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I wrote a plotting tool that…

I wrote a plotting tool that would scrape UFR data and visualize it for players and team stats. Because it was based on web-scraping, it was easy to break whenever they changed formatting of the tables in UFR. That said, I just went to it and it did scrape some 2023 data correctly. So there is a big gap from early 2021 to the beginning of 2023, which is the central region you want to see.

That said, if you aggregate by year, early 2021 defense was better than late-stage Don Brown but was distinctly lower in RPS than 2017/2018 Don Brown. Early 2023 was looking like the best RPS we'd seen. 

Offensive RPS was the lowest on record in early 2021. That was before Michigan had beaten OSU though and when it looked like Michigan was hopelessly slamming its face into stacked boxes against Rutgers, MSU, Washington, etc. I think the view of the blog at the time is there was no way that would work against OSU and we were setting ourselves up for frustrating failure. Instead, the power running flipped the script against OSU and suddenly the offense looked more palatable. Offense UFR in 2023 looks great as well, but that's pretty consistent with having the most skill talent on O that we've seen at Michigan in a long time, including a generational QB. I suspect 2022 is the real data you want to see.

Maybe during the bye week I'll work on re-scraping the data from the end of 2021 and all of 2022, so that the complete data set is available. In the meantime, you can see the data here: https://mikegros.shinyapps.io/ufr_analysis/

This is the answer. Both…

This is the answer. Both passes were behind the line of scrimmage so they could have blocked even more than they did and it was still legal 

The evidence is that they…

The evidence is that they set up in standard punt formation on 4th and 6, which they couldn't have run the same fake from.

After the penalty, they switch to the rugby style, which (a) removes one guy from the side they want to run to and (b) induces Michigan to overload to the right as we do against rugby points. 

It's fair to think they wouldn't want to eat a 5 years penalty, but using it as misdirection to get Michigan to adjust to the change in formation without thinking about the fake would be clever.

I also just love the idea that they'd set up something so well and just bungled it. I feel like in the years we've not been as good, the coaches have come up with some clever wrinkles but the execution didn't happen. Good to see it on the other foot.

To be clear, Michigan had…

To be clear, Michigan had stepped up in the second half and won handily, so likely would not have changed the result. Would have made The Game much tighter and more stressful.

Just to support this, a link…

Just to support this, a link from the Bama-Clemson title game clarifying that this is the correct reason for the no call: https://www.al.com/alabamafootball/2017/01/pick_plays_rules_experts_weigh.html

LeVert on line 2, right?

LeVert on line 2, right?

Sorry, i could have been…

Sorry, i could have been more clear. I don't think Gattis being nominated for the award > Seth's detailed analysis, just that it does add another piece of evidence that Seth may be underestimating Gattis. That goes along with the other evidence of the offense being good this year.

It seems a stretch that the offense is having a very good year despite having worse playcalling than any point in the Hoke era. 

Also, i didn't call it out as Seth is bad, just that Seth seems to have his RPS numbers calibrated very low. For instance, it seems a stretch that our offensive playcalling was worse blowing out an elite Wisconsin defense this year than it was in tight wins over awful Akron and UConn teams in 2013.

I think Gattis is generally underrated on this blog. He's not been amazing, the offense still has room to grow, but it's been very good this year and he's a very good OC.

I think this is a sign that…

I think this is a sign that Seth might need to recalibrate his RPS a bit. He does an awesome job with UFR and I'm impressed with his technical knowledge and breakdowns, but the offensive RPS is scoring record lows, worse than any Borges year, the Pep year, etc. 

 

I imagine it's just an effect of calibrating the scoring, but something that was interesting in the scoring.

No problem. We probably did…

No problem. We probably did eat a bad call in that situation in the past with Gardner or Denard. 

Keep up the awesome work though. These are great

You are correct here. From…

You are correct here. From the rule book:

"Illegal Forward Pass ARTICLE 2.

A forward pass is illegal if:

a. It is thrown by a Team A player whose entire body is beyond the neutral zone when the ball is released."

