purdue

Death!

DEATH.

Yes, yes. Death.

DEATH?

Death.

This is pretty much what I expected this week, except the "pressure" numbers are a little higher than I anticipated.

Are we dealing with morons here?

I don't think so. The defensive staff consists of four guys:

• Bruce Tall and Tony Gibson are WVU importees.
• Jay Hopson was a mediocre at best DC for Southern Miss
• Scott Shafer was DC at NIU, WMU, and Stanford.

Okay, so the main problems this year are the linebackers and the secondary. The sorry state of the linebacking is no surprise given the talent available, and it's not like Carr's staff didn't know about the coming void. See: recruitment of JUCO Austin Panter. I've also heard rumblings that Steve Szabo was very down on the talent level of the guys remaining after Crable's departure. So the jury remains out on Hopson.

The secondary, though, returns approximately three starters, one of them an uber-recruit and the other two seniors with entering their third years of significant playing time. Their implosion seems inexplicable.

Is Gibson completely inept or something? He was one of the two guys who made an appearance with Rodriguez at his first Michigan press conference (Magee was the other) and therefore is subject to accusations of Debordian cronyism from the skeptical; he and Rodriguez have been joined at the hip for a long time. West Virginia fans were mostly glad to be rid of him.

Okay, but:

• Last year West Virginia was #28 in pass efficiency D and #11 in overall passing D.
• Transfer Ryan Mundy went from Yards After Mundy machine at Michigan to a very functional safety and NFL draftee at West Virginia.

So, like, WTF? There's at least some evidence that Gibson is pretty decent. And he is working with talent.

You said those guys were coached to do what they were doing.

Yeah, they were. You could see it in the consistency of their actions: line up inside the receiver, face the quarterback, run downfield, give up easy hitch completions. That seems like a tactical decision, which would place it squarely on the shoulders of Shafer.

And, I have to say, that defense made no sense. Throwing wide open ten yard outs is pretty easy and Michigan was set up to offer them wide open ten yard outs.

So…

I think any conclusion that ends with "…because this guy is a moron" is probably wrong, but there's something deeply disturbing about how nonsensical Michigan's defense was. Miscommunication between staff members, fear of the deep ball overriding all things, conflict between guys with different ideas, raw inexperience with the 3-3-5… all these things could have led to a situation where the D is incoherent.

I think there's a pretty good chance things get straightened out with another year to mesh, but the initial foray into working together did not go well.

Goats?

Whoever decided to have the corners run those coverages. And anyone in the secondary.

Heroes?

Brandon Graham.

What does it mean for 2009?

Uh, yikes. I guess the continued good play from Mouton is encouraging. Cissoko continues to get time and he's making major errors, but at least he's getting time. Other than that, there's no much on the field going on that's changed.

As far as the coaches go: Michigan is going to finish with horrendous numbers defensively, then they're going to lose at least seven starters, maybe more if Graham leaves. A significant step forward from the defense in 2009 will look like progress and things will be okay; that shouldn't be too hard when you're 90th in total defense and 96th in scoring D.

However, if things are rough again next year Shafer will look like an immensely tempting fall guy, won't he?

I didn't even feel tempted to put offense in sarcastic quote marks!

Woo 42 points what hey!

I don't know, man.

What? 42 points what hey.

Well, actually 35, and that's not shabby by any means, but that last one was a gift provided by one dumb Purdue defensive lineman and one bad pass interference call and I'm not sure they can keep up the pace of big plays. Plus, Michigan finally got some good kick returns and had favorable field position much of the day.

Man, you're a downer.

Well, check out the…

Chart?

Chart.

As always, the Threetsheridammit chart legend.

STEVEN THREET

That is freakin' terrible, man. When IN = CA everything = DEATH. I really hope Threet's elbow is suppurating. Hope it's all green and oozing and revolting to look at. Because if he's totally healthy he's going in the wrong direction.

One caveat: I noticed a number of routes that seemed weird or wrong and some of Threet's issues probably have to do with a wide array of receivers, all of whom save the gimpy Greg Mathews are seeing their first extensive playing time.

