sight reading

The screens were pretty annoying, right? Why was Michigan not getting lined up? Why were they having so much success, even on long downs, with this tactic? What was the plan to beat them? How did they adjust? Let's dive in.

Opening up Multiple Fronts

A Walt Bell offense doesn't attack you with the normal array of football moves. They're irregulars, light infantry, moving units across the battlefield with lightning speed and choosing where to engage, which is ideally wherever you're late to arrive in force. The last thing they want to engage in is a battle in the middle. Your troops against theirs? Game over. What they would much rather do is split into two groups, always of varied compositions, use tempo to increase the likelihood of the defense failing to find their others and line up correctly, and use the second before the snap to pick one of those two widely separated points of attack to have the next engagement.

IU's trick was to create multiple fronts, separated by so much distance that defenders had to virtually declare by alignment before the snap which one they were going to be participating in. Bazelak would read the defensive alignment during the second his line was frozen and know which battleground to choose. In this case it was whether Colson (LB on the bottom) and/or Moore (safety just above the bottom hash) were part of the play near the snap or the play out in the flat.

Notice here that the line is run-blocking; they aren't told that the pull is live. But also notice that there's no mesh point; it's not an "RPO"—or at least it's not a post-snap read. The QB sees Michigan only has two guys playing way off for the three guys lined up on the field side, makes the check in his head, and throws it.

This style also dictates how you have to defend them. All those fancy pressures and coverages you use to confound an offense trying to win old-fashioned leverage battles can't help you against Indiana, because they're so spread out that none of your defenders are close enough to each other to swap jobs. Amoeba? Forget it. Want to use Cover 3 to get them guessing if the pressure's coming from the right or left? Get used to Indiana choosing your Rip/Liz calls for you.

I think that's what's going on here.

[After THE JUMP: The adjustments, the reactions, and IU runs out of ideas first]

I realize there was a drive and a half afterwards, but for all purposes this was the end of The Game:

In the aftermath there’s been some Michigan fans saying that this wasn’t something the coaches should have put on O’Korn to do—that it was too complicated for a guy who’s already not good at reacting to what’s in front of him.

I don’t think that’s accurate. Option routes in general are complicated because they put more on receivers, but for the quarterback it’s less complicated than a West Coast tree. He’s still seeing the coverage and making a read, it’s just that he gets to stare at the same receiver the whole time instead of finding each guy where he’s supposed to be. Now, the Run and Shoot, or its cousin the Air Raid: those are complicated for quarterbacks because he’s got to read multiple option routes. That’s not what Michigan was asking O’Korn to do on this play.

I’ll explain. Two bad things happened for Michigan to create this disaster:

1. OHIO STATE DISGUISED THEIR COVERAGE

First, let’s go over what the announcing team said about it, since Gus Johnson and Joel Klatt did a good job of explaining what happened afterwards:

Ohio State switching coverage post-snap is half the story. They’re talking about the fact that Ohio State showed Cover 2 pre-snap and then ran a Cover 3 zone blitz, with the line slanting, the SAM blitzing, the weakside end dropping into the flat, and the WLB tasked with dropping into a deep 1/3rd zone.

[After THE JUMP what O’Korn saw]

This is very important. Fitz Tous is a much weirder name than Gerald Saint.

An image. This was on the internet, but not widely enough. Undoubtedly from this year's Big Ten Media Days, the family portrait:

I'm just posting this for Pelini.

WHAT ABOUT MY SOUL

Where have you been all my life. I can't believe this guy has been doing this for three years and no one has found him before MGoVideo stumbled across him this weekend:

A check of his account reveals he's done this exact same thing dozens of times over the past three years for things as insignificant as victories over Hillsdale. There is no corresponding "BOO" for losses, unfortunately.

NoPa. Whoever wins the league this year won't have to pick up their trophy with tongs:

Former Penn State coach Joe Paterno's name has been removed from the Big Ten's football championship trophy, league commissioner Jim Delany said Monday.

“We believe that it would be inappropriate to keep Joe Paterno’s name on the trophy at this time,” Delany said. “The trophy and its namesake are intended to be celebratory and aspirational, not controversial. We believe that it’s important to keep the focus on the players and the teams that will be competing in the inaugural championship game.”

They're going with just "Stagg." Now all we have to do is tie the division names into a horrible crime and we're set nomenclature-wise. Paterno is kind of a leader and legend all wrapped into one, isn't he?

Legal argh. Marvin Robinson's concussion turns out to be one that causes bad decisions:

Robinson, 20, was arraigned last week on a charge of second degree home invasion and released on a promise to appear. He is accused of breaking into a locked dorm room at 10 p.m. Sept. 29 and stealing the game.

After getting some time early in the year Robinson mysteriously disappeared; now we know why. There's a lot of speculation about this being the end of MRob by mysterious insiders; I find that odd. Unless he's had previous incidents this seems like a first strike type event. Previous Michigan players in the same level of trouble have been able to return after doing penance.

Defensive linemen hang out and call whatever. Rapturous Mattison praise is justified but apparently some of that should be redirected to one Ryan Van Bergen:

"(They) gave me some freedom to call some stunts up front that coaches wouldn’t typically do, but they trust that I’m smart enough to make the right calls," Van Bergen said. "We didn’t actually get the green light, we just started doing it. Take a risk. Why not?

"It worked the first two or three times, and the coaches were just like, ‘Call ‘em when you feel like calling ‘em.’"

Remember a couple years ago when Indiana ripped off an 85-yard touchdown because RVB missed a check? That doesn't so much happen anymore. Seniors.  I like them. We should try to have more of them. You, Desmond Morgan: be a senior with four years of eligibility starting now.

