What UFR content are you most interested in reading?

Submitted by Opinion25 on

For me, I want to hear about two things that I think are important for how much the offense can improve this year.

1. We know that Ulizio (RT) got beat badly a couple of times, but how did he do otherwise? Did he look over-matched like JBB did last year at LT or does Brian see promise in his overall performance?

2. How did the TEs do in run blocking? I have confidence that we have good TE receivers, but JH is a magician with TEs who are the complete package.

What do others want to hear about?

Hail_Yes

September 4th, 2017 at 12:35 PM ^

I'm a Speight defender and I don't think there's going to be much Brian can do to help Speight's case in this game.  He threw a couple great passes and was clearly more comfortable running the offense than O'Korn, but two pick-sixes, a good amount of overthrows, and an 11-25 performance is tough to defend.  Call it knocking the rust off if you'd like, it was still a poor performance.

MotownGoBlue

September 4th, 2017 at 4:39 PM ^

1 high, dropped pass. 1 breadbasket scoop, fell out in triple coverage (along with the called PI). 1 long wait for Tarik to be standing in the end zone.

12 bad passes.

10 good throws probably won't win them all.

Speight should be further along unless this is it for him. But, damn near all new targets, first game, solid opposing defense, away, revamped OLine...I can give him some leeway.

Here's to the defense and hungry RBs.

xcrunner1617

September 4th, 2017 at 12:50 PM ^

I don't think that is the issue. Fans are not looking for a Tom Brady level of performance out of him. They want a QB that can manage the offense and avoid turnovers so that the defense can potentially give us a chance to win the Big Ten.  The game against Florida did nothing but provide more data that he might not be up to that task. 

jabberwock

September 4th, 2017 at 3:43 PM ^

I think many people (including me) were hoping for at the very least, an above average game-manager performance out of Sp8 for 2017.  I'm pretty sure thats what Harbaugh tends to look for as well since he's always talking about minimizing the mistakes.

Sp8 doesn't have a rocket arm, so we have to rely on his wits (very good) mobility (above average taking sctrambling/pocket escapability into account).

So far the end of 2016 and the begining of 2017 Sp8 has been both money, and ridiculously inaccurate.  He's week to week performance has become sort of a wild card and it's that unpredictability that is so frustrating.

TrueBlue2003

September 4th, 2017 at 5:35 PM ^

Whatever "game manager" means (because no one is going to never make a bad throw or decision), Speight certainly makes good decisions almost all of the time.  Neither of his picks in this one was a bad decision, and only one was a capital 'B' Bad throw.

So he "managed" to shake that off and lead the team to a 23-0 second half and let his running game and defense get the win.  Yes, he left some more points on the table but the overthrows were long and out of bounds in a way that they were, perhaps, too conservative, too game mananger, if anything.

He's not laser accurate and doesn't have a rocket arm, but he has an adequate arm and accurancy, and is a very savvy, smart, surprisingly elusive QB.  We'll be fine.

Michigan Arrogance

September 4th, 2017 at 12:47 PM ^

no, but I expect there to be 2-3 incompletions that are marked CA but dropped by the WR and 2-3 TA that were good decisions.

that's 4-6 incompleted passes that will chart better than they did in the aggregate stats, i.e., 11-25 = 42%

He had 2-3 AWFUL throws that ended up being the worst possible outcome that I think are clouding his overall performance a bit. Brian will let him have it on those 2-3 throws, but IMO the other 22-23 throws will chart average-to-good.

xcrunner1617

September 4th, 2017 at 12:56 PM ^

I don't think that is right. He had what,4 to 5 passes that were thrown to Taco Pants? Another 2 to 4 that were thown out of bounds so the receiver had no chance to make a play. Took a couple of sacks instead of checking down to a wide open Evans in space. I mean the first touchdown ended up with 6 points, but there is no reason that the safety should have had a chance to make contact with Black and knock the ball out. 

Yeah there were a couple of drops, but even the drops weren't passes that would get a DO. He struggled, but he is still our best QB. He just can't continue this trend of performances against any defense that is good to above average. 

EGD

September 4th, 2017 at 3:07 PM ^

He had at least two INX plays (the second pick 6, and the Crawford oh noes miss), and probably a few more that will be marked IN or MA. But he had a few DOs (the long completions to Perry & Eubanks, in particular) and definitely no BRXs. I'd guess his DSR will be in the low 60s--low and well off his own average, but not off-the-charts bad.

turtleboy

September 4th, 2017 at 12:54 PM ^

I wouldn't hold your breath waiting for Brian to heap praises on Speights performance in this game. Even the Florida writers say the game could've easily been 60-3 except for his erratic passing.

