FORMATION NOTES: Michigan didn't do anything particularly weird that I had to call out. Hey, look, it's an I-Form.

WHAT SORCERY IS THIS

I called this 4-4 for Central Michigan, FWIW.

No idea if the prevalence of under-center stuff after the opening couple drives means anything in the long run. This one was out of hand fast, and Michigan did use shotgun on downs like second and six on occasion.

SUBSTITUTION NOTES: Gardner, then Morris at QB. After Toussaint went out the first carries went to Drake Johnson (Rawls got in to hand off on the reverse), then Green/Smith, then Hayes/Rawls. At WR, Gallon was the main guy with Jackson, Reynolds, and Chesson rotating outside at the other spot and Dileo/Norfleet in the slot. Norfleet got more playing time than I expected.

Butt/Funchess/Williams at TE; Kerridge was followed by Houma at FB. The line was Lewan-Glasgow-Miller-Kalis-Schofield until late, when it first read Braden-Glasgow-Burzynski-Kalis-Magnuson, then Braden-Bryant-Burzynski-Bars-Magnuson.

[After THE JUMP: OL puts on a clinic, Gardner puts on a clinic (mostly), running backs… do not. Chesson escalates quickly.]

Hello, old friend.

Hello.

It's been so long. Things have… changed since you've been gone.

I was once told you can't go home again.

There was a wizard. A white wizard.

What did he do?

He installed the zone stretch.

It turns out that home follows you, sometimes.

Also Devin Gardner follows you because dang if he isn't all up in your zones. Here, take a look at this—

CHORT

Chort?

I told you things changed. Spelling "chart" is one. Also now we call pizzas hamburgers and vice versa.

Right. Anyway.

It's a new year, so annual explanation of things: what follows is an attempt to categorize passes beyond just attempts and completions. Hover over the abbreviations to get them de-abbreviated. Full explanations are found in the Hennechart Legend. The "DSR" or "downfield success rate" is a rough metric of how often something good happened when Michigan went back to pass.

UPDATE FOR 2013: I will be adding scrambles into the numerator in the DSR, because now they are so frequent and important to the offense that it's foolish not to. (Note that "scramble" is only awarded for a sensible decision to take off. When a QB can't find anyone and rumbles for two yards on third and ten he gets a TA, which is mildly negative.) I know, how did I get through the Denard Robinson era without making that change? Well, he never scrambled. Argh. The 2012 Gardner DSRs have been updated to the new standard.

Also new in the chart: + markers for throws that Gardner created with his ability to get outside of the pocket and improvise. * marks still stand for XTREME bad things in the IN and BR categories.

Devin Gardner 2012

Devin Gardner 2013

Oh, and:

Shane Morris

So, yeah. The quarterback charting has never really figured out what to do with things like the Gardner scramble rollout that ended in a 36-yard Drew Dileo reception or, you know, a casual 22-yard scramble for a touchdown. I think the little rushing touchdown is actually the best emblem:

Central covers everybody. And then they're dead. This year I've added the SCRs in, which helps us get to grips. I'll also be putting those plus marks in to note things like that throw to Dileo. Simple throw, but one most quarterbacks can't even get in position to make. Hopefully these two changes will fully encapsulate the Devin Gardner experience.

Meanwhile, that experience: the good news is that his accuracy went most of the way back to his early deadliness after the concerning last two games of 2012. I should mention that there are a few throws in the CA category that shade towards MA—passes thrown a little behind Funchess and Gallon—but don't quite get there. It was not an inch-perfect day; it was encouraging. Twenty yard ropes are a nice tool to have.

All your redzone are belong to us. By the way, Michigan was 6/7 on the day and the one field goal attempt came with Gardner on the bench. Crazy efficient.

The big downer is the first interception. That was a read he was suckered into presnap and never adjusted to afterwards. A learning experience. The second interception is less concerning for the reasons discussed in the Picture Pages yesterday: Gardner saw the coverage and was trying to let his receiver make a play, but the ball sailed because he got hit on the throw. If he back-shoulders it or just puts it up short, Gallon may come down with it. It's a little weird to think about a 5'8" guy as someone you think armpunting to is a good idea, but… I mean… isn't it? FWIW, that incompletion where Gallon fell down in the front corner of the endzone was a back-shoulder throw, so you know it's in the repertoire. 

Get those things figured out and Gardner's in business.

Should I be concerned about Michigan's lack of pizzazz in the run game?

I don't want to get ahead of myself, but here is a chart.

(BONUS: Backup line was 4/6 with two minuses charged to the team.)

Now you may be looking at the YPC and the chart above and saying "WTF?" Let me just say that Michigan got into don't care mode really early on this one and Central Michigan started selling out like crazy against the run. On play after play, Michigan would crush people off the ball and a safety who started the play eight yards off the line of scrimmage and took two steps forward before the handoff would step in to tackle.

While that was happening, Central Michigan was getting crushed off the line. All of these stills are from Michigan's third quarter meatgrinder drive on which they got one long run from Green and then spent eight plays churning out the other 25 yards.

This was a three-yard stretch as Miller didn't get his head up in time to disengage into that linebacker you see chasing. Glasgow has plowed the playside DT four yards downfield; the backside guy is still on the ground.

Both DTs are a few yards downfield and steadily giving ground. This would be five yards as Green cuts away from his blocking and gets whacked by that LB you see just below the M. Should have been more.

The guy chasing Smith was lost by Kalis for –1. But also note that Glasgow is burying the playside DT at the goal line.