I think I've seen cases before where only the players trailing leg/foot was still in the neutral zone and it was correctly not flagged. 

Seth, you're doing an awesome job with these - it's really impressive work. Only worth pointing out for future knowledge, not a complaint.

If he was standing there and…

If he was standing there and Henning just ran into him unknowingly that would be one thing. In the play 13's moving laterally and slows into Henning's path. The defensive player has a right to play the ball, but if he's not playing the ball, he can't move into place to impede the route and he does there. 

But regardless of agreement with the rule, it is literally a rulebook example of DPI, so it's not a good example of bad refereeing in our favor.

I am not sure the infamous…

I am not sure the infamous PI during the two minute drill is actually a bad call. Maybe it should be, but I think it's basically exactly an example of defensive PI called out in the rule book (A.R. 7-3-8 XII):

"XII. A44, a slot back, runs a pattern 25 yards downfield toward the goal line pylon. B1, a safety, is positioned between A44 and the pylon when the ball is thrown. B1 obviously reduces his speed and collides with A44 before the catchable ball touches the ground. RULING: Team B foul, defensive pass interference. Penalty—15 yards from the previous spot and first down."

Unless you think it should have been called uncatchable, but that doesn't seem to be anyone's argument. 13 moving in direction of Henning, slows into his path and they collide. 13 isn't making any attempt to play the ball, which is where the players "equal right to the ball" from the rulebook comes into play.

 

A couple things for Seth:

A couple things for Seth:

Regarding the discussion of Cade's cyan on the podcast: the label is "Trouble Spot" and typically has been given to someone whose issues have been a detriment to their team. I understand that you've basically defined the cyan label, but I think you are over-estimating the issues that Cade has. The offense still ran for almost double what Wisconsin allowed against PSU and ND combined, so he's not killing the running game. Cade was off for a bit in the Washington and Rutgers games passing-wise, but no QB has failed to struggle a bit so far this season, outside of Bama. The offense has been very solid so far this year, outside of one half against Rutgers. It seems hard to see how Cade is holding them back from being better.

In the same regard, I know the UFR is still something you are hitting your stride with and I think you're doing an awesome job overall. One place I'd like to note a possible over-reaction is for offensive RPS. This year's offense has AVERAGED the same RPS value as the Army game from 2019 - a known disaster. It seems unlikely the O would be generating 3 score leads in most games while being run as badly as that. It's not just a couple outliers pulling the average far down either - every game this season has seen a huge RPS number. 

I don't bring that up to yell or claim you are doing a poor job - you are doing an awesome job with your expanded role. I just wanted to offer some perspective, especially about the RPS, that might be useful going forward.

I just don't think the offense is performing so well with a cyan QB and with playcalling on par with the Army game week-in and week-out.

He broke out in 2010,…

He broke out in 2010, peaking in the UMass game and in 2011 generally:

Best DL scores pre-2010 are…

Best DL scores pre-2010 are basically all Graham and Woodley but at lower scores than more recent years:

 

Apparently missing some 2020…

Apparently missing some 2020 as well

 

 

Graham topped out at +18…

Graham topped out at +18 against MSU in 2009, was +17 against PSU that year. He was probably hurt by being graded before Brian really hit his stride with it. It was a different era of MGoBlog.

See more here: mikegros.shinyapps.io/ufr_analysis

(missing some games from 2019 when the web scraping tool failed but otherwise should cover everything from the beginning)

Interesting historical UFR…

Interesting historical UFR context:

Hutchinson's game was the third best UFR about by a DL behind only Hurst against MSU in 2017 and Mike Martin against UMass in 2010.

This is the second time Hutchison has been top 3 this season as his WMU game was tied with two games by Winovich for 3rd with a +22 before he took third place by himself with the +23 here.

They tried to get a couple…

They tried to get a couple passes to Henning but Cade put the fade way too short and skipped the out. 

