[Eric Upchurch]

The question: Biggest takeaway from the Hawaii game?

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The responses:

BiSB:

Goooooo sports team!

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Brian: The thing that leaps out at me is *how diverse Don Brown's defense is*. I've just about thrown my hands up on accurately describing one formation versus another. The safeties seem to line up at any depth from 15 yards to 6(!), which Jabrill Peppers did once...

...on a play where his first steps were backwards and Delano Hill's were forward. Hill is lined up at 11 yards. There were ludicrous splits, plays where both LBs sat between DL in a three-man front, plain old nickel stuff, and a wide array of gray area defenders doing all kinds of stuff. I have no idea what I'm looking at. I gather that's the idea.

Meanwhile Peppers is another monkeywrench on top of everything. I'd say that for a good third to half of his snaps he was functioning as a safety. He was a corner for another chunk, and then there was some linebackery. Michigan's nickel package is the same as its 4-3, and Peppers can do damn near anything in the back seven from play to play. I'm fascinated to see how Michigan deploys their safety trio this year, but it's 50/50 if I'll ever be able to figure anything out.

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David: if he can fool you, 90% of B10 coaching has no chance, right?

Kirk Ferentz can guarantee himself nearly his full 10 year salary by winning 7 games a year each of the next five. https://t.co/taoAyyuq3y

— Stewart Mandel (@slmandel) September 6, 2016

Nevermind. They're boned.

[Hit THE JUMP for takes that will melt your cool heart with a fresh island song.]

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David: So, the thing that kept running through my mind in the second half was the sheer volume of true freshman that kept seeing the field.  Going into this season, I think that most people speculated that there would/should be more rookies to see some playing -for various reasons- than in quite some time.  Normally, I am a red-shirt promoter.  However, watching the game on Saturday, my tune might be slightly changing.

Looking at this recruiting class (and what next year's is shaping up to be...not to mention even farther down the road), there are just a lot of dudes that can straight-up play, right now.  Its probably one of the better ready-now classes that I can remember.  I just got to thinking that in order to even get a lot of these guys into the class, playing time pretty much has to be on the table.  In addition to that, we're starting to see more and more guys who just may not be here for 4-5 years, anyway.  In those cases, a redshirt seems like a waste of a year.  Then, assuming a somewhat similar class is following...the cycle repeats itself.  What you're generally going to end up with are slightly younger fellows with higher potential playing instead of slightly older gentlemen with lower ceilings playing.  And if those young dudes are headed to the NFL...sign me up.

Now, I'm not going as far as to say that I'm not in favor of redshirting at all, obviously.  But...with the recruiting trending up and the player development the highest that I can remember...Michigan is in great position to keep putting its best talent on the field and not always worrying about what will happen in 3-4 years.  Not to mention grad transfer rules, crazy Harbaugh washouts, etc This is a brand new era that we're starting to see unfold.

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Seth: That life is fleeting and can be taken away from you any moment even if you're washing the dishes or playing football against Pacific islanders. The game was already in hand, but the point of a tuneup game is to get your players tuned up, and somewhere between "it's 35-0" and "we're not at the halfway point yet" it was reasonable enough to still have the first team playing. Then they started dropping liek flies.

Watching Taco get rolled was a sobering moment, as was seeing Mone limp off earlier. Until then I was rooting for a negative yardage half and other superfluous carnage. After Taco, I was terrified every time a Warrior took a shot at Peppers, and retroactively furious for the one they gave him on the first punt. But I also appreciated Matt Godin way more. He had 26 snaps on Saturday at 3tech, one fewer than Wormley. With Hurst and Mone out, Godin is now nominally the top backup at tackle. They can also have Godin take some snaps at DE when Winovich and Gary need a rest (Gary can play either end position apparently). As long as Godin is available, Michigan doesn't have to rush anybody back the next two weeks. A week ago I thought it a minor tragedy that a guy like Godin would wind up buried by this historic depth chart; now more than ever we're going to be glad to have him

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Adam: My biggest takeaway is that the inside linebacker's athleticism is as advertised. Harbaugh talked up that particular aspect of their game over the past couple of weeks, and though he doesn't usually compliment without reason it's always worth watching what happens on field to see whether that's faint presser praise drawn out by a specific line of questioning or something that the coaches are seeing in practice. By about the second quarter it was clear that the praise was deserved. Mike McCray in particular looks a guy whose sliders were set to Don Brown's liking in create-a-player mode; thanks to Seth, I think we'll be muttering "stay healthy stay healthy oof contact alright yes no yes whew" under our collective breaths whenever he's on the field.

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Ace: That Chris Evans is a viable, perhaps game-changing running back is perhaps not the most shocking answer, nor one that takes a great deal of #analysis, but the fact that he was the third-string RB in the first place speaks a lot to Harbaugh’s flexibility—even when a player doesn’t fit a Harbaugh archetype, he’ll play so long as he can contribute. I assumed Harbaugh would be more rigid when I watched Evans play in high school last year:

Evans probably isn't the type of running back Jim Harbaugh wants—he's not a pile-mover between the tackles—but give him the ball in space and he'll make things happen. I'd like to see more of him catching the ball downfield, but from what I saw he looked good in that regard, and his ability to turn nothing into something should serve him well in the slot.

I deeply regret that now. Evans displayed the vision and instincts that will allow him to take advantage of his athletic talents even when the competition level takes a big step up. His ability to make defenders miss in tight spaces does a lot to make up for his lack of size. I’m particularly upset I didn’t see this coming considering Evans turned this…

…into a touchdown in the game I covered of his. He made a spectacular first impression, and I’d be very surprised if it turns out to be an anomaly.

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BiSB: Dammit, Ace beat me.

Ace: The Greatest Mid-February Weekend In The History Of Mid-February Weekends trained me well for such a scenario.