Still, I'm losing faith in the ability of Threet to be a long term solution; if you asked me now who would be the starter in 2009 I would give the tentative nod to Tate Forcier.

Anyway, this is not a recipe for long term success against teams that aren't 2-6. Michigan's long drives contained almost no downfield passing, and with rare exceptions, didn't use the quarterback as a runner.

But MINOR RAGE was pretty good, eh?

Yeah, actually; as you saw this morning Michigan macheted its way to a productive day on the ground. I particularly like that new wrinkles keep getting added as the offense gains experience. This week we saw Mark Moundros shoot into the backside DE several times, which picked up good yardage every attempt but the last. There were also a few gap-blocked plays dressed up as zone stretches.

Ferrara did all right, I guess, and since McAvoy isn't going to be around when the team ceases operating at a level of suck I'd prefer to see him in the rest of the year. McAvoy is clearly Frey's least favorite starter—he's been replaced like four times now—and there's not much point in running him out there if you have younger, higher-potential options.

There's still the issue of whether Michigan can sustain this performance against teams better than Purdue (or… uh… Penn State?); I'd like to see the run game function for two consecutive games before I start raining praise on it.

One thing I noticed was Purdue putting a linebacker safety type over Odoms to cut down on the screens and whatever and then also leaving two safeties back. When you can man up on the outside and keep a cover-two, you've only got six guys in the box, and that had something to do with Michigan's success on the ground. Against teams more inclined to stack the box I expect they'll continue to struggle.

What about the other…?

Oh, yeah. PROTECTION METRIC: 20/25, Schilling –2, Ortmann –2, Team –1.

That might be generous, as I was handing out 1/1 and 2/2 on a lot of passes that were three-step drops. I am leery of both tackles these days, BTW, and wouldn't be surprised to see some sort of reconfiguration that sees Schilling slide inside to guard next year. At least they'll have some options other than "you appear to be healthy and were not a defensive tackle two weeks ago."

Receivers:

(remember: 0 is uncatchable, 1 is a circus catch, 2 is a somewhat difficult one, and 3 is a routine one)

Mostly fine, with no routine drops. Not many opportunities.

Heroes?

Minor was excellent, running through tackles and fighting for yards. Odoms' contributions were mostly on special teams but deserve mention; I thought the interior line had a good day opening up the holes for Minor.

Goats?

Threet, man, was pretty ugly.

What does it mean for 2009?

If Ferrara can emerge into a potential contributor next year that gives the line another option, and at this point they need all the options they can get.

Minor will be the starting running back next year unless he cruising Ann Arbor with Carlos Brown, seeking out black cats and walking under ladders and breaking mirrors.

Threet increasingly looks like a guy who will struggle to keep his job next year.

Odoms!

DIED, by balloon-puncturing quote after a short period of general crotchetiness and incomprehensibility: "Wizard Hat and Snake Oil," meme, aged approximately two months.

Roy Roundtree in the Dayton Daily News:

"You know what?" Roundtree said. "It was my decision."

The Columbus Dispatch:

Last December, Melvin Fellows orally committed to play football for Illinois, declared his decision final and said, "This is the end of the process for me."

According to a vague, unwritten Big Ten code of conduct, at that point Fellows was off limits to other league coaches. That's how it is supposed to work, at least -- once a kid commits, back off.

Far from backing off, though, Ohio State came after him hard. Just weeks after his Illinois commitment, the Buckeyes offered Fellows a scholarship. And on Saturday, the big defensive end from Garfield Heights will stand on the Ohio Stadium sidelines, watching the Buckeyes' spring game instead of the Illini's game, as he had originally planned.

Dayton, again:

"Almost all the schools still recruited me after I committed," Moore said. "If I didn't call them back, most of them stopped eventually. Some coaches started recruiting me a lot harder, like Tennessee, Miami and Duke. Sometimes you think, 'Why even commit?' "

Which, like... of course. Roy Roundtree is perfectly capable of making sound decisions like "not going to Purdue." He has free will. Every coach in the Big Ten has, at one time or another, attempted to poach some other Big Ten school's "commitment." And with commitments coming earlier and earlier the decommitment becomes more prominent: over 600 last year. Rodriguez's recruiting practices are unremarkable.

