Personnel notes: this was the most boring opponent D personnel ever. ND spent the entire game aside from a few goal line plays in a 4-2-5 nickel with Sergio Brown acting as a sort of S/LB hybrid over the slot receivers. Michigan's base set is 1 TE, 1 RB, and 3 WR, pending the return to full health of Brandon Minor.

If you just want to skip to the heroin, here's an HD version of the final drive from Askarpo.

Woooooo!

Woooooo!

Wooo—

Right.

Okay.

Right.

Should I send my daughter to Forcier's harem or am I still holding out for Tom Brady when it comes to siring the next generation of Michigan quarterbacks?

Sounds like a job for a chart (chart)

(Hennechart again; MA is "marginal")

TATE FORCIER

(I'm going to put the screen numbers in parens from now on.)

DENARD ROBINSON

I won't continue charting Sheridan, as… well… obviously. Denard didn't throw any passes, he just ran.

Forcier's downfield success rate* in this game is 19 / 29 = 66%, and it should be noted that a couple of the TAs were successful scrambles; our DSR metric probably underrates wheeling Jackson Pollocks relative to Navarre sorts since it files scrambles as TAs. Also, five DOs is a large number. That was a performance that, remarkably, just about deserves the adulation it's received in the aftermath.

So it's really easy to pick out that Terrelle Pryor has a 99th percentile skill in being huge and fast and this gets you #1 recruit status; two games in it looks like Tate Forcier has 99th percentile skill in accuracy on the run, pocket awareness, and (yep) moxie. I don't know if I'd trade Forcier for Pryor, and who on earth would have been able to state that without getting laughed at two weeks ago?

Okay, okay, there were some rough spots: that interception winged so far over Mathews head there must have been some screwup; Mathews blamed himself but he was running into open space so if it was an option route he got it right. And Forcier almost caused a cascade of BOOM MALLETTED jokes when he chucked a dangerous ball as he was being sacked. Also: Forcier's maddening tendency to bounce his keepers outside cost Michigan 10-15 yards over the course of the game. I assume that latter will be relatively easy to fix.

Nits, all. The power to destroy a planet is insignificant.

*((DO + CA) / (DO + CA + IN + BR + TA + BA); basically "percentage of times you threw downfield that something good happened." Marginal (MA) passes don't count either way, and pressures (PRs) are charged to the OL, not the QB.)

He did get some help.

Yes, he did. Receiverchart:

(remember: 0 is uncatchable, 1 is a circus catch, 2 is a somewhat difficult one, and 3 is a routine one)

Notes: look at the spread here. Seven different receivers got four or more looks, with Mathews topping out at nine. Receivers dug out three catches filed as circus (Mathews's 40 yarder, the first Brown wheel route, and Odoms's critical third down conversion on the final drive) and dropped no balls filed as routine. You couldn't ask for anything more.

Brown is the clearly preferred option as a pass receiver out of the backfield. His speed and hands make him dangerous; that first wheel would probably have been a touchdown if it was thrown accurately. I bet Michigan uses him frequently against teams that are playing a lot of man.

Stonum's solid game may be the most important development going forward. Notre Dame was very aggressive on the corners because they didn't respect Michigan's ability to get deep and Stonum's the only guy on the roster who can put the fear of God into those guys, as he amply demonstrated on his kickoff return. That showed why he was such a highly-touted recruit. An earlier fly route showed why he's been stuck on the bench: he ran a great route that gave him three or four yards to the sideline, and Forcier used that room to throw a great pass where only he could get to it…and he turned inside. That went from a long completion to a ball glancing off his fingertips. So he's got work to do. But his career is officially off life support.

Protection is less cheery but mentally file this under "Tenuta":

PROTECTION METRIC: 35/50, Moosman –1, Huyge –6, Team –8.

That is not a good metric but that big "team" number indicates that a lot of that was just TAH-NOO-TAH sending guys from everywhere and Michigan either not making the right pickup or not having the ability to make the right pickup because there are just more dudes than blockers. Huyge, on the other hand, struggled, especially when Moosman went out and he slid inside to guard; he got driven back on multiple plays on the final drive and was a main reason it was so ridiculous and scrambly.

Any other reasons this offense has taken a quantum leap forward?

Yes: the coaches.

Take a look at the Michigan drive that ended in Darius Fleming's jock on the field and Matt Millen making up words via which to homoerotically praise Forcier. As described in Picture Pages, Michigan gashed Notre Dame twice early in the second half with a zone read dive that acts as a counterpunch to the scrape exchange. The third time M runs it the backside DE treats it like a power running play much like you see Michigan State run and runs up to cut Koger, which spills the play outside and results in zero yards.

Okay. They've caught on. Michigan immediately discontinues the dive stuff and finishes out the drive with a variety of other plays. When Michigan gets the ball back they run one inside zone out of an ace formation (odd) and then go to this:

1. PA TE flat on which Koger fakes the dive block and then heads out for a big gain.
2. Called QB keeper on the dive play that would be eight or ten yards if Forcier would just run straight upfield instead of trying to beat the corner.
3. Zone read stretch variant where Koger pulls but is actually acting as a stretch lead blocker. This gains six despite a Schilling whiff and would probably have been more if it was Minor running through a thicket of desperate hands instead of Brown.
4. The dive play itself, which loses a yard when Tenuta blitzes right into it.
5. Return to the PA TE flat, which ends up sucking every ND defender to Brown and Koger and leaves Forcier in the clear with one Darius Fleming.

That is awesome. That sequence is, in a nutshell, the difference between this year's offense and last year's offense. Last year, Michigan would rip off the two long runs off the dive and then the opponent would adjust, as Notre Dame did, and then Michigan would just be out of ideas because their quarterback was incapable of running and passing. This year, Forcier gives them the ability to set you up and then run one, two, three counters to their play (which was originally a counter!), all of which worked and would have gone for big yardage if Forcier had realized he was not in high school any more. And then they go back to the original, which Tenuta gets lucky on, and then they go back to a counter, which Tenuta does not get lucky on, and Michigan has a touchdown drive built almost entirely by the ingenuity of Rodriguez and Magee and the ability of Tate Forcier to MAKE PLAYS.

Michigan and their freshman quarterback and their unthreatening WRs and their almost total lack of NFL talent kept pace with a team running out a third-year starting quarterback, two future NFL receivers, and a veteran, talented offensive line. And the above is how. That is a decided schematic advantage.

Contrast this with the old Carr/Debord style: run the same play over and over and over again, out-executing them for little bits of yardage and setting up the opponent for one big killshot. Get predictable, and then break tendencies. Rodriguez only tolerates predictability insofar as he has to, and operates his offense as a coherent suite of plays that you have to guess right on lest you get gashed. This is not "rock rock rock," it's "rock, scissors, rock, rock, paper, scissors, candle, rock, wait what candle(?) oops you scored a touchdown." WVU's offensive standing was not a coincidence, and neither was Michigan's.

No offense to any of the departed, of course.

Why didn't the slot receivers get any play? Where were the bubbles?

This is why:

Notre Dame had a guy directly over the slot the whole game, which took it away. As we saw above, that opened up other things. Playing defense against this thing is like plugging a hole in a dike with your finger.

Heroes?

Forcier, and let's hand out some awards for the receivers, who pulled in three circus catches and dropped no 3s. They may not be explosive but they were utterly reliable. Top marks to Stonum for his kickoff return. Also, Sean McDonough really did this ridiculous game justice. Millen was pretty good, too.

Goats?

I've got Huyge down for a –6 in pass pro, which is bad. The team picked up another –8, too. I love it when Forcier runs around but I'd like it if it took a little longer for that to be the best alternative.

What does it mean for Eastern Michigan, and beyond?

Forcier's going to Favre a game away at some point, I think, when he runs around too long and fumbles or chucks an INT he shouldn't have even thought about throwing, but this offense will be in a position to Favre games away. It is the real deal, man, capable of running or throwing on just about anyone short of Ohio State, whose defensive line is probably going to devour the OL, and maybe Penn State. It's got a suite of plays that work together, any of which can bust long, and the receivers are really helping out with their hands.

This is no fluke. This is the Leap.