Meh:  Give Me Something to Talk About

https://youtu.be/mJ58TVYNFro

Last week I said I wasn’t going to do a write-up for this game because I doubted there would be much new information to glean from it – UConn is a terrible football team and the only bit of uncertainty coming into the year (who would start at QB) was emphatically decided the first two weeks of the year (and then further cemented in this game).  And really, I tried to stay away because, if anything, this was even more one-sided than the first two games of the year.  I mean, Colorado St. nearly doubled the Huskies offensive yardage in this game and the Rams didn’t crack 220 yards of total offense.  But then Aidan Hutchinson picked up 3 first-half (!) sacks in a Lions win and I was suddenly buoyed to throw together a couple of thoughts on this most recent performance.  This won’t be particularly long but I do think there are a couple of points worth discussing from this game and, more holistically, this opening stretch of blowouts.

Best:  We’re #1

Coming into this game Michigan was behind teams like USC, James Madison (!) and Kansas(!!) in terms of scoring offense nationally, and while this early in the year it’s a largely irrelevant distinction it was still nice to see Michigan not try to just grunt their way past overmatched opponents and instead beat the brakes off them.  Well, after another dominating performance Michigan now leads the nation in scoring with 55.3 points per game, and there’s a non-zero chance playing Maryland this weekend isn’t going to put much of a dent in that total.  Last year’s offense was a bit heavier on big plays, with the Wolverines ranking second in the country for plays of 50+ yards, but this year’s team is still doing pretty well in that department and has “suffered” from an average starting position around their own 36 yard line and being in such blowouts that they have little incentive to push the ball downfield past halftime.  You can pick at the corners for things to be worried about – Michigan “only” averages 6 ypc on the ground despite playing wholly overmatched defenses, they don’t throw a ton downfield, they’re only converting about 48% of their 3rd-down shots against cupcakes after converting at basically that clip for all of last year, they seem to have a couple of offensive line breakdowns that lead to exactly one QB getting thundersacked at least once a game and contributing to them already having given up 5 sacks on the year after only 14 all of last season – but that’s about it.  This isn’t a perfect offense by any means but it’s also not particularly opponent-dependent; Michigan’s got a scheme that puts their athletes in opportunistic spots to take advantage of their opponent’s weaknesses and they are with spectacular results.

As the offense relates to the Huskies, Michigan won this game 59-0, picking up 465 yards on 69 plays (nice) for a healthy 6.7 ypp spread nicely across the air (273 yards) and the ground (192).  They scored on 9 of their first 12 drives, and would have undoubtedly racked up even more yardage had they not had an average starting position of their own 47 yard line in the first half.  Blake Corum led the team with 71 yards on 12 carries and 5(!) TDs while J.J. McCarthy continued to sling the ball with few difficulties (15/18 for 214 yards) in about a half of play.  On the day Michigan trotted out 7 QBs and all of them completed at least 1 pass attempt to 10 different receivers, while 10 guys totted the rock for positive yards (with Cade McNamara’s sack erroneously being deemed a “run”), and Michigan was remarkably balanced in who touched the ball, as Corum was the only back to touch the ball more than 8 times (and he scored on nearly half of those carries) and only Ronnie Bell caught more than 4 targets.  This game was never in doubt but previous iterations of this team sometimes let bad programs hang around, trying to be too fancy or “creative” to flex their muscles instead of just grinding an overmatched opponent into a fine powder offensively.  Instead, Michigan just delivered a steady diet of runs and screen passes into the vast open expanses of turf the UConn defense provided and marched down the field with limited resistance.  For example, Michigan was 1/4 on 3rd down in that first half but still scored 38 points because their scoring drives were 4 plays, 8 plays, 5 plays, 3 plays, and 3 plays.  And even when the backups were in Michigan was content to extend drives but still wind up in the endzone, putting together TD drives of 11, 11, and 6 while converting on 8 of 9 third downs. 

Best:  A Shutout

Defensively Michigan was again sublime, limiting the Huskies to 110 yards of total offense (at 2.1 ypp) on 53 plays and allowing only 24 yards passing (!) on 5/20.  And yes, UConn has a terrible passing offense (128th per SP+ and came into the game averaging a paltry 5.3 ypa in the air)…but lots of bad teams still average more than 1.4 ypa.  The Huskies had a bit more success on the ground (86 yards on 33 carries for 2.6 ypc), but the vast majority of that production came on the first-half ending and second-half opening drive for the Huskies where they picked up 28 and 34 rushing yards, respectively on the ground.  There were also the only 2 drives all game where UConn breached UM’s side of the field, and in both instances the football gods immediately punished the Huskies for such impropriety with the aforementioned fumbled snap or a 4th-down stop.  As Michigan fans are wont to do, that was also the only time I registered any consistent grumblings about the defense all game, which I guess makes some small sense but should also be taken in the context of UM being up 38-0.  It’s been repeated ad nauseum that anyone trying to read too much into the results of the first 3 games of this season are in for a disappointment, but in particular that’s true on defense due to the absolute ineptitude of the opponents.  These are still FBS-level athletes so complete domination is unlikely (unless you’re Georgia, apparently), but Michigan largely did what they needed to do on defense in all three of these games to showcase a base level of competence that should hold through the bulk of the upcoming opponents.

