Manball analysis: Derrick Green's touchdown
I watched this play probably 12*sqrt(pi) times and was very pleased with the way the offensive line looked one game after the shuffling. Here is a video of Derrick Green's touchdown run against Minnesota and if the line can block this way throughout the rest of the season, the running game is going to improve considerably.
Things to take away from this play:
1. Glascow fires off the ball and cuts the linebacker, preventing him from getting downhill to the ball carrier. That's a pretty tough block for a center.
2. Bryant pulls to the outside and gets a good kickout block on the defensive end. He blasts him 2 yards outside of his gap.
3. Schofield (I think that's who is playing tackle on the left side) down blocks the DT and makes him a non-factor in the play.
4. The outside backer looks to have an outside gap and runs that way, allowing Lewan to seal him from the inside.
EDIT: 5. Kalis makes a nice cut block on the backside tackle that could have made a play.
You could drive a Mac truck (or a Derrick Green) through this hole.
The funny thing is that Kerridge gets a shoutout from our anti-Gardner announcers about giving Green a big hole and he's the only one that whiffs his block.
I know it's just one play but it shows a lot of promise, IMO. Any comments/concerns/other plays to discuss?
/embed below/
EDIT: Is that an acceptable amount of times? You're all ruthless.
October 8th, 2013 at 11:06 AM ^
October 8th, 2013 at 11:09 AM ^
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnc1ejSYcao
Apparently, he used tubechop to hone in on the play of interest.
October 8th, 2013 at 10:26 AM ^
October 8th, 2013 at 10:30 AM ^
I probably just watched it 20 times to figure out the blocking scheme. It's only like 3 seconds long, so that took me a minute.
October 8th, 2013 at 10:39 AM ^
1. Exaggeration.
2. What else am I supposed to do at a slow day at the office besides over-analyze Michigan football?
October 8th, 2013 at 10:44 AM ^
20-50 times is not excessive. The beauty of DVR with the 30-second-back button is that it does not take long. There are so many moving pieces that one probably needs that many viewings to figure out much of what is going on.
I am sure Brian watches key plays 20 times or more for the UFRs.
October 8th, 2013 at 10:51 AM ^
to the blog and you're going to tell him to get a life?
Downvoting can't come back soon enough.
October 8th, 2013 at 1:26 PM ^
A-fucking-men.
I was hoping that the drupal MGoOutage in the wee hours of the morning was Brian finally re-working the site to bring back negbangs and posbangs. Sad panda instead.
October 8th, 2013 at 10:29 AM ^
The line was:
- Lewan
- Schofield
- Bryant
- Glasgow
- Kugler
- Magnuson
- Williams
- Paskorz
It's nice to see Kugler getting some playing time. I didn't realize he had played at all to this point. I wonder how many of the plays with unbalanced lines he was in on.
October 8th, 2013 at 10:33 AM ^
Kalis was RG, not Kugler. easy to see in the endzone celebration
October 8th, 2013 at 12:18 PM ^
October 8th, 2013 at 10:37 AM ^
Not Kugler, but I'm going to take a minute and watch 20 more times to check again.
October 8th, 2013 at 10:38 AM ^
October 8th, 2013 at 10:59 AM ^
I believe Braden was challenging for a Guard spot, not Tackle. Magnusson has been ahead of Braden for the Tackle position - and now that Braden could not get ahead of Glasgow or Bryant for the Guard position - he is clearly not as much a contender for playing time as Magnusson is.
October 8th, 2013 at 11:16 AM ^
Braden is/was destined for tackle. The year at guard was supposed to be about getting the best five on the field. My guess is Braden is physically awesome, but is doing something very wrong from a technique / assignment perspective on a consistent basis.
The coaches really want a Braden, Bryant / Glasgow, Kugler / Glasgow, Kalis, Magnuson line next season. I'm really high on Magnuson now. He was supposed to be a prototype left tackle who was too light to run block effectively out of high school. That he's being put on the field as an extra run blocker tells me he should be a player by next season.
October 8th, 2013 at 10:41 AM ^
Kalis not Kugler. For a minute I was worried a bit - it is not this coaching staff's style to burn redshirts of OL. Even last year when we were really hurting on OL, we preserved every single RS.
