Previously: Maryland Offense 

The Terps' offense gets much of the focus. That's where the brand name players and the projectable NFL talents on this team are. But the defense? Eek. Last year Maryland surrendered 66 points to Ohio State, 59 points to Michigan, 35 points to Indiana, 31 points to Penn State, and 40 points to Michigan State. It was the weak spot of the team and in the offseason Mike Locksley changed things up, getting a new defensive coordinator, in addition to a decent amount of roster turnover. The result? It's unclear if things are any better. Maryland gave up 520 yards to SMU last week, 292 to an awful Charlotte team in Week 2, and 268 to an equally bad Buffalo team to start the season. It's only cost them 55 points in total so far, but now comes a real test in Michigan.

The Film: Still the SMU tape for the reasons stated in the previous piece. Maryland's other two non-con opponents were almost as bad as Michigan's non-con slate, while SMU should be a decent(ish) team. 

Personnel: Chart. Click for big, or here for PDF. 

[Ed: Schoonmaker for All because he's been outplaying him. Schoon is also on star watch.]

Maryland's defense is a 4-2-5 set-up featuring a stand-up EDGE named the "JACK". Returning starters Mosiah Nasili-Kite and Ami Finau anchor the interior spots of the defensive line. I thought both were weak links a year ago, but so far so good from them in run defense. Their reserves, Tom Akingbesote and Henry Chibueze, are a pretty clear step down in your author's mind, yet there is healthy rotation at this position. We did give the starters the "solid" distinction on the chart. Durell Nchami is the traditional end opposite Greg China-Rose at JACK, who rotates with the likes of Riyad Wilmot and Tyler Baylor. 

At the LB level, true freshman and St. Frances product Jaishawn Barham was a centerpiece of Maryland's 2022 recruiting class and they're throwing him into the deep-end by making Barham the starting MIKE in his first NCAA season. The results have been pretty impressive so far. The remainder of the true LBs are the same terrible linebackers from last season. Ruben Hyppolite II hasn't been as bad this year as he was a year ago, but he is a game-time decision after sustaining an injury against SMU.

If Ahmad McCullough has to get significant run, that's bad news for the Terps, as he was picked on repeatedly in coverage by the Mustangs and was dreadful a year ago. Gereme Spraggins still has a great name and still is a player Maryland doesn't really want on the field, hence why Barham is the starter. Fa'Najae Gotay rounds out this positional group as mostly a name. Every so often Maryland goes into a true 3-3-5 or a 4-3-4 look. If that is the case, Tyler Baylor, mentioned also in the JACK section, can play a traditional SAM, as can VanDarius Cowan or Kellan Wyatt.  

Corner sees Jakorian Bennett get almost every-down snaps but after that this is a clown car rotation. Against SMU, four different corners played between 50 and 56 snaps, including Corey Coley, Tarheeb Still, Deonte Banks, and Gavin Gibson. These guys are hard to differentiate between and I would struggle to do so if asked, despite just having watched Maryland's tape. They're all about the same caliber. The safeties are much more consistent, Beau Brade and Dante Trader playing all but one snap a week ago. Brade had a pretty strong effort, while Trader was exactly the opposite. There is no one else worth discussing at this position. 

As you may notice, there is no star on our diagram. There will be a Dangerman section, unlike Hawaii, but I didn't feel that anyone on this defense really rises to the level required to get a star. Given how the defense performed as a whole against SMU, that feels appropriate. The other note I have in this section is that I rattled off a lot of names. Maryland rotated around 20 bodies of note in against SMU, which may have been related to how many plays SMU ran, but is worth noting. PFF had 22 different players playing at least 18% of the snaps in that one, with mass rotation on the DL and at corner in particular.   

[AFTER THE JUMP: Open receivers]

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Base Set: As I stated previously, Maryland plays a 4-2-5 and seldom deviates from it. This is what it generally looks like: 

Four at the line of scrimmage, two linebackers, slot corner, two outside corners, and two high safeties (Maryland was playing two-high much more than one-high against SMU). The major question is generally whether the JACK position is playing at the line of scrimmage or lined up in coverage. Against SMU's spread look, he could frequently be seen in coverage: 

On this play, JACK Greg China-Rose is lined up over the slot receiver to the bottom of the screen, just below the TV sign that says "2nd & 10" on the field. That leaves three down linemen and was the reason why Maryland was in so many three-man rush situations (see the section on pressure below). 

SMU was mostly all spread, all the time, but this next image was a decent look at what Maryland might do when Michigan trots out two TEs: 

4-3-4 is in the repertoire, bringing a SAM LB onto the field and lining them up as a stand-up player on the edge opposite the JACK.  

