kay'ron adams

Resources: My charting, RU game notes, RU roster, CFBstats, Last Year

Yep they're still bad. But they sure can recruit running backs.

The film: Their more recent game against BC probably says more about Sitkowski if left in a clean pocket but their 30-0 blasting by Iowa the week before is closer to the level of competition Michigan's defense should present. And it lets us take a peek down the road, which I'd never do of course.

Personnel: My diagram:

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

This is more or less the same group of guys as last year, minus a disappointing left tackle and a decent guard who transferred to an Ohio state university that to my knowledge doesn't have a football program. Texas Tech grad transfer quarterback McLane Carter has been ruled out for a concussion and anyway he was atrocious. That means we're back to Artur Sitkowski, who set some NCAA records last year as a true freshman for quarterback futility. He was a 4-star IMG prospect and looks it at times, but clearly all parties would have preferred to avoid using him this much in this part of his career, and his accuracy is such that I'm not sure the future is that bright either, especially after the licking he's taking.

The big difference now is they've finally recognized the one thing Rutgers is good at: recruiting running backs. RB/Slot Raheem Blackshear (+12/-1, –2 pass pro in my charting) remains on the field as a slot receiver/jet dude when he isn't the running back, and is asked to do all sorts of true receiver things he's pretty good at, and tight end things he's not. That's to get RB Isaih Pacheco (+7/-0, –0 pass pro) starter's minutes. You may remember Pacheco from such bad moments as "that Rutgers running back who outran our entire team one time." Brad Hawkins Apologists like me will be happy to know Pacheco is legit. Thus ends the list of Rutgers offensive personnel who would start on literally any other Big Ten team.

Since it's early in the year a quick reminder of how I do pass protection charting. A –1 is a pass protection that threatens the QB but is survivable, for example if an OT lets a DE around him at 7 yards the QB can still step up in the pocket. A –2 on a play equals death. You can get a –2 on one play if your block is so bad the quarterback has no way to get out of it. I divide this by the non-screen non-RPO pass snaps for a protection percentage. So if you've got two OTs at 90% you're giving up a sack every 10 pass plays.

The offensive line is as ugly as "remove the only half-decent players from the worst OL in the Power 5 and add a year" sounds. LT Raiqwon O'Neal (+2/-1, –7 pass pro) got to spend the day on the business end of star Iowa DE A.J. Epenesa, usually without tight end help. His 68% protection metric is [checks Ulizio] worse than any Michigan OL I've ever calculated this for, though also understandable for a 6'5" redshirt freshman going against a top ten pick. RT Kamaal Seymour (+2/-4, –5 pass pro) didn't face Epenesa, got TE help on almost every pass rush and still graded out at 77% so the trying not to be too mean things I said last year all still apply. All the guys inside had matching 82%s on pass protection, which is quite bad for interior OL but also largely Epenesa-induced. Returning LG Zach Venesky (+1/5/-5, –4) and C Michael Maietti (+1/-5, –4) were also mostly beat up by Iowa's bad DTs too. New RG Nick Krimin (+4/-3, –4) had a few impressive blocks that showed off his strength, earning most of those minuses for two false starts. As a group this line had 28 protection minuses and a 79% protection rating, which translates to giving up a sack on 37% of tries.

For this reason the tight end rarely goes out in a pattern. TE Matt Alaimo (+1.5/-3, –4) has just five pass targets on the season, and is no better than the interior OL. He's also the only option there, with Wisconsin grad transfer Kyle Penniston out indefinitely and their depth just H-back/fullback Brandon Meyers, who at 230 is still trying to grow out of being a running back.

The running backs don't stay in to pass protect either since they're the main receiving targets. Blackshear's numbers (9.4 yards per target, 81% catch rate, 255 yards and 2 TDs) are legit for a receiver, especially considering he has more than twice as many targets (22) as the next guy. The next guy is WR Bo Melton (10.9 YPT, 53% catch rate, 186 yards and a TD), who got bumped outside to keep Blackshear on the field and has been effective on long comebacks but otherwise shut down. Freshman WR Isaiah Washington (4.7 YPT, 36% catch rate, 52 yards) is the recipient of a lot of desperate chucks and throwaways because he's 6'3" and sorta fast. Yes they had a TE last year with the same name—no relation. This guy's just a tall dude who can run in a straight line. WR Mohamed Jabbie spells them, usually at slot. Nobody else gets much run.

[after THE JUMP: content about the Rutgers offense]

Yesterday I was driving home and a deer leapt a gosh dang guard rail and bounded across the road and I hadn’t been that surprised since, well, you know. So Saturday night got ugly in a hurry. Not only did Michigan hockey lose to Minnesota at home in a game they desperately needed to get points out of, but they lost on an even-strength goal with under two minutes to play. That same night, OK S Daxton Hill dropped the Thanos Snap of recruit tweets, flipping his seemingly rock-solid commitment from Michigan to Alabama. Judging by the texts I got and twitter and message boards and every other available piece of evidence, this went over poorly.

If you were surprised, you weren’t alone. According to 247’s Steve Lorenz, not only was Michigan’s staff caught off guard, Alabama’s staff was surprised to learn of the flip. Michigan visited Hill at home last Wednesday. Alabama visited Hill’s home the next day, but no crystal balls were flipped. Lorenz says that the Alabama staff felt better about flipping FL S and current Ohio State commit Jordan Battle and thought that, if anything, they might get an unofficial visit from Hill. The Michigan Insider’s Sam Webb reiterated that Michigan’s staff found out when the public did and, though they wanted him to sign during the early signing period and he had apparently let them know he wanted to wait until February, there were no red flags presaging a decomitment.

The main point of Webb’s post centers around a quote from Hill’s father Webb obtained when he visited the family this fall. The family said they liked that Michigan was about winning all areas of life and not just winning at any cost, and Webb points out that Alabama was Alabama when Hill committed to Michigan, which was coming off a loss to Notre Dame that had people down for weeks. Webb went on to say that he feels Hill isn’t done grappling with whatever might have shifted his hierarchy of decision factors; when a poster on their message board asked if this wasn’t over, Webb responded with a clip from Rocky V of Mickey as a Force ghost or something that ends with Rocky yelling ‘Yo, Tommy! I didn’t hear no bell.” Now Lorenz checks in with a notes post in which he says he was also able to confirm that there's some optimism on Michigan's end that this recruitment may not be over. With Hill's decision horizon apparently extended two months, that makes some sense.

[After THE JUMP: Ann Arbor in December is a hot vacation destination]