They could have mixed in an end around but that feels very hindsight-driven. There were few opportunities to do so in the second half and none of the play calls in the first 4 drives of that half seem particularly egregious:

3rd and 12 isn't a good down for an end around. Maybe second and 3 on drive 2? Maybe one of the first two plays of drive 4, but even those had the offense set up for an easy 3rd down conversion that Cade skipped. 

That's maybe 3 plays that, in hindsight, might have been good places for an end around. 

Getting kicked off the field so quick and then the D allowing long, time-consuming drives meant the O just didn't have a lot of opportunities to mix in more plays. If they'd completed a couple more passes maybe they would have pulled out a reverse as the drive continued but as it was they didn't execute.

They didn't attack the…

They didn't attack the outside early in the first 4 second half drives, and in retrospect it's clear it would have been a good idea, but looking at those first 4 drives again:

Drive 1: 2 runs, one on first down after the O was moving the ball reasonably in the first half, one on 3rd and long that mirrored a playcall Devin Gardner was gushing about that got them a first earlier in the game. I'd prefer them throw on the third and long, but it's not some coaching abomination that they didn't.

Drive 2: 2 runs, second and third and short. Running behind your line on 3rd and 1 is not a bad call. Michigan should get that more often than not. Maybe could have run the end around on 2nd and 3, but is that really a horrible playcall?

Drive 3: all passes 

Drive 4: could have attacked the edge, but still were set up in a 3rd and 5 that should have been an easy first down.

 

I don't disagree that they could have attacked the edges better, but this isn't some disaster of a offensive playcalling that means we clearly can't play with Wisconsin, etc. Or that Gattis is a bad OC, etc. Certainly not that we should play loose, without care if we win or lose against Wisconsin as Seth suggested. 

The offense is solid and has the potential to be great if Cade can maintain a better rhythm or we otherwise get solid QB production Cade has shown much of the time.

 

 

I feel like there's a lot of…

I feel like there's a lot of overreaction to a small sample of plays and some baffling idea that the second half we just slammed the ball into the line every play and didn't trust the quarterback.

The playcalling was 50/50 between run and pass in the second half until the last meaningful drive. If Cade hits a couple of those passes, the offense is moving much better and the same playcalling looks good for punishing Rutgers with easy passes for good yardage.

Instead Cade missed 2 easy throws and one tougher throw to All that could have easier with a better read.

The last drive came in a situation where Cade was clearly struggling and we quickly had the ball in field goal range. The choices are put in a true freshmen QB who hasn't played all game, try to run and settle for a FG if you get stopped, or throw the ball with a quarterback who's struggling. 

I think the fake zone reads were obviously not great calls, but otherwise they made some calls to give the passing game a chance to make plays and Cade missed his spots, uncharacteristically. 

The idea that the playcalling and offense are in shambles and we have no hope to score on Wisconsin is a huge overreaction.

I don't think it's…

I don't think it's reasonable to have Henning cut back that hard and still get wide enough for the ball. Henning seems to run a good route - drive towards the DB, start to take him upfield, cut out hard to get separation. I think the only way that ball placement is good is if the whole route was wrong and he should have turned up sooner. Simpler explanation is that McNamara had gotten out of sync and missed short.

1) That "slip" is part of…

1) That "slip" is part of the play design. Sell that he's blocking and pop up open. It worked and Cade just missed. You could see it on his face after the okay too. Probably just too excited. That or dealing with something after the targeting.

2) Good throw, good catch.

3) I don't think he's throwing low to avoid 5. The routes should take the players past each other. Should have still been caught even though it's low, but if it's in stride it should be good yards.

4) I think you're backwards about All sitting down on the route. The ball is out front of where he's going. I think McNamara was just a little too far out front of him while trying to make sure he hit the window in the zone. I think McNamara has space to hit All in stride with a better placed ball though.

5) Guessing no one is open down field with 8 men in coverage. Could probably have hit Corum during the scramble but not knocking McNamara there - it would have been risky and close.

