What does cute baby have in common with our offense vs. MSU?  They both suck!

Al Borges is easily the most hated man on the Michigan staff.  Darrell Funk may be gaining some ground in that department, but he has a long way to go.  Even Brady Hoke--the man who has delivered Michigan's best recruits in over a decade--is facing some heavy criticism.

I get it.  Saturday was painful in so many ways.  It's hard to watch your QB run play action from under center and get sacked almost before he turns around.  It's hard to watch your team's championship hopes vanish in game that wasn't a contest.  It's hard to know you can't beat the best, or even the very good.

Every story is made better with a villain.  This is our national mode of thinking now--in politics, in business, and in sports.  It's just so much easier to blame someone than to actually look at the complexity of an issue.

And to be sure, Al Borges does deserve blame.  As does Funk, and, yes, even Hoke.  Coaches are responsible for the product on the field.  Period.  Our product sucked with the fury of a black hole (yes nerds, I know they don't actually "suck") on Saturday, and it's natural to want bastards to pay for that.

But, just for a moment, let's look at how we could have attacked that MSU defense, instead of focusing on our complete inability to do anything resembling offense on Saturday.

This is right off of Brian's picture pages.  It is a very typical alignment for MSU, although the field (don't want to argue about strong/free) safety is a bit deeper than usual at ten yards; it's often closer to eight.  Michigan is in a pretty standard 3WR Shotgun look.  Sometimes, that slot LB is actually a LB, sometimes it's a LB/S hybrid.  Doesn't really matter.

How do you attack this defense?  Let's examine a few possibilities:

• Quick pass/extended hand-off.  Outside press coverage eliminates this possibility for the X and Z (outside receivers).  You could look to the H (slot), but that LB or LB/S thingy is definitely close enough to tackle almost immediately.  As soon as DG turns his head there and Funchess turns to catch the ball, that LB is in KILL! mode.  He knows he has safety help over the top if he's wrong, so there's very little risk form him.  He would attempt decapitation.  Even if Funchess can shake him, that safety is there--and this assumes the TE blocked the middle LB.  So basically, this option sucks.
• Slants/hitches/crosses.  We're going to assume this is man coverage, since that's what MSU runs most of the time.  First of all, it's terribly difficult to beat press coverage on a three-step drop, especially when the corners are as accomplished as Waynes and Dennard.  This is made even more difficult by the fact that their corners are playing "inside technique," meaning they are a half-step inside the WRs, trying to force them to the outside.  But let's assume, just for fun, that our guys beat their guys.  The WR on the left side is now running right into that slot LB, who is reading the H.  A common antidote to this would be to send the H on a flat route, attempting to pull the LB with him.  That might actually work.  The problem, though, is that MSU's safeties use a technique called "pattern reading."  Basically, they are watching the first few steps of those slot/TE types, and reacting.  If the slot/TE dudes don't stretch the field, the safety crashes down to try and help in coverage.  MSU's safeties will make this ready quickly.  A best-case scenario is a perfectly executed slant that gets thumped by the safety after a five or six yard gain. But this is a high-risk play: if the LB reads the QB's eyes and sinks, it could be a pick-six.  I didn't mention the hitch, but it's real tough against press man, and the crossing routes are even MORE susceptible to LB INTs, which MSU does well.
• MANBALL.  Run the ball, damn it!  Well, even if we had a good O-Line, this is tough.  A give to the RB means our six blockers are up against their six plus"two halves" in the box.  That LB over the slot and the boundary safety are both on the edge of the box, ready to pounce on a running play.  Even if we leave a backside guy unblocked, MSU will have numbers in the box very quickly, and our best-case is a three-yard gain (which we actually mustered a few times).  BUT, even this will be inconsistent, because sometimes those LBs blitz and that safety crashes even before they know if it's run or pass, and in that case the slower-developing run from the shotgun is dead to rights.  This, by the way, is why AB and Hoke want an under center game: your RB can immediately get to the business of running when the ball is snapped, rather than waiting for the snap to get to the QB and for the QB to handle the snap and then hand it off to a guy who is right next to him.  From under center, the RB can (and does) start to move at the snap, and gets the ball closer to the LOS and with a some steam.  It's not a huge difference, but it is significant and it is why RB runs are often more effective from under center.
• Option run.  Yeah.  We tried a few of these.  You saw what happened.  MSU makes quick, aggressive reads on almost every play.  They blitz frequently, and they slant, stunt, and twist all the damn time.  If even one of these guys gets free--which they almost always did against us--you're looking at a five yard loss.  Even in a well-designed play (which Brian covered in the picture pages) the MSU defense collapses fast, gets off blocks, and gobbles-up your RB or QB.  They get nine guys in the box (the safeties crash fast) as quickly as any team I've ever seen.  Their DE's are also athletic enough to trouble the option on their own.  All that said, a finely-tuned and perfectly-blocked option scheme would give them trouble, as it would anyone.
• Deep passing game.  Without even the slightest doubt, this is where MSU is susceptible.  IF Ohio beats them, it will be with big plays in the passing game, IMO, and perhaps some read/option stuff with probably the best running tandem QB and RB this side of Oregon.  But, schematically, there is no doubt that this defense is susceptible to the deep pass, especially off of play action.  You can get single coverage on your H (slot), your Y (TE), and your X and Z (outside WRs) against this defense.  There are two problems with this: MSU's one-on-one coverage is really good; and MSU's blitzes and pass rush are even better than their coverage.  I believe Denicos Allen is the best blizting LB in the country, and Bullough isn't far behind.  Your QB needs a 7-step drop for these routes; your line needs to hold-up; and your RB probably needs to block (since that's one of the only ways to shut down the double-A blitz).  We had open receivers against MSU.  Other teams have also had wide open dudes.  But when the QB's face is in the turf--or he's worried about his face being in the turf--it's awfully hard to read the defense and make the perfect throw required to beat the coverage (see Gardner's INT).  Max protect should give you the time you need, but you still have to execute against an excellent blitz and stellar coverage, and MSU's safeties do a good job of reading three-man routes and helping their CB's where they can.
• Play action.  For the record, I hated the play action calls.  Having Gardner turn his back when his line can't block just sucks.  But I understand why Borges calls them.  MSU does read-and-react, and their LBs and safeties do hold a beat on play action.  The run/pass conflict is there.  That said, they are often blitzing a LB no matter what, which has the potential to blow-up your play before it gets started.  So there's a bit of roulette there.  But if you can block it, the opportunities for deep passes will be there, and pop passes to the slot from the shotgun or pistol (which we did) can be effective.  That said, it's a slow-developing play that requires more blocking, and MSU is betting that you can't beat them in that department.  Yet another reason to run play action is to set-up the run.  Yep, you read that correctly.  When a defense gets burned on a PA pass, they naturally slow their reaction to the run.  This is why you might run a PA pass before you run the base running play. There is yet another reason Borges calls these PA passes and under center runs: he's preparing the team for the future.  If we don't run under center until we're good at it, we'll never be good at it.  Borges would get (rightfully) bashed for bringing out the 2015 team and expecting them to run under center stuff if they'd never done it before.  Like it or not, it's part of our future, and we need experience doing it some, even if we suck at it.

TL;DR - MSU's defense is really good, and very difficult to attack.  When you can't block their blitzes, you are left with few or no good options.  This is not an excuse for the coaches--they need to get their kids to block.  But the two best strategies against this defense require good, sustained blocking, and they are the only way to open up the running game.

We simply aren't good enough to execute against this defense.  And that falls on the coaches just as much (if not more) as it falls on the players.  Better play-calling couldn't have helped much.