Best:  Groundhog Season

So Michigan came out in this game and steadily built a lead with a dynamic, if somewhat methodical, offensive showcase while generally shutting down the opposition other than a few hiccups that result in unsustainable chunk plays or a fluke-ish score.  J.J. McCarthy threw for 10+ ypa while also flashing his legs on some scrambles, while the offensive line generally mashed opposing defenses inside and held up well in pass defense save for a handful of breakdowns, typically by one of the tackles who transferred in the offseason.  Roman Wilson remained unguardable and showcased his playmaking ability both as a deep threat as well as a route runner across the field.  Cornelius Johnson had a somewhat-inexplicable drop but then redeemed himself with some fantastic catches under duress.  Blake Corum ran for a touchdown while ducking-and-weaving through defenders, and Donovan Edwards was likely robbed of a first down or TD due to a dubious spot.  Jack Tuttle came in and did something surprising (but in a good way) and you were left saying “you know, UM could probably win a game if he had to play”.  The defensive line largely manhandled the opposing offensive line, with one of the tackles flashing a level of athleticism an sane person would deem unbelievable had he/she not just witnessed it with their own eyes.  The linebackers and secondary played really well save for 1-2 breakdowns, which typically ended in a big play for the opposition, but said mistake was never repeated and was in a situation where the damage was cosmetic, not mortal.  Michigan won by a lot, a couple of people permanently afflicted with BPONE complained a bit about minor weaknesses that could be exploited by some mythical future team that itself lacks such faults, and the next week’s opponent looks not unlike this week’s one in the sense they’re unlikely to put up appreciably more resistance.

Now, which game did I just describe?  Was it Rutgers, a game Michigan conceded an early score on a busted tackle but otherwise snuffed out?  Or was it Nebraska, a team that moved the ball a bit but Michigan largely stuffed into a locker until a late score on a busted defensive assignment got the Cornhuskers onto the scoreboard?  Or was it Minnesota, a team that scored on a career-long 54-yard FG (that would have been good from 55) and a perfect TD throw by a bad QB to a decently-covered WR after this coach displayed a mind-bottlingly bit of terrible clock management only 2 couple plays earlier?  Or were they all three, as every time Michigan has faced a P5 team this year they’ve done the same thing – take a series or two to figure out what the opposition wants to do, adjusted accordingly, and then just slowly deconstructs them for the next 2-3 quarters.  Against the Gophers Michigan got started a bit early because Will Johnson had maybe the easiest pick-six you’ll this year on the 2nd play of the game but after that it largely settled into a story you’ve seen all year.  Minnesota had a bit more success early on running the ball, due in part to a solid zone-blocking scheme and some creative (if sometimes straight-up illegal) playcalls but also Michigan just missing gaps and making mental mistakes, but within 2 drives that was sorted out and that was basically the end of the night in terms of semi-competitive football.  Honestly, the one game this year that didn’t feel as scripted was against BGSU, which at least featured J.J. McCarthy playing poorly and the Wolverines “only” winning by 25 in a game where they ran a season-low 44 plays.  That’s the outlier, and when “dominating win over a bad-to-okay G5 team” is your outlier you’re doing okay.

So yeah, I’ve been struggling to unearth new, relevant things out of these games for the past 5 weeks and I doubt it’ll change until we hit November.  Michigan is one, if not the best, team in the country; they’re riding a 3-week stretch atop SP+’s rankings and sport the nation’s #8 offense, #2 defense, and #7 special teams.  For comparison, last year’s Georgia team was #11, #3, and #8 by those same metrics.  There will be more daunting opponents to come and every fan knows that a season takes many twists and turns before getting to its terminus, but right now the Wolverines are playing like a team of destiny, an inevitability that opponents are more a witness to than a participant in. 

