LBs vs. Indiana
I was trying to pay attention but was distracted by the chaos...how was our LB play last game? I know Brian will obviously address it in the UFR, but I was curious if any of you noticed anything. Were the LBs just getting beat, or was the defensive line not doing a great job of preventing the OL from getting up on the LBs?
November 16th, 2015 at 11:59 AM ^
two point conversion was particularly humorous. It appeared as though our players were actively running away from the ball carrier.
November 16th, 2015 at 12:36 PM ^
I think there's a case to be made that Indiana didn't have to play fast in the second half, as the damage was already done. And they were still going pretty fast in the second half. Maybe a few seconds slower, but they were getting generally lined up at the same pace, preventing subs, etc. I thought it was pretty clear that by the second half, the front 6 was gassed.
What may have been the biggest plays of the game, aside from the special teams mishaps, were the two fourth down conversions on IU's third drive. It forced the defense to face a ton of snaps in the first quarter and also prevented us from taking an even earlier two-score lead. Wonder what happens if we go up 14-3 and 21-6, early. Maybe IU turns to the passing game sooner, who knows.
November 16th, 2015 at 1:28 PM ^
I think we match up better against those teams, and I think a slower pace will help. I don't really see Michigan's defensive line being an advantage, but it should be less of a disadvantage. I also think they need to do some rejiggering and move Henry inside, so they can use Strobel and potentially Poggi at SDE. Henry's a more viable NT than Strobel.
Either way, Michigan's defensive line has gone from a huge strength to a very average unit.
November 16th, 2015 at 2:15 PM ^
The IU QB was not pressured much the entire game.
November 16th, 2015 at 11:18 AM ^
It was wierd man - everytime Jordan Howard got the ball, Bolden and Morgan just vanished into thin air.
I was thinking about the perceived dropoff in LB play next year when we have a lot of inexperiecned guys taking over. I'm not so concerned anymore.
November 16th, 2015 at 12:31 PM ^
November 16th, 2015 at 11:19 AM ^
The defensive line was a sieve and LB's were called upon to make too many tackles. Their tackling was suspect. Howard gained most of his yards after he was hit by one or more Michigan tacklers.
November 16th, 2015 at 11:21 AM ^
I was really impressed by the Indiana OL, and I often saw them get out to the second level without too much trouble. Whoever said above "the LBs don't have an excuse" forgets that the loss of Glasgow affects them more than it affects the DL. He's not there to occupy blocks, and those OL move on to block the LBs.
I saw some missed gaps by the LBs and perhaps tentative play, but a big part of the first half run defense problem was that we kept the safeties back and the DL was not requiring double teams. Indiana was able to execute their combo blocks, so they could get a hat on a hat at the second level.
November 16th, 2015 at 11:31 AM ^
I went through the game again, focusing on our DL and LB play. What I found is:
1. Our DL did not help our LBs...at all. They didn't play too horribly, but they didn't put the LBs in a position to make an easy play at all. I was disappointed with the backside pursuit angles from RJS and Wormley a lot of times. Godin was consistently blown up. So yeah, our DL was pretty subpar. They simply didn't disrupt blockers from getting to the second level.
2. Bolden and Morgan will probably be the two most negative players in the UFR. They were consistently accepting blocks rather than taking them on. IU did a good job getting to the LBs quickly and keeping their blocks on our LBs, but rarely did I see our LBs strongly disengage from their blocks. Gedeon was our best performing LB, at least from what I saw.
So I think yes, our LBs played very poorly. However, I think it's a combination of the DL not disrupting plays enough to set the LBs up for success as well as IU just having a few great OL players.
November 16th, 2015 at 11:25 AM ^
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November 16th, 2015 at 11:25 AM ^
November 16th, 2015 at 11:27 AM ^
November 16th, 2015 at 11:28 AM ^
It's only one play but the image of Joe Bolden getting swallowed by an OL, then Desmond Morgan getting sat on his ass by a lineman, then that same lineman moving onto the secondary on Howard's last TD in regulation. It wasn't good.
