2015 maryland

[Barron/MGoBlog]

Jim Harbaugh talked about the nature of life in his Monday press conference. I’m paraphrasing his paraphrasing, but he referenced a speech from Rocky IV or V about how life hits back and we have to absorb that and keep moving forward. The thing about sports is that they hit and we can’t hit back. We can’t alter events with more resolve or newly-acquired knowledge or literal brawn because we have nothing to do with the outcome. We let these teams get in and they infect our souls, and that irrationally intimate connection creates a baseline nervousness for me.

I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop. I’ve developed a skepticism over the years that probably borders on overskepticism, but what can you expect from someone who’s been a Lions fan for as long as they can remember and has obsessively tracked the last eight seasons of Michigan football? One of the reasons I initially took an interest in stats is that they provide a tenuous buffer against the emotional blows sports land…to a point. While I anxiously await each week’s S&P and FEI update and we collectively giggle as we sift through line after line of defensive statistics, opposing fanbases can attest that sometimes the impact of the numbers can be just as grisly as the hits we take. Take a look at the picture above. They were again this week.

[Stats after THE JUMP]

Upon Further Review still has a sponsor.

Do not worry. The pants thing is still valid. Someone tweeted me worried that he would have to be formally attired after I failed to mention it last time. This is not the case. I was just stretching my creative muscles. Last time that happens EVER, thanks twitter guy.

Matt's got a ticket offer going for a Michigan football or basketball game. If you're buying a home or refinancing, he's the right guy to call. (No pants required.)

FORMATION NOTES: Harbaugh unearthed a chestnut from the first half of the 20th century when he debuted a T formation:

After some Wikipedia reading I decided that Pro T == 1 WR, Wide T == 2 WR, and Power T == 0 WR. "Wide T" is not to be confused with "Split T," which means the OL take up crazy wide splits.

There wasn't anything too weird other than that unless you count a three wide shotgun formation as weird. Michigan spread the field much more than they did against BYU. They were still heavy; WRs got more snaps. Sometimes there were even two of them on the field at the same time.

SUBSTITUTION NOTES: Not much of note. Kerridge and Smith did not play. Isaac, Green, and Johnson seemed to split the RB opportunities down the middle for much of the game, with Isaac exiting permanently after his second fumble. Johnson got more playing time as the game went along.

OL was the usual, FB the usual minus Kerridge. WR was a bit more diverse than the last couple games, with Freddy Canteen and Grant Perry getting a dozen or so snaps each. Michigan spent more of this game in three-wide.

[After THE JUMP: scratching out… actually a lot more than they needed.]

[Fuller]

What goes into deciding whether to go punt block or punt return when you’ve got such an explosive return man in Jabrill?

“Uh…same thing that goes into when you throw a fastball or the curve. You know, you’ve got to pressure- the ability to pressure a punter keeps people in protection, sets up the ability to return. The ability to return a punt sets up the ability to pressure, and it’s really not unlike making calls of any kind in the game of football. You do all your work and you crunch all your numbers but you coach the game by feel, and it pretty much is that.”

How pleased are you with that unit? Does that unit still have more to give?

“The punt return unit?”

And punt block.

“I’ll tell ya, I’m really pleased, actually, with the punt return. The amazing thing is we’ve had 51 reps of it in five games now. Somebody needs to go back far and see how many times there’s 51 reps in five games. Obviously it’s because we’re playing amazing defense and what have you, but if you really look at what the unit has done, there’ve been three returnable balls kicked to us out of 51, okay? Obviously we had a round robin with all the Australian rugby punters against each other in the first four games, and everybody found out it’s really hard to return one of those. Three returnable balls, and we’ve- you know, the baseball analogy is we’ve hit the ball hard but unfortunately we’ve knocked it off the wall for doubles and triples. We haven’t had a home run yet.

“I think the thing that goes unsaid is Jabrill’s amazing decision-making back there [and] unselfishness to not risk balls that shouldn’t be touched or should be on the ground, protecting his teammates, those kinds of things. Besides being explosive the punt returner needs to be a great decision-maker and really needs to handle the ball well because one of the things we always say is if you have the ball you have the team, and you need to take care of the team. It’s been effective. I wish we could get more returnable balls, but I’m not in control of that.”

[After THE JUMP: Baxter is the Yogi Berra of this coaching staff]