Appears we have a Michigan OL again...

Submitted by Alumnus93 on
Alot of talk about a star is born in Chris Evans... and the DL play and injuries..... To me the elephant in room always has been the OL below Michigan standards the past 9 years. After watching the replay, I am comfortable in saying, that we finally have a Michigan quality OL.. thank God.... Kalis, and I have been his biggest critic...looks compete now. He got great push, and pass blocked quite well. No longer a liability, but he looked like the best lineman yesterday. And Kugler! saw several pancakes. He did well. Newsome looked the part, am happy. Cole was invisible, which is good. I didn't notice Mags much. Then the backups like Bredeson , did great. Granted this is one game, and Braden didn't play...but boy, am I relieved. Braden should be sweating now, the way Kugler played. And alot of props to Evans, who reminds me of a small Dickerson, however the holes he was given by the OL were very nice Man, It feels Ive been holding my breath for years a bit...when the Michigan OL isn't dominant is like the Sun not rising in the morning. I say with confidence, that our OL IS BACK.

bostonsix

September 4th, 2016 at 12:15 PM ^

Assessment of Channing Stribling and the secondary getting beat on a couple of plays when Hawaii went to a spread pass scheme in the second quarter? Hawaii's WRs seemed to have almost 10 yards of separation. Also, Should Rashan Gary have had a better first showing against a team like Hawaii? I thought for sure we were going to see him blow up the edge with all of the hype that has surrounded him. Maybe my maze glasses are fogged a little,but I'm wanting him to be more dominant that a Joey Bosa or Nadomican Suh.

Magnus

September 4th, 2016 at 12:26 PM ^

I'm not in love with Stribling as a press man corner, so it didn't surprise me all that much. I think he's a better zone corner (whether it's Cover 3 or Cover 2), and going 5-wide messes with your coverage if you just try to play two-deep zones. So it was a good move by Hawaii. With Jourdan Lewis out, I'm surprised they didn't go to it more, even if they had to keep Ikaika Woolsey in the game to run it.

Some of the open guys were against McCray, and it's hard to blame a 240+ lb. inside linebacker too much for not being great in pass coverage when he's bumped out into the slot.

Gary is a lineman. It takes time for linemen. I think it's asking a little much for him to be dominant immediately. That being said, I still thought he was pretty good. Especially when a team goes to a spread offense, I don't expect a strongside end to have a field day. (Wormley didn't light the field on fire, either.) IMO, Gary's going to be more effective as the season goes along and against more pro-style offenses. (In other words, I wouldn't expect him to have a huge game against UCF, either.)

getsome

September 4th, 2016 at 2:55 PM ^

yeah he did draw a few flags.  pretty fair assessment by magnus.  gary is just getting his feet wet but he still looked the part.  he flew off the edge on striblings pick 6 to pressure the QB (and likely part of the reason the throw was so poor).

plus i noticed his motor on most plays yesterday, he rallies to the ball, pursues backside, etc - and his effort was one of the things i loved about his film aside from the obvious physical / mental gifts

M-Dog

September 4th, 2016 at 1:43 PM ^

With Jourdan Lewis out, I'm surprised they didn't go to it more

Yeah, Hawaii's game plan was very odd.  They were having some success with passing spread sets at the end of the first half, and then they start the 3rd quarter with a new QB and go back to trying to establish an inside run game.  All while being down 30+ points.

Their game plan had no connection to the actual game situation.

The interview done with the Hawaii coach made it sound like this was the plan no matter what . . . that they were essentailly using this game as a de-facto practice to get different guys a look at game action.  It wasn't about finding out what worked in-game and sticking with it.

I suppose it makes some sense for Hawaii's future - they weren't going to win this game regardless - but I selfishly would have liked to see them put some 5-wide pressure on our D coming out fresh in the 3rd quarter.

TheTruth41

September 4th, 2016 at 10:31 AM ^

Let's wait and see if we can escape this non-conference gauntlet first.

Good to see us move the ball on terrible defenses but yet to see how effective they'll be with players their own size.

Alumnus93

September 4th, 2016 at 10:53 AM ^

Did I misspell something? Note what a pain it is to post from an Android phone with a screen cover. Likes to change letters, words, etc. So one tends to shorten sentences, and cadence and grammar gets bad too

wayneandgarth

September 4th, 2016 at 11:55 AM ^

And alot of props to Evans, who reminds me of a small Dickerson, however the holes he was given by the OL were very nice Man, It feels Ive been holding my breath for years a bit...when the Michigan OL isn't dominant is like the Sun not rising in the morning.

Say what?




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corundum

September 4th, 2016 at 10:52 AM ^

LSU's oline is trash. Everyone rags on LSU for being non-QB U but in reality their offensive line has been a liability for damn near a decade. Les is by nature an Oline coach, yet hasn't had a single OL taken in the first round of the draft since he's been at LSU. Cam Cameron is a horrible OC as well. No team squanders more talent than LSU.

I actually feel bad for Brandon Harris. He was abused while LSU tried to run play action passes in obvious passing situations with only two receivers running routes and a turnstile OL. Cam Cameron probably had one RPS the whole day with the Fournette wheel route. The most predictable play caller in CFB.