Varsity Blue:

Roy Roundtree didn't switch from Purdue because Rich Rodriguez pulled some sort of trick move, he did it because he wanted to. Forcing him to stick to his Purdue commitment would have helped out Purdue somewhat, but at the expense of the kid, whose welfare is far more important in the grand scheme of things than that of a couple million-dollar sports programs.

Aaaand we're done here.

Brian (or whoever reads this email),

My name is Josh and I was one of the OSU students up in section 47 and the one who actually started the chant. Indeed, we were chanting Tres-sel and had no idea that what we were saying would be misheard as ass-hole. Only later when an employee, not an usher, came running up the steps to our section did we realize what had happened. He asked us what we chanted because they all thought we were chanting ass-hole on the court. Frankly, we were shocked. We quickly apologized and said we chanting Tres-sel and made it clear that we would never chant ass-hole.

We can't speak for other Ohio State fans just as you can't speak for other Michigan fans, but I would like to assure you that we would never dishonor Mr. Rodriguez or any other staff/faculty/student with that type of a chant (though some of the commenters on the article would not be quick to believe).

I hope you can understand that we were only trying to rekindle the spirit of our Rivalry, the best in college sports, not to trash talk your new coach. We hope that Mr. Rodriguez can throw more fire into the Rivalry and make our future games more enjoyable for both sides. Trust me, while a victory over you guys in football is awesome, the dominance that Tressel has had these past couple of years has really taken the edge off the Rivalry. I think my favorite game, as a Senior at OSU, was the game two years ago in the Big House. Our Rivalry needs more games like that. I am sick and tired of hearing how the SEC has better rivalry games than we do, and we are glad at least you were able to take care of an SEC team in your postseason, while of late we have been less than stellar...but we are improving.

On a funny side note, we had ushers up in the section threatening to throw us out. Obviously we weren't and we weren't jeering them. But they did say that you guys don't do anything like that at our stadium, which we were quick to remind him that there are students/fans that do worse to us. But, we never swore at them or did anything to offend them except remind them of our rights to free speech.

To conclude, I hope that this email clears up the confusion of what happened at the game yesterday, and so you at least know that there are indeed classy Buckeye fans that do want our Rivalry to be the best it has ever been. Congratulations for winning yesterday and we look forward to seeing you guys in the Big Ten Tournament and at the Shoe next year. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to email me back. I've always believed that we can be rivals on the field but work together off the field to better one another.

Go Bucks........and *cringe* Go Blue

Josh Friedman

I've gotten a couple other emails to this effect, though none quite so restrained, and must conclude that they're telling the truth and that they weren't chanting "asshole," for what that's worth. It's still rude to scream throughout someone's speech and the idea that the rivalry needs to be "rekindled" a year after a #1-#2 game is pretty laughable. I wouldn't have attempted to compare Michigan fans' dastardly tendency to invade Columbus and get harassed and physically threatened with their actions, either. But FWIW.

On the topic of Vijay's nonbinding LOI idea:

I see one problem with the NBLOI idea you discussed - Roundtree would still be at Purdue. It sounds like he never would have left unless he had known Michigan was interested. He couldn't have learned that under an NBLOI, because Rod couldn't talk to him.

Response?

Jason

Maybe, maybe not. In our hypothetical world where the NBLOI is an option, it's just an option. Roundtree might have "committed" to Purdue without signing the NBLOI. And even if he had, Michigan could communicate their interest through Roundtree's coach, and at that point Roundtree could ask for the NBLOI to be rescindent. Joe Tiller would then get to offer that Ball State kid.