6) As you point out, McNamara threw as Henning was in his break, so it doesn't make sense he expected him to break sooner when he threw. He just misses short there. This is probably the toughest but also worst of the throws. He just skips it well short.

 

Just some thoughts. Not horrible by McNamara. 1 and 6 are the only badly inaccurate throws. 3 was catchable though not an accurate throw. 4 I'm not sure but just seemed tough and a little off.

Honestly, I think both reads…

Honestly, I think both reads are right here. The LB is in no man's land. He hasn't moved at the mesh point, just sunk his hips. With both safeties 16(!) yards downfield, there's a lot of space to maneuver.

The give to Corum does have a good angle, but the are only two pullers for 3 heads on that side, so Corum would have to beat someone to create yards. There's a good chance he does, but it's not a gimme: 

On the other hand, if either of those pullers misses their block, like Wilson does, chances are the run isn't going far either.

Speaking of Wilson, if he makes that block upfield a couple yards, Henning catches the ball with forward momentum and a couple steps to make a move. I assume the DB would take the edge and force back to the LB. But now you have Henning with momentum. Either the LB holds it to 4-5 yards by making a tough open field tackle on a quick WR, or Henning makes him miss and it's at least a first down, maybe more. 

If you imagine Wilson engaged with his man 2 yards further and forcing him to pick a side, this is exactly the sort of situation modern offenses love to get: your 4.4 jitterbug against their LB with space to make a play. 

Again, I do think either read was good assuming the blocks get picked up. They just didn't this time.

I agree that McNamera did…

I agree that McNamera did not do a lot to inspire confidence, but I also think a lot of that was Washington didn't give him much option and, as Seth put it yesterday, the offense took what was there. 

You mention the bubble read to Henning looking like a pre-determined read in your last Twitter embed, but I'm not so sure. The end crashes in and Henning has numbers to the outside. The LB is far enough in that this should be at least 4 or 5 yards and potential for much more if Henning makes that LB miss. 

It ends up 0 because Wilson's block is very passive and his DB blows up the block and makes the tackle. If Wilson is more aggressive, he and the DB make contact upfield 2 or 3 yards. Henning has space to pick a side and try to make a move on the DB and trailing LB. 

I feel like this was not the only perimeter play where the issue wasn't the read, but that one of the blockers just got beat. This is another area where Bell is missed, he was a great blocker as well, but one that can be cleaned up going forward.

Watching those safeties…

Watching those safeties really hammers the point home. Having both safeties 12 yards off the ball on 1st and 10 from the 15 after having been steamrolled for 3 quarters just seems like negligent defense. 

And in the last gif, both safeties start 2-3 yards deep in the end zone and aren't firing downhill.

 

Both those situations are in the red zone, so the threat of getting beat over the top for a big play is gone. It was the right move to just keep taking what Washington gave.

At some point you think you have to force Michigan to throw at your good corners, but I guess not. 

https://mikegros.shinyapps…

https://mikegros.shinyapps.io/ufr_analysis/?_ga=2.19376632.1966324330.1631139760-828381474.1631139760

A tool for looking into that. I think it is missing some games from 2019 because the web-scrape formatting broke, but otherwise it should be pretty up to date with the UFR data.

"Nate Schoonmaker"?

"Nate Schoonmaker"?

Very nice. If you want to…

Very nice. If you want to look at numbers even further back, you can visualize plots and get raw numbers in tables at the url below:

https://mikegros.shinyapps.io/ufr_analysis/

The RPS, Protection and stuff are living in the "Single Player" Tab under the postition "Team"

Numbers should be up to date as of whatever is the latest UFR after you read this (it checks for new UFRs and scrapes the data automatically whenever someome accesses the page)

I've attached a couple plots supporting your points:

JBB v Cole Run Blocking:

JBB_v_Cole.png

Runyan improvement on the revenge tour:

Runyan.png 

Fewer Pass Protection Minuses:

DropInProtectionMinuses.png

Michigan had two fouls on…

Michigan had two fouls on the play. The bench and Nordin. The flag for the bench was thrown way over by the bench, the flag on Nordin was thrown near the endzone.