 

Best:  A Gopher and (Nearly) a Rutger

We all know about a Rutger, a statistical oddity wherein a team picks up fewer yards in rushing or passing/receiving than the opposing team has in points.  The nearly happened in this game, as Michigan had 52 points while the Gophers picked up 52 yards passing on 5/16 completions.  A terrible performance by the “Greek Rifle” Athan Kaliakmanis, but he’s a Big 10 West QB playing a very good team so it’s not some huge shocker.  But what is unique about yesterday’s games is that those 5 completions all happened in the first half, while the only pass thrown by Minnesota that didn’t hit the turf was collected by Keon Sabb, who if you check your program you’ll find plays for Michigan.  I’m fairly certain that hasn’t happened in my time as a Michigan fan, where a team goes 0-for-a-half with the only completion being a pick for the other team.  Barring Michigan playing Iowa yet again in the B1G title game this year (and considering they are 5-1 and just beat Purdue with a QB going 6/21 I wouldn’t put it past them), I’m not sure we’ll see anything close to that type of anomaly again for some time.  So in recognition of such an event, I shall christen the second half of this game as the first “Gopher” in Michigan history and for everyone’s sake as purveyors of football hopefully we don’t see it again for a while.

Best:  Efficiency

I know I mentioned earlier that Michigan’s offense is currently #8 in the country per SP+, and as fans you’ve watched these games and see how good both the rushing and passing attacks have been.  In terms of raw numbers, they have a TD rate in the red zone of 78% and have scored 21 TDs in 28 chances, which is tied for 8th in the country.  For the past 2 weeks they’ve been a perfect 10/10 in scoring when they’ve gotten to the redzone, picking up 8 TDs and 2 FGs over that span.  They’ve only run 358 plays on offense over 6 games, which is one of the lower rates in the country, but they’re averaging nearly 7 ypp each time they do snap the ball, which is #18 in the country and mostly behind a bunch of Pac-12 teams and schools like FSU and LSU who have been in a lot of defense-optional games.  They’re averaging over 5 ypc despite shuffling around the offensive line, while also averaging 10 ypa in the air, #7 nationally and behind, again, some Pac-12 teams, LSU, and some academies who throw the ball a handful of times a game (though to Army’s credit they throw the ball nearly 16 times a game while confusingly-named Air Force throws the ball…4 times a contest). 

Blake Corum, like he did for most of last year, is again leading the nation in TD runs and nearly 6 ypc on only 14 carries a game, which means he’s scoring a TD every 8 times he touches the ball.  J.J. McCarthy is 3rd in the nation in terms of completion percentage at 78% but, perhaps more surprisingly, is completing those throws at 10.3 ypa, one of the top numbers in the country.  He’s 4th in the nation in terms of passing efficiency, again behind various Pac-12 passers and Daniels at LSU.  And I’d like to point out that the two guys ahead of him in terms of completion percentage are Bo Nix and Graham Mertz, two players who benefit from offenses that don’t ask them to throw the ball downfield much, particularly in the case of Mertz.  The short passing has become even more pronounced the past couple of years, as offenses adjust to teams putting out both more secondary help by way of 2-high safeties but also an evolution in QB play that again puts a premium on passing the ball quickly versus more designed runs and longer-developing passing plays.  McCarthy and Michigan, by comparison, have adopted the all-dig passing offense, apparently, which is really efficient given Michigan’s rushing attack but requires a different level of arm talent than, say, dumping the ball off to a back or throwing a ton of screens.  And the most common recipient of those TDs throws is Roman Wilson, who is third in the nation with 8 TDs on only 4 receptions a game, which is an absurd performance especially given the fact he’s rarely playing late in games. 

That’s the thing about watching this team offensively; they’re not necessarily lighting up the leaderboards in quantity metrics because they aren’t being asked to do so.  Guys like Shedeur Sanders, Caleb Williams, and Jayden Daniels are putting up huge numbers mostly because they have to, in offenses that are designed for them to throw the ball a ton and with defenses that need them to match point-for-point against anyone with a pulse.  Blake Corum is carrying the ball as often as Kaytron Allen and Nick Singleton but is averaging a yard and half more per carry than the former and 2(!) more yards per carry than the latter.  And he doesn’t really have that outlier game where he runs for 200 yards on 20 carries or whatever like some of these guys.  Watching this offense after watching Josh Gattis’s Maryland Terps fart up and down the field with the hottest playcalls 2017 has to offer is like night-and-day, and we should all enjoy watching it in action.