If that sounds like it kind of defeats the purpose of the NBLOI... well, sort of. There still couldn't be direct contact if the player had signed and the kid couldn't go on a campus visit. Someone like Michael Shaw would either have not signed in the first place or signed, then repealed his NBLOI; either would be a clear signal to Penn State that Shaw's "commitment" was not particularly strong. Despite the tussle with BSD after Signing Day, I do sympathize Penn State and Purdue's positions here, especially Purdue's. (Penn State should have seen the Shaw thing coming, and indeed most PSU fans were fretting about a potential defection for a couple weeks before it actually happened; the Roundtree thing was much more sudden.) The NBLOI and the mechanisms would put some actual teeth behind the idea of a "commitment," would save coaches and players time, annoyance, and effort, and would create even more jobs in the ever-expanding NCAA bureaucracy. Everyone wins.

Hearing rumors about a damaging article that he [Carty and the AANews] is about to publish about athletic department violations...any comments on this?

Dan

I haven't heard anything specific that hasn't been batted around on message boards, but there's enough independent smoke out there that, yes, there's something nasty coming down the pipe from the Ann Arbor News. There appear to be two camps of panickers:

• Aieeee! Florida State!
• This is going to be embarrassing, but that's all.

I don't know which side to believe but lean towards the latter out of simple disbelief that anyone in the Michigan program would have the sort of underhanded dealings that the FSU people did.

If I had to guess, I would say that the big reveal is going to be something like the recent USC and Auburn quasi-scandals where kids finagled their way into easy classes and/or abused "independent study" with cooperative professors without the cooperation of the athletic department. In the Auburn case they had someone rat out a professor whose independent "study" classes were wholly fictional; here I've heard different versions of the severity involved. One skeptical take from a message board I frequent that jives with other things I've heard:

The gist of it is that Carty's jihad against the general studies program has led nowhere. It's a real program with lots of non-athletes (as well as athletes) in it. But lots and lots of FOIA requests led to something that is somewhat troubling (although not out of compliance).

It turns out that a bunch of athletes have enrolled in independent study courses over the summer. These are legitimate courses, but arranged one-on-one with faculty members. Turns out there were a bunch of them in Psychology and the Ed School over the past few years, many supervised by just a few faculty.

It appears that the work was actually done, and non-athletes did similar work. But it's not too difficult to portray this as a scandal, which it appears that Mr. Disingenuous is trying very hard to do. Not making a lot of progress, but this will be the basis of his bid for immortality and a ticket to a real newspaper.

Remember, there do not appear to be violations here. It's not an Auburn situation where kids got grades for no work.

If all they've got is "isn't it suspicious, hmmmmmmmm" but the kids have actually done the work required of them this will be a big dud, albeit an irritating one that will work its way into the "scUM" lore of PSU, MSU, OSU, and ND message boards.

There is the separate question "should athletes be taking independent study classes en masse," the answer to which is definitely "no." But that's life when you have players spending something like 40 hours a week year-round on their chosen sport.

We own spread offenses!

If it's Purdue's, yes. I wish I had stuck to my guns in the preview; after saying we would hold down the Boilers in last week's defensive UFR I backed off and predicted 27 points. As it turned out that was close to right, but only by the letter of the law, not the spirit.

How did we do so badly against our first two opponents and then crush Purdue?

Purdue can't run well even normally; in this game they were missing starting RB Jaycen Taylor, benched Korey Sheets for fumbling all the time, brought him in for about two carries, one of which he fumbled, and benched him again. The leftovers were true freshman Dan Dierking (he's white! Think Sam McGuffie without the hurdling, yards, and touchdowns) and some bowling-ball type named Halliburton. Michigan has always played
boa constrictor against one-dimensional offenses, and this was one.

But there are obvious improvements: Taylor and Johnson were much more effective in this game than they were against Appalachian State; this is unlikely to be an effect of playing against weaker competition, no offense to the Apps. Brandon Graham has returned from injury/suspension to become the best player on the defense. Englemon is good, Sears is gone, and the coverage is improving. They are getting better; this is not a mirage.

