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If Northwestern's Mike Hankwitz is de jure heir to Bo's defensive legacy, Matt Canada carries the most direct claim to Bo's offense, inheriting it through (former Bo player at Miami) Joe Novak, the longtime Gary Moeller and Bill Mallory assistant. While at NIU, Canada and Novak helped write part of the history of spread offense by putting the meatball back in it. When Novak retired (leaving Jerry Kill in charge) Canada went back to Indiana, his alma mater. Michigan fans may remember the Chappelbombing under Bill Lynch: that was Canada.

That was also six(!) teams ago. Canada went back to NIU for a year, spent a year coaching Bielema's offense at Wisconsin, spent three years at NC State with Dave Doeren, joined Pitt as Pat Narduzzi's first OC, was bought by LSU, got fired by Orgeron, and landed at Maryland just in time to be the one guy not tainted by everything.

At every stop beat reporters have struggled to define Canada as a spread coach who runs much of his offense out of the flexbone. But for Canada, it's never been about where you are at the snap, but the path you took to get there:

Matt Canada is the Motion Man, traveling from one campus to another, staying only long enough to set scoring records and sew his particular brand of jet-fueled chaos. After all, the man has two degrees from Indiana.

The film: They played this game in a decrepit, leaking NFL building without any drainage because Maryland is one of those college teams that likes to regularly sell its home games to local pro stadiums. Since the Terps weren't expected to win, hard rain was in the forecast, it was 110 degrees with 970% humidity at kickoff, and Maryland had just had their insanely toxic culture exposed by the negligent death of a player, the event was not well-attended.

And rain it did. After three quarters of panting in a sweat lodge fans had to wait through an 86-minute weather delay at the start of the 4th quarter (during which fans got to pack into the hallways and watch the media complain about leaks in their covered, air conditioned press box). After that the players were sloshing around in 4 inches of water and Canada stuck almost exclusively to jet action plays out of the flexbone. Maryland looked like the better team but won flukily: Bill C's stats put Maryland at a 30% win expectancy with an adjusted scoring margin of –5.5. It was a weird game.

Personnel: My diagram:

PDF version, full-size version (or click on the image)

This is the first game they'll have the entire starting offensive line playing together though it's hard to tell which injuries are still relevant after a bye week. I'll detail in the OVERVIEW, 

[after THE JUMP]

Spread, Pro-Style, or Hybrid? Hybrid. In this game they were almost exactly 50-50 between shotgun/pistol and under center, and clearly preferred the latter when there wasn't far to go:

Formation						Personnel		Playcall
Down	Gun	Pistol	Ace	Bone		Avg WRs		Pass	PA	RPO	Run
1st down	9	4	10	10		2.06		7	3	2	19
2nd down...
& 5 or less	2	-	1	2		2.00		1	-	-	3
& long	12	1	6	5		2.46		6	3	-	13
3rd or 4th down...
& 5 or less	5	-	-	5		1.90		5	1	-	4
& long	11	-	-	2		2.92		11	-	-	2
Total	39	5	17	24		2.28		35.3%	8.2%	5.9%	48.2%

That Flexbone featured a slot-back on one or both sides who showed all kinds of motion.

more like JETbone amirite?

Most of the bone was in the 4th quarter when they got a small lead and wanted to burn clock but the Ace formations were pretty much the same thing except with 2 or more receivers split out. All told they averaged 2.28 receivers per formation but that's thrown off by a lot of bone formations in the 4th quarter with one receiver or none. They're a base 3-wide in shotgun and Ace formations.

Like Walt Bell before him, with a roster of jet mites and space smurf RBs, Canada too has taken to unbalanced formations (video). These formations lose an eligible receiver to mess with the defense's accounting and create space to run out the backside or overload the front. I counted eight snaps (of 85 in this game) with unbalanced, tackle-over, or some kind of covered TE or receiver, including a thing I only have ever seen in Yost's playbook:

The TE is covered by the receiver on the top; #68 is in the backfield

Basketball on Grass or MANBALL? Again, a hybrid, though leaning zone. I didn't catch any true run-pass options (a few screen-pass options) but I did see plenty of optioning, triple-optioning, and screens that might be optioning….

