Kevin Leach's Play
Thought it was interesting that RR said Leach earned the highest grade on the defense(hope it's graded on a curve). I couldn't go thru and watch the whole game again, but my impressions live were that he was playing fairly well. My buddy at golf the next day who's a little less informed on the Mich personnel said "and who the fuck was 10?? they said they put him in for speed?? he got schooled all day" I'll be curious what Brian's UFR shows. Have we ever known who was graded highest?? Does this effect Brian's thinking during the UFR?? What did you guys think of Leach's play??
November 3rd, 2009 at 10:11 AM ^
i saw him do was the sack on juice... other than that i really didn't see him do much.
November 3rd, 2009 at 10:38 AM ^
He was all over the place. I noticed him getting tackles a lot. I am not an expert when it comes to defense, but I really thought that he was our best LB on the day and I was surprised to see Ezeh come in later.
November 3rd, 2009 at 11:13 AM ^
I haven't had a chance to re-watch the game yet and the UFR is forthcoming but from what I can remember it was something like 11 tackles on the day. Not too shabby.
November 3rd, 2009 at 11:15 AM ^
Tackles are not the whole story, because mike williams had 16 and he probably had the worst game defensively.
November 3rd, 2009 at 12:14 PM ^
probably?!
November 3rd, 2009 at 10:14 AM ^
but UFR will bear it out - all hail UFR.
November 3rd, 2009 at 10:30 AM ^
Ok until #5 broke off that run for about 70 yards. Then I didn't consider his day very good.
November 3rd, 2009 at 10:53 AM ^
Plus I thought Obi's been better than Mouton, so why not put Leach in for Mouton? Yes, both Mouton and Leach are better athletes than Obi, but Obi's the Mike, and he's plenty athletic to play there. Just don't ask him to cover TE's and slots in man. The Mike doesn't exit the box much, so I don't see the reasoning behind needing a better athlete at Mike. I'm looking forward to seeing how Mouton graded out in UFR.
November 3rd, 2009 at 11:03 AM ^
your starting middle has no name on his jersey and a different number on his helmet than on his jersey. yikes.
don't remember any glaring, obvious, Leach-only mistakes when the game mattered, though.
November 3rd, 2009 at 12:18 PM ^
he didn't have his name on his jersey
November 3rd, 2009 at 4:32 PM ^
ever say why he didn't have his name on his jersey?
November 3rd, 2009 at 4:52 PM ^
The story I've heard around here is that the equipment people forgot his jersey in Ann Arbor so he had to use one of the extras that they brought with them. I think his normal number is like 52 or something.
November 3rd, 2009 at 11:08 AM ^
made a lot more moves east-west than I'm used to seeing out of any of our LBs not named Steve Brown.
November 3rd, 2009 at 12:28 PM ^
When your team gives up over 300 yards on the ground, the middle linebacker probably didn't play that well.
But, I wasn't paying much attention to him during the game, and the coaches said they graded him highly, so it's possible.
November 3rd, 2009 at 3:04 PM ^
I wasn't paying much attention to anything but my Beck's Oktoberfest.
November 3rd, 2009 at 5:02 PM ^
Marzen
November 3rd, 2009 at 12:34 PM ^
I looked at the long TD run after the Illinois goal line stand and at least THAT breakdown wasn't on Leach. That was an Illinois RPS +1 combined with terrible plays by Mouton, Williams and Kovacs.
November 3rd, 2009 at 1:55 PM ^
to guess that Mike Williams will receive the worst UFR score for the illinois game and Kovacs would be very close behind. They consistently took poor angles or were simply out of position to come anywhere near making a play. The most frustrating part about that game is that if they simply stuck to their assignments, took better tackling angles and did what they were supposed to do, there would not have been nearly as many big gains from Illinois in the second half. On the play that made it 14-13, the RB ran right past both safeties as they took poor angles. A very similar thing happened on the play that made it 38-13. Williams runs himself right into a blocker and Kovacs pursues way too shallow while he is the "deep" safety. These are huge, mental mistakes that really have little to do with physical abilities.
November 3rd, 2009 at 1:05 PM ^
I am dumbfounded regarding the idea that our walk-on is grading out the best defensively. How in the world are we not able to develop our recruited talent who have been analyzed and offered by other major programs, I assume to play football? If this is the case, stop spending money on the plane tickets, official visits and give us a small drop in ticket prices since it seems we just need to start scouting the IM team since we are able to develop walk-ons better than rated recruits. Not trying to be sarcastic, it just makes my head hurt.
November 3rd, 2009 at 1:10 PM ^
Take 2 aspirin and check back in 2 years if the problem persists