Give me your AFA snowflakes

Is the real deal. Wow. Fitz looked outta sorts. Jake Ryan did a good job. Amazed the D line couldn't penetrate.

Oh, and Arizona whooped Okie State... And what the hell happened to Wiscy?

We saw four upsets this weekend. I'm happy we weren't one of them

I think the DL may not be good, but it's still hard to tell. I do think Frank Clark is a player, and the only consistently dangerous guy on that unit. Did I see Ojemudia playing on 2nd and 7 against a non-passing team, with his hand on the ground? To me, that indicates a wholesale lack of confidence in the upperclassmen - the guy is like 195 pounds. The LBs. Man. Two of our "starters" seem to have already lost their jobs to true freshmen. Ryan, to me, played well. He was the only guy other than Clark who turned in positive plays. It seemed like he got stuck by himself with the QB and the pitchman a number of times. For the second straight week, I thought the secondary was fine. They tackled well, and playing pass D against a team like AF has to be tough. By scheme, it's nearly impossible to get a pass rush on them, unless they are forced into obvious passing., and the DBs have so many responsibilities other than coverage. Avery was fine, Taylor was fine. Yay. The OL was the most scary part of the game for me. Not pushing these guys around is terrifying, and the lack of Toussaint production is worrying. DENARD was about as good as he could have been, I think there were two bad balls he threw all day, and the rushing speaks for itself. Funchess...I kept wondering if we could make him a straight WR when we get some TE depth.

Offense

• Denard did a great job of being patient. Allowing lanes to open up and time for routes to develop
• Denard didn't look comfortable in the pocket still though. He waiting for things to open up, but his feet were still jittery. He threw the ball off his back foot once in a very scary fashion. His height will always be a concern with passes over the middle. He needs to get his timing a lot better on short/intermediate routes, against better defenses he would have thrown some picks on late throws or wouldn't have found open receivers. Got to make that throw to DG at the end of the game.
• DG keeps improving, and his size and athleticism are proof of his potential. Still has pretty bad routes, but adds a nice threat for the defense to have to respect.
• Funchess looks good. Athletic, very comfortable catching the ball. He will be a very big asset this season going forward with teams once again having to respect more than just TE catches in the flat.
• Fitz needs to get going against UMass. This should not be hard, but he had no room all day and didn't really make anything happen.
• Oline has a lot of work to do. I think they had trouble getting solid bodies on the small AFA Dline. This isn't quite as drastic as this, but we used to use "grubbers" one year when I coached Freshman, whcih are essentially the smallest guys willing to stay low and disrupt the feet of the O-line and just attack them low, making it very difficult to to get to your blocks. AFA is kind of like that. The O-line will continue to marginally improve throughout the season.
• Roundtree doesn't exist in this offense. There are three threats  to catch passes: Funchess, DG, and Gallon. I think Michigan is just waiting to get the freshman up to speed and they will see the field by B1G play.

Lots of room to improve but luckily the schedule allows time. I think in terms of this team's goals, the season starts in Purdue in 3 weeks and is fully determined starting with State then Nebraska back to back late in October.

Denard and the receivers seem to be greatly improved in the area of breaking off routes on hot reads to combat blitzes.  That's going to help them in games to keep teams honest. State barrelled 8 guys at the line all game last year and Michigan had no answers.

We won a trap game and the offensive line play is very mediocre at this point. The team is young and if we get out of our non conference schedule 3-1 I will be optimistic the rest of the way. Our freshmen are impressive but are still freshmen. The future is bright.

Sorry 4 weeks for Purdue.  That's even better.

Plan on re-watching the game to pay close attention to the lines, but I'm more disappointed now than I was last night. AF can be a nightmare for teams as history has shown us, but I'm really concerned by the lack if OL push. Maybe Borges is running schemes the current OL was not built for? I just can't believe that losing Molk is such a downgrade that we went from torching Ill, Neb, and OSU to not getting any push against AF. Baffling. Tough to get a read on the DL. Obviously not great, but AF is so weird I have no idea how the DL will react in the future. It's also concerning that our LBs with experience are not making plays. I don't like seeing so many true frosh out there.

• Bad initial punch and maintaining a distance with their arms. They let the O-line into their feet and body again. They need to take Air Force's Oline and use their downward momentum (from attacking their feet) and push their face masks into the ground.
• Linebackers are still slow. A very poor job scrapping over the top and getting to the pitch man. Jake Ryan should have had an easy day with sticking with the QB and having people cover the pitch man, instead he was defending both. MLBs look like it will be consistent rotation between the starters and freshman until the freshman get more used to the game or the older guys step up and take the job like they should. The fact that so many freshman are playing speaks to the lack of depth on this defense.
• DBs got caught with their eyes in the backfield several times. Several times did a poor job on the edge forcing the play back into defenders or stretching it out. Have to be stronger on the edge and not get blocked by the WRs so easily.
• Tackling is still an issue with this team. Wrap up damnit! Too many poor form tackles all around.

Why not make him run shorter routes?  He's currently a non-factor the way he's being used.

Denard was accurate today. His lone pick should have been caught. Is he actually faster this year? I know he is using blocking better. Both lines need to improve drastically...We have got great defensive coaches, but it is time for them to show it. Receiving options: extant. Devin and Funchess improving exponentially. We need them to. Michigan fans have not gotten any smarter. "Why didn't they do that against Alabama?". Seriously. I wait with impatience for Darwin's law to do its merciful work. A win is a win is a win. Style points are less than meaningless. Notre Dame in two weeks. We will know a lot more after that. I am on the bandwagon for getting Norfleet on the field more. Gotta be some kind of screen plays or reverses that would put him in open space. Kid is a rocket. Our special teams are very very good.