From all formations they used a blocking style I was hoping to get a name for but can't come up with anything better than Jet Motion/Zone (or possibly "B.O.B."). This example is unbalanced (the inline TE is covered) but it's best clip I got of how their base running play is supposed to work:

The left side of the line is blocking the jet action to run outside that way, and the right side is stretch blocking to run off-tackle that way, but the real goal of this design is to get the linebackers flowing hard to either side so the running back can cut into all that space in the middle, where they're inside zone blocking.

It's a good fit for the personnel on hand. All those scatbacks are good at converting the space into yards, and the guard-like tackles are good at getting movement on the edges to expand the space.

I think against Texas and even more so in the loss to Temple, the offensive line injuries were responsible for the ineffectiveness of this scheme. The non-Top 100 OTs were routinely pushed inward, restricting the middle space that Maryland wants to attack. Also the left guard and TEs were getting rocked backwards all the time, forcing outside ballcarriers to bend around and giving the defense time to rally.

Hurry it up or grind it out? Bill C has them almost exactly average, but they're really two extremes: tempo or wait until the last five seconds. The interval is used for swapping out RBs, setting, shifting formations, setting again, motioning, motioning again, motioning aga…SNAP!

Quarterback Dilithium Level (Scale: 1 [Navarre] to 10 [Denard]): Both QBs are a year removed from ACL surgeries and have lost maybe half a step from last year. Kasim Hill is more thickly built but otherwise similar to Shea Pattersion: a dual threat who prefers to throw and isn't much at top gear, but his acceleration, vision, and cleverness make him more likely than not to pick up the 1st down if he breaks contain on 3rd and long.

That's a 7 on my scale, where 5 is the line where you have to account for the QB's legs, and 8 is a decent starting running back. As for Piggy he used to be on that 9/10 border, and now he's a J.T. Barrett-like 9. Obligatory Tube:

EXPLICIT LYRICS

Zook Factor: Nothing outlandish in this game except the Bo-like conservatism in the 4th quarter. After a Flexbone jet sweep to score the go-ahead touchdown they ran the same exact play five more times in the next six snaps, broken up only by a 3rd and 11 pass (an underthrown fade that drew a Jane-approved PI). Those gained 12, –2, 1, 5, and 1 yard(s) and brought the clock from 12:19 to 8:06.

There were nearly identical 4th down decisions in this game from the Texas 34 and both times I thought Canada went with the wrong answer. He's got the top 2018 kicker prospect—ambipedal Joe Petrino (no relation)—who hasn't missed yet this year.

Dangerman: Ty Johnson, duh. He didn't get to shake loose in this game very much in this game but by now we're all aware of his uncanny cut-acceleration combo. Despite rarely having a passing game or a complete offensive line, in the last four years Ty Johnson averaged 7.14, 9.13, 6.39, and currently 7.50 yards per carry. The canonical Ty Johnson run from last year (he changed numbers this year):

And here's that in a screen setting:

And here's how you get all of Maryland twitter to explode in anger at a shovel pass:

Pitch it to the Breaston-like substance!

The limiting factor on TJ has always been size—despite returning kicks he's never averaged more than 15 touches a game because you might break him. I didn't get to see much of the new second banana Anthony McFarland in this game but almost 11 YPC makes its own statement, even if that had a lot of Minnesota in it.

The randomly assigned gfycat for this is "ExcellentDenseLeafbird"

Lastly I won't star a true freshman wide receiver—and he gave me a few reasons not to—but Jones is probably getting a star next year:

HenneChart:

Maryland vs UT	Good				Neutral			Bad					Ovr
Quarterback	DO	CA	SCR		PR	MA		BA	TA	IN	BR		DSR	PFF
Kasim Hill	2	7 (7)	2		4	2		2	-	5	3x		52%	-
Tyrell Pigrome	1	1 (1)	-		-	-		-	-	-	-		100%	-

Hill felt more effective than his DSR, and I may have been harsh on some inaccurately thrown balls. Hill is the opposite extreme from the Northwestern guys—note zero throwaways charted despite plenty of pressure. Hill will stand in and make an inadvisable throw, and that sometimes works out very well.

And sometimes it doesn't, or does because nobody prepares for moon balls.

Although perhaps with Maryland they should be.

