The running game is not great - not much separation between RB's
Not much in this article that we don't already know (as per usual with Nick). Personally, I was too busy panicking about the WR's after the Spring Game to worry about the run game, which was not great, to put it charitably.
http://www.mlive.com/wolverines/index.ssf/2015/04/michigans_running_game_taking.html
April 13th, 2015 at 10:55 AM ^
I am pleading with you to pick a new number.
April 13th, 2015 at 11:40 AM ^
I can't edit the post above, but you have to include the obvious. This staff is far better than the last. We steal a game here or there that the last staff would have given away. The bar has been raised significantly.
April 13th, 2015 at 11:45 AM ^
I do think M will beat MSU, though. OSU? Eh, maybe. We have been pretty close the last three years, but they are just so far ahead of our program. With better coaching in the last three games against them, we likely would have pulled at least one out (2012 comes to mind), but now that we have an elite staff, there is no reason to think we cannot win.
April 13th, 2015 at 10:18 AM ^
Who in their right mind thought we would only win 5 games last season? Other than opposing fans, I'm guessing no one. Predicting for next year seems even more difficult than normal given the coaching change. Which is why my guess is somewhere between 3-9 and 11-1. Book it!
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April 14th, 2015 at 11:18 AM ^
I'm sorry but I'm going to have to rule out 3-9...
April 13th, 2015 at 10:56 AM ^
April 13th, 2015 at 11:12 AM ^
that UM goes double-digit wins this year.
April 13th, 2015 at 11:15 AM ^
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April 13th, 2015 at 11:50 AM ^
I'm unsure exactly, as I just picked a number of wins I think they will get. Looking at the schedule now, I'd say we lose OSU, PSU, Utah, and Minnesota. Now, Utah and Minnesota are games Michigan SHOULD win, but won't be surprised if they don't.
I think Utah and Minnesota are both more difficult than Penn State.
Maybe because we play at PSU. As far as the actual team, Penn State is not that good.
April 13th, 2015 at 10:14 AM ^
I think you can expect us to start the season pretty slowly on the offensive side of the ball. Aside from learning a new system, Harbs also has to transform these guys from under-achievers to a hard working, cohesive unit. It's going to take time. I *think* what we'll see is a team that struggles early but improves as the season progresses and they figure out how and what they're supposed to do.
My belief is that the days of watching a guy mail in a blocking effort are long gone. If someone isn't getting the job done, they'll either get right or get out (of the starting lineup).
April 13th, 2015 at 10:15 AM ^
They weren't helped by the mismatched lines, but this team has only be intermittently able to run the ball for years now. My guess is that they'll be competent in the fall once they have everyone in their preferred spots, but Harbaugh will probably have to be a bit more creative offensively than you'd think at a school like UM this year in order to produce solid results rushing the ball. Utah will be a great first test.
April 13th, 2015 at 10:18 AM ^
April 13th, 2015 at 10:26 AM ^
Because his propoensity to create whole articles out of one sentence a coach says, and to do so after the twitters, blogs, and facebooks have already repeated such lines, is master clickbaiting. Plus, his collection of one-line 'paragraphs' and his repeadted self-plagiarising just gets so old. Then there's the fact that his writing has not improved over the years, and he seemingly has no interest in getting better, makes his place as the UM football beat writer somewhat embarassing. Its very un-Michigan-like to not be intersted in self-improvement.
April 13th, 2015 at 10:28 AM ^
It's not a dig on Nick at all. He's the master of taking 3 or 4 pieces of informaiton and turning it into 3 or 4 daily columns. It really is a skill, and I admire his ability. But let's not pretend that he has breaking news all that often.
Also, he's a Spartan.
April 13th, 2015 at 11:39 AM ^
April 13th, 2015 at 12:36 PM ^
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April 13th, 2015 at 12:56 PM ^
Angelique got the same treatment in years past but the stuff she did to stir people up, like the QB controversy they created last pre-season, she doesn't do anymore.
April 13th, 2015 at 10:21 AM ^
I'm not worried about the running game yet. They had some productive games running the ball later in the year last year. Drevno is a great coach, I think at worst we have an average run game next year, especially considering we will have a deep threat passing this year. Gardner was not reliable with the deep ball last year, and that hurt the run game quite a bit.