Much like the offense, they spread the defensive wealth around.  21 players recorded at least 1 tackle, Caden Kolesar blocked a punt, and George Tooks picked up a fumble.  People will grouse about the lack of sacks but (1) UConn threw the ball only 20 times in this game, (2) much like the Rutgers game last year these passes were very short and got out quickly because the Huskies knew they couldn’t hold up to pressure, and (3) Michigan still picked up 2 QB hurries officially and at least a handful more unofficially (when your left guard is being shoved 3 yards back at the snap that’ll speed up a QB).  This defense doesn’t have dominant ends like last season and thus their pass rush is going to have to come from a lot of different contributors, but CSU was the only team that tried to run a coherent passing offense against Michigan’s first-team defense and that didn’t go great for them.  Being mad that Michigan didn’t get a ton of negative plays in this game seems a bit premature given the contours of the score, and we’ll have a much better idea about the unit’s abilities next week because Maryland (and specifically Tagovailoa) isn’t afraid to run around and stall for plays to develop downfield. 

Worst:  Poor Damn Cade

I don’t know what deity Michigan fans either pissed off or made an awful deal with for last season’s success but apparently it’s all coming out of Cade’s body this season.  He’s already lost his starting job after some uncharacteristically poor performances, he’s been booed by (some of) his own fans at home, and has been the sole recipient of weekly thundersacks thanks to awful pass blocking breakdowns by an offensive line that otherwise seems to know what it’s doing with every other QB in the backfield.  After a somewhat-condescending cheer from the fans in attendance (I tend to believe peoples’ real feelings are expressed when the stakes are real, not after a week of people pointing out how shitty it was to boo the guy who just lost his job), he was immediately hamblasted by a UConn defender.  He then stuck in there on the next play and delivered a strike to Ronnie Bell to set up a 62-yard FG attempt to end the half but was again smashed down by 2 UConn defenders.  He suffered a leg injury on that last play and will miss “some time” as he recovers.  It doesn’t sound like a season-ender but still another hit in a season full of them.  This puts Michigan’s depth at QB in stark relief, as I don’t think anyone is particularly excited about an Alan Bowman/Davis Warren/Alex Orji era kicking off in Kinnick.  There’s no reason to believe McCarthy is prone to injury but I wouldn’t be shocked if he’s instructed to be more careful (and run a bit less) going forward until Cade is healthy again.  And beyond that, it sucks that McNamara is suffering through the season from hell like this.

Meh:  Minor Levels of Concern

https://youtu.be/loOWKm8GW6A

There’s not that much to complain about after 3 blowouts, but here are a few issues that have come up over these games that I wanted to highlight because they’ll likely become more prominent as the season progresses:

1. The pass blocking by the offensive line has underwhelmed.  McNamara has suffered the brunt of it but at some point the tackles being beat semi-consistently around the corner ain’t great.  I know they’ve had some injuries and shuffling of players but these are some terrible defensive lines they’ve faced and even Maryland’s meh line is going to be a dramatic improvement.
2. McCarthy is still learning out there and I’m a tiny-bit concerned the complete lack of defensive pressure these first 3 weeks might be leading to a ruder awakening against better teams.  He’s got great athleticism and a firecracker arm but he still sometimes plays like a guy who thinks he can out-athlete everyone on the field and that’s not going to be true against this schedule.  In this game he made a bad read on the option and was tracked down by a UConn defender, and later on he absolutely threw an interceptable ball to a UConn LB in the red zone.  He did something similar last weekend where he threw a ball behind Ronnie Bell because he either didn’t see, or didn’t care, that the Hawaii LB was reading his eyes and making a play on the ball.  Iowa, for example, will eat those indiscretions for lunch.  People groused about McNamara’s performance against Iowa last year but during that second quarter when the Hawkeyes kept punting UM deep into their own territory McNamara made the right plays and didn’t give Iowa a cheap turnover for an easy score.  I think McCarthy is going to play really well this year but he’s due for a regression when the opposition picks up and I’m a little concerned that he may emboldened by some of the mistakes he’s been able to get away with thus far due to opponent ineptitude.
3. The pass rush is still an unknown to a degree.  I know they haven’t broken out a ton of exotic looks because they haven’t needed to do so, but I expect they’ll need to be creative to slow down Maryland.  And similarly, the LBs are going to need to show they can tackle in space, as Maryland’s got receivers and backs who love to catch short balls and then YAC their way down the field.

