tayon fleet-davis

Michigan heads east this weekend to take on the 5-5 Maryland Terrapins. The Terps started the year 4-0 but a disastrous outing against Iowa set them into a predictable October-November tailspin, going 1-5 in the last six games. They now sit one win from bowl eligibility, concluding the season with Michigan and then next week's Sickos Game of the Week contest against Rutgers. Injuries have bogged down the Maryland offense but there are still some intriguing pieces, most notably QB Taulia Tagovailoa. Maryland put up 447 yards of offense on Michigan State. Is there reason to worry? 

The Film: For this week we're going with Michigan State against Maryland, which was the most recent contest the Terps participated in. The recency factor is a plus, as is the fact that MSU is a good team (like Michigan is). I honestly preferred Penn State as a better option (much better defense than MSU), but the Russians failed me and I couldn't easily get my hands on the game tape from that one, whereas MSU's tape was much more readily available. And obviously, the comparison isn't poor by any means, as MSU also features a strong DL (like Michigan). It's the secondary that is different between the two defenses, so we will work to keep that in mind. The game was won by MSU 40-21, although it was considerably closer if you look under the hood, with Maryland repeatedly making high leverage mistakes (good thing my team didn't do that against MSU) that could have made it close if those plays went the other way. 

Personnel: Seth's chart, click for big. 

[NOTE: I have been told that DJ Turner II is one quiet game from getting a star and Mazi Smith is one good game from getting a star]

Maryland starts Taulia Tagovailoa at QB, member of that Tagovailoa family and brother of Tua. Taulia was a good QB recruit coming out of HS who followed his brother to 'Bama but then, like so many high-end QB recruits who commit to elite programs before him, washed out pretty quickly when Saban went with a different guy and Taulia remembered that only one QB can play at a time. So, he took his talents to College Park, and has emerged as an extremely intriguing B1G QBs over two(ish) seasons here. I use the word "intriguing" instead of "good" because he has not yet rounded into a player worthy of his recruiting status. The flashes are there, but there are flaws. We will look at him in depth later. 

The Terps have generally had a solid track record at developing running backs who morph into NFL draft picks over the past decade. This year's RB room started out crowded but has since seen the herd thinned. Tayon Fleet-Davis is back after a legal issues hiatus and is the leading rusher with 91 carries. Challen Faamatau and Isaiah Jacobs once sat behind him on the depth chart, but the former appears to be done for the season and the latter entered the portal. That leaves Peny Boone and Colby McDonald as the reserve backs. As a general rule, the Maryland running backs are asked to do a lot in the passing game as route runners, and all are horrendous pass blockers when they have to pick up the blitz (more on that later). 

The Football Gods have decided to take out their lingering anger over Mike Locksley's disastrous New Mexico tenure by decimating the Maryland WR room, to an almost comical extent. What was once a strength of the team has now seen two of the three projected starters from my The Enemy piece in August get injured and declared out for the year. That includes seemingly budding star Dontay Demus, as well as Jeshaun Jones, who has now had leg surgery in two of three seasons and I think is officially in the "avoid black cats and ladders" stage of cursed. To make matters worse, Marcus Fleming, who started to get a larger role as a freshman after the Demus and Jones injuries, was recently declared OFY too. 

The bad news is that that carnage has rendered Rakim Jarrett the only projected starter left standing. The good news is that Jarrett is a very good football player and the dangerman for this piece, a former 5* recruit who was once committed to LSU. Outside of Jarrett, they lean heavily on TE Chigoziem Okonkwo to be the short yardage option. Those two have combined for over 40% of Maryland's available catches among players who aren't currently injured. The remaining 60% are scattered across the RBs, as well as lesser known receivers like wily veterans Brian Cobbs, Darryl Jones, and the 6'5" Carlos Carriere, all of whom have spent years in the program and were once decent recruits. Finally, second TE Corey Dyches also gets ~two catches a game. 

Maryland's football team has had a central problem, which is that the injury lightning bolt has struck its skill position group repeatedly, which was set to be the strength of the team, while leaving the OL, which was projected to be the weakness of the offense, largely unaffected. Six lineman have taken nearly all of the snaps for the entire season. LT Jaylen Duncan was a good recruit once upon a time, as was RG Johari Branch. They have not lived up to their recruiting ranking, though I think Branch is the best lineman on the line. LG Mason Lunsford anchors the other guard spot opposite Branch.