OVERVIEW:

Most of these guys you're familiar with from last year, and some of them didn't play in the Texas game. The offensive line has been dealing with constant injuries. They returned all five of last year's starters, but the two I thought were awful last year are the only ones who've managed to play more than two games in 2018:

Opponent	LEFT TACKLE	LEFT GUARD	CENTER	RIGHT GUARD	RIGHT TACKLE
Texas	Marcus Minor	Sean Christie	Johnny Jordan	Brendan Moore	Damian Prince
Bowling Green	Derwin Gray	Sean Christie	Johnny Jordan	Brendan Moore	Damian Prince
Temple	Marcus Minor	Sean Christie	Johnny Jordan	Brendan Moore	Ellis McKennie
Minnesota	Derwin Gray	Sean Christie	Brendan Moore	Terrance Davis	Marcus Minor

The returning starters are in bold and expected to play this week but after a bye week who knows who's injured. My summary from last year hasn't changed:

I didn’t like any of their offensive linemen, though PFF likes the tackles and RG Terrance Davis, a former Michigan target. The scouting on Davis is correct: he’s very heavy, and he contributes the most of the five to the run game. The tackles are both former 5-stars; LT Derwin Gray is a decent pass blocker when not facing elites, while RT Damian Prince is basically a guard forced to play right tackle—backups there are all true freshmen. OC Brendan Moore and LG Sean Christie were abused by Wisconsin’s front. Christie is a stiff lunger. Moore is an okay run blocker but he was mentally overwhelmed by Wisconsin’s 3-4 blitzes—this might be a good game to take the 3-3-5 back out of the garage. Moore’s snapping was such an adventure that I had to make it into a clip video

The two non-bolded characters (and LG Sean Christie) were obvious cyan circle candidates after this game, and C Brendan Moore, who got tagged with one last year, is just on the edge. Maryland knew it too, shifting their protections left and rolling the quarterback right on most non-screen throws.

The two quarterbacks injured last year are both healed; QB Kasim Hill got the overwhelming majority (87%) of snaps while athletic QB Tyrell "Piggy" Pigrome came in for an occasional run package.

The other carryover from last year are the tiny receivers. The Lollipop Guild graduated star DJ Moore, the first receiver taken in last year's draft, and tiny slotback DJ Turner (no not THAT 2019 Michigan commit) is a generic replacement. They did scrounge up a 6th year for smurfy WR Taivon Jacobs and recruit some promising more strapping lads who are nonetheless freshmen. Among them, 6-2 Jeshaun Jones has already supplanted a former starting mite and is on track to be really good down the road.

Tight end graduated a problem spot and remains a problem spot. The most effective is the true freshman H-Back Chigoziem Okonkwo just because he's got a little bit of running back to him that fits the bone; starting TE Avery Edwards and backup TE Noah Barnes are identical 6'4/230 non-blockers who struggle in chipping, route running, catching, and skills related to football.

And of course you remember the backs. Star RB Ty Johnson is still around, still averaging over 7 YPC, and still very, very fast. His mate with the annually declining efficiency Lorenzo Harrison is injured, but not missed: 2017 blue chip (#99 composite) RB Anthony (son of Booger)  McFarland is coming off his own medshirt and is not a Michigan 5-star back so he's averaging 10 YPC. Sophomore RB Tayon Fleet-Davis is matching McFarland for carries but not efficiency. They all take turns at RB and "F-back", the jet/slot/wingback job in Canada's offense, and they're all the same tiny speedster you don't want to meet in space.

They're also going to test the refs on how well they know the rulebook and to what degree they're willing to enforce it. Ineligible receiver penalties start at three yards, not five:

There must be seven men lined up with some part of their body within at least a yard of the line of scrimmage. Not three.

Not nine.

Blocking with the ball in the air is a no-no:

While not quite at the MSU extreme, Maryland is the next closest team I've scouted on a scale of how much rubbin's in the racin'. The "savvy" returning linemen of Maryland have a certain reputation, and should give Big Ten officials a good 100 opportunities to revert Michigan's holding luck to the mean.

The rest will be how well Michigan's defenders stay in their lanes and behave responsibly when their assignments and gaps change six times before the snap and twice after--more a game for Kemp than Dwumfour if you take my meaning. This is the part of Bo's offense they don't talk about in front of the children: the part that reintroduced old tricks from Yost and Crisler, the part that was willing to option any defender, the part that didn't know what side it was running to until right before the ball was snapped, the part that never let you know where the next block might come from, and the part that would get a lead, put away the receivers, and cut you with the same basic look until you bled out.

For the most part Texas had the right strategy: Just keep them in front of you, stay on assignment, and keep the bugs moving sideways: