FORMATION NOTES: Hello "tackle over":

Since these were standard formations that happened to have Lewan and Schofield next to each other I just named them as standard formations and noted them as "tackle over" before hand. I've also started noting the TO goal line formations.

As a reminder, TEs flitting in from the side to show up behind a guard are now designated with an H. This is "tackle over Ace Big H." I still consider these guys TEs.

Also Michigan's been using this enough (and Seth asked me about it) that I dubbed the shotgun formation where there are three WR to one side of the field with two guys tight to the line stacked "shotgun trips inner stack."

Chesson is motioning to line up outside of Funchess and Dileo.

Not to be confused with "shotgun trips stack," where all three WR are lined up over each other on the hash. Or "shotgun double stack," where there are, uh, double stacks.

SUBSTITUTION NOTES: Offensive line was as before save for the tackle over stuff, on which AJ Williams was always the tight-end type substance on the other end of the line. When Kalis got dinged, Joey Burzynski got three or four snaps.

Butt played a ton as the H-back TE. Funchess was mostly a wide receiver; when he did line up at tight end it wasn't a run. Paskorz got some playing time in the second half as another inline TE when Michigan went to three TE sets.

With Funchess consuming more WR snaps and a ton of looks with just one WR on the field, Reynolds and Jackson saw their playing time decrease substantially. Green got in frequently, picking up ten carries, and Justice Hayes got one snap in a two-back shotgun set on third and long.

[After THE JUMP: manball.]

I SEE CAVERNS

Dead caverns?

Caverns are inanimate objects. They're actually the absence of material. Something that is not there cannot be dead. To die one must have lived.

Man, you sound depressed about the commercial breaks.

That's you!

I get over these things.

Anyway, yes, caverns. Here's Toussaint's touchdown from the 12 from the endzone cam view.

Yodel in that, homeboy. That was a consistent theme once Minnesota decided that they wanted Lewan kicking out their DE. Lewan would put that guy near the numbers and Minnesota would have to try and shut down about five lateral yards once Kalis/Bryant and Schofield blew in whichever DL was in the area.

hole visible from space

Watch Schofield just move the DT here:

While we are under no illusions that Minnesota's defense is anything but odious, that could be said about Michigan's last two opponents, and this was a totally different kind of thing going on.

But they got barely over 100 yards on the ground.

They had 52 plays.

And and they got only 3.2 YPC! That's got division in it, buddy.

Reconfigure that for reality and you've got:

• Toussaint: 17 for 78, 4.6/att
• Green: 10 for 23, 2.3/att
• Gardner: 6 for 26, 4.3/att

Michigan had a long of 14 on the day. I understand that the numbers are not all that different from teams that are not good at running. I also saw a lot of very well-blocked plays that got hewed down after a few yards because Minnesota was selling out with both formation and reaction against a setup announcing that eight out of ten times Michigan was running behind Lewan and Schofield.

Did that make sense in this game? Let's see by drive.

1. 35-yard manball drive all on the ground.
2. Two isos get M in third and one, QB draw snuffed out by clever defensive call.
3. M passes its way out from its own two to the 42, pass pass pass (uncalled blatant PI) punt.
4. 38-yard touchdown drive with one run, an inverted veer for five.
5. 75-yard TD drive kicked off by four straight runs for 36 yards, has one unsuccessful first and ten run late.
6. 75-yard TD drive that is mostly passing until cavernous touchdown above.
7. Three and out on which two runs set M up with third and five.
8. 69-yard TD drive that is mostly failed runs and long passes to Funchess.

Minnesota did figure things out on the final three drives, on which Toussaint and Green combined for one twelve-yard touchdown and 10 other attempts for 8 yards. By that point Michigan was up two or three scores and endeavoring to eat clock. Because this game was so short, those late runs on which game theory dictates you eat a bunch of crappy plays just to get out of there were a disproportionate percentage of the effort on the day.

RUNS PRIOR TO 4TH Q: 25 for 121.
4th Q: 8 for 6 yards. (Fumbled snap ignored.)

Given the HI WE'RE RUNNING OVER HERE nature of the offense, that's an encouraging step forward. Michigan told Minnesota what it was doing and did it for almost five yards a carry and one meaningful TFL, without having anything resembling a long run. Advanced stats guys will track something called "line yards" they use to rank offensive lines. That's based on various complicated regressions and the intuition that lines get you four yards and beating unblocked guys gets you 50; Michigan's line yards were great in this one.

