11/5/2022 – Michigan 52, Rutgers 17 – 9-0, 6-0 Big Ten

This season is a test of patience. A test of how zen you have become after 2021 exorcised a fair number of demons. Michigan, it must be said, is absolutely blasting opponents. SP+ is the industry standard for forward-facing predictive rankings based on how you're playing, not how much luck you're fielding. It has Michigan third in the nation, a healthy margin clear of Alabama. Very few football teams would be doing what Michigan is doing to their schedule. This is an elite outfit.

And yet. Look at the halftime scores of Michigan's Big Ten games: 17-13. 13-0. 10-10. 16-14. 13-7. 14-17. Look at them! Behold this pile of anxiety. Itch rapturously. Feel the hives forming on your back. It is three AM, you cannot sleep, and the clock says we are losing to Rutgers at halftime.

Are you, a Michigan football fan, capable of waiting one whole half of football before the thing you're looking at with your eyes is reflected on the scoreboard? Have you repented and changed your ways? Can you look in the black pit of negative expectations and say "not today, Satan"?

For some, the answer is yes. For the people in my twitter mentions, the answer is largely no. Our open threads had a bit of a spasm this week, as well:

While "suck" seems to be slowly stabilizing again, as a group of people posting in a thread for a game we were all watching, we certainly were not happy - at all really - with certain details. Indeed, there were 81 instances of "fire" in that thread, with 66 of them being in the portion which covered the first half. Mostly, the ire was directed at Moore and Weiss, but a fair amount was also tossed at Minter, and even one or two people asked for Jim's head

Even your author has to admit that there was a point in the second quarter when Michigan took what felt like forty-five straight penalties where the gray plain of cool reason began to buckle. Maybe, just maybe, our new reasonable spacetime deformed just a hair.

Maybe it felt like the lead picture to any scientific article about gravity. Just for a second. And twenty minutes of halftime.

------------------------------------------

For the sixth straight week, Michigan came out of the locker room with a flamethrower and laid waste to the opposition. Michael Barrett turned into the Predator; Gavin Wimsatt ceased registering him as a threat, until it was too late. Donovan Edwards motioned out of the backfield and found a safety lined up over him. Blake Corum did Blake Corum things, etc.

All those halftime scores have given way to blowouts. A Maryland touchdown with 45 seconds left is the only reason Michigan has not won every game this year by at least two scores, and there were a lot of people saying things like "and it wasn't that close" after Michigan beat a top 15 Penn State team 41-17. You can show up against Michigan and maybe they'll fart around for a bit, kicking field goals and suffering the odd outrageously misfortunate touchdown. All the while they will be battering down your run defense five or six yards at a time, and when that gives way you get flat—all the way flat.

It is soothing, in its way. Yeah, whatever, the game is close. Michigan's outrushing them 200 to 4. It is not possible that the game continues to be close. That is not how things work, when you can do the low-variance thing over and over again until a safety explodes into a thousand parts trying to tackle a streaking running back.

This Michigan team is inevitable like gravity.

AWARDS

Known Friends and Trusted Agents Of The Week

[Paul Sherman]

you're the man now, dog

#1(T) Blake Corum and Donovan Edwards. 109 rushing yards each for the two-headed RB monster, with Edwards adding another 52 receiving yards. Corum's YPC was only held down by an illegal formation call and a lot of goal-line pounding. Also he looked absolutely terrible and was clearly playing through some sort of illness. Five points each.

#2 Michael Barrett. Was responsible for the blocked punt and that knocks him off the pedestal, but 2 INTs, one returned for a touchdown, and four tackles on a night where Sainristil led Michigan with five. Really saving Michigan's ass in the wake of the everlasting Nikhai Hill-Green injury.

#3 The Offensive Line. One sack allowed and 5.3 YPC despite losing a long run to that penalty. Blocked up a tricky defense and did some mashing. Issues inside the two not really their deal but a bull-headed insistence on manballing it in, which ultimately did work.

Honorable mention: Will Johnson had an interception and a PBU. Mike Morris added a sack and a half to his not-that-far-off-Ojabo season pace. Kris Jenkins was excellent with his screen recognition and was dominant on the ground. JJ McCarthy probably should have had a much better statline than he did but he didn't get a lot of help from his wide receivers.

KFaTAotW Standings.

