Down a corner, but which Big Ten QB- WR is super scary?
Iowa- Wants to Run, then thrown to wide open tight ends.
Wisc- Pounds the Ground, throw to tight end.
OSU- Scare you with Pryor, thrown wobbly pass 40 yards down middle of field- have receiver run under the ball.
PSU-Run Royster to Record- QB's have no experience.
Indiana- Good trio of WRs, but seems like they like to run from pistol more often than not. Can Chappel get enough time to throw?
ND-Floyd is really scary, but who knows if Crist will be able to get up after Martin eats his heart.
Purdue- Pass spread attack, breaking in New QB
I am pretty upset with losing T-Wolf, but on the bright side I don't see elite WR/QB combo talent that we should be so super scared about. Last year we were torched by very talented Big Ten tight ends. Improved LB play should help there.
Stop the run, then help those cover guys by zone blitzing on the 3rd and longs. Offense can really help out by getting up early, closing out games, and munching on that clock.
August 18th, 2010 at 3:28 PM ^
In conference only games UM ranked 6th in passing yds/game allowed by the defense and 10th in pass efficiency defense. I'd say most teams last year were fairly successful throwing the ball against UM.
And as other people have pointed out, 2 of the teams that most of us are looking at as winnable games (IU and Purdue) love to throw the ball.
August 18th, 2010 at 3:33 PM ^
All of them. All of them are super scary now. Unless JT Floyd actually has developed as much as players/coaches claim and unless Cullen turns out to be a prodigy, I'm going to be holding my breath anytime a QB drops back to throw.
August 18th, 2010 at 4:19 PM ^
Smile and wait for Roh or Martin or Van Bergen to destroy them
When they actually get the throw off, then... yeah. Hold your breath
But only for a while - I'm of the view that people will step up and play
August 18th, 2010 at 3:34 PM ^
have a specific QB-WR combo that I'm most concerned about. My main concern is that our CBs will probably be playing 10 yards off the receivers so any competent QB we go up against will be hitting 5-7 yard hitches and outs play after play after play.
August 18th, 2010 at 3:52 PM ^
Play off of them at the los so we don't give up the deep ball, but let them nickel and dime us to death on the short routes.
August 18th, 2010 at 4:38 PM ^
but a necessity no doubt. As the opposing team moves down the field, it shortens and big plays become less of a risk. It sounds horrible I know, but is a reality this year no question. Still, you can blitz. And teams make mistakes. And if you can stop the run, you can beat nearly anyone
A series of dumbfounding circumstances prevented us from having Warren, Turner, Woolfolk, Dorsey, Cissoko and Cullen Christian in our defensive backfield. They were supposed to be all world and all wanted to come to Michigan. At some point these things balance out and we'll be an attacking defense again. Not so in 2010
August 18th, 2010 at 3:34 PM ^
MSU just got tougher? Just kidding; I like your analysis.
August 18th, 2010 at 3:44 PM ^
One of the CBs will turn out to be all right. He'll get burned some, but he'll learn, and be ok. How do I know this? It's a numbers issue, and there's talent on the roster. So, I suspect by the time B10 season rolls around we'll have someone who is not knee-knockingly scary on one WR.
It's the other wideouts, plus slot guys / Tight ends where things will really get scary, because that is where the Wolverine backfield will look really sub-par. Every team has guys that can catch of course, but some are deeper, and those are the teams I think that now stand a better chance of winning than did two days ago. These are the big ones:
IU - the Hoosier's chances just bounced considerably. Tandon Doss you may know, Belcher you should know, and Terrance Turner are all extremely good to solid receivers. I expect Indiana to throw a lot. They barely lost last year, and this one could very well go the other way.
MSU - another team with a very good quarterback and multiple experienced wide receivers and tight ends. This game was very tight last year of course, and I figured it to be very close this year before Woolfolk's injury.
Those are two games that went in my preseason 'close Michigan win' category before the Woolfolk news broke. Now they are tossups. If the loss of one player impacts any game, it'd be these two.
August 18th, 2010 at 3:47 PM ^
in the second paragraph. Maybe Woolfolk's replacement turns out ok, but what happens when we need to bring a 3rd or 4th cb on the field?
August 18th, 2010 at 4:35 PM ^
There are 2 concerns: Woolfolks replacement and the number 3 CB.
August 18th, 2010 at 3:59 PM ^
Wisconsin could throw against us. They use TEs well, and Toon is really good. Indiana has Doss. MSU and ND could be scary. I know McNutt is still there for Iowa, what about Koulianos (sp?) and their other really good TE? Pryor has Posey and Sanzenbacher. PSU has good receivers too.
August 18th, 2010 at 4:37 PM ^
I think any run heavy team(MSU, Wisc) can have some success with play action against UM with all of the inexperience being counted on in the secondary. Having said that, there are two teams that I'm prepared for the worst against with regards to defending their pass heavy offenses: Notre Dame and Indiana.
I actually spent some time earlier today reading an interview with Chris Brown of SmartFootball from NDNation on Brian Kelly's Spread Offense. Floyd will be a monster to defend yet again, it appears.
Indiana's offense passed for 67.9 % (2975 passing, 1405 rushing) of it's yardage last year. Jr. Tandon Doss had 77 rec. for 972 yards (12.5 avg) and 5 TDs as a Soph. and Chappell completed 62% of his passes. They will pass and pass often just like they did last year when they almost beat us at home.
August 18th, 2010 at 4:40 PM ^
One of the truisms of college football is that most QBs are between meh and slightly above-average. Sure, teams with good QBs and good WRs will take this secondary apart (like MSU, Wiscy, and, I guess, IU and OSU), but most of the other teams on our list either have poor QB play or not much in the way of legit WRs. While having our 3rd/4th CB on the field can be terrifying, rarely is he going to be matched up against a dominant TE or slot receiver - he is going to be playing the equivalent of the other team's backup position. Maybe I'm being optimistic, but a backup WR on Iowa is probably not going to be much better (if at all) than the backup CB he is matched up against in UM's secondary.
OSU might have Pryor, but they'll beat UM with a dominant defense and running the ball, not Pryor airing it out 25-30 times. People forget that Iowa lost its best TE and Stanzi, for all of his patriotism, threw two more TDs than INTs last year, and didn't look particularly good against even moderately-good lines that could generate pressure. Cousins will be tough but who knows in that game, and PSU is currently choosing between two QBs who have, um, "accuracy problems" and not a whole lot of star targets. Floyd at ND is scary, but so is a first-year QB who hasn't necessarily impressed people as much as the hype. Marve is still a work in progress, and while IU's WRs are very good, Chappell is still a guy with great short-toss accuracy but pretty meh stats across the board.
Losing Woolfolk still sucks, but I never expected the secondary to be a strength of the team. Hopefully GERG can pull them together and they play competently, but the teams they play are not trotting our Montana-Rice either.
August 18th, 2010 at 5:02 PM ^
forget twolf was a good to great tackler last season - i can only remember one botched tackle when it appeared he was trying to strip the ball in the msu overtime game.
so yeah, we can pretend this only affects the passing game and we will be "fine" against run-first teams, thats not entirely true. especially because, ostensibly, we replace twolf with a frosh whose admittedly a poor tackler.August 18th, 2010 at 5:54 PM ^
....wow.... Is the sky falling?? Hopefully none of the players slotted to fill in don't read this. Doom & gloom all over the place. Let's not hope for a guy to step up & play well, shall we?? ...smh...
I'm in the minority, obviously....but I'm still optimistic for a good season. +1 to the OP