 

Best:  Efficiency Part Deux

As for defensive efficiency, beyond the Gophering we saw in the second half the most telling stat thus far on the season is that the defense has given up 4 TDs and scored 3 of their own.  They’re allowing the third-fewest yards per game in the country and the two teams ahead of them (PSU and Air Force) have faced far fewer plays (278 and 269, respectively, to 314).  And they’re not getting a ton of turnovers; only 8 on the year and 7 of them being picks, which tracks with how disruptive Michigan’s defensive line has been in generating pressures as well as how good the secondary has been at getting in front of bad throws.  And that’s the thing – Michigan may only have 14 sacks on the year but they’re doing it against only 138 pass attempts, meaning a sack occurs every 10 dropbacks by the opposing offense.  OSU, by comparison, has a mere 7 sacks on the year despite seeing 152 pass attempts while Penn State’s 20 sacks came against 134 attempts but were goosed quite a bit by getting 7(!) against NW last weekend.  Beyond sacks Michigan has 19 hurries and 18 PBUs, with Grant and McGregor tied for the lead in hurries with 3 a piece and both throwing in 2 PBUs as well.  And on top of that they’re the least penalized team in the country.  About the only negative you can really point out for the defense is that when they do get got, it tends to be for a big score.  What I mean is that while Michigan has only given up 7 plays for 30+ yards all season, 3 of them directly led to TDs and a 4th was part of a FG drive.  But even that less-than-stellar stat is obfuscated by the fact we’re talking about a long TD by Nebraska last weekend in a blowout and the one good pass Minnesota threw all game this weekend, which cut UM’s lead…to 14 points to end the half.  The Rutgers TD is the only score I’d consider a real “breakdown” by the defense, and that moment of vulnerability lasted all of a quarter.

 

Meh:  Minnesota Sorta Ran the Ball

So yeah, the one bit of consternation people had this weekend was with the relative effectiveness Minnesota had moving the ball on the ground in the first half.  Some of that was just good zone blocking by Minnesota, who made creases their backs hits quickly and with authority while UM’s linebackers missed gaps and their linemen got moved around a bit.  That’s a testament to P.J. Fleck, who is a good football coach even if his time management skills leave something to be desired.  Even down their dynamic freshman RB Darius Taylor they were getting chunk plays early on, which set them up in manageable 3rd and 4th downs that they converted somewhat handily (they were 2/2 on 4th down  and 3/7 overall on 3rd/4th in that first half).  But some of it felt like smoke-and-mirrors; Michigan wasn’t loading the box to take away Minnesota’s man advantage in the running game as they (foolishly) believed Minnesota could throw the ball with any success.  But after giving up 47 yards on 8 carries in that first quarter, the Wolverines limited the Gophers to 30 yards on 20 carries in the 2nd and 3rd quarters.  Mason Graham absolutely swallowed up multiple inside runs on his own over that span, and as a team Michigan picked up 7 TFLs for 23 yards.  I’ve invoked this game a couple of times but watching Minnesota in that first quarter felt a bit like UM-PSU in 2008, where MINOR RAGE was unleashed for a half and Michigan was able to move the ball on the ground against a good PSU defense but once the Nittany Lions adjusted the Wolverines had no answer and the rout was on.  This was an even more extreme version of that game because at least Michigan lead in that contest; the best Minnesota did was kick a FG. 

But if there’s a concern about this slight display of weakness it is that Michigan is seemingly messing around with their line play and overall defensive scheme against these bad offenses to, I assume, rep for better offenses down the line.  But if they get in a game where they can’t rotate 9 linemen thru and still hold up consistently, you can wonder how they’ll hold up a bit against a determined rushing attack.  That said, neither PSU nor OSU really can do much on the ground and other than some trickeration I don’t see them consistently gashing UM on the ground even like Minnesota did.  But hey, gotta find some small point to worry about in what was a statistical, stylistic, and wholistic demolishing.

 