(points: #1: 8, #2: 5, #3: 3, HMs one each. Ties result in somewhat arbitrary assignments.)

40: Blake Corum (#2 CSU, #2 Hawaii, HM UConn, #1 Maryland, #2 Iowa. HM Indiana, T2 PSU, #1 MSU, T1 Rutgers)
21: JJ McCarthy (#1 Hawaii, #2 UConn, HM Maryland, HM Iowa, #3 Indiana, HM PSU, HM MSU. HM Rutgers)
17: Mike Morris (T3 Hawaii, HM Maryland, #1 Iowa, T1 Indiana, #3 PSU, HM Rutgers)
16: Ronnie Bell (HM CSU, HM Hawaii, #1 UConn, #2 Indiana, HM PSU)
15: The Offensive Line (#3 Iowa, #1 PSU, HM MSU, #3 Rutgers)
14:  Kris Jenkins (#3 UConn, T3 Hawaii, HM Iowa, T1 Indiana, #2 MSU, HM Rutgers)
13: Mazi Smith (#1 CSU, T3 Hawaii, HM Maryland, HM Iowa, HM MSU)
9: Donovan Edwards (HM Hawaii, T2 PSU, T1 Rutgers)
7: Gemon Green (HM UConn, T2 Maryland, HM PSU)
5: DJ Turner (T2 Maryland), Junior Colson (#3 CSU, HM UConn, HM PSU), Luke Schoonmaker (T3 Maryland, HM Iowa, HM Indiana, HM MSU), Michael Barrett (#2 Rutgers).
4: Eyabi Okie (HM CSU, HM Iowa, T1 Indiana),  Jake Moody (HM PSU, #3 MSU).
3: Derrick Moore (HM CSU, T1 Indiana), Jaylen Harrell (HM CSU, T1 Indiana), Mason Graham (HM Hawaii, HM Iowa, HM Indiana), Rod Moore (HM CSU, HM Indiana, HM MSU)
2: Roman Wilson (HM CSU, HM Hawaii), Max Bredeson (T3 Maryland), Joel Honigford (T3 Maryland), Mike Sainristil (HM Maryland, HM Indiana)
1: Braiden McGregor (HM CSU), Makari Paige (HM Hawaii), Rayshaun Benny (HM Hawaii), Cornelius Johnson (HM Hawaii), , AJ Henning (HM UConn), Caden Kolesar (HM UConn), RJ Moten (HM Maryland), Will Johnson (HM Rutgers)

Who's Got It Better Than Us(?) Of The Week

Barrett's second interception is returned for a TD and even the vague hint of an upset is dispelled.

Honorable mention: First Barrett INT; Johnson INT. Quinten Johnson hops on the surprise onside kick. Donovan Edwards has a sweet 40-yarder. Ditto Blake Corum. The entire third quarter.

?MARCUS HALL EPIC DOUBLE BIRD OF THE WEEK.

The blocked punt is returned for a TD, completely scrambling all brain until about midway through the third quarter.

Honorable mention: Two more deep shots against the Michigan cornerbacks raise Concerns. Second quarter malaise period with a holding penalty on a KOR and a delay on a punt, and general team-wide WTF. Jake Moody misses two 50-yarders, which somehow qualifies as a surprise.

OFFENSE

WELCOME TO HELL, LINEBACKERS [Paul Sherman]

Donovan Edwards: hello. I carved out a space in last week's UFR specifically to contrast Blake Corum's ability to maximize his blocking with Edwards's. I have not exactly been down on Edwards, but I have thought that there's a big gap between Michigan's two main backs. The past tense in the previous sentence is probationary, but hell yes:

That two-beat delay gives Bredeson time to get to the linebacker, widens that guy out so there's a lane, and also gets a safety to run himself out of the play. And then his acceleration is such that he's up to full speed in a flash. If he does that with consistency all of a sudden he's a tough, tough guy to deal with.

Edwards also had an impressive cut on his first carry, which caught a run blitz that would have resulted in a TFL if he hadn't stopped and cut back inside:

A lot of backs eat that TFL. Edwards also committed a linebacker before accelerating on the screen before the end of the half that put Michigan in fourth and short and eventually field goal range.

When not doing that Edwards was motioning out to be an outside wide receiver and drawing 6'3" safeties, with inevitable results.

