Why MICHIGANS rush #s were low &

Submitted by Tbone67 on

Good Monday morning to all. I found this article by Nick baumgardner on why MICHIGANS rush numbers were low and why big plays happened VS ucf. I totally agree with his assessment on the game and why Scott Frost was dead wrong saying that they were more physical than us.

 

On the other 41 rushes, Michigan completely dominated UCF across the board -- which is what you'd expect in a game like this. UCF didn't push Michigan around. Frost was wrong. Here's the link: http://www.mlive.com/wolverines/index.ssf/2016/09/analysis_looking_at_w…
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ShruteBeetFarms

September 12th, 2016 at 9:10 AM ^

We're competent enough to go air raid if the opposing team wants to stack the box. This offense is going to be tough for a DC to prepare for. I think it's a pick your poison type thing.

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Everyone Murders

September 12th, 2016 at 10:00 AM ^

Frost's Gameplan - Operation Hit Harder:

 

Paper.  Paper.  Paper.

Paper.  Paper.  Paper.

Paper.  Paper.  Paper.

Paper.  Paper.  Paper.

Defend extra point attempt.

/ kickoff return, 3 and out /

 

Paper.  Paper.  Paper.

Paper.  Paper.  Paper.

Paper.  Paper.  Paper.

Paper.  Paper.  Paper.

Defend extra point attempt.

/ kickoff return, 3 and out /

Lather - Rinse - Repeat

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MadMatt

September 12th, 2016 at 12:00 PM ^

UCF did what you do when you're a 30+ point underdog, and you know you have no chance of holding the other team under 20 points, and you decide that by God we're going to take away one thing from their offense.  UCF "outhit" Michigan because that was their primary objective.

When you are OSU, MSU or Iowa, and you are actually trying to win the game, you are going to come out of 0 coverage after the first, or at most the second, long TD against single coverage.

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trueblueintexas

September 12th, 2016 at 2:26 PM ^

Never thought I would say this, buuuuuuuuuut, Gerry DiNardo made an interesting comment about the Minnesota game this weekend. They asked why Minnesota was still throwing the ball in the second half up 30 against Indiana State. DiNardo said that you have to use these cupcake games to work on things you will need to do later in the year. In Minnesota's case, they wanted to keep working on their passing game because some team down the road will be able to stop their running game. 

I wonder if Harbaugh was just as happy to keep working on the play action/passing game because UCF kept selling out against Michigan. Yes, Michigan could have beat their head against the wall running the ball in the second half, or they could have worked on things which are better done against opponents than yourself.

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Rickett88

September 12th, 2016 at 9:11 AM ^

I was beginning to believe that Frost was right... I'm glad this set the record straight.

Also... It has been brought up before, but why the hell are we sooooooo obsessed with this guy. I know the reasons behind it, but this has consumed the board for over a week now. We won, lets move along.

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Bo Glue

September 12th, 2016 at 9:15 AM ^

To see them try to push around the eight man fronts a little more. Nine (or eleven) in the box...that's just dumb. But if we're going to establish a running game against the big boys, we should be able to "impose our will" on UCF even if they do stack the box. I liked last week that they didn't get scared off when a few runs yielded little. This week, we had a few drives that didn't seem to have a single carry.

And yet, In Harbaugh We Trust.

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Waveman

September 12th, 2016 at 9:21 AM ^

You need to block every defensive player for a basic run to work. You can scheme to get the defenders in the wrong gap, but I'm perfectly happy not putting those plays on film against a horrible, no good team. It's not about "imposing your will", it's about math. 6 people can't block 8 people. So you throw over the top.... Which we did... And scored 51.
If you want to be specific and say that you wish our TEs didn't biff so many blocks, I'll agree with you. But the "we should be able to push them around more even if their whole team focuses solely on the run" stuff is just unsupported by the way the game actually works.

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ijohnb

September 12th, 2016 at 9:59 AM ^

were crowding the line but we need to run the ball better than that.  We really didn't run the ball inside that well against Hawaii either and got most of our yardage outside on sweeps etc.  I am not saying that is should be perceived as a big problem yet but I think the O-line needs to get some good push against Colorado.  Speight is still really inexperieced and we need to establish a run game at this point.  I think we would have run the ball better if they had dropped a few guys but I still did not see us really getting any push at the LOS.

I think Frost is just really trying to prop his guys up.  They have a lot of season to play and you could tell before and at the beginning of the game they thought they were going to give us a game.  Not so much.

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True Blue Grit

September 12th, 2016 at 11:29 AM ^

Smith and Isaac did a better job finding creases to run through vs. running right into defenders or the backs of o-linemen.  Evans seems to be better than they are at finding even small gaps.  Yes, the offensive line could definitely do better.  But, I think they are creating some holes which we're just not doing a great job running through - at least yet.  

