10/25/2021 – Michigan 33, Northwestern 7 – 7-0, 4-0 Big Ten

Michigan is 7-0 and has just dispatched an inferior opponent in almost exactly the manner expected to pregame. The Vegas spread was 23.5. The actual spread was 26. Michigan outgained Northwestern two-to-one even if they gave up a 75-yard touchdown. So naturally the Michigan internet is on fire in more or less the same way they would be if the team was hewing close to preseason expectations. (IE: they were butt.)

This is because of a quarterback controversy that currently exists only in the minds of fans. I could explain it but we're Michigan people so someone's already made graphs.

Cade McNamara is the game manager with limited upside and limited downside who will not lose a game to Northwestern or defanged Penn State or Indiana; JJ McCarthy could be anything and therefore gives you a better shot of cashing this season in at the end of it. The diagram further asserts that McNamara's overall level of play is a titch better than McCarthy's but that doesn't matter for the relevant question.

Because we are Michigan fans the diagrams top out at a 10% chance of beating OSU, and therein lies the mania. For most other programs, this level of performance would be cause for celebration. The quarterback hiccups would be small blemishes on an otherwise impeccable resume, because the last game of the season would not be a gallows. (Or, in Auburn's case, the last game of the season is a gallows that they will escape due to a brief, inexplicable failure of quantum mechanics.)

For Michigan in this moment, every missed deep shot immediately induces not only frustration in the immediate circumstance but reinforces the dread certainty that this guy ain't beating OSU. This would matter less if the team was butt and nobody was beating OSU—although in that circumstance they'd still be calling for the five-star freshman since nobody is beating OSU. You can't win when you're in front of the guy with the woo woo on his 24/7 profile.

----------------------

this is Cornelius Johnson, not RJ Moten [Bryan Fuller]

I can see both sides of the QB debate. On the one hand I'm pretty negative about McNamara's performances to date, though not as negative as PFF:

McNamara earned a 57.8 passing grade and led the Wolverines to negative expected points added (EPA) per pass play. The Wolverines signal-caller earned a 37.9 passing grade on passes thrown 10-plus yards downfield, as he completed just 1-of-6 pass attempts for 12 yards. At this point, it is painfully obvious that McNamara will not be able to carry Michigan to victory when they need to win through the air. …

McCarthy did miss a couple of throws, but he has already shown his upside in the vertical passing game — he has thrown fewer than 25 passes this year but already has multiple big-time throws. Overall, McCarthy has earned a 90.5 PFF grade in his limited snaps this season.

On the other, "did miss a couple of throws" seems to undersell McCarthy's wobbliness so far. He hasn't felt more accurate overall than McNamara; he just uncorks an eyepopping throw here and there that obscures the other stuff. Also this felt like a reason he's on the bench:

pic.twitter.com/K5uK4q1rx8

— Due# (@JDue51) October 24, 2021

While cool in the moment—before it got called back for a blindside block—that is bonafide High School Crappe that will get you wrecked if you do it too much. There were a couple games early in the Devin Gardner era with similar escapes, and we were very hyped about them. Then Gardner turned in one of the worst plays in Michigan history* against Notre Dame. That's not going to fly. In a telling post-game moment, McNamara was asked about the above "wow" play and flatly said it was dangerous. This is accurate and not fun at all.

Back to the first hand: the picture that above was McNamara throwing an open post way long when his receiver had inside position and the safety had sucked up on a dig. McNamara threw into double coverage to Sainristil when his other option on a two-man-route was open. He put a throw to an open Schoonmaker down the slot in the wrong spot, etc. Thus the PFF grade. Meanwhile McCarthy appears to bring better-than-functional ability as a runner. The thought of combining the extant ground game with a mobile quarterback is really appealing.

I understand that this switch isn't happening until circumstances are dire, and that there are likely good reasons that it hasn't happened already. I also understand people who want to damn the torpedoes and see what Michigan's got. Likely this is moot. All of this is entering Approaching The Lucy Football territory, which is inadvisable since OSU has the top offense in the country by 4.5 points per game according to SP+.

It's possible that "could beat Ohio State" isn't actually the best metric to go on since approximately zero plus 50 percent is still approximately zero. People have differing risk tolerances. Football coaches do not, and that's another way things are moot. It'll be McNamara until it can't be McNamara anymore.

*[Standalone category. IE: how bad was this play in a vacuum, without game context.]

 

AWARDS

Known Friends and Trusted Agents Of The Week

[Fuller]

you're the man now, dog

#1(t) Hassan Haskins and Blake Corum. This was not planned but seven games into the season these guys are tied in the points standings here. Each turned in spectacular plays in their milieu: Haskins stayed upright in a rugby scrum that turned a four yard run into a 19 yard one while Corum repeatedly WOOPed guys in the hole and then WOOPed the safety coming down trying to put the fire out. Five points each, they're made up and don't matter.

#2 Aidan Hutchinson. This section threatens to become fairly boring. It's going to be one or two running backs and Hutchinson in some order, with game heroes sprinkled in. But, I mean… what can you do? Hutchinson sent the right tackle out of the game with a broken soul. He also got half a sack, further proving that numbers cannot encompass his play.

#3 DJ Turner. Hey, here's someone new. Turner got a thumping TFL early, made a spectacular interception late, and in-between was the target of the worst penalty call in a Michigan-Northwestern game since Karan Higdon got called for holding.

Honorable mention: Erick All was a reliable underneath option and erased some dudes on the edge. The OL kept the QBs clean with one notable exception and consistently delivered guys downfield, except when NW overplayed and it still didn't matter. Josh Ross delivered a number of sticks to NW RBs, nearly had an INT, and could have had a sack but for some holding.

KFaTAotW Standings.

(points: #1: 8, #2: 5, #3: 3, HMs one each. Ties result in somewhat arbitrary assignments.)

28: Aidan Hutchinson (HM WMU, #2 Wash, #1 Rutgers, #1 Wisc, HM Neb, #2 NW)
18: The OL (#1 Wash, #1 NIU, HM Neb, HM NW)
17: Hassan Haskins (HM WMU, T3 Wash, T2 NIU, #2 Neb, T1 NW), Blake Corum (#2 WMU, T3 Wash, T2 NIU, HM Neb, T1 NW)
8: Ronnie Bell (#1 WMU), Brad Hawkins (#1 Neb)
7: Dax Hill (#3 WMU, HM NIU, HM Rutgers, HM Wisc, HM Neb)
6: Nikhai Hill-Green(HM NIU, #2 Rutgers)
5: David Ojabo (#2 Wisc), Brad Robbins (HM Wash, #3 Rutgers, HM Wisc), Jake Moody (HM Wash, HM Wisc, #3 Neb), Josh Ross (HM Wash, HM NIU, HM Rutgers, HM Neb, HM NW)
4: AJ Henning (HM WMU, #3 NIU)
3: Donovan Edwards(T2 NIU), Roman Wilson (#3 Wisc), DJ Turner (#3 NW)
2: Cornelius Johnson(HM NIU, HM Wisc),
1: Andrew Vastardis (HM WMU