Best:  They Are What They Are

One of the sayings I’ve heard around college football, most recently by Rece Davis on College Gameday, is that teams are allowed to get better or worse throughout the season.  The point he’s making is that you can reevaluate a team as they grow and mature, that teams aren’t bound to be who we all thought they were earlier in the year.  And to an extent I agree with him; with how much turnover happens between seasons now you’re bound to misread a bunch of programs.  But I also think that by midway through a year, barring some crazy series of injuries or bad luck, teams are nearing their final product and it’s unlikely they’ll suddenly change their persona or develop new strengths or remove lingering weaknesses.  You are, at least in the season, sort of what you’re going to be to end the year.  USC isn’t suddenly going to develop a competent defense, for example, nor is Iowa going to discover that, in fact, their backup QB can sling the rock effectively.  Case in point: Ohio State may have ran away from Maryland in that second half and put up some solid numbers doing so, but they still didn’t crack 100 yards on the ground even with sacks excised, and while McCord had a nice game statistically a lot of his biggest throws were mostly due to Maryland’s DBs losing contact with OSU’s WRs and were more often than not either underthrown or behind his receivers.  McCord is a good college QB but he’s a step behind the usual NFL first-rounder the Buckeyes have back there, and if OSU doesn’t figure out a running game he’s going to be asked to carry a more limited offense than people are used to seeing in Columbus.  Similarly, while PSU didn’t play this weekend they remain a team without much push up front offensively and a passing game that is clearly not trying to ask Drew Allar to do too much and has benefited from facing largely toothless pass rushes.  UMass isn’t going to challenge them this weekend but OSU’s defense is pretty good and Allar’s going to be asked to move the ball in ways I’m not sure he can with consistency.  And as I noted earlier, both of their lead backs are barely moving the ball on the ground unless they’re making guys miss on their own, which is a bad sign for a team I heard all offseason had finally figured out their offensive line.  While I think PSU’s defense is legitimately elite, that’s been the case for a couple of years now and yet they’ve been solidly 3rd or 4th in this division anyway. 

My point is that the flaws we’ve seen out of the two closest UM rivals this year are real, and don’t look likely to be resolved in the next 6-7 weeks.  That doesn’t mean UM is going to waltz into Happy Valley and run the Nittany Lions off the field and then smush the Buckeyes at home, but it’s okay to look at the way the season has played out thus far and come to the conclusion that Michigan is the most complete team in this conference right now and it’s not particularly close.

 

Quick Hits:

• After missing an extra point against ECU to start the year, Turner hasn’t missed one since and is 29/30 on the year.  He’s not been asked to kick any high-pressure FGs but other than a weird double-kick against Rutgers he’s been solid from distance as well.  And Doman is averaging 46 yards per punt attempt on a mere 13 attempts thus far, second in the conference between Iowa’s Tory Taylor’s 48 ypp on 36(!) punt attempts. 
• It really is hard to explain what Fleck was thinking to end the half.  He basically bled the clock down, got the first down and then had to scramble to spike the ball on the ensuing play, setting himself up for basically 2 heaves into the endzone from 35 yards away.  Maybe he’d have tried to kick it from 50-ish yards away to end the half but it was insane to watch him calmly stare at the clock as time slipped off.  I know we live in a world of results-based grading but between that call, the way they blew a huge lead to NW, and how his team has looked even in wins over the likes of year-zero Nebraska and ULL I’m not shocked to see the Gophers sorta stuck in the mud in a very winnable division.
• The refs in this game were atrocious.  They reviewed every TD Michigan scored like they were a crack team of investigators looking for clues and seemed almost annoyed when they had to award something to Michigan.  Blake Corum and Donovan Edwards scored a total of 3 TDs on a single drive, with Corum diving over the line and handing the ball to the referee 3 yards into the endzone finally being the one they recognized.  Also, the petty acceptance of McCarthy’s first TD run “standing” instead of being confirmed was about as snarky as I’ve seen from a referee in a hot minute.  They also took about a quarter for them to recognize that Minnesota was holding and/or motioning illegally on a ton of their longer plays, especially against the pass rush.  The entire game felt like an extended attempt by the refs and the NBC crew to inject some drama into the proceedings (NBC’s announcers must have brought up the Minnesota upset of #2 Michigan a dozen times coming in and out of stoppages), and it was just exasperating to watch because you knew it did nothing else but drag out the game.

Next Week:  Indiana

I mean…you’ve seen this movie before.  This isn’t chaos Indiana, and while I’m sure the Hoosiers will pull out some tricks to, I don’t know, pick up a couple of first downs the biggest concern as a Michigan fan would be the Wolverines looking past this game and ahead to two weeks against MSU and giving up 7 points late in the second half.  IU does have something of a defense; Maryland put 44 on them but that included scoring drives of 21 and 29 yards early on and Maryland leaving in their starters basically the entire game.  They’ll probably be as annoying as Nebraska’s defense, so obviously temper your expectations/concerns, but otherwise this is likely going to be yet another slow-motion stomping by the Wolverines.