November 16th, 2015 at 11:30 AM ^
Watching live, they seemed to eat a lot of blocks, and when they weren't blocked, they seemed to miss a lot of tackles.
I was also disappointed in the lack of defensive adjustments at the end of regulation and overtime. Indiana went all Michigan vs. Oregon St. on us by running the ball play after play and we simply could not stop it. With Indiana going 3-wide most of the time, go 1-on-1 with the WRs and put everyone else in the box until they prove they can consistently beat the coverage. We seemed to stay in our 2-LB nickel coverage most of the game with a deep safety (Wilson). That deep safety ended up making a lot of tackles anyway, but it would've been nice to see him make the tackle 5 yards closer to the line of scrimmage. Go with 3 LBs with Ross (would've like to see Gedeon get a little more run over Bolden).
With that said, there were many times throughout the game that we were in position to make a play and simply didn't make it. Terrible tackling performance.
November 16th, 2015 at 11:33 AM ^
They had something like 37 plays in the 1st Q which was on the entire D. That was before everyone got "tired". Usually we see 70 snaps against us a game. The DL underwhelmed early when they were fresh and the LBs are the LBs. Later in the game they were worn down but no excuses early - the entire D just got outplayed. Only thing that saved our bacon was stiffening up in red zone and allowing FGs rather than TDs. But the damage was done to the physicality of our D.
MSU has 2 NFL linemen too and OSU has 3. So not an excuse. They got spanked early and late.
November 16th, 2015 at 11:35 AM ^
I noticed that early, they were rotation DL more heavily, and Strobel was making appearances often. He got crushed a lot, then they kept more of Wormley, Henry, Hurst rotating on the inside and then IU started using a lot of rushes to the outside which is where they did most of their damage late. So early, there were more plays with our much downgraded DL, and late it was the better DL, but more tired. Not sure what they do moving forward, but I just can't see Strobel doing well on the inside going forward.
November 16th, 2015 at 11:41 AM ^
Strobel was an OL last week. He has been a 4 star miss who has not developed so cant expect much there. Frankly shocked he played at all this year.
Godin needed to be better and Hurst is clearly more of a "pass down" DT. Godin and Glasgow are the 2 "rush down DTs" and clearly there is a massive drop off between the 2.
But we didnt get to Sudfeld in Q1 much at all and Howard was hitting us hard from the beginning when everyone was fresh.
D got outplayed for long stretches especially between the 20s - no shame in saying sometimes other teams outplayed us. Thankfully we played very well in the red zone most of the game or that game would have been out of reach late. We saved 12 pts early by giving up FGs instead of TDs.
November 16th, 2015 at 11:54 AM ^
I do wonder if Godin will be better by OSU. He was decent up until he got hurt and it had been a while since he played on Saturday. Going up against Indiana probably isn't the best thing for a player coming back from injury's stamina.
November 16th, 2015 at 12:03 PM ^
Yes I am curious though how often he played early in the year however.
One thing I wish Brian would add to chart on ufr was snapcount.
I mean was Godin playing 15 plays a game - easier to be "effective' when you are coming in against an OL Glasgow and Hurst have beaten down for 60 plays and you are almost totally fresh each time you step in the game.
It would be nice to see how much each DL plays per game when we had them all available (post Mario injury).
November 17th, 2015 at 1:37 AM ^
in Spriggs who is being looked at as a potential 2nd/3rd round pick and Feeney who is being looked at as a potential 3rd/4th round pick. Both are really good
November 16th, 2015 at 11:33 AM ^
November 16th, 2015 at 11:35 AM ^
He's only been a DC for 3 years. Nobody is hiring him as a HC this year.