A presumably Corum-deprived 2023 offense should be spending the entire offseason in the lab dreaming up devious things to do with Edwards as a dual threat.

yet another incompletion on a good throw [Sherman]

Le argh. On the one hand, superb NFL-level throw from JJ McCarthy here. On the other, there are three guys covering Schoonmaker and nobody covering Colston Loveland:

McCarthy's performance was bizarrely unrelated to his numbers. He put a lot of balls in spots that should have been catches only for Rutgers to PBU the ball or for some other nonsense to occur. He did have his share of misses—the Andrel Anthony shot stands out as yet another downfield opportunity spurned—but re-run this game and the chances his completion rate is <50% are close to nil.

Hopping mad. Folks were pretty cheesed off about the third and five run immediately before Moody's first missed 50 yarder, but it was there. I assume that the read was live based on JJ McCarthy's reaction immediately after Corum gets tackled. He's extremely upset, and there's only one person McCarthy has license to be upset with: himself.

So I don't think that's on Loveland for not getting down to the DE; I think that's a missed zone read. It's a natural progression from what Michigan was running earlier in the game. The called-back Corum TD was split zone on which the end got kicked out and a nickel blitzer was irrelevant:

TE #86 pulling to top of formation

So naturally DEs are going to hammer down after that when they see similar action. Then you go bang QB keeper at a key point. That wasn't the excessively conservative call it looked like at first blush; it was a play that they'd set up and should have worked.

Dive differences. Michigan's staple short yardage play is a simple dive, which went from money to a difficult slog pretty much the instant Michigan got down to the two. Why? Well, on the four Rutgers has four DL and Michigan has seven blockers so they can double whoever they want:

At the one there are now seven guys on the LOS so you don't get to double anyone:

Also Rutgers DL are selling out by diving at the legs of Michigan OL. There's no way to get a push when your legs get taken out by the opposition.

On the other hand. It did work. It took four downs a couple of times but Michigan did not kick a redzone field goal until the fourth quarter. In the future they should probably diversify from all-dive-all-the-time (in ways that aren't having the QB or FB also execute a dive)—pretty much any other run play is a walk-in touchdown given the way Rutgers was playing it.

OOOOOOOORF [Sherman]

Blake Corum deadlift of the week. Corum appears to be the difference on the QB sneak where he's Bush Pushing McCarthy.

That's going nowhere until Corum starts moving his feet and then McCarthy sort of levitates/body-surfs into the endzone.

I have no immediate impressions of Jeffrey Persi. This is a pretty good sign. It means that he didn't do anything glaringly wrong, was clean in pass protection, and didn't stand out as an issue in run blocking. Between Persi, El-Hadi, and Barnhart it looks like Michigan goes at least eight deep with competent OL. This is approximately seven more competent linemen than Indiana has.

[Wilcomes]

Wide receiver discussion. This year has been almost devoid of passes that I file as a 2 in UFR—3 is routine, 1 is a circus catch, and 2 is a tough but makeable catch. Historically about 2/3rds of 2s are caught. This game felt like Michigan going 0-fer on them.

Is this a larger concern? Probably not. We have plenty of data on Bell and Johnson and while they're not Nico Collins they are also not guys who deviate much from that historical norm. Johnson was at 75% on 2s last year and Bell was 4/7 in the shortened Covid season. I don't think this is a real issue. The WRs have been accused of being disappointing; I think their relative lack of prominence is because the ground game is insane and teams are largely playing in the parking lot anyway. That combined with McCarthy's errant deep balls this year are the major reasons the WR production is lacking.

DEFENSE

[Wilcomes]

The default. Rutgers had 13 drives in this game. Three of them acquired more than nine yards. Five of them went backwards. Three saw Michigan intercept the ball. The Rutgers ground game averaged barely over 2 yards a carry and once you add the sacks back in they got emphatically Rushing Rutger'd with 14 yards against Michigan's 52 points. They got First Down Rutger'd: Michigan had 22 first downs.