Man or zone coverage: Maryland was alternating between Cover 2 and Cover 3 in this game, so they're much more in the zone category than they have been previously. That said, Cover 1 from last season is still in the back pocket to be used here and there. The big story for me of this game, though, was Maryland's use of zone compared to 2021's team, and how poor they were at running it, leaving holes all over the place. SMU exploited this ruthlessly, especially when Maryland declined to send pressure of any kind [SEE BELOW]. Then again, SMU's WRs won matchups in man against Maryland's corners when given the opportunity too, so..... 

Pressure: This is probably the most interesting component of the SMU game for me in terms of what Maryland chose to do defensively. They sent very little pressure of any kind much of the game. The top line numbers are the following: Maryland sent less than 4 rushers on 36% of plays and more than 4 rushers on 21% of plays. That's one of the highest shares of 3 man rushes that I have charted in this space, and it wasn't until the end of the game that the Terps realized that they were getting eaten alive sitting back with eight in coverage. On the final series or two they started to ramp up blitzes and those got home at a decent clip, disrupting the SMU passing attack. Why they didn't do that earlier, I do not know. A big question, then, is how they will adjust to deal with Michigan. 

Dangerman: I put in the personnel section that no one on the Maryland defense merited an outright star, but there were two players I thought had good games. While the DTs were solid, they rotated too often for one in particular to stand out, so I was left with nominating two players. LB Jaishawn Barham was very good but the player with the biggest impact on the game was S Beau Brade. To be clear, this is not me saying he's an All-B1G caliber player, but that he had a huge role in beating SMU, forcing two turnovers and making a few big tackles. 

Brade was often playing deep in this game, with the responsibility of reading and reacting. He did so in the passing game and in the running game. In coverage, he was given this gift from SMU QB Tanner Mordecai: 

Mordecai gifted him another on this scramble, when Brade stepped up and punched the ball free: 

Safety #25 lined up deep to the bottom of the screen

Those two plays were the difference between Maryland starting 2-1 and 3-0. Brade came up big when it mattered with the huge win probability swing moments, but he also flashed as a solid tackler and as one of the few DBs who was not obviously a problem in coverage. On this play he cleans up a mistake from his fellow safety Dante Trader to stick the ballcarrier short of the line to gain: 

He also had a PBU on this one: 

Safety #25 lined up on the B1G logo 

Overall a solid outing from Brade with two massive plays to swing the game. That's enough for Dangerman status on a unit where there were not a lot of heroes against the Mustangs. 

 

Overall

SMU gained 520 yards + another hefty chunk of penalty yardage by the Maryland defense... yet they scored only 27 points. How'd that happen? Let's review the drives: 

• Touchdown drives of 75, 75, and 37 yards
• Field goal drives of 65 and 4 yards 
• INT/Fumble drives of 72, 39, and 20 yards 
• Missed FG drive of 22 yards 
• Turnover on downs drives of 67, 66, and 9 yards 
• Punt drive of 7 yards 
• Run out the clock to end the half drive of 3 yards 

First of all, yes, SMU had a lot of drives and they ran a lot of plays. Secondly, that's (6) drives of 65+ yards in this game surrendered by the Maryland defense. That's bad! They also had two drives of 35+ yards surrendered and another two of 20+ yards surrendered. Sum it together, (10) different SMU drives gained at least 20 yards. The reason the Mustangs did not win this game is they kicked a 27-yard FG and turned it over inside the Maryland 15 three times (twice on downs, once on a fumble), in addition to two more INTs around midfield. Better efficiency in the red zone and a better job of holding onto the ball wins this game. 

So what gave the Maryland defense so much trouble? Defending the pass. Coverage. Whatever you want to call it. Too many open guys!!!!

3rd & 5, Maryland plays Cover 2, all the defenders drop well past the sticks (????) and no one is covered. It's a three man rush dropping eight into coverage and it looks like this: 

A throw to any of the four circled players here gets the first down. The one that Mordecai chose and the one to the bottom left of the image are more difficult throws but both are makable if you have a good arm. The underneath guys are easy money. 

Let's take a look at this clip: 

Mordecai went for Rashee Rice, his favorite target who went off in this game, and to his credit, got the first down, but he missed two players for easy touchdowns: 

I get he had turned his body, but the ball isn't even out yet and the Maryland defenders are ball-watching. This sort of thing popped up as the Terps had routine trouble with the seam route. One should've been a touchdown but wasn't due to a bad throw from Mordecai. This one was: 

TURN US UP @RJMaryland1 ‼️ pic.twitter.com/mPowvh0qKQ

— SMU FootbaIl (@SMUFB) September 18, 2022

Maryland was mostly a Cover 1 defense last season and it looks to my eye like they have not yet learned how to transition into being a proper zone team. Corners did okay, but LBs had loads of trouble figuring out which guys they needed to run with and which guys they were supposed to pass off. Crossing routes against the LBs were a mess whether they were in man or zone: 

The problem I talked about a couple clips ago where the defenders dropped behind the sticks, exposing the underneath stuff and making it quite hard to actually stop the Mustangs from getting the first down, was a recurring theme. Here's another example: 

Maryland's central problem when running zone is that they were relenting on pressure to play this 7 and 8 man zone. The idea of not pressuring to play zone is you have more bodies and thus are able to cover receivers better. Problem is, they didn't cover any receivers when dropping into a zone, and the 3/4 man rushes they sent seldom ever got home. In that way, it looked much like the UConn tape from last week. A QB with plenty of time to throw and plenty of open options. 

What was curious about the decision not to blitz at all was the blitzes they sent later mostly worked. I loved this rush from Jaishawn Barham: 

Yet so often, they were content to sit back and let SMU attack them through the air. To be fair, my critique of their zone is only so useful when man coverage didn't go too much better. I will say that most of the man coverage completions allowed were cases where you say "nice pitch-and-catch", as opposed to "why are four receivers all open". This goal line fade TD against Corey Coley was pretty: 

The Maryland corners are handsy, and SMU took advantage of that, milking several DPI calls. It also helped that they had receivers willing to go up and Moss the Maryland corners: 

That's Jakorian Bennett getting dunked on in that one (and committing DPI so obviously all three referees threw flags), but several corners were taken for a ride by those leapy SMU receivers. 

In short, Maryland's problems defending the pass in this game had to do with their struggles as a team to play zone, particularly the linebackers in coverage, as well as the corners losing 1-on-1 matchups in man when they were asked to do that. Which was all exacerbated by the refusal to blitz and bother Mordecai until the game was on the line. As for the specific culprits, it's really everyone in the back seven to some degree (toss in the DL too for failing to get organic pressure). I stated in the personnel section that the corners are mostly all the same guy and there's no need to drill deeper there. At safety, Brade made the big plays and Trader had a bad outing, with the big bust on the long TD, and the LBs struggled mightily. A team-wide problem. 

But in run defense? This was moderately encouraging. SMU went tempo pretty often, trying to keep Maryland in their 4-2-5 alignment with the field spread wide, and even with only 4-6 guys in the box, Maryland was able to consistently muzzle SMU's run game. How much of that is on SMU and how much of it is about Maryland? I don't know, hard to say. Neither of these teams have played anyone of consequence besides each other, so it feels apt to say we're going to learn a lot about Maryland's run defense tomorrow. 

The DTs looked much more competent than last year, with Ami Finau showing up on this play to get a piece and then Barham finishes it off: 

NT #54

Similar story here, with the DTs getting interior pressure, Austin Fontaine getting off the block, and the 2nd and 3rd level coming down to help gum it up: 

The one place where the run defense cracked a bit was when the second team DTs, Henry Chibueze and Tom Akingbesote in particular, were out there. They got moved decently consistently, and the LBs are rather hit-or-miss on how much they will help. Barham did a decent job, Ahmad McCullough, forced into duty by the Ruben Hyppolite II injury early on, was less helpful. It tended to look like this: 

The EDGE guys, as I have alluded to, were not effective passrushers at all. Greg China-Rose got a sack when the SMU offensive line declined to block him, but when faced with actual blockers trying to stop him, little pass rush was coming through. Blitzes gave SMU fits, but there was rarely organic pass rush from the personnel themselves without schematic fun. And if pressure was't coming, it was a rough day in pass defense. 

 

What does this mean for Michigan? 

This should be a JJ McCarthy game. Perhaps the Maryland rush defense is also very poor and Michigan can get by on hammering that, but SMU laid out a pretty clear blueprint of how to be effective against the Terrapin defense. Find the open guys and pass the football. If there is an open guy running down the field, throw it to him. If not, there will probably be a wide open guy underneath or over the middle of the field as well. When Maryland is back in their zone, it will be an opportunity for JJ to practice reading a defense, going through his progressions, and finding which players are open. If he is accurate with the football, there shouldn't be a ton of problems slicing and dicing through the Terps. 

Last year Michigan had a lot of success messing with Maryland's linebackers in coverage. You may recall this was The Donovan Edwards Game in 2021. That seems like a blueprint again. Tight ends down the seam, crossing routes through the LBs' zone, and wheel routes should all be on the menu as places that exploit where the Maryland defense is most vulnerable. If you can stretch this Maryland defense out, I assume Michigan will be able to have better success on the ground than SMU did just based on the caliber of offense and athletes that the Wolverines have on the OL. 

The biggest question for me is whether Maryland opts to dial up more pressure. They were very coy in using it against SMU but perhaps with Michigan starting a young QB, they decide to throw more at the opposition and try and force some early takeaways. Either way, no matter how not-great I think the Maryland defense is, they still represent a significant step up from the bar of Colorado State/Hawaii/UConn, which was resting on the floor.