November 16th, 2015 at 11:49 AM ^
I dont put this on Durkin. It's been a huge improvement from last year and just about every single player on D not named Bolden has taken a step up. That's a sign of a good coaching staff. They have made big steps in 1 year. But they dont have the inherent talent of some other teams. Guys like rjs went from Josh Furman at UM to Josh Furman at OK State (i.e. decent player) That's a sign of a good staff.
Look at McDowell - he is a 1 man terror squad as a true SO. Look at Jaylon Smith at ND started as a true frosh LB. Look at Bosa - elite from first year. Thats elite talent you have or don't. We dont have that many players like that outside of Peppers. Our guys have been coached up guys like Lewis and Henry and Glasgow etc.
Need some higher ceiling / talent guys in front 7 in recruiting and some of the recruiting misses have come back to haunt.
By the way if we had landed McDowell we wouldnt be devastated by the loss of Glasgow right now. (Obv Mone hurt too)
November 16th, 2015 at 5:34 PM ^
November 16th, 2015 at 11:33 AM ^
Our LBs have been meh to not very good all year. They were not very good on Saturday.
November 16th, 2015 at 11:34 AM ^
It looked like initially Howard would get bottled up at the LOS but would squirt out for 3 to 5 yards. It seem like most of his runs were right up the middle with none or our DL or LB making tackles. Also, the defense looked confused. Several players would look over to the sidelines to get the calls but would have little time to get set before IU would snap in their hurry up offense!
November 16th, 2015 at 11:35 AM ^
My total unscientific opinion was that we had a whole lot 6 and sometimes even 5 man boxes. It seemed like the slow death poison of giving up yards on the ground vs through the air was the choice, with the idea being to hold them to FGs. And that sorta worked in the 1st half.
Tackling was abhorent, but it always looks bad when you're trying to tackle a guy who's first contact is +5 vs the LOS.
Bottom line, I trust our braintrust. Seems like loading up for the run to make Sudfeld beat our DBs may have gone better, but I don't know what I don't know. So I will leave it at that.
November 16th, 2015 at 11:35 AM ^
Not being able to get off the field in the first half hurt the D-Line a ton, too. You could tell that Henry, especially, was totally gassed in the 4th and Hurst was apparently so tired he couldn't play in the 4th.
So not only were they short-handed without Glasgow, but you had d-linemen facing probably twice the number of offensive snaps, even before OT, than they had in any game this year.
November 16th, 2015 at 11:47 AM ^
I think Indiana only ended up running something like in the 80s # of plays when it was all said and done so it was not a crazy amount at end of game. What was crazy was 1st Q when they had 37 which projects to nearly 150 a game. The could not get off the field in the 1st and IMO once you get tired in sports you don't truly ever recover. Where did you read that about Hurst? That's interesting if true. tl;dr poor play in the 1st Q doomed the D which seemed physically dead in the 4th, esp front 4/7. And it's not all 1 player, Glasgow is good but not friggin Suh. We got outplayed for much of the day in front 7.
November 16th, 2015 at 11:54 AM ^
The Hurst thing is based on someone else's observation postgame. Don't actually know if it's true.
Indiana had 90 plays. That includes the OT, of course. But you're exactly right that the first quarter was the problem and that once you burn energy reserves, particularly for a quick twitch sport like football, it's really hard to recover.
FWIW, we went from 4th nationally in opponents plays faced to 23rd based on this game.
November 17th, 2015 at 1:41 AM ^
is still a shit ton of plays in one game. That's Indiana's average for the season which would place them at 14th in the country. Meanwhile, Michigan is 91st in the country with 70 plays per game. That's 10 plays difference which can be significant depending the game flow.
November 16th, 2015 at 11:39 AM ^
After rewatching I did notice a good amount of holding going unoticed (Harbaugh also eluded to this) however our LB's were not making plays. Their athletiscm is certainly in question.
I'm having nighmares of Barkley and Z Elliot bursting through that second level untouched.
Glasgow was missed for sure but it seemed like the line was getting pretty good push at times, the LB's were just not filling correctly or getting edged.
Is Gedeon injured? Sorry if I missed that news.