Does Shawn Crable have to give up contain on the zone read twice a game? I mean, is it in a contract or something? My theory is this: Jim Tressel kidnapped him and wouldn't let him go unless he promised to never, ever make sure if the quarterback has the ball before motoring after the running back.

Uh. My theory is that Michigan defensive ends might be coached to do this. Adam Patterson did it on the last drive I charted, too. That seems crazy, and Crable has kept contain a couple times, but it would seem to be the easiest thing in the world to get down: "if you are unblocked on the backside of a shotgun running play, check to see if the QB has the ball before freaking out and collapsing." And yet. The only two touchdowns the Michigan first string have given up in the past two weeks have come off of QB keepers that Crable freaked out about and lost contain on.

Suggestion for Illinois: STOP IT STOP IT STOP IT STOP IT STOP IT.

I mean, look at the--

Chart?

Chart.

Crable is the only guy in the front seven -- though we play a base nickel these days we rotate four guys on the DL -- to have a non-positive score and the only DL to have a non wildly positive score, mostly because he lost three points on this contain stuff. Go figure.

The rest of it: the defensive line crushed a fairly veteran and supposedly pretty good Purdue OL; the linebackers were a positive, too. And while the secondary took a step back from the past couple weeks that may have been a tactical decision. Aside from the Lymon bomb, a Keller flag and that disappointing third and eighteen conversion, anything Purdue wanted was in the Jimmah Clausen wheelhouse: four yards downfield. Given Painter's inaccuracy and the lack of a Purdue run game, Michigan could play off, cut off the big play, and wait for the Boilers to screw up or a defensive lineman to tear Painter's head off. This is the kind of team bend-but-don't-break works on: a crappy one.

Heroes?

Purdue's left tackle is still looking for Brandon Graham. The rest of the DL, save Crable, also goes here. They were unstoppable.

Goats?

No one was outright bad today; even Chris Graham hopped above 0.

What does it mean for Illinois?

To reiterate the above: for the love of God, Crable/whoever, maintain contain on the quarterback.

Past that, Iowa shut Illinois down by sitting in their base 4-3, playing zone, and getting excellent contributions from the cornerbacks against the option. Result: 6 points for the Illini. We seem married to this nickel against the spread and will probably not mimic that style of play exactly but I would expect something similar: bend, don't break, get Illinois in long yardage situations, and get them off the field. I would rather keep two safeties deep and play the corners tight with an eye on defending the option than bring up another guy in the box and play soft.

Video clip problems? Try VLC.

d>Run

FINALLY.

Yeah, no kidding.

Rock rock rock rock?

Much less so. First down breakdown:

• 11 passes for 151 yards.
• 20 runs for 108 yards.

It was a more balanced than that early; once the second half rolled around Michigan was heavily run-biased. Also, Henne mentioned a couple of incorrect checks early when he would see an opportunity for a run and Purdue would check into an eight-man front late. All told, this was the most balanced and aggressive gameplan of the year.

Purdue had Michigan's attention and the playcalling reflected that. I hope the staff won't curl up in a ball, figuring that a road night game against a team with a potentially crappy offense is a good time to call the Avalanche, especially given what appears to be a serious weakness in the secondary.

This, of course, is the occasionally frustrating part of the DeBord oeuvre: when there is a near 50-50 mix of run pass and Michigan is truly taking what the defense gives them, things like 48 points happen and things like the chart below happen and everything is very nice and it's like "finally, they will learn" and then they totally don't. Sometimes stuff like the Henne fumble happens, but the rewards are, in many situations, worth the risks.

I would also like to note something for the "possess the ball" freaks out there: Michigan didn't actually do a good job of possessing the ball, many times scoring quickly on a long completion or via the help of a long completion, other times picking up a single first down and then punting. The turnovers distorted this a bit, but Michigan had a whopping nine first-half possessions, which is as many as they had in the entire Eastern Michigan game. Purdue's style of offense helped Michigan out immensely by failing and failing quickly, allowing Michigan to assert their superiority.