Its good to see Magnuson out there. We will need him next year - its good that he seems to be panning out. We need another OT to show up strong and we will be pretty well positioned on the OL for several years to come.
October 8th, 2013 at 10:32 AM ^
My analysis is that the line got him to to the goalline and he powered his way in for another 2 yards against 3 defenders. That's exactly what you want from your running back in this offense.
October 8th, 2013 at 10:33 AM ^
noth withstanding - there was a marked improvement in the line in total. Will be a trend if it stands over the season which I believe it will.
Regarding the Kerridge "whiff". You don't know what you are talking about. He hit his man and if you look his head was to the inside therefore Green should have technically cut inside of that block. Technically Green cut the wrong way off of Joe's block but both paths were good enough at the goal line. Every block doesn't have to be a pancake to be effective.
October 8th, 2013 at 10:44 AM ^
You're right that he should have cut to the other side of Kerridge, but also right that it really didn't matter. Kerridge did enough to get in the way of the defenders and disrupt their path to the ball.
If it had been Fitz taking exactly the same cut as Green, there'd be numerous people here complaining about how he's always making the wrong cut and therefore Green should be the starter.
October 8th, 2013 at 11:04 AM ^
The Mike was flowing down the line, so the only way he doesn't get to the end zone is if he cuts back and gets hit broadside by the Mike. Keep heading downhill, and trust that you can move the pile a foot to get the necessary yardage (he moved the pile 3 yards, FWIW).
October 8th, 2013 at 10:34 AM ^
To forestall the comments about Green getting hit two yards downfield, there were 11 men in the box. This is a 7 yard run on a normal down and distance.
October 8th, 2013 at 11:01 AM ^
to people worried about th 3.2 YPC number. Minnesota stacked the box all game. They had 8 in the box on most snaps, which is one reason Gardner went for almost 14 yards per pass.
October 8th, 2013 at 11:11 AM ^
Same here. There are very, very few major conference teams that can't stop the run with an eight man front. People want to pretend Michigan is an elite NFL team playing against high schoolers.
Michigan wants to play manball on the line while pushing defenses back with vertical threats. That's why Darboh's injury hurt so much. He was the guy who was supposed to force defenses back this season.
October 8th, 2013 at 12:56 PM ^
Well said, but I would go even further to add that ANY team stacking the box is going to slow down the running game of any other team -- that is why DC's stack the box. As you aptly said, that is why vertical threats are so important, even when the QB doesn't complete passes to them, or even throw to them.
I find very few negatives about Hoke & Co. thus far, but continually announcing to anyone listening that Michigan wants to "run the ball" seems odd to me. It's seems to be encouraging opposing DC's to stack the box. I suppose that DG is expected to make them pay for doing so, and seemed to do that versus ND, and again versus the Gophers, but not so much versus Akron and UConn. Maybe after rewatching the ND film, and film on Minn., PSU DC will be less determined to stop MANBALL. We'll see.
October 8th, 2013 at 1:26 PM ^
Opposing coaches are gameplanning based on what they see on film
October 8th, 2013 at 1:59 PM ^
I am aware of what they game plan on, I just think its odd to continually say what you're planning on doing.
October 8th, 2013 at 10:35 AM ^
Nice run by Green, especially to see him keeping his legs pumping through the initial contact. He hasn't done that much so far this year.
October 8th, 2013 at 10:37 AM ^
I was gonna say, If Kalis doesnt cut his DL, that would have been potentially a 2 yard loss. Prolly the most important block of the play or tied with Glasgow
October 8th, 2013 at 10:41 AM ^
Curious to see what will be picture-paged this week.
October 8th, 2013 at 10:48 AM ^
Kerridge forces his guy to sidestep him, cutting off his angle to Green and stopping his forward momentum. Kerridge did exactly what he needed to do. If Kerridge slows to get a more complete block, Green has to cut back.
Agree, though, that the announcer ignores the fact that BOTH Kerridge and Green are running through a gaping hole that didn't appear by magic.
October 8th, 2013 at 10:43 AM ^
I watched this play probably 50 times
You're kidding, right?
