trent mcduffie

Previously: FFFF Washington Offense 

Much of the focus on Washington's stunning loss to Montana has revolved around its anemic offense and the whole "scoring 7 points against an FCS team" thing. That's understandable- it's the reason that the team lost the game and from a box score perspective, Washington's defense was pretty good. They held Montana to 13 points and only 232 yards of offense. They did their job. But just because the story of the game was written through Washington's offense, that doesn't mean that there wasn't anything interesting to glean from watching their defense. After all, the Huskies have produced some excellent defenses in the last 5-7 years. 

So, we will embark on this defensive FFFF journey. As noted in Wednesday's post, this is my first time doing FFFF, so it's going to be a tad more rudimentary than what you may have been used to with Seth the last few years, and probably not quite as well versed in formation terms and plays. I admit it, I'm still learning. With that said, let's get started. 

The Film: We are obviously still on Montana. That is the only game that has been played this season. 

Personnel: The diagram from Seth. Correct from the start this time: 

Washington plays with a few guys who are out there very consistently. Defensive tackles Sam "Taki" Taimani and Tuli Letuligasenoa (this is a fun week for Pacific Islander names) play on most plays and don't get rotated out often. There are several other DT's who rotate in if Washington chooses to play with more DT's (see: Base Set section). At the LB level, Jackson Sirmon and Edefuan Ulofoshio play most every play. I don't think I ever saw Sirmon leave the field, and though Ulofoshio went missing for a period of the game, his absence was clearly missed. Those two guys are going to play a lot of snaps against Michigan. The three starting corners play most of the time too, Trent McDuffie, Kyler Gordon, and nickel Brendan Radley-Hiles.

The two positions that see a lot more rotation are safeties and edge. Washington plays with 5 DB's pretty often and who the other two besides the three starting corners are can vary a good bit from play to play, including Julius Irvin, Kamren Fabiculanan, Alex Cook, and Asa Turner. Similarly there's a pretty hefty rotation at the Edge position, which are either OLB's or DE's depending on who they are and classifying them was not simple and will be discussed at length much more later on in this post. Ryan Bowman plays the most of them and is more of a DE. The other spot (if they go with two Edge players) is a constant rotation of different types of players, including Cooper McDonald, Sav'ell Smalls, Jeremiah Martin, Bralen Trice, and Jordan Lolohea. Expect the Huskies to be switching out the parts that accent the core of their defense, which are their two traditional LB's, two traditional DT's, and their three corners. 

[AFTER THE JUMP: More about Washington's defense]

Previously on The Enemy, Ranked: Quarterback, Running Back, Receiver, OL, DL, Linebacker

We have made it to the last The Enemy piece, featuring the secondary. The secondary comprises cornerback and safety, but does not include hybrid space players, which we included in our preceding piece on linebackers. Some teams roll with five DB's, others with four, so the charts will vary based on which team I'm talking about. As a general trend for this piece that will be reiterated the farther we go down the list, the P5 teams who appear on Michigan's schedule this season have good secondaries. While I was generally unimpressed by the DL's and even some of the LB groups, the secondaries make up for that, with the number of just solid secondaries running 10 deep on Michigan's schedule. That's going to be a challenge. Let's get started with the kings at the top, Indiana: 

1. Indiana

It says a lot about how good Indiana's secondary was last season that they could lose Jahmar Johnson, a 1st team All-B1G safety, in the offseason, and still manage to stay #1 on this list. The strength of IU's secondary is the corners, a pair of studs in Jaylin Williams and Tiawan Mullen, both of whom were starred on last season's FFFF. Mullen is a legit superstar who should be a damn near lock to be 1st team All-B1G this season, while Williams was 2nd team last season and should be a favorite to be right there yet again. Reese Taylor is an experienced veteran who figures to be the nickel corner on this defense, which is a fine option to have. At safety there's going to be some drop off in losing Johnson, but Devon Matthews is still around, 3rd team All-B1G last season, even if the reality of his play may be a bit worse than that distinction. 

Raheem Layne returning from injury is the favorite to replace Johnson at the free safety position and given that safety is a position where you like to have some players who know the scheme and their way around the field, it's nice to have a pair of seniors lining up there. As a four or five man unit, Indiana's secondary is great, and no other team on Michigan's schedule comes close to having the lockdown corner tandem of IU, and that's before you get to the veteran safeties. The Hoosiers took #1 on our list by a healthy margin. 

[AFTER THE JUMP: A different surprising team checks in at #4 this time]