This may give some insight into why Purdue seems so helpless against the better teams on their schedule: when things go wrong for the Boilers they go wrong quickly. Purdue has a lot of 45 second drives and their opponents get a ton of cracks at what's been a shaky defense the past few years. The results are halftime scores like 31-7 instead of 16-8 and little chance to steal victories in ugly, close-scoring games. On the other hand, when things are going well they go well quickly and scores balloon the other direction.

Charts?

Charts. I've separated out Mallett and Henne on the Hennemallettchart. Results:

(Hennemallettchart Legend)

Obviously an outstanding day from Henne of the sort we all dreamed of in the preseason. No ugly interceptions on horrible reads -- the one ball Purdue could have picked up was inaccurate, not a bad idea -- and only two mistakes that can be blamed on the QB all day. Michigan can beat anyone in the country if Henne plays like that regularly... a brief glimpse up at The Horror indicates that is no slam dunk. Still, there is nothing to criticize; that was an All-American performance.

Protection: 35/42. Butler -3, Long -1, Hart -1, Ortmann -2.

Receiverchart:

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One drop, that when Manningham's eyes got big on that zone PA screen we inexplicably debuted late in the third quarter, and a couple catches in the "1" category. A near-perfect day from this unit as well.

The Hart Chart went up on like Sunday or Monday or something ridiculous like that. Long still dominant; Boren rebounded from a tough outing or two; Schilling is approaching neutral as well. Note that this week's chart does not include Brown's carries, unfortunately.

Yeah, so how about Carlos Brown?

He seems like the exact opposite of Hart: a guy with questionable vision and little in the way of moves who has the speed to jet into the endzone if you give him a crease (and he sees it). The questionable vision could be due to inexperience -- he spent the spring at defensive back, then broke his hand -- and might develop in the future; Hart-like moves are not likely to. His two slashing touchdown runs were encouraging and he seems much less likely to get decapitated by a charging safety than Minor; he'll have a shot at the job next year. We're likely to see a four- or even five-headed rotation early.

What was the deal with all those tight formations?

Hell if I know. Several times we loaded up with two tight ends plus a fullback and plowed into the line with little success; on a couple other instances we motioned in Arrington and gave Purdue the same look. Also little success, as Purdue shoved eight and nine men to the LOS and sold out against it. I'm repeating myself from the table, but any formation that takes Arrington or Manningham off the field in favor of Chris McLaurin is probably a bad idea. The threat of those two guys virtually forces opponents to keep a safety back or play soft on the corners, loosening up the front. I don't think Michigan should singlehandedly combat spacing out

One oddity worth noting: Michigan seems to screw around with some new toy in every game, then shelve it. Against Oregon it was the TE-pull counter zone. Against EMU it was a twins set that covers up the TE. Against Purdue it was this tight formation. (Nothing of note happened in the Notre Dame, Penn State, or Northwestern games, likely because Mallett was starting and the playbook was restricted.) I miss the TE pull, which gave Michigan's run game misdirection and had an excellent suite of play action plays off of it from the fake-block TE drag to the TE actually blocking down on the DE, allowing Henne time to look for some deeper routes on the waggle. This other stuff not so much.

Heroes?

Pick someone. Henne, probably.

Goats?

Carson Butler was responsible for getting Henne hit on the fumble, picked up a holding penalty on a Hart draw, and had a few other instances of shoddy blocking. (His false start was not his fault, however.)

What does it mean for Illinois?

Illinois, like Michigan, has thrived on turnovers in their wins and may not be that good defensively. One definite trend:

That's 6.6 YPA, 7.8 YPA, and 8.0 YPA against one good quarterback and two mediocre-at-best ones. They've gotten to the QB a lot -- 14th in sacks -- but the secondary looks ripe for the picking. Even last week's opponent, Jake Christensen did 17-25, 182, 1 TD. That's 7.3 YPA. Meanwhile, the rushing defense is 27th and did a decent job against PJ Hill (4 YPC) and a heavily utilized Iowa attack (also 4 YPC). More passing seems the order of the day.

Simple equation: protect Henne and light up the scoreboard.