April 13th, 2015 at 10:33 AM ^
Tired of the limited playbook excuse. We have heard that for years in our spring 'exhibitions'. "Oh Nuss is hiding everrything for the real season" - yeah right. A well run offense can tell the defense the play and still do it most of the time. Isn't Harbaugh famous for running the same ONE exact play like 11 times in a row one drive? And Stanford did it. That's a limited playbook.
They did 2-3 trick plays - that is not a limited playbook. The team didnt execute on offense - because its a major weak link right now. It has less talent and no explosion or speed in the RBs that played. And the blocking stunk and it wasnt all DL. You are telling me we cannot run against backup Michigan DEs? Maybe that says a lot about lack of team speed at the RB spot right now.
April 13th, 2015 at 10:38 AM ^
April 13th, 2015 at 11:02 AM ^
I was using an extreme example because I am tired of the limited playbook excuse. Other teams run spring games where the offenses put up yards and they are not going to page 180 of the playbook to find crazy plays to get a 7 yard run.
For every excuse about limited playbook I can argue the opposite. The UM offense is practicing 30 plays - because they want to get great at those 30 plays. 15 pass plays, 15 run plays - those are their bread and butter basic packages. They practice them consistently. They should be good at them. But they could not run them in a spring game effectively at all.
See I just made an easy counterfactual. Based on nothing really.
What were our best plays that Saturday outside of the first run of the game? Exploiting and out of position newbie at CB who was 5'7 and then a few trick plays. Maybe 3 other plays the entire day out of that data set. So nothing standard was working. And yes it will be better and improve but for all these people with 'no worries' - well it was worrisome to see basic lack of execution. Tons of work to do and complete lack of explosion from our skill players who didnt show any individual brilliance - YAC etc.
April 13th, 2015 at 11:06 AM ^
what we saw was the same lack of production, explosion, execution, etc that we have seen from the offense for years. We have a great staff, but that is not going to change over night. I think the offense will cost us some games early. I see 7-8 wins with 7 more likely.
April 13th, 2015 at 11:27 AM ^
This is the correct take. Unless the hidden plays are the trick plays from Backyard Football.
April 13th, 2015 at 12:03 PM ^
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April 13th, 2015 at 11:33 AM ^
April 13th, 2015 at 11:51 AM ^
The defensive ends weren't the ones making the plays. The guys fouling things up were the defensive tackles and inside linebackers.
We're not going to be a sweep/outside zone team. We're going to run between the tackles with power, inside zone, etc. The fact is that the inside linebackers and defensive tackles were pretty good on both squads (with the exception of Dan Liesman), and they spent the whole day in the backfield.
April 13th, 2015 at 12:04 PM ^
Give you some actual information here - perhaps it will modify your stance..
Playbooks WERE limited. Defense worked with a little bit more flexibility as to what they could run (actual knowledge). Both offenses with the exception of what, 3 trick plays total (2 for Maize and one for Blue?) ran about 6 different plays either left or right. Watch the replay... The offense has significantly more installed than what was run during the game (actual fact).
Several players played both ways during the spring and knew what the offenses were going to run to a pretty accurate degree. Nothing wrong with that but it gives guys a step or two which can look pretty signficant in terms of play impact.
Execution - when you have OL "1's" split between two squads then you are going to have execution problems if for nothing more than lack of familiarization.
I can tell you that the defense believes the offense has made great strides and there were multiple sessions this spring where the offense won the day decidely against our defense.
Now, progress is needed at every position and group but hate to spoil your day and tell you everything is not as piss poor as you want it to be..
I don't want it to be piss poor.
It was very familiar to prior past few years and that is bad. I dont watch 25 spring games a year but I cannot imagine all of them have defenses dominating to that point simply because the "defense is ahead of the offense at this time of year". I will watch the OSU and MSU spring games - of course the offenses will score points despite (in MSU's case at least) what is expected to be a damn good defense. And MSU losing its top 2 RBs and top (by a mile) WR. And then be told well they have Connor Cook so you can't even compare. Or some other excuse.
Again tell me the playmakers on offense outside of Jake Butt. They lack - at least the ones I saw in the spring game. Peppers would probably be our best playmaker on offense - that's an issue.