This is Green's long one. The interior line has clubbed every DL inside. Glasgow got out on a linebacker, who went upfield of him. That's a win for M, as upfield means dead on almost every play.

This is an iso; the backside DT has been blown downfield by Kalis and Schofield.

This was a clinic. I mean:

These guys had no chance of staying near the line of scrimmage. None.

Central had a terrible run defense a year ago—93rd, playing in the MAC—that resembles what Michigan will face on Saturday in no way whatsoever. But they did everything they possibly could to lend you faith that they can get this done. Compare that output to the second game last year, which was against the 99 rushing defense in the country:

This was much more dominating performance against a team of similar caliber. About the only thing wrong was Taylor Lewan trying to pull.

Well then, where are all the yards?

Yes, take out Gardner and the Norfleet reverse—all yards that had very little to do with the OL—and you get a pedestrian 4.1 yards an attempt against a MAC snack. As mentioned, a large portion of this was Central getting very aggressive. For most of the second half they rolled another guy into the box and had that free safety eight yards off and coming down on the snap. In a competitive game, Michigan will go over the top on that all day.

That was almost half. The other almost half: the backs were collectively very bad. Toussaint looked like his fast and fun old self, but he made at least one twenty yard mistake and several smaller ones. Here's the 20-yarder:

Chesson murders that dude dead and Toussaint has acres of space plus Kerridge to the outside; instead he trips over that guy's grave.

When Green came in he played like a kid used to high school, bouncing runs for minimal gains when he should have been slamming them upfield for burrowing 8-yarders. Smith missed a couple cuts. Though Rawls and Hayes did do some good things they had limited opportunities to do so before the backups came in. As a unit this was bad. Rust and youth, hopefully.

The small remainder is the usual spread theory this space has. This style of offense finds it harder to get that safety over the top blocked because it does not option off a guy, and the waggle rollout stuff is dangerous to depend on too heavily because it asks your QB to turn his back to the play and then hope some guy isn't flying up at him when his head is in a position to look at football players again. It's a tradeoff. YPC is going to go down as Michigan moves away from spread option. They hope to find compensation in reduced variance and more effective passing options.

There's always an unblocked guy, so getting long runs means either the D screwed up, you were perfect, or a tailback made plays. Michigan got one play from the RBs all day and is still working out understandable early-season kinks on the line. They're a step or two away from busting some big ones.

Why are all the points on the left side of the line?

That was where Michigan was going for most of the day, and backside blocks weren't evaluated much because Lewan was consistently sealing the end and Miller/Glasgow were consistently sealing the playside DT. There were no cutbacks. When the right side did get involved, Kalis looked powerful but more error-prone than Glasgow while Schofield looked like Schofield.

Miller graded out well.

Yes. He and Glasgow were a scoop machine. Glasgow would bash the DT, Miller would scoot around him. His agility looked outstanding even when he was on his own.

Also this one, on which he gives ground to get around a defensive tackle and walls him off. Very Molk, this:

Michigan didn't seem to miss any line calls save that one time the entire offense had one snap count and Miller had another. Crappy opponent caveats apply in spades, but Miller did make a case to keep him in the lineup even if Chris Bryant finds himself totally healthy soon. He's got a monster test this weekend.

(FWIW, I didn't chart any Bryant plays seriously, but I did look at them and man you can feel his presence. When he hits a guy they rock back ostentatiously. Stark difference between Bryant and Bars, who looked a long way away from competing seriously.

Wait, Chesson is blocking fools? Isn't he supposed to be the stick figure guy?

He may not have caught a pass, but hoo boy did he tattoo some people. He's the guy clobbering the cornerback on the easy Gardner touchdown. In the stands I thought a loss by Toussaint was a "dawww I'm a freshman" moment from Chesson; instead it was a very tough crackback block executed to perfection. He stood up a safety on Green's long run, giving him the edge:

If blocking is the key to acquiring wideout playing time at Michigan, Chesson just got himself a gold star.

The lone negative for his day (other than not being targeted until Morris came in) was on the long Reynolds completion, as he busted his route and ran extra defenders into the area.  That was supposed to be the flood combo Michigan likes so much.

Receivers?

[Passes are rated by how tough they are to catch. 0 == impossible. 1 == wow he caught that, 2 == moderate difficulty, 3 == routine. The 0/X in all passes marked zero is implied.]

Not much data yet. Nice day from Gallon.

Heroes?

Lewan, Glasgow, and Miller. Gardner except that one pass. Gallon. Chesson the Destroyer, despite not being targeted.

Maybe not so heroic?

The tailbacks, collectively.

What does it mean for Notre Dame and the future?

I'm almost entirely encouraged. The two question marks on the line performed very well, especially Glasgow. Michigan actually involved Taylor Lewan heavily on the ground for the first time in forever. Pass protection was excellent; Gardner was for the most part very accurate.

The main downer was the bleah production from the tailbacks, and I mean that in a UFR sense. They could have gotten many more yards than they ended up getting on various plays.

Nothing Michigan could have done against CMU on Saturday would have meant we could go into the ND game with anything resembling confidence about the Nix/Tuitt versus M interior line matchup, but they acquitted themselves about as well as possible and significantly increased my hope that matchup is a stalemate.

I'm not going to freak out about this just yet, but man Michigan needs some one other than Gallon to get some targets. Funchess with only three targets is bler. Half of Gardner's attempts can't go to the same guy. Get that down to 35-40.