qb pin and pull

FORMATION NOTES: Michigan didn't do anything particularly unusual. Everything was from the gun, and much of it featured two tight ends. This has Ben Mason as a wing TE:

I tried to file Mason as a RB because I think that's a better representation of what Michigan can do when he's on the field but I may have missed some snaps like this where he's lined up at TE.

Minnesota spent virtually the whole night in this 4-3 over, frequently with a standup end. Probably! This game featured extreme pore-o-vision and it was at times difficult to tell who was on the field.

SUBSTITUTION NOTES: Milton, then McNamara briefly, at QB. RB was a near-equal rotation between Corum, Haskins, Charbonnet, and Evans. There were a few snaps with two RBs and one wildcat snap.

At WR, another blender. Sainristil, Wilson, Bell, Johnson, and Jackson all got a significant number of snaps. AJ Henning and Jake McCurry made cameos. McCurry was mostly out there for the heavy package.

At TE/FB, All got a large majority of the snaps, probably 80%. Mason was in for ~50% of them; Schoonmaker and gussied-up OL Joel Honigford got maybe a dozen each. 6'8" beanpole walk-on Carter Selzer got in for a snap.

OL was Hayes/Filiaga/Vastardis/Stueber/Mayfield as expected. Zinter got a little time when Stueber got dinged; Barnhart got the last handful of snaps at LT. Second team OL appears to be Barnhart/Korican/Carpenter/Zinter/Jones.

[After THE JUMP: smoooooooth]

10/24/2020 – Michigan 49, Minnesota 24 – 1-0

That wasn't how it was supposed to go at all.

Even the most optimistic Michigan fan in the world would concede that Joe Milton was at times likely to resemble a certain character in a book I have read one million times. Harbaugh is the elephant.

Watch Me Throw The Ball, Mo Willems

This didn't happen, even a little. The worst thing Joe Milton did in his first start at Michigan was attempt to hit a very covered seam route near the end of the first half. That was high; if anyone was getting to it, it would be Erick All. Twin Cities-area cows are unscathed today, as are the chestplates of Minnesota linebackers. The weirdos trying to peer in from outside the stadium did not get plunked.

It is possible that the next-worst thing was Milton rolling out after maybe-probably missing an open Giles Jackson on a post and then casually flipping a 50-yard improv throw while rolling opposite his throwing arm:

He was only foiled by Jackson's diminutive stature.

These were minor blips around an ocean of calm. By halftime a mainstay of charts and graphs twitter was losing all perspective:

I don’t want to jinx it but Joe Milton could end up being the coolest Michigan football player of all time

— Manuel Excel (@colintj) October 25, 2020

This man has already been told to rein it in by the twitter police. But, like Kirk Herbstreit suggesting that Ben Mason taking a drive-killing penalty was good because it was rad, there is something correct in there. Ben Mason blocking a guy into the hockey arena is rad, and Joe Milton did exude a calmness that radiates through the stadium and into your television and then into you.

Consider this: season openers are dumb, and coronavirus college football is even dumber, and new quarterbacks only compound these issues. Michigan's offense was impervious to this. They took only one what-are-we-doing timeout, that because of a late substitution. They perfectly executed a one-minute drill. They punted once.

[After THE JUMP: give me all of that JT Barrett ground game]