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ijohnb

September 12th, 2016 at 12:11 PM ^

just don't get why everybody is so intensely unable to just say that.  We basically got stuffed at the line.  It is a thing that happened.  It may have been little more than boredome.  We were playing two teams back to back that had no shot at being competitive and there may have been a little complacency.  But we didn't run the ball well and need to improve on that.

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gbdub

September 12th, 2016 at 10:05 AM ^

The issue wasn't the o-line though, it was the blocky-catchy guys doing not so much blocky. Which means that it really was the defensive scheme doing most of the work, and that scheme left the passing game wide open for chunk plays. Against a "balanced" defense it would have looked like we were "imposing our will" b



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M-Dog

September 12th, 2016 at 10:57 AM ^

. . . we should be able to "impose our will" on XXX even if they do stack the box.

That's what got Borges and eventually his head coach fired.

UCF is in the middle of Florida.  They got a lot of transfers from top programs in the southeast.  They had some athletes on that defense.  You were not going to just run over them like they were a DII program.

Harbaugh is accused of being very egotistical, but in-game he's not at all.  He's willing to go with what works, even if "what works" is more his opponent's idea than his. 

Harbaugh's is a very smart coaching staff.

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tjl7386

September 12th, 2016 at 9:12 AM ^

That is what I was thinking the whole game. UCF was clearly selling out on almost every defensive play against run plays leaving their secondary in man coverage which is why we struggled to get much in terms of YPC. 

Just goes to show how much more of a well rounded team we are now. Teams can't stack the defense against us to our percieved weakness because we can now beat them both ways. (Pass and Run)

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PopeLando

September 12th, 2016 at 11:42 AM ^

During the game, I missed it, and after rewatching the game I now have some mea culpa-ing to do. Upon rewatch: the OL did do well. Braden did not do well. Jake Butt had a rough game blocking. Speight had an awesome game in terms of pocket awareness. All previous doom and gloom is hereby rescinded, except for Braden.

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MinorRage

September 12th, 2016 at 9:15 AM ^

I think in a normal game, teams are going to have a very hard time dealing with this offense. Michigan seemed to get very vanilla where the rare jet sweep had a lot of room. I think if this were a normal game Michigan could have used more of those, and potentially a reverse or two and more screens to really open things up. 

However, it was clear that UCF was dead set on stopping the run no matter what. Nice to see that our coaches aren't going to bash their heads against a wall (27 for 27!?), and go with what works. I think between Chesson, Darboh and Butt there are going to be some openings in the passing game.

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kawter

September 12th, 2016 at 9:25 AM ^

Great article.

On defense.. I honestly think you are going to have to take a few of these busted plays per game.

You can't crash the boards all the time and be surprised that they won a couple or more overpursuits and mismatches..

The bet is on average the suffocation of the pressure and aggressive nature of this defense outweighed the 1-5 busted plays.




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BayWolves

September 12th, 2016 at 9:22 AM ^

Excellent article. That is really helpful in understanding why the running game struggled and why we don't need to panic. It is hard to diagnose a game in progress on television so an analysis like this fills in many gaps.

Joined: 06/21/2011

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The Mad Hatter

September 12th, 2016 at 9:32 AM ^

3 yards and a cloud of dust football, it is comforting to know Speight can air it out as well.  If we have to beat some teams through the air instead of on the ground, that's totally fine with me.  It'll be fun to watch.

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Saint_in_Blue

September 12th, 2016 at 9:33 AM ^

Against a team like UCF, Michigan should still be able to churn out yards against 8-9 man boxes. I'm not talking about 8 yard per carry, but something closer to 5. There were a lot of missed assignments as well. Defensively I'm concerned about the QBs rushing yards more than the RBs. That little RB for UCF was fast. But the QBs scrambling and getting 30-40 yards is worrisome. Most QBs in the B1G aren't that athletic, but JT Barrett is going to have a field day if not fixed by then.

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Vote_Crisler_1937

September 12th, 2016 at 9:59 AM ^

That 2.9 number includes sacks and the dropped punt loss. So Michigan ran for about the same ypc as Bama and Clemson against 8-9 in the box.

So you are saying "if they executed better than any college team has, then theoretically they could get 5 ypc even though we have no data to verify that has happened before." What am I missing?



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ijohnb

September 12th, 2016 at 10:10 AM ^

The O-line did not look partcularly engaged to me.  It is not a popular take but I thought it was a bit of a concern.  It also surprised me that we were unable to sustain clock killing drives in the second half.  The defense was on the field way too much of that half.   It kind of started to get awkward in the third because we were not going to lose but could not get a first down.  Are these "nit-picky" things?  A little bit, but if national championship is the goal than I think they are nits that need to be picked.

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