This is what happens when a very bad offense plays Michigan. Approximately one thing works, for a little bit, and then they get a touchdown, and then it stops working and then they look at the touchdown they got and think "well at least we got one touchdown."

yoink [Wilcomes]

This Week In Freshman Starters. Gavin Wimsatt managed to get through half of the third quarter before he threw it in someone's chest, but hoo boy when that dam broke it flooded the villagers:

I personally do not see it with Wimsatt even when you grade him on the Rutgers freshman curve. There are quarterbacks who are making bad decisions and flashing plus abilities, and there are quarterbacks who are making bad decisions and also throwing balls absolutely nowhere near his receivers. Wimsatt is the latter, and I'm not sure I've seen a mid-career accuracy makeover big enough to get Wimsatt to where Rutgers needs him to be.

He does have an arm, which makes him more interesting than Noah Vedral.

[Wilcomes]

The one thing that worked a bit, part two. For the second straight week the only thing that even kind of sort of worked a bit was bombing it deep into one-on-one coverage. Rutgers set up its field goal with a fade down the sideline that is pretty frustrating on review. It's third and eight, Michigan's dropping seven, and RJ Moten starts at 12 yards:

Safety just above the top hash

No play action, underneath stuff is very much not your job, Turner is in press. You're aligned outside of the hash to the boundary. This is a situation where you have to be over the top of a sideline fade.

Turner's fine here. He gets in trail position because he's in press and this guy is right on the sideline. Head around, leaps for ball, just isn't 6'4". I have to believe that you're only running press on third and eight because help over the top is expected.

Later Sainristil got a slot fade, Moten did get over the top, but the ball went to the back shoulder and Sainristil was not in the trail position that Turner was on this play.

That's an excellent throw given the situation but it's been 14 years since "they tried to man up Crab", the back shoulder is an omnipresent threat. You need the safety over the top and you need the corner to trust the safety will get over the top. An Area For Improvement.

Also in third and eight. The Rutgers offensive TD was set up by a long catch and run on a slant on which I have a lot of questions. I mean obviously you want Will Johnson to make this tackle but I am completely baffled by what Rod Moore is doing on this play:

Tight end stays in so it looks like he's just running at the line of scrimmage as a blitzer(?) from 12 yards instead of converting into a robber, which obviously seems like a better play since going green dog from that depth is never going to accomplish anything.

Issues in critical down man-to-man. The fourth down conversion on the TD drive was a pick play:

Michigan narrowly avoided getting an Indiana touchdown on their face on a similar play where the IU WR outright blocked the guy in man-to-man when the TE caught the ball a yard downfield, converting a good screen into OPI. I'm not sure why Michigan isn't switching these—a common pattern-match called "banjo" for obscure, possibly pun-related reasons. (You pick a banjo, I guess? I don't know why banjos defeat picks.) Here's hoping they install something soon, because it looks like teams are going to press-man beaters in these scenarios.

 

[Sherman]

Weird guys, good guys. Cam Goode got a sack and George Rooks got a TFL as Michigan rotated through seven DTs. The days when Rooks was a critical recruiting win at a position where Michigan was alarmingly bereft feel like a thousand years ago. Hell, I remember being a little alarmed when Chris Hinton opted into the draft just a few months ago. Instead Michigan has a reasonable three-deep and literally all of them could return next year.

Mazi Smith is likely headed for the draft—Dane Brugler has him in his top 50 and he's probably around there to Kiper, who has him the #5 DT—but the word does not appear to be out on Kris Jenkins yet, and in the NIL era I think we're going to get a lot fewer "really?" flier opt-in like Hinton and Gray last year. Jenkins/Graham backed up by Grant/Benny/Rooks… yes. Sickos meme goes here.

Michael Barrett, fully-fledged linebacker. Speaking of guys emerging into key pieces, go beyond the Michael Barrett interceptions and recall the last time he was clucked at for being responsible for a chunk play. That was Indiana. Since then he seems to have rounded into a reasonable inside linebacker, if not an outright plus player. His deficiencies in neckroll stuff like taking on free-releasing guards are minimized by the aforementioned defensive tackles, and by Michigan's approach against heavy sets—they don't bring in another linebacker to go 4-3, they bring in a DT to go 5-2.

SPECIAL TEAMS

[Sherman]

WHAT IS ADAM KORSAK'S WHOLE DEAL. I have never been as stressed about an opponent punter as I was about Adam Korsak. The above was Korsak's first punt and I was bracing for the horrible no good very bad roughing the punter call after Cornelius Johnson bashed into Korsak after he rolled out, threatening to run. This happened against Michigan in that horrible Kinnick night game in 2016, leading to a lot of spittle-flecked NCAA rulebook reading and/or ranting about. A flag did not come out, but if that Kentucky play is any indication it very well could have:

Punters who leave the "pocket" should forfeit any sort of protection, but we've been over this.