Personally I was surprised to see him missing so many, I know the turf was making it tough on a couple guys. Their qb just flat out fell down twice, our RB slipped going for the endzone, it could've been messing with his footwork some. I gotta believe the game was an outlier, mostly so I can pretend Iowa didn't happen last year.

the1grimace

September 4th, 2017 at 12:20 PM ^

I analyzed Ulizio every play and took notes. You can find my post on /r/michiganwolverines. I tried to post it here, but was caught in the spam filter. If someone wants to copy paste it over here, it won't hurt my feelings.

I also did the same thing for Gary: 

 

Some quick obervations: 

Gary was doubleteamed 6 times. Twice he had no opportunity to make a play due to it being run away from him or it being a quick pass. Twice he was blown off the ball by the double. And twice he pushed the doubleteam into the backfield.

Florida did not really have anyone chipping him all game. I only saw it once.

Florida only did 13 designed runs while Gary was in the game. 3 were toward Gary's side, 4 were away, and 3 were inside. They ran 3 read option plays. Gary was the read man twice and played with proper technique both times. He made the play one time and was juked by Zaire the other time. That data does not indicate that Florida was purposely running away from Gary's side of the field.

Gary lined up on the strong side of the field (by my own analysis, I don't know how Michigan defines strong side) 25 plays. He lined up on the weak side for 15 plays. They are obviously trying to avoid being predictable with their alignments.

Gary sat out only 9 plays before garbage time. I wasn't specifically watching for Winovich, but I don't ever remember seeing him be taken out.

My conclusion? He played fine. He was not the weapon of mass destruction that many people who watched the game claimed he was, but he was a productive role player who did his job and contributed to the win.

If you are interested in seeing my play by play notes, let me know. I would be happy to post them. I also did this same thing for Ulizio. If you would like my breakdown on him as well, also let me know.

Edit: Also, Jim was right when he complained that the clock was wrong when Michigan received a delay of game call. There were only 29 seconds between the end of the previous play and the clock hitting zero.

Squash34

September 4th, 2017 at 12:58 PM ^

I knew watching it live that the play clock was not reset before that delay. They were not moving slow and barely got to the line before the whistle.
For some reason I can't find your write-up, can you give a brief overview of what you found with Ulizio?

the1grimace

September 4th, 2017 at 1:18 PM ^

I'm at work, so I can't copy/paste my Reddit post, but I'll summarize my summary without my data (because it's not in front of me).

It start off very poorly. He was asked to man up on their DE's regularly and was generally on the losing end. About halfway through the second quarter they started doubleteaming with him a lot more. This helped a lot, but obviously tied two men up.

I was disappointed with how he blocked downfield. He got to the second level a few times, but never really buried any linebackers like I would have liked to see.

Overall, it was a disappointing performance.

 

The Man Down T…

September 4th, 2017 at 12:20 PM ^

becuase bambi vs Godzilla is my favorite story.  :)   Plus Speight's performance.  It looked really bad in some areas but he did hit some really good throws.  Looking forward to seeing that analysis.  

TrueBlue2003

September 4th, 2017 at 5:52 PM ^

and his performance so very interested in the metrics, and I don't know how many snaps he got, but I thought Lawrence Marshall did a nice job spelling Hurst. I'm curious to see how he did.

If Marshall's a viable DT, and we play a lot of 3-3-5, we all of a sudden have so much depth at DT that there isn't enough snaps to go around/you think about possibly redshirting Solomon.  This all makes the Hudson move to OT a lot more understandable.

CarrIsMyHomeboy

September 4th, 2017 at 12:20 PM ^

I'm eager to read him effusively brag on the defense.

I also want to see more commentary about the 3-man line. Did we ever show 4? And is that more UF-centric or is it really 2017-generalizable?

Squash34

September 4th, 2017 at 12:43 PM ^

They showed 4 man lines early. But not sure I saw it after the first series.
I think we will see if throughout the year. I watch a few of bc games while he was there, especially after Brown's defense was consistently shooting down teams but losing 3-0 or 7-3 which fascinated me. Anyways, he used the 3-3 front alot, to the point that I was a little surprised he did not run it more last year.
Moving forward, I think it will be more interesting to see what personnel he uses in that set. Will he ever use Mone at nose? Will we see situation where Hudson stays at backer and he brings in another db? Or will it mostly be a linebacker sized person and Hudson at the "pup" position (which I believe is the terminology brown uses for what Hudson was playing in the 3-3 sets)?
I think we will see a little bit of all 3 in the 3-3 stack this year depending on the team they face and how well the younger DBs continue to play.

Squash34

September 4th, 2017 at 12:28 PM ^

I can't really think of one area that I'm looking most forward to see in the UFRs. However, I think we will find ulizio improved as the game went on. Overall, I think he had a pretty good game if you consider it was his first playing time and against some of the better ends he will see this year.