November 16th, 2015 at 11:49 AM ^
I didn't think so. He was playing in the game. Did he go down at some point? If so I also am unaware.
November 16th, 2015 at 11:42 AM ^
Anybody know if we get anyone back off the "disabled list" in time for PSU?
November 16th, 2015 at 11:43 AM ^
November 16th, 2015 at 1:13 PM ^
THIS. FOR THE LOVE OF GOD THIS.
November 16th, 2015 at 11:46 AM ^
play was lacking I think and they were getting beat consistently on the edge. Indiana is clearly a nightmare for defenses with the up tempo/change the play at the line of scrimmage with an experienced NFL caliber QB running the offense. It seemed that the D strategy was stop the pass with safties dropping back and then indy called a lot of running plays. The D didnt play great but still won the game in the end. Hopefully they can regroup for the next 2 games that will be better matchups for M.
November 16th, 2015 at 11:52 AM ^
Our defense was gashed because we went up against an offense that goes balls out and wants you to get tired. They went for it on 4th down 5 times for crying out loud!
We kept them to field goals pretty much the entire first half and a lousy special teams play (a channing stribling missed tackle) got them back in it.
You could tell in the first half with the hands on the hips, the defense was getting exhausted. Of course we weren't going to tackle anybody as the game goes on.
There isn't any need to panic for the rest of the season. Yes it sucks that Glasgow is out, but I think JH knows how to handle a beat up roster.
What I'm excited about now is that Rudock can now connect on the long balls. I am beginning to see where JH is going to use the passing game to open up the run.
Penn State's offense isn't as potent as Indiana's. It's going to be a completely different game on Saturday.
November 16th, 2015 at 12:02 PM ^
I agree that we will adjust, and I think the coaching staff learned a lot from this game and will make the proper modifications. I do think it's cause for concern, though. If I'm OSU and PSU I'm going to pick up my pace a bit. I recognize the DL for Michigan isn't deep anymore and that a continued quick attack could work.
Now I think we'll be better prepared against it in the future and don't think PSU nor OSU have a well-oiled offense like IU's lightning fast doom oriented attack, but it's still a cause for worry imo.
Rudock slinging those long balls are great, and PSU somehow looks more beatable than Indiana.
November 16th, 2015 at 11:55 AM ^
I keep hearing that players and teams need to show continuous improvement from the start of the season. I agree. Are we seeing that with our LBs? I don't think so. In fact, it seems just the opposite to me, and I'm taking into consideration the injuries on our OL, especially NT. Sure hope our D schemes take advantage of whatever strengths our LBs exhibit.
Also, where is the aggressive type of D I thought we were going to see this year? Too often I see them playing what I would call a "read and react" or "contain" style of play. That doesn't seem to have been successful in thee alst few games. Maybe we need to blitz at least one LB every play as a way to get them move involved and to help them become more disruptive. I wonder if it would also put some fire into their bellies.
November 16th, 2015 at 12:08 PM ^
Morgan has been fine almost entire year. He had a turrible game vs Minn but other than that is a quality Big 10 starter.
Bolden is the one guy who has never improved in the starting 11. Delano Hill could be the other I suppose (but apparently played well Sat).
Not sure on ross - he didnt play a ton early, and then had 1 game they had him as Buck where he suffered.
I think as others have said the LBs have enjoyed being clean almost this entire year. I am sure that position is a lot more fun to play when a 300 lb man is not in your face and you can run to the ball unchecked. Sat was 1st game they had to engage OL a lot and they didnt do well - most LBs wont but guys who come to UM should be able to disengage better, esp seniors. But I think by and large Morgan is not the issue - 2 bad games out of 10 is ok with me.
November 16th, 2015 at 12:13 PM ^
on Thursday or Friday.
November 16th, 2015 at 1:05 PM ^
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November 16th, 2015 at 12:19 PM ^
Des Mogran was out of position so many times on those runs that broke for 8-10 yards that I lost count. He spent a ton of time running plays down that he should've been in position for from the jump. I honestly think Gedeon might grade out the best out of the LB group.