A note on Denard fumbly bits. While it's frustrating to endure a game in which Denard fumbles turn two drives in field goal range to dust, the team's overall trend is still highly positive:

FUMBLES LOST

Year: 2011

Thru: 11/12/11

Rank	Name	Fumbles Lost
1	Wisconsin	2
2	Purdue	3
3	Michigan	5
4	Minnesota	6
4	Ohio St.	6
4	Northwestern	6
7	Nebraska	7
7	Indiana	7
7	Iowa	7
7	Michigan St.	7
11	Penn St.	10
12	Illinois	13

The noise you hear is Rich Rodriguez screaming "oh, of course this happens the year after I get fired." Denard coughed it up twice against Illinois and had the elaborate-sack-escape fumble against Iowa; the other two lost fumbles were from Smith and Hopkins against SDSU. Robinson's had 330 events this year; losing three fumbles on them isn't that bad.

Last year Michigan lost 14(!) as a team. The improvement here has been significant enough to more than combat the increase in interceptions.

Complicated bits. Smart Football's Grantland work seems specifically targeted at things we've been discussing about Michigan's offensive transition. There a post about how Jim Harbaugh has dumped sight reading from the 49ers offense and thereby aided them in their transformation from chumps to 7-1. At first they were like this:

And then they would change to this when they got a blitz:

But now they're like this:

They always have hot routes built into the play. Michigan has gone the other direction. Unfortunately you're thinking of Vincent Smith not running a slant against Michigan State right now, but I can't do anything about that. Chris Brown's take on this adaptation:

It's my personal view, but I think NFL teams rely too much on sight adjustments. There are two reasons for this: First, these plays were far more straightforward a decade or two ago than they are now, and second, coaches who spend nearly all their waking hours thinking about football tend to forget that it's not how many X's and O's they know but what they can teach their players. To the first point, sight adjustments are old — at least 50 years old, if not more. But they arose before zone blitzes became popular. Against a blitz with man-to-man coverage in the secondary, sight adjustments made perfect sense. They were extensions of backyard football — throw a quick one to the fast guy and let him run with the ball before the blitz overwhelms the offensive line.

Now it's not so simple. With the rise of the zone blitz, the fact that three defenders might rush from one side tells the offense almost nothing about where the coverage will be. This is why, when zone blitzes first became prominent, you saw quarterbacks throwing awful passes directly to defenders who weren't even close to receivers. This is not to say that sight adjustments are impossible in today's environment, but they require an almost telepathic relationship between quarterback, receiver, and even the offensive line.

Borges and Hoke have been grumbling about wide receivers being hidden issues in the passing game for chunks of the year and I think this is what they're talking about. In the spring game Gardner missed Gallon three times when Gallon pulled up short and Gardner threw long or vice versa; the Smith interception happened; Denard has often been under pressure without anywhere to go with the ball because everyone's 30 yards downfield. That seems nuts so my assumption is when that happens it's because the receivers have not read the play correctly.

While this should get better next year when Gallon, Roundtree, and Stonum all have a year of experience under their belts I'm a little leery of Michigan using sight reads extensively—and they seem like an all-or-nothing proposition like being a triple option or Air Raid team. You're either 100% committed to it or you suck. I'll figure out more about this over the offseason—I've signed up for some clinics featuring Michigan's coordinators that will hopefully shed some light on what Michigan's trying to do.

BONUS relevance: Brown also breaks down one of Oregon's long runs against Stanford with a focus on the alignment of the line and how Oregon forces you to respect the bubble. I'll probably tackle that in greater detail in a picture pages.

Yost attendance problem mitigation. If you have tickets, need tickets, need a rideshare, or require any other thing that will get you to Yost there is a Children of Yost facebook page that can help you with these matters. I don't think their services extend to calling you up at 7:15 and screaming "PUT DOWN THE MW3 AND LEAVE THE HOUSE NOW," unfortunately.

More Trouba. Via NHL.com:

"He has offense skills and he really does defend well," Gregory said. "You can just tell by how he plays in all areas of the ice that he's a big kid who skates really well. He loves to jump into the play and has confidence because he knows his skating can get him back, so he rarely gets caught out of position. He's going to be someone people are going to talk about; we've known about him for a couple years and he's not disappointing early on this year, either."…

"He skates exceptionally well and likes to rush up the ice with the puck and with good speed," he said. "He's very confident, has great agility, is strong physically and is always alert. He's done a good job in 1-on-1 situations against opposing forwards and contained his man very well."

(HT: Michigan Hockey Net.)

This week in going for it. Advanced NFL Stats has a go-or-not 4th down calculator, but I think it's broken. When I punch in the situation from the weekend, it says 100% of 92 is 93. As a result it says M should have kicked.

I think it means the decision to go was correct since it says you have a 70% chance of success and your WP goes from 92 to 93 if you get it right. Expected points are massively in favor of going, FWIW: 4.5 to 2.4.

The mid 90s summed up. Midnight Maize brings us this shirt, which should be the student T this year and for all time:

That is wicked off the hook but inexplicably managed to escape its ebay auction unsold.

Etc.: Toussaint interviewed by TIM DOYLE OMG. Says "I'm just a big fan of fashion." Toussaint, not Doyle. Dreaded Judgment gets on the "third down == awesome" bandwagon. MGoFootball Illinois bullets arrived too late for yesterday's game post.

Iowa fans think Michigan State got fainting disease last Saturday, which I point out mostly to marvel at the idea anyone would have to slow the Hawkeyes' tempo down. I guess they were down a billion.