I think that's effectively…

I think that's effectively what happened though poorly communicated: they had to decline one of our two by rule, the others effectively offset. I suspect that the basic spot in this rare case is the spot of their penalty, which seems consistent with where they started their drive. 

As someone in the podcast comments pointed out, they obviously couldn't offset to give us a redo on the kick because of the change of possession.

I actually am 99% sure the…

I actually am 99% sure the call on us was on Nordin. Just as the PSU player went into the endzone, Nordin dove at the side/back of another player's legs away from the ball. The flag came out almost immediately after and that's why the third flag was down by the south endzone and not near the area of the lock.

 

I don't know how this jives with all the other aspects of the play, but given the timing and placement of the third flag I am 99% sure I'm correct.

 

(I posted this on the podcast comments also)

Regarding the triple…

Regarding the triple penalties on the blocked kick, the block below the waist on us was on Nordin, I'm 99% sure. I was in Section 9 in the south end zone and just as they ran it in, Nordin dove at the side/back of someone's legs away from the ball carrier. Flag came out almost immediately after.

 

So flag on our sideline way obviously the sideline foul, the one near the block area was the call on them, the one near the end zone was on Nordin.

 

 

I see that the OL had a good week...

 

Unprecedented in fact. Wow

Only have to....

... go back to 2014 for that coverage number. The saddest thing about the below chart is that the coverage against PSU was basically the coverage numbers every game in 2009.... Ouch....

 

That's rough but.....

at least there is plenty of time left to offer to others or potentially bring him back into the fold. Good luck to him if he does go elsewhere, but we'll get someone else to be excited about in his spot.

With our D

we want the opposite of a high variance offense. If we want high variance, stick with O'Korn and hope his close plays turn out more like the Purdue game than the MSU game. 

If Peters can operate a safe, basic passing offense and we can couple that to the run game of the last two weeks, that is a much better fit for us right now. No indication yet that he can. If we're debating two high variance options, the coaches seem to think O'Korn is the better one and I'll trust them on that one. 

 

I'll keep my fingers crossed that Peters has started putting things together in practice and that he breaks out to take the job from O'Korn ASAP.

 

Purdue O'Korn was the same as every other game

O'Korn is a high variance player. He doesn't make great reads consistently, he throws into very tight windows, he bugs out at pressure and runs around trying to find somewhere to make a tough throw downfield. He did this against Purdue as much as against Indiana or MSU.

Against Purdue it just worked because he hit on 17 and got a 4 instead of a J. He was in a tough place a number of times and managed to have things work out so that he could make the play. This throw in a tight window was completed whereas other week's it's broken up or picked off: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=10&v=moYO8YubAYw Similarly, the play where he was almost sacked by Purdue, but spun away scrambled around the backfield for a second and then found Perry downfield was a good play, but also a lucky one. 

O'Korn lives on a very thin edge as a QB. Some games he'll come down on the good side but he's as likely to gamble away a big plays for the other team. 

Holy Hell Hurst

I never expected someone to break Mike Martin's +25 against UMass, even less to do so against a non-Rutgers BIG opponent. 

It's definitely not cats

that's for sure.

So of course I post this

and Brian switched back to one big table for the offensive plus/minus instead of separate tables for OL and Backs/Receivers, which screwed up the web scraping script. It was a small tweak to fix it and now it should work for automatically updating in both cases.

Sorry

I dont know how to do that on images in the diary post. Feel free to go to the link and the images are much clearer. 

Hurst current max is

+13.5 against Cinci this year. His best last year was +13 against Maryland.Wormley had a +17 against Iowa and +16 against UCF last year.

Go to Defense > Top/Bottom 10 > DL > Game at the link below to see the top 10 DL games in UFR:

https://mikegros.shinyapps.io/ufr_analysis/

Winovich with the #2 all time UFR single game score for a DL

behind Mike Martin's +25 game against UMass in 2010. Craziness!