November 16th, 2015 at 12:22 PM ^
This was my impression of the game in a nutshell:
Schematic story of UM/IU in a few tweets. IU playing 3-Deep coverage biting down hard on any run action. UM run enough to keep IU in scheme
— Space Coyote (@SpaceCoyoteBDS) November 15, 2015
Most of pass O for UM off hard PA throwing behind 2nd level and between gaps in IU DBs struggling to communicate.
— Space Coyote (@SpaceCoyoteBDS) November 15, 2015
UM tries running base Over/Even nickel and IU consistently runs zone stretch at open 3-tech. Kick DE and cut inside. OGs free release to ILB
— Space Coyote (@SpaceCoyoteBDS) November 15, 2015
2nd half UM tries to scheme ways to keep ILBs cleaner. First is Buck inside. No success. Then put DE in 4i tech inside OT.
— Space Coyote (@SpaceCoyoteBDS) November 15, 2015
IU adjusts to UM front by running pin and pull nonstop for big yards. Game in pretty much nutshell schematically
— Space Coyote (@SpaceCoyoteBDS) November 15, 2015
In conclusion, yeah, the DTs didn't hold up well on the interior, OL was free releasing the LBs, this didn't allow them to flow and crash down and set an anchor, so Michigan was getting creased because the DL/LB weren't working in combination to develop a wall at the LOS. This lead to a lot of reaching and missed arm tackles while being blocked, instead of getting off blocks and then collapsing around the ball carrier.
LBs didn't play well, but the front four didn't help them. Clean releases right at the LBs in the first half, clean pulls in the second half without having to gain any depth. Michigan couldn't set the edge because of that.
As far as those complaining about holding; the best way to combat it is to use your technique and hands to shed those blocks. That's what makes holding obvious and gets calls. When you stay stuck to the blocker and don't use your technique to get off, the OL will have his hands inside and it won't get called. When you put your hands up and complain about holding it won't get called. Finish plays the way you are coached to and it'll start getting called.
November 16th, 2015 at 12:20 PM ^
Thank you to Morgan and Bolden for your sacrifice, your grit, your loyalty. I am not giving up on you yet for the big games ahead.
But I have to also face realtiy---calling all recruitz!!! WANTED: Athletic, speedy, linebackers to play in dominating defense. Jack Tatum types are encouraged to apply.
I don't know if starting Gedeon and Ross is the answer. Coaches will answer that this week, but I doubt changes will occur. We are probably already playing our best guys.
Linebacking problems need athletes. Indiana's lb's looked more athletic that ours. They are tough, but a step slow in many instances.
November 16th, 2015 at 12:27 PM ^
but IU is one of the best offenses UM has played this year. According to FEI rankings, the offenses of teams UM has played rank:
Utah 47
Oregon St 109
UNLV 87
BYU 32
Maryland 84
Northwestern 83
MSU 13
Minnesota 99
Rutgers 69
Indiana 29
BYU was when the defense was healthy, and UM still had Glasgow for MSU. The defensive performance is a concern, but IU has given everyone fits with their offense. Looking ahead PSU's offense is ranked 77 and OSU is 28.
November 16th, 2015 at 12:50 PM ^
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November 16th, 2015 at 12:30 PM ^
...of our linebacker play was Indiana's two-point conversion near the end of regulation. Howard literally jogged in untouched Right Up The Middle...on a two-point conversion attempt! I get it that our NT was getting blocked all game long, but when that lane opens up, a LB is the next man up.... he's supposed to be filling the hole with power and aggression... but ours were nowhere to be found!
November 16th, 2015 at 12:33 PM ^
Probably that unit's worst game of the season. They have two weeks to improve. In more somber news, after listening to Sam on the Recruiting Roundup this morning I don't feel that confident in landing Devin Bush Jr.