Since the playmaking and individual talent lacks the offense needs to be better as a whole than the individual pieces are. That's the reality about this team's offense. Teams with playmakers can get away without perfect execution. Some individual brilliance can get you out of a jam or a broken play. It is difficult to run offense with perfect exectution - especially with a QB new to the system, a RB who has never played for UM in a real game (but everyone is saying is a reason they are not worrried) and apparrently only 5 OL we can count on.
Kugler and Dawson not being ready to play by yearr 3 in a way that could make our offense functional in a spring game is bad. Same with Bars in year 4.. OL should be 8-9 deep esp with Cole coming out of nowhere (2014 class) and Glasgow taking 2 of the spots. Those big 2012-2013 classes loaded with OL prospects should be able to fill 5-6 more spots (giving us 8ish deep) for a spring game without some massive dropoff everyone is pointing to as a reason we cannot run. We will have injuries at some point on OL - we cant just say 'well as long as these 5 guys are healthy - no worries."
Harbaugh has a RUN based offense. We can't currently run. It's an issue. I am not asking for a 28-24 spring game. But seeing units that every so often could actually drive more than 30 yards down the field would have been nice.
Does it really matter that that our 7th-10th best OL didn't get any push? Yes, ideally we should be deep at every position but it's a little nitpicky given that Harbaugh's only been here for one spring. I want him to get the most out of the Magnuson-Cole-Glasgow-Kalis-Braden line first. I'll wait until I see our actual team play in Utah. MSU's spring game from 2013 ended 7-3 iirc and they ended up going to the Rose Bowl.
April 13th, 2015 at 10:22 AM ^
First of all, by the time the season starts, the backs will be running behind our best group of O-linemen. Not a hodge-podge spring game group. Second, Coach Wheatley will have more time to work with the backs to get them even better. Third, even if our runing game isn't where we want it at the beginning of the season, I'd guess it will be doing well by mid-season or so. By that time, Coach Drevno will have the OL much improved.
April 13th, 2015 at 10:29 AM ^
No need to snark on Baumgardner... he's pretty good as far as beat writers go.
April 13th, 2015 at 12:16 PM ^
He's the king of the deadline story. Almost every thread on this board with a link to his content always has some form of "nothing new here" or "no new information."
April 13th, 2015 at 12:38 PM ^
I blame the OP for linking to it then...what is the point of any of these threads at this point in the offseason except to generate talking points for the board? I have no problem with discussing it but it seems pretty dumb to just bash him for not constantly finding new stuff to write. I don't read his stuff for new information generally, although he along with the Daily did some nice sleuthing into his career at Stanford and the Niners IIRC.
Just because he isn't a fan of the team doesn't make him bad at his job. Much preferred to Meinke who was a troll. Neither are as good as Chengelis and obviously many blogs including this one, but as far as mainstream coverage it could definitely be worse.
April 13th, 2015 at 10:34 AM ^
Is this actually a thing - and is the general consensus that he has better vision (faster, without question), balance, picks up blitzes? I initially thought that he was the beneficiary of a gradually improving OL/scheduling quirk (missed some toughies/Green played September but didn't run behind the "improved" OL - yet Smith was still available), but the "Drake Johnson is our "best" back" comments have not faded. Stats:
3 rushes, 28 yards vs App. State (Aug 30)
2 rushes, 13 yards vs MSU (Oct 25)
16 rushes, 122 yards vs Indiana (Nov 1)
10 rushes, 30 yards vs NW (Nov 8)
14 rushes, 94 yards vs Maryland (Nov 22)
15 rushes, 74 yards vs OSU (Nov 29)
At first glance, the most notable would be vs OSU (imo, whose DL is a taddddd stronger than Indiana's). Yet the OL improved quite a bit from the beginning of the season. Green hasn't run behind this OL yet - but is there enough evidence that this is a moot point?
April 13th, 2015 at 10:48 AM ^
Smith was playing in those games late in the year when Green went down and was ineffective outside of the NW game. As was Justice Hayes. Smith had way more opportunities to sell his case - he basically had App State, Northwestern, and 1 other game (I think Minn) he showed well. Out of 12. And 1 of those was App State.
I though Drake vs Indiana was an Indiana thing when it first happened (Indiana D was a joke) Not a Drake thing. But then he did it versus a decent (not great or even good) D for Maryland and same for OSU. So he did it in 3 out of 4 games he played once he was actually a feature back.
Your earlier stats vs MSU and App State - he was a garbage time back getting 3rd or 4th team reps.