Best:  Big Ten Beast

So…not necessarily a banner year for the conference at this point, at least for the West.  Only Minnesota remains undefeated in that division, and while they’ve blasted their three opponents 149-17, that’s also come against a schedule about as soft as Michigan’s (NM St., Western Illinois, and Colorado).  Iowa is 2-1 and has scored 4 touchdowns on the year, and even with that monster of a defense it’s hard to see that type of offensive futility working out in the long term for them.  Nebraska had to rally to beat a bad North Dakota team and otherwise has lost to a bad NW team, a mediocre Georgia Southern team (who got worked over by UAB this weekend), and gotten blown away by Oklahoma.  And save for the neutral field in Ireland those are all home games – the Cornhuskers still need to go to Michigan, Iowa, and Purdue this season, plus welcome Wisconsin and Minnesota to Lincoln.  Speaking of Purdue, for the second time in 3 weeks they blew a winnable game by failing to hold onto a lead late against an okay opponent.  This week it was Syracuse, where the Boilermakers were able to make a late comeback but then proceeded to commit 7 (!) penalties on the last drive (including 2 unsportsmanlike penalties on their go-ahead TD that led to them kicking off from their own 10) and allowed the Orangemen to escape.  Jeff Brohm seems like just a guy at this point, and my guess is if Louisville comes calling this time around both he and Purdue won’t be too heartbroken about a separation.  NW lost to an FCS team after their stud RB (Evan Hall) fumbled yet again late.  Pat Fitzgerald isn’t going anywhere but their attempts at running an up-tempo offense (#7 in the country with 266 plays run) doesn’t necessarily help you out if you’re failing to convert those plays into points (26 pts/gm), and that defense still looks bad.    Nebraska, Duke, and Southern Illinois have all been able to throw against the Wildcats (Duke averaged 10 ypa!), and that’s not what I’ve come to expect from NW.  Oh, and Wisconsin ran over NM St. because of course they did, but this team still looks meh and I’m not buying Graham Mertz suddenly slinging it for 16.7 ypa. 

 

Out East, the conference is undefeated…except for MSU, who got pushed around by the Washington Huskies.  MSU looks exactly like how you’d expect for a team lacking a Heisman-level RB and a golden horseshoe up its ass; they still can’t run the ball and they came into this game down Jayden Reed so it was a steady stream of 50/50 balls to Keon Coleman, who came down with about half of them (9 receptions on 18 targets and 2 TDs).  Their defensive line remains really solid against the run (they stopped UW twice on 4th-and-goal situations even without Slade) but the rest of the defense remains a tire fire, as Michael Penix carved them up in the air (nearly 400 yards at 10 ypa) and probably could have done even more damage had they not closed up shop late in the game.  What stood out in this game for me was that MSU’s team is still mostly reliant on players Tucker inherited; Thorne, Reed, Mosley, Slade, and Henderson were all Dantonio recruits if memory serves me right and none of their imports have really set the world on fire.  Expect to hear Tucker’s name thrown around for open coaching positions (Auburn wouldn’t shock me given his SEC connections) and he may jump before the shine of last year’s great run wears off.  Speaking of Auburn, PSU won on the road mostly because of the simple football maxim – score in the redzone and stop the other team from doing so.  PSU scored 4 TDs on 5 of their redzone visits while Auburn went 0/4 getting to the endzone.  PSU’s defense looks solid but I still don’t buy Clifford at QB, and though Nicholas Singleton looks great in the open field their offensive line still feels a bit unknown to me.  Indiana is 3-0 but their 3 wins have a cumulative margin of 19 and that’s against Illinois (a game they should have lost), Idaho, and Western Kentucky.  9windiana probably isn’t happening but I guess we’ll see how they look at Cincinnati this weekend.   Similarly, Rutgers is 3-0 but their two non-FCS wins are by a total of 3 points against BC and Temple.  Still, both those wins were on the road and oh god my eyes they’re hosting Iowa this weekend.  Oh, and OSU beat the tar out of Toledo to the tune of 763 yards of total offense and 77 points but also gave up some early scores and still don’t seem to quite have their defense figured out.  Wisconsin will be a test for them this weekend because it’s a much better version of Notre Dame, and that game was wonky for much longer than it probably should have been.

Next Week:  Maryland

Oh, and the Maryland Terrapins are 3-0 after beating SMU.  It wasn’t a good game by Maryland but it’s September so they didn’t blow it in the end.  They still committed 15 penalties and had 2 lost fumbles, but Taulia threw for 214 yards and 2 TDs, ran for 51 more, and did that thing where he kept plays alive long enough for his talented receivers to get open downfield.  I expect Maryland to move the ball against Michigan somewhat consistently; I also expect them to turn it over a couple of times and make dumb decisions.  As for their defense, they gave up 520 yards and only forced 1 punt and 2 turnover on downs; the rest of the Mustang drives ended with a score or a TO.  That’s a real feast-or-famine approach to defending teams and my guess is it doesn’t hold up against the Wolverines.  This will be a game where we hear grumbling about the defensive line not demolishing people and some guys getting open but much like last season it probably won’t matter because Michigan will just keep scoring.