More importantly, What Is Adam Korsak's Whole Deal? He's just taking off on every snap until it's clear he desperately needs to punt and then it's going 50 yards. Aussie rules, man. This was Michigan's worst special teams game in the Harbaugh era but against any other punter Cornelius Johnson has a ruthless return-to-sender punt block. Korsak just WOOPed and then thunked off another excellent punt.

[Sherman]

On the punt block. Jake Butt got his Klatt on by immediately identifying the issue—Michael Barrett got caught up on the left side of the line and didn't pick up a guy stunting a few gaps over. Not much else to add.

At what point are kickoff returns not even worth lining up for? I have generally advocated for Michigan to shoot its shot on kickoffs even if they're usually not getting back to the 25, because we're here to play football, not wave our hands in the air. But I wonder if the strictly rational play is to just go into every kickoff assuming a fair catch and then play onside prevent:

That was a nice play by Quinten Johnson but if he doesn't get that there are three or four Rutgers players closest to the ball.

Meanwhile all that near-turnover cost Rutgers was 25 yards of field position. How often does that have to pay off for that to be worth it? Not real often, I'm thinking.

The math. Per Seth's magic EPA calculator spreadsheet, here are the numbers from the Rutgers perspective:

• Kickoff, other team starts at the 25: –0.92 EP.
• Kickoff, other team starts at 50: –3.16 EP.
• Kickoff, you get ball at 50: +3.16 EP.

So the cost is 2.24 EP for a potential payoff of 4.08 EP, so your break-even point is ~35%. (This may be pessimistic; another analysis of the EP of onside kicks came up with a 26% break-even point.) NFL surprise onside kicks have converted at a 45% clip over the last 20 years. So it's already pretty clearly a +EV situation, and if you're an underdog it's even more attractive.

(Side note: I looked up various recovery stats in the course of this and found some wildly varying numbers, with one article claiming that surprise onside success rates were as high as 60%, with a much higher break-even point. So… I dunno.)

MISCELLANEOUS

Inexplicable. I did not expect to enjoy a sideline shot of Alan Bowman as much as I did.

I do not know why this is funny to me. It merely is.

ALSO. Kris Jenkins.

[Wilcomes]

I mean?

End of half time management. I thought the stuff at the end of the half was fairly reasonable. After the Edwards screen there were 42 seconds. Michigan had fourth and three on the Rutgers 46. The clock runs until Rutgers calls timeout with 21 seconds left.

From Michigan's perspective, if you immediately take a timeout and fail to convert you're giving Rutgers the ball at basically the 50 with 35 seconds left. If you let the clock run down, free Hail Mary.

Rutgers then wants to prevent free Hail Mary so they call TO, but now there are 21 seconds left so if you fail on the fourth down It's a basically the 50 with 15 seconds left—much less dangerous. So now M is incentivized to go and they eventually set up a 50 yard field goal.

I think Michigan's approach is reasonable. I think Rutgers probably should have suffered the Hail Mary since Moody is an excellent kicker and a Hail Mary is an extremely low-probability event.

The flashing lights. Every time Rutgers got in the endzone the lights turned into da club in a way that meant you could not see the official when he was calling a penalty or announcing a review. I feel like this is Too Far.

Also. Turn your mic on, bro.

Uh. Side effect of looking up some Mazi Smith draft rankings was scanning Kiper's list for other Michigan players. Blake Corum made his running backs list… as an honorable mention? Fire the money cannon, NIL bros.

HERE

Best and Worst:

Best:  Weirdly No Fighting

A week after, you know, it was almost surreal seeing Rutgers deliver some hard hits on guys (a couple getting dangerously close to flagrant) and everyone just sort of handle it like adults.  This was a game where absolutely you could have seen some chirping and some shoving but instead Michigan and Rutgers just played a football game and then walked off the field at its completion without extending the violence.  And it’s not like Greg Schiano and Jim Harbaugh are known as famously chill dudes.  Anyway, just something I noticed.

State of Our Open Threads made the main column.

GIFs!