It is not a high bar. to be the best back from last year's squads. Holes that were not there suddenly were there. Just like an OL can make a RB look better, an efficient RB who hits a hole hard, doesnt dance, makes 1 cut and just goes up the field can make an OL look better too. Disagree with the analysis. If Drake comes out this year and looks awful I will take it back but based on the performance of Smith/Hayes last year with the same "improved" OL I will stick with Drake as the best of the backs we had.
April 13th, 2015 at 10:55 AM ^
Same set of games behind the "improved OL" for Smith
- Indiana 7 carries, 21 yards (3.0 per)
- Northwestern 18 carries, 121 yards (6.7)
- Maryland 10 carries, 28 yards (2.8)
- OSU 3 carries, 4 yards (1.3)
So let's say the OL improved the last 1/3rd of the year - one guy performed well in 3 of the 4 games (Johnson). One guy performed well in 1 of the 4 games (Smith). I mean what is the argument?
I guess you can argue jury is out on Green but I think Smith is Smith. Green's best 2 games were App State and Miami OH - the 2 worst teams this team played in 2014. Rutgers he had a solid game - then got hurt. So we'll see. He was a ghost in the spring game.
April 13th, 2015 at 11:07 AM ^
"yet Smith was still available"
Green was out from October on, but Smith was still kind of eh. There is no argument from me; merely a question regarding opinions on the overall RB hierarchy.
April 13th, 2015 at 12:32 PM ^
April 13th, 2015 at 10:59 AM ^
Yeah, the oline improved throughout the year but if you go back and look at the Ufer's from early last year, one of the constant themes in Brian's summary of the offense was there were holes available but the rb's weren't finding them.
I'm not sure if the oline took a huge step forward the last 3-4 games of the year, rather I tend to think they had been performing decently all year and when Johnson started getting carries they had a running back who was finding the holes.
April 13th, 2015 at 11:05 AM ^
Also my theory. Speaks to the vision and not dancing. See hole, hit hole, and then have physical ability to run fast thru hole. Johnson did that. It's a chicken and egg thing of course.
April 13th, 2015 at 11:32 AM ^
See hole, hit hole.
I like it.
April 13th, 2015 at 10:40 AM ^
April 13th, 2015 at 10:42 AM ^
The reality is Green looked slow as hell and ineffective, the vision was gone again after some decent improvement last yearr and Smith is what he is - a plowhorse who is slow. Malzone didn't do anything to stretch the field so the D can cheat all day on the run game on that squad which also hurt. If you want a valid excuse that is a lot better one than "limited playbook". On Morris' side Shallman was the main back who is again not anyone with speed.
Drake Johnson was our best back last year. Full stop. Played the fastest. Played the most direct - one cut and run. Best vision. He did not play. Continue to pray for his recovery.
No one could get the edge on this team because this is the slowest set of RBs we've had in a while. At least the guys from 2014 ex Drake. The mismatch was at the ends where UM had OL starters playing and "key backups" i.e. a Magnuson. LTT had a bad game however it seems like (3 penalties) And they were playing backups - some young, some undersized. But we lacked explosive guys who can even get the edge to exploit where the run game should have gone when you are facing backups. If 240 lb RS FR Lawrence Marshall is blowing up your running game we better hope he is a future top 5 draft pick and about to have a year with 8 sacks and 15 TFL.
The full OL with Drake Johnson running should be an improvement but it was a lousy lousy performance vs a good not great front 7 missing starters on the edge.... .
April 13th, 2015 at 11:12 AM ^
I agree with a lot of your analysis from last year (the upvote is from me) but I don't think it's fair to say because of the spring game performance or practice information that we are totally in trouble. The line being piecemealed off to the two teams isn't going to give us an accurate representation of how they'll work as a unit.
Expecting Smith or Green to be able to turn the corner and run outside past LBs isn't going to work the majority of the time without great blocking, and that didn't really happen in the spring game. I think we'll be pleased to see how far they come by fall. Isaac still has a lot of potential I think as well.
ETA: well one of the upvotes is from me
April 13th, 2015 at 11:16 AM ^
April 13th, 2015 at 11:45 AM ^
Well, he was a guard to start high school, so that might tell you something...
He's not a great natural runner. I think we've known that for a long time. He's big and fast and can truck guys coming downhill, but if you hit him from the side or can trip him up, he doesn't have great balance.