CompleteLunacy

September 4th, 2016 at 11:48 AM ^

It's hard not to feel like LSU was supremely overrated this season because of ZOMG FOURNETTE. I don't care who you have back there at RB, if your offense is boring/predictable and your OL isn't dominating the line, you won't be very successful. They had, what, 7 offensive points all game?



I'm sure Wisconsin has a good defense...but I'm also sure Harbaugh will find a way to move the ball on them with enough success to put up points on the board. More than 7, at least.

Jeff09

September 4th, 2016 at 10:33 AM ^

Ehhhh maybe. Aren't Hawaii's DEs like 240 lbs? I don't think you can draw any conclusions from a game like this, aside from we did what we were supposed to do. Let's see what happens against real power 5 teams.

LSAClassOf2000

September 4th, 2016 at 10:35 AM ^

It could be just me, but I found myself impatiently waiting the Wisconsin - maybe Penn State too - game by the end of this one because that seems like a really good first half test for this offensive line. It was a great performance yesterday, but like others, I found myself sort of qualifying this a smidgen with "Hawaii" and that I would have expected no less from this unit against their defense. 

UMgradMSUdad

September 4th, 2016 at 12:32 PM ^

They did not look all that good.  They kept the starters in through the entire game on offense (I'm not sure on defense).  Even with a 26-13 lead and the ball with 4 minutes left they still had their starters in and were passing deep.  They did score a TD at the end to push them up to 33 points.  In their defense, they have a new OC, so I'm sure their starters need as much practice as possible. But the fact that Penn St. couldn't blow out a  MAC team that went 3-9 last year does not bode well for the Nitanny Lions.

getsome

September 4th, 2016 at 6:36 PM ^

not sure i get your argument - i agree lsu is / was overrated if thats part of your point but are you also implying overrated lsu played uncharacteristicly poor, wiscy is garbage, wiscy played over their heads, both?  what leads you to believe that lsu team can beat any top 30 or so program 9 out of 10 times?

Mack Tandonio

September 5th, 2016 at 8:21 AM ^

I don't think terms like "overrated" and "underperformed" are mutually exclusive. MSU just proved that against Furman.

Wisconsin isn't a great team. LSU is overrated. That's general, I'm talking about the last set of downs specifically. INT's are far less common than 40-47 yard field goals. I think LSU farted away that game at the end.

Goggles Paisano

September 4th, 2016 at 1:46 PM ^

I watched that whole game and Wisc was the better team and deserved to win.  They had a 67 second brain fart that allowed LSU to score two td's.  Brandon Harris is just a mess. LSU has a lot of talented kids on both sides of the ball but their energy and "want to" did not match up with Wisconsin's.  Wisc just wanted it more and played like it.  Their defense was pretty good and their LB's were all over the field making plays.  

Offensively, they will struggle against us.  Bart Houston did an ok job yesterday but he is nothing to fear.  Their WR's look a bit slow and dropped quite a few balls yesterday.  Clement and Ogunbowale are a couple of good RB's.  It will be a physical game when we play them but we have a better defense and a better offense.  As long as we take care of the ball we will win that game.  

taistreetsmyhero

September 4th, 2016 at 10:36 AM ^

We've steamrolled incompetent defenses before. Let's hold off judgment til we see what we can do against a good defense. Same holds for qb. This game was satisfying as hell, but it really didn't add too much predictive value for how we'll look against our 4-5 good opponents.




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ypsituckyboy

September 4th, 2016 at 10:38 AM ^

I'm still not convinced the OL is better than "fine" per Brian's preview, and that's why I think Evans will get a lot of run. If you want a good offense and your OL is only decent, you need a back with really good vision. Smith is strong, and people will rightly questions whether Evans' body can hold up against the Wiskys/MSUs/OSUs of the league in order to get that extra yard or two each carry, but I think it's easier to pickup that extra yard or two with good vision than brute strength.

M-Dog

September 4th, 2016 at 1:24 PM ^

Yes, Drake did this too when he was healthy . . . he had good vision and hit rapidly-closing holes very quickly.  He only needed a brief sliver of open space.  

That's just the RX needed for a mediocre / "fine" OL.

We'll need to see how much better this OL really is coming up.

AA Forever

September 4th, 2016 at 10:40 AM ^

in Evans, maybe the first real talent we've had there since Mike Hart. A guy who doesn't need 5 All-Americans blocking for him to make yards. Smith ran behind the same line yesterday, and still looked like a #2 back, as he always does. Not bad...pretty good, actually, but not a guy who you can win a championship with.

How good our line ends up this year remains to be seen, but they looked better yesterday because they had better guys than Smith carrying the ball.

LGenius

September 4th, 2016 at 12:00 PM ^

but the o-line execution yesterday was miles ahead of this time last year. Yea Yea Hawai'i, but they were in sync, executing combo blocks, getting to the second level, IDing the right block on lead pulls... all the stuff they were struggling with for the last 5 years. Consequently, Evans ran through some freight-train tunnels.