October 8th, 2013 at 11:04 AM ^
He's serious. And this fact will trouble me greatly in my sleep tonight. Kinda like the time I watched 127 Hours right before bed time.
October 8th, 2013 at 11:08 AM ^
October 8th, 2013 at 10:57 AM ^
For one this is a terrible scheme by Minnesota. They had both their end and the OLB moving to contain with our power running formation and back. We hit the same hole in which the ROLB vacated. This could have been filled by the LOLB but he was extremely slow getting there. Kerrige gets enough of a block to allow Green to score, but it was really hesitant defense.
Definitely a huge block by Bryant and Lewan skirt tailed his dude to no mans land. The cut blocks were effective enough but against good LBs this play may not have been a TD.
October 8th, 2013 at 10:55 AM ^
Seems like Schofield's block takes away the entire DL that are slanting playside. That is a pretty effective block as the backside of the play turns to muck.
I think you may be discrediting Kerridge a little bit on this play. Sure he doesn't get 100% of the guy, but just knocking him off balance may be the difference between Green bowling through 3 guys, and the linebacker standing him up at the goaline. If I were UFRing this, I wouldn't give him a plus or a minus though.
October 8th, 2013 at 11:04 AM ^
I agree I may be being a bit unfair to Kerridge. The positive is that his block wasn't needed for this touchdown at all.
And Schofield played a good game. Look here:
Not sure what Kalis is doing but Schofield throws him into the backers and says "I got this" and kicks out not one, but two defenders.
October 8th, 2013 at 11:49 AM ^
I will say that watching all the clips makes me wonder if the UFR for offense will beat some sort of record for occurences of the letter "I". This formation above, for example, I believe is the standard "I" formation, and the play which is referenced in the topic header is the so-called "Big I", I think.
October 8th, 2013 at 11:06 AM ^
Kerridge didn't whiff on his block.
The best block on the play was Chris Bryant's. I like that kid.
October 8th, 2013 at 11:20 AM ^
I like Bryant too. But he did struggle most of the game on the stretch play. I had a slight disagreement with Space Coyote awhile back about stepping into a 1 tech in your backside gap on the stretch. I said it was okay to take a step with your backside step on the stretch to slow up that 1 tech and help the center. Byrant didn't help my case because he did this all day and it killed him. But I don't approve on how Byrant does this. I was referring to a quick power step basically up field into the 1 tech's playside shoulder and then move onto the backer. Bryant took some slow lumbering steps into the 1 tech and never got the backer all day. And the first time he actually allowed the 1 tech to slant across his face into the b gap which is a BIG no no. If Bryant is the LG going forward which appears to the be the case I hope they move to more inside zone and not outside zone. But I thought Bryant had a pretty decent day on power and iso.
October 8th, 2013 at 12:22 PM ^
October 8th, 2013 at 2:03 PM ^
I disagree about stepping backside on the zone stretch. I think the offensive guard in that case should take a shorter step playside and use his inside hand to stun the defensive tackle. Allowing playside penetration on the zone stretch is basically suicide, so a guard doesn't have the time to step backside.
I also think inside zone would be more productive with Bryant in the lineup than the zone stretch, which is why I suggested in my game preview that Michigan would largely eschew the stretch play. He's an ideal run blocker for what Coach Hoke says he wants to run, but he would be a poor fit for a team that likes to run zone exclusively.
October 8th, 2013 at 2:20 PM ^
All depends IMO. And to clarify, which I probably didn't do previously, I mean take the step with your backside foot not step backside. So I don't mean take a 45 degree step away from the play. Just a quick veritcal jab step with your backside foot to stop any quick penetration from the 1 tech. Like you said, playside penetration is a killer and the 1 tech can be the one to cause it. But it depends on the guards ability, the center's ability and how much that 1 tech and LB flow scare you. But you, Reader71 and Space Coyote are right I guess when talking about the stretch steps. IZ you can get away without stepping hard to the playside. The whole conversation started about how all 5 lineman had to step playside no matter what. Which I disagree with to a degree. There are exceptions. I have to dig out my Alex Gibbs tapes on inside and outside zone, I know he talks about this. But Bryant did prove why it can be a problem stepping backside.