I think 2timeloozer

is commenting that, if DPJ is the first read, why doesn't he throw it to him? He looks bracketed in the still, but in motion he looks like he has space.

By the time Speight's read turns to DPJ, he has separation from the LB behind him and a step on the safety as well. He has an LB in front of him, but the LB was trying to bail to the wide side of the field and was in no position to make a play on a throw to DPJ unless Speight throws it right at the LB's numbers.

In fact, the last thing Speight sees before turning to DPJ is the LB opening his hips toward Perry to head to the wide side of the field. If the design is to go to DPJ no matter what's going on with Perry/Crawford, then I'm surprised he doesn't try to hit the window there. It's not a huge window, but he's got space and it's not a long throw. 

Given where the other safety must be in terms of bailing toward Perry/Crawford, I think DPJ has a really good chance of taking that to the house if Speight hits him in stride. Maybe I'm overly optimistic there about his chance to get away from the trailing safety, but still....

As an example of the last idea, for this UFR:

Punt 1: from M32, 56 yards in air. Hart +11

Punt 2: from M28, 68 yards in air. Hart +23

Punt 3: from M42, 45 yards in air. Hart +0

Punt 4: from M15, 58 yards in air. Hart +13

Punt 5: from M14, 32 yards in air. Hart -13

Punt 6: from M24, 31 yards in air. Hart -14

Punt 7: from M29, 58 yards in air. Hart +13

Total: Hart +33 on 7 punts

45 yards per kick might be a little too easy, maybe 50 is better. But still, I think that idea works out pretty well for summarizing the punter's field position impact.

Also, none of the kicks this game were really ones where he was likely trying to take something off to pin them. Maybe punt 3, instead of being a +0 for kicking 45 yards, should be either a -3 or +2, for pinning at the 13 instead of the 10 or 15 respectively. 

Just a thought.

 
 
 
Looking forward to more of these!

A couple thoughts:

Why the blank line in the table for the botched return? I was surprised not to see any mention in the table.

The distance for FGs would be nice in the FG tables, even if it's somewhat inferrable from the location of the kick.

I love the summary of players return impact being measured in gained vs lost yards. A way to adapt this for the punter could be to estimate a "reasonable" outcome for an "average" college punter, then give the punter credit or blame for the difference from that. Obviously average and reasonable are pretty subjective, but it would give a way to get an idea for their impact on field position.

For instance, at a punt from out own territory, maybe a 40 or 45 yard punt would be "reasonable" so that a 60 yard bomb gives the punter big credit and a 20 yard shank gives correspondingly poor blame. On the other hand if we are punting from their 45, maybe a "reasonable" punt would pin them at the 10 or 15 yard line so that pinning them inside the 5 gives a big + but a touchback or worse would give a -. 

 

Just some thoughts! Awesome to see!

Where's the Jake Ryan love?

He seems to be being forgotten as an impact LB in recent history. He was outstanding before the knee injury and still solid, though seemingly playing out of place, after he came back.

 

Disagree with your assessment

about momentum being very different there. At least for the DL. #96 is inside of Ulizio with about the same momentum on the Issac run as #44 and #48 have in the Higdon run. Both are at the LOS at handoff and in postion to hit the RB 1 yard deep.

Higdon makes it seem that way because of his momentum.The difference is that Issac immediately throttles down and hard cuts backside. He gets the ball 5 yards deep and has slowed to cut in ~ 1.5 to 2 yards. Higdon gets the ball 5 yards deep and starts trying to slow/cut after 3 yards, so his momentum takes him right into the penetrating DL. 

It might be that Higdon's aggressiveness to the hole is just right for him, and while he misses an opportunity here, it'll allow him to break other plays later. It also could be that his play was meant to more aggressively follow the lead block and Kugler/Ulizio just failed. Either way, his momentum was what kept him from being able to have a chance to read the cutback.