Stunts on ther Defensive Line
I do not feel like Shafer has let the defensive line do stunts to put them in a spot to make plays. To me, it looks like a linebackercentric (I made that word up myself) defense that has the DL doing straight rushes to occupy linemen so the linebackers can make plays. (Which would be like running the ball up the middle with Odoms everyplay, its just not his strength.) So anyway, I did some research, to see if there was historical evidence that shows a tendency towards low sacks with DLs and high sacks with LBs. This it what I found.
2006-2007 WMU
LB had 29 sacks
DL had 18 sacks
2007-2008 Stanford University
LB had 19 sacks
DL had 16 sacks
2007-2008 UM (2.2 sacs per)
DL had 18 sacks
LB had 10.5 sacks (7.5 are crables)
2008-2009 UM Defense (3.6 sacks per)
DL has 9 sacks
LB has 2 sacks
So that stats say that this year per game has more sacks rep than last year, but it seems like teams are having lots of time to throw the football. It would be nice to see how many hurries we have thiis year and last year. Anyway, it could because we played spreads the first two games, I thought that the stunts were really bad against the spreads (see app. st. and UO last year) so we just have had less time to work on stunts in practice. However, I feel like English does better with our defense last Saturday against ND if he is given the opportunity. I am not saying Shafer is bad, I am just not sure if he is adjusting to the personnel on UM's defense. What are your thoughts?
September 23rd, 2008 at 1:01 AM ^
...maybe that discrepancy could be due to any number of the following things:
A) Our DL is pretty awesome.
2) Our LBs are pretty meh.
iii.) 2 of our first 3 games (and the only two games we notched a sack) were against teams who ran the spread, which means fewer LBs in the box.
IV) Small sample size.
Last) All of the above?
I'm thinking it's that last one. Also, I don't see how "not allowing stunts" makes the system more "linebackercentric". I don't see the connection.
September 24th, 2008 at 8:07 AM ^
no doubt michigan's strength is in the d-line and the lbs are weak---but how to play to this strength and minimize this weakness??---is there a way to have the allegedly faster lbs funnel the play to the d-line??-----seems that since our lbs are not good playing it straight anyway michigan might as well take more chances because eventually our lbs will do something bad
September 23rd, 2008 at 7:40 AM ^
Stunts are nice, but as you know, they can put people seriously out of position, creating huge seams. (Seems to me that this happened often with English's defenses).
Michigan doesn't have the offense this year to make up for a quick score by the opponent, yet a pretty good defense that can stop the opponent from driving the length of the field.
Let's remember that the Big Ten season hasn't started yet- he might be holding back just a little. Might it also be that they are still learning the defense, and he wants the lineman to concentrate on whipping the man in front of them, and the linebackers and safeties to be more sure of their fits?
September 23rd, 2008 at 9:32 AM ^
September 24th, 2008 at 7:41 AM ^
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