execution, unlike the defense—by one guy here, one guy there, and a lot of Robinson they couldn't take advantage. If Robinson throws those balls to his open receivers in the endzone Michigan is tied at 31 at the start of the fourth quarter and the game has an entirely different complexion. They didn't, but that doesn't mean they're headed to the bottom of the Big Ten scoring standings. I'm still confident this is going to be the best Michigan offense in a long time.

We'll see about Denard. I think he'll bounce back but there's a chance it was the early bits that were false. The preponderance of the evidence is still in favor of accuracy, however.

The interior OL seems like it's got a fighting chance against the Iowa DL. They stumbled a little bit in the second half but did not have much opportunity as Michigan got down and the clock got short. If Iowa is going to run the same vanilla scheme MSU did that could allow Michigan to option off Clayborn and maintain their run game. They had a good day in Iowa City last year and Michigan has upgraded probably a little bit more than Iowa did with returning starters and new players.