Upon Further Review: Offense Vs Indiana

(In the interests of focusing more on Ohio State only the first half of the game was charted, since the starters made their exit at half time. Copious thanks to Vijay at IBFC for providing a video as I again forgot to tape the game. Bad Brian, very bad Brian.)

It's just Indiana.

Yeah, but still...

The screen count in this game is only 3, so our downfield good:bad ratio is 15:6, obviously a massive improvement over Henne's typical 1:1 this year. IU's defense had something to do with that--it's hard to make a bad read when no one is covered--but his accuracy was dramatically increased this week, defenders in the area or no. No, he wasn't being regularly pressured and the IU defenders were generally accomodating. We've heard that story before and it ends with Henne winging the ball well over the head of his intended target and severely fouling up the offense against, say, Wisconsin. This was different.

We need him to replicate this performance against OSU. That doesn't necessarily mean putting up the same numbers--OSU will do a better job of getting to Henne and covering our receivers. It does mean taking advantage of the opportunities the Buckeyes yield. He'll still make his share of poor-to-aaaargh decision against Ohio State, but if he can be efficient when he does find an open guy, it's hooray beer time.

You said you would yell about batted passes.

Henne does not have an abnormal number of passes batted at the line, as the chart above shows. Keep in mind that there are probably four or five incidents of passes being deflected downfield by defenders (and Tim Massaquoi once) lumped in there. He's really averaging slightly over one a game, and many of those were screens on which the tackle failed to get a cut on the offensive lineman.

The batted passes were an obvious issue in one game against Notre Dame and all of a suddent he's John Navarre in this department to many. It's just not true.

What was the deal with all the fancy shmancy trickeration?

I touched on this earlier in the week with a TIC assertion that Michigan was setting up Ohio State for the trick play by running their trick plays, but, er, in reality I'm not a fan of the decision to dump out the exotics against the Hoosiers. That pitch play they ran to Bass is money if the opponent doesn't have it scouted; now Ohio State does. Ditto for the fairly obvious transcontinental. It seems that they're trying to get Ohio State to respect the misdirection and thus open up their more conventional running game. Either that or they're just practicing it. Personally I would prefer to teach Ohio State to respect the misdirection by using it to score a first-quarter touchdown.

In any case, this week's profusion of exotics coupled with the frequent fake end-arounds Michigan was running against Northwestern imply that Malone does indeed have something unusual in mind for Ohio State. It seems like Michigan has acknowledged the fact that a plow-ahead running game is just not going to work on Saturday and will thus get the low variance portion of their yards via less manly means. This helps explain the transcontinental: the WR screen is going to be a staple and Michigan would like it to work the first couple times they use it, so keeping a Buckeye linebacker or two in the middle for an extra split second is desirable.

The offensive line?

Still shaky. Adam Stenavich has been invisible all year, which is perfect for a left tackle. He's shut down every pass rusher he's faced. But the guards were beaten regularly against Indiana of all teams. This happens on a regular basis, and I think the coaches are aware of this. Rueben Riley started rotating in very early in this game, seeing time at both left and right guard. I think Michigan will start the seniors but it's very possible that Riley--not much of a tackle but an effective guard last year--usurps one of the starting positions by the second quarter if the Buckeye DTs are regularly beating one of the starters. Kraus and Long still have health questions, so that's four starters with question marks above their heads. I don't think that's so good against Ohio State.

What does it mean for Ohio State?

If Henne can be as accurate as he was against Indiana we have a very good chance. He's not going to get off as lightly as he did against the Hoosiers, though. The happy feet he displayed against Notre Dame cannot return even though the pressure he will feel will likely be comparable. I've lost all faith in the guards. They're going to get beaten.

To run we need Mike Hart back. No offense to Jackson or Grady, but Mike Hart is on another level, to use a horrible-but-true sports cliche. He can be effective if we establish that Henne is going to be a downfield threat. If the Buckeyes are allowed to focus on him he'll be making his magic happen five yards in the backfield.

Expect misdirection. They've been setting it up for the past three weeks and are integrating it into the gameplan on a regular basis. They know they can't expect to line up and blow the Buckeyes off the ball. Expect a large number of simple throws for Henne that allow Breaston, Manningham, and Bass to run at defensive backs in space. It's going to be a WR screen festival. I'm okay with that: given our strong-armed quarterback, excellent edge blockers in Avant and Ecker, lighting bug receivers and the shallow Buckeye secondary, it's likely to be far more effective than running it into the teeth of a top-five run defense.

We're going to finesse this game, and it's the right decision.