Film Study: PSU Run Defense v Michigan
SIAP but saw this breakdown on a PSU site and it's pretty good at explaining PSU's epic failure on defense against us. Also, kudos to Harbaugh & Co.!!!
October 18th, 2022 at 4:52 PM ^
Interesting watch. This guy is pretty good at explaining film. I do disagree with him on the physicality not being a factor. The O Line sure as hell pounded the crap out of them.
October 18th, 2022 at 5:11 PM ^
One of my favorite things to do after Franklin or Tucker loses a game is google their name and read all the articles slamming them I can find.
Franklin made a (repeated) point of telling everyone how his players were too small post game. Said a lot of the DTs these days think they are Aaron Donald (and can therefore get away with being small and quick). Which is a) likely true and b) YOUR FAULT for not recruiting beefier players.
Franklin’s bus throwing is ridiculous yet these kids keep signing up to play for him. This illustrates the difference between a guy like Harbaugh, who played at the highest level, and Franklin. Harbaugh has seen it all. Been involved in it all. He knows its a team game and giving credit, and taking blame, is critical to the overarching success of the program.
October 19th, 2022 at 3:11 PM ^
Franklin’s bus throwing is ridiculous yet these kids keep signing up to play for him.
Izzo would be proud...
October 18th, 2022 at 8:52 PM ^
Also WTF is Franklin even talking about, his nose tackle is 6'4 320lbs.
October 19th, 2022 at 3:56 PM ^
Kenneth Grant he is not...
October 18th, 2022 at 5:05 PM ^
Run defense?
There was none.
Explanation over.
October 18th, 2022 at 5:16 PM ^
What I got from that is that their LBs are terribly coached and don't understand how to play against teams that run power schemes. Makes you wonder how they had any success stopping the run in any prior games.
October 18th, 2022 at 5:32 PM ^
Agree. I think it also shows how good Michigan's staff has become at breaking down other teams' film and exploiting their weaknesses. Many (most?) cfb staffs generally try to run their offense and hope the other team can't stop it. The elite staffs (e.g. Bama, Georgia) operate more like NFL teams, which develop specific gameplans on both sides of the ball for each opponent. Jim Harbaugh, Matt Weiss and Jessie Minter are all NFL guys. And Michigan has spent the past several years expanding the size of its support staff (ie analysts) to do a lot of work scouting opponents and breaking down film for the coaches to use in gameplanning. Nick Saban was the first to do this. It takes money and many more than 10 assistant coaches to do this. I think Michigan is finally catching up to the elite programs in terms of our "back end" support structure. Virtually none of this existed when Harbaugh arrived in 2015.
Edit: Also, props to Ben Herbert and the S&C and nutrition staffs. It is rare when we are not able to push around whichever team we are playing each week, including OSU last year.
October 18th, 2022 at 5:40 PM ^
Yep, at around 4:30 in the video, you see the PSU LB bailing to cover grass in the flat rather than forming up in what I assume is his assigned gap. Boom, great success.
October 18th, 2022 at 5:24 PM ^
our kicker out hit them.....
October 18th, 2022 at 6:34 PM ^
I imagine this is a future quote by future Iowa Head Coach, Scott Frost.
October 18th, 2022 at 8:14 PM ^
The fan revolt in that scenario would be incredible
October 18th, 2022 at 10:07 PM ^
It's coming to a point in Iowa where they might take Scott Frost if they can get rid of Brian Ferentz.
October 18th, 2022 at 6:01 PM ^
The comments about physicality not mattering are a bit silly in an otherwise excellent video. Jim has wanted to have this rushing offense predicated on creating tons of gaps since he's come here. Until the last couple years, we haven't had the Jimmies and Joes and/or good enough coaching to run it effectively. Now we do.
Case in point, the Edwards TD run: Everyone that matters wins their block, and Zinter (65) gets out on the force player and kicks. Then, when PSU overloads on the next play, Corum cuts back and boom, another TD. Coaching won on both of those plays -- the runs attacked where Michigan had the numbers advantage -- and the players won, too, doing what they were supposed to and allowing the numbers advantage to matter.
Now granted, PSU players, especially the LBs, made some pretty serious mistakes, too -- on the Corum TD, the LB near the bottom of the screen (#7?) takes himself out of the play by going to block someone already engaged instead of finding the ballcarrier. OK, thanks....we appreciate it.
TL;DR. Our coaches out-schemed, and our players out-played, PSU all day.
October 18th, 2022 at 8:41 PM ^
With me being a non X’s & O’s guy, this was easy to understand. Interesting that a dude with a telestrator knew what was happening - and pointed out the PSU coaches didn’t adjust.
October 18th, 2022 at 9:14 PM ^
When he runs film back and forth in slow motion, you can really see how the UM line moves as a unit. Very crisp.
October 18th, 2022 at 9:21 PM ^
I liked that aspect of the presentation, since it always takes me a number of repetitions to understand what's going on.
October 19th, 2022 at 7:01 AM ^
It's obvious to anyone who watched the game that Michigan brought it in the physicality department. In fact, that's all you'll hear from big sports media. This video did an excellent job in highlighting the extent that our staff out coached theirs, and they deserve plenty of credit too.
Very informative. I learned quite a bit from this.