The only place on the line that's seen some shuffling is between C and RT. Spencer Anderson has played the whole season, mostly at RT, until recently when he has moved inside to the center position. Aric Harris was the old center but he has been bumped to the bench because of the move, which has slotted Demar Glaze in at RT. Harris did play a bit in the game I saw and when he did, it was Anderson who moved back to RT. Overall, the offensive line has struggled, and their grades from PFF (decent) diverge heavily from mine after watching this one. I'm willing to believe that the discrepancy is simply from PFF refusing to curve based on competition and I watched them play one of the best opponents they'll see all year. 

[AFTER THE JUMP: A QB who runs, heaves, and prays!]

We're back for Part II of our The Enemy, Ranked series. Last week we covered quarterbacks and today we're handling the running backs. The Big Ten has a lot of shuffling at the running back position this year, and because of the way that college football has progressed, most teams enter the season with a committee of backs and the workload for each is yet to be determined. Michigan is much like the rest of the conference in that way, with several compelling names, but uncertainty regarding the pecking order. I set out to rank each team based on the positional group, so the quality of names at the top, as well as the depth/amount of names play a big role here. If a team doesn't have a returning starter, I defer to the program's track record at developing quality players at that position, as well as recruiting profiles, just as I did in the quarterbacks piece. 

1. Penn State

Few teams in the country have five different running backs who all have 50+ career carries to their name AND have maintained >4.0 YPC for their career. Penn State is one of those teams. The Nittany Lions enter this season with five viable players at the running back position, all of could may see substantial work this season. First up is Noah Cain, a former top 100 recruit from the 2019 class who played second fiddle to the electric Journey Brown back in 2019. Cain seemed to be in line to be the #1 back last season after Journey Brown was forced to tragically retire from football due to a heart condition, but a leg injury sustained in the first series of the season opener against Indiana in week one ended his season. That was a shame, because Cain looked primed to be a breakout name nationally after rushing for 443 yards (5.3 YPC) as a true freshman in '19, setting PSU's program record for TD's by a freshman with 8. His 2019 campaign included one of the best grades ever handed out to a running back in MGoBlog's history, when Seth lavished praise on Cain ahead of that season's Michigan/PSU duel in Happy Valley. You can go back and read that FFFF to get a sense of how good Cain could be, now in his 3rd year in the program. Though the awaited breakout year may have had to wait a season, it could very easily transpire this fall. Cain is back from injury and sits atop the depth chart. 

Cain alone would put the Nittany Lions in conversation for a spot towards the top of this list, but what solidifies PSU at #1 is the absurd glut of options behind Noah Cain. With both Cain and Brown out for the what was nearly the entirety of last season, it fell on the shoulders of Keyvone Lee, Caziah Holmes, and Devyn Ford to pick up the slack, and they did a solid job of that. Lee was the "starter" last season, with 4.9 YPC on 89 carries last season + 4 scores, while adding 12 catches too, doing it as a true freshman. He could very easily best Cain to become the #1 back. Holmes was also a true freshman last fall and rushed for 4.5 YPC on 51 carries and added two touchdowns. Ford has 119 carries over two seasons in State College, with a career 4.8 YPC, six touchdowns, and twelve catches. All of these guys would be good backups to Cain on their own, but the fact there are three of them is absurd. And then, because I guess James Franklin only buys products in bulk, PSU landed a highly experienced grad transfer RB in John Lovett from Baylor. Lovett was a multi-year starter with the Bears, boasting 355 career carries and a 5.1 YPC clip to go with it + 29 catches and 17 career TD's. 

I really have no idea how all five of these RB's are going to be able to play each week, and they're all good enough that they deserve to be on the field. In all likelihood, this position group will closely resemble tossing a single Slim Jim to a pack of five hungry dogs and watching them fight it out. Someone's going to get squeezed out and I'd be shocked if PSU ended the season without at least one guy entering the portal. That said, having five quality, experienced RB options is not a bad thing at all, and it will allow the Nittany Lions to sustain potentially multiple injuries and make it out alright on the ground, as they did last season. This group will need better OL play to improve on some of their stat lines last season, but if you're a Penn State fan, RB should be the least of your worries going into 2021. 

[AFTER THE JUMP: More running backs by committees]