Long runs are important.

Also random, and also Michigan was very close to a few. Here a Minnesota linebacker heroically/stupidly submarines Chris Bryant and gets a near-TFL that was either going to be a near-TFL or a big ol' run.

But that's going to get us killed against a real defense.

I don't disagree that if Michigan comes out in a formation that is 83% we-run-here against a good defense they're going to be eating splinters all day and the Borges Internet Opinion Rollercoaster will plunge towards another low, but in this game they didn't have to show everything their new toy could do. It's possible they could tackle over with 70% run, and that would be acceptable.

The most important thing is that Michigan found a way to make their veteran tackles the heart of the run game, something that shows in the—

Don't quarterback CHARTs come first?

—chart. (Not today, bolded alter ego, not today.)

Weekly context: with only 52 plays to their name these numbers were acquired in double-time and high numbers should be e'er more impressive.

Turns out what everyone saw about the TEs is also what the coaches saw: they were almost totally marginalized in this game. (As blockers.) Michigan ran away from Williams, ran once when Funchess was inline (an inverted veer), and used Butt as an H-back a little.

Meanwhile, Toussaint: as mentioned in the most recent picture-pages, Toussaint cut the dancing out of his game completely and bashed forward, breaking arm tackles and squeezing through small holes. He left zero yards on the field.

And the tackles were the heart of the run game.

You are the prince of lies. Everything is better with Bryant.

Michigan's going to roll with this configuration for a while and Bryant did consistently get to the hole and hit someone once in it on power. His ability to do that is impressive at his size, and Kalis seemed less consistent about finding guys.

He did have some issues. Obviously there was the sack. He got blown up on an unsuccessful counter, as well. He should have gotten a holding call on Green's first stretch success. Less obviously, on a couple of zone stretches on which Green got buried it was Bryant's attempted block doing the burying. Example:

I know what Green's trying to do: blast the NT with his shoulder so Glasgow can deal with him. That NT submarines Glasgow all the way and Bryant's release is too vertical for him to get a paw on the MLB. Not sure if that's just an RPS for the Gophers or a problem for Bryant. Judging from the similar block on the backside it does seem like Bryant needs to change his release angle.

On another play, Bryant helped Glasgow make a block on an NT who actually needed to get blocked and then saw his LB kill Green, and I wonder if Michigan might have tipped that because the MLB is off the line another couple yards—helpful for getting around Bryant—and flowing fast.

As we saw earlier in the year, the momentary doubles in the stretch are a tricky balance between letting the nose rip into the backfield and having something like this happen. (Also, these plays were with Michigan up 28-13 with seven minutes left, so it was full on sell-out time for the Minnesota D.)

Bryant's not an instant offensive line out of the box, unfortunately, but he is worth exploring further.

How's Glasgow's center transition?

Some rough spots including one fumbled exchange and a dodgy shotgun snap that Gardner handed with aplomb. Otherwise highly encouraging. Glasgow got a couple of vintage David Molk reach blocks on stretch plays:

He generally handled his duties on power. He had some issues with Hageman that are reflected in his numbers, but after he ended up very negative against Louis Nix scraping above zero in his first start as a C against a very good player is a win.

Kerridge seemed to have some issues.

Not his best game. Early on Minnesota linebackers had a knack for getting under his pads and through his block to be useful in the hole.

At one point he ran through the hole without touching anyone, though some weird play from the Minnesota LB had the effect of a defensive juke.

Derrick Green is a bust? He's a bust!

I didn't think he could do much with the runs he couldn't do anything on. But he hasn't shown a whole lot of power yet, which is worrying. He goes down on first contact a lot for a power back.

What about… that guy. You know, that one. The one who gets the ball from the other guy. The center guy.

Right.

Devin Gardner 2012

Devin Gardner 2013

Shane Morris

Obviously take that DSR with a grain of salt since there were so few throws. Annoying to hear the color guy harp on Gardner's accuracy, but he wasn't wrong. Gardner put it behind Funchess twice and Gallon once and left corner routes to Chesson and Funchess short. Many of those throws were borderline CA/MA things and I tended to split them down the middle. He avoided anything resembling a big mistake, averaged 13 yards an attempt, and was probably robbed of another deep completion by a blatant PI on a panicking DB. It was actually a bit like his Minnesota game last year, when he had a number of iffy deep throws that his WRs pulled out of the fire for him. These weren't quite as bad (or were to Funchess, who is the most forgiving target imaginable).

But… they were complete, and when Gardner messed up he messed up in such a way as to let his receivers make a play on the ball, keeping it away from DBs. His four incompletions were:

• Out to Dileo too high. (IN)
• Uncalled pass interference on Funchess on a ball he would have had a good shot at (CA)
• Pressured ball to a covered Chesson is broken up (MA)
• Gardner gets pressure from delayed blitzer right up the middle, has two covered WRs three yards from each other, just flings it as he's hit, possibly to get rid of it. (PR)

Michigan brought Gardner into the game slowly and was rewarded with no bad decisions, no turnovers, and a number of nice throws. A bounce-back.

Gardner didn't have many opportunities to move around in this one; he still encouraged with one, as when Hageman bulled his way back into the pocket with aid from an illegal hands to the face he started moving around in the pocket itself before breaking to the outside and nailing Funchess:

If you want to move some MAs to IN or whatever, okay.

Receivers?

[Passes are rated by how tough they are to catch. 0 == impossible. 1 == wow he caught that, 2 == moderate difficulty, 3 == routine. The 0/X in all passes marked zero is implied.]

Basically a perfect day, with the only mistake that affected anything the aforementioned incompletion where Gallon and AJ Williams ended up standing next to each other. Note that the transition from Jackson/Reynolds to Chesson seems complete, as he's got nine targets in the last two games to J/R's two.

FUNCHESS.

Yeah, man. Yeah, man. I am really trying not to flip out about this, because I assume Minnesota's secondary is bad. It's going to be a whole different ball of wax in November. But still!

He just runs by that cornerback. No double move, no hijinks, just flat out running by a cornerback at 6'5", 235. The crazy thing about his day is that he didn't really have to use his height, a la Hemingway. Minnesota simply could not cover him. He threatened deep, and came inside, and got yards of separation.

And he's got pretty damn good hands. He has yet to record a flat drop in UFR charting and while he's had a bit of a rough start with the harder stuff this year, his sheer size makes tough catches seem easy. He dug out that short corner route in this one and has clearly proven he can reach behind himself to bail out his QB.

Borges check?

There's not a whole lot to argue with except the long-term viability of Starsky And Lewan. Even when Michigan got booted off the field—only three times—players had opportunities to do things, most prominently a middle screen to Chesson that would have broken big if Chesson would have turned directly upfield:

I also liked Michigan bringing out a playside guard pull on the goal line that was a tailback handoff. A linebacker booked out to the edge, expecting Gardner to have the ball, and both Kerridge and Green basically walked into the endzone.

The one thing that I thought was pretty bad was the QB draw that ended Michigan's second drive. After eight straight runs, going back into the shotgun on third and one screamed QB draw, and Minnesota baited Michigan into it by emptying the box and running a play specifically designed to snuff out a QB draw, which it did.

I'm fine with using a shotgun run with your QB on short yardage, just make it a run, you know? They've got a three man line, blow one guy up with a double and you're across the line.

Other than that, I might not have chosen this particular identity but to have one and execute it while flipping a crappy team the bird the whole time is major progress. Hopefully they can maintain that, or play off it.

Heroes?

Lewan and Schofield. Funchess. And Gardner. Toussaint as well.

Maybe not so heroic?

Bryant showed some things; overall he'll need to improve to hang onto his job.

What does it mean for Penn State and the future?

Expect unbalanced lines until someone stops it. They'll have to diversify against Penn State (maybe—Penn State's defense has been pretty bad), but running power at Schofield and Lewan marginalizes the bad bits of their blocking and allows the guards to do the thing they're best at right now: pulling.

Funchess is a wide receiver. Mike Williams, Megatron, Mario Urrutia: pick one. Even if he's not open, he's open, and he gets open a shocking amount of time.

Chesson is your starter, if Funchess isn't your starter. That's two weeks now; he's moved past the veterans. Good sign.

Gardner can do things that are not turn the ball over. Keep him calm, max protect quite a bit—they'll have to from tackle over—and see if that gets you a lead. If not, break glass in case of emergency.

Bryant/Glasgow will continue to be the pairing. Bryant has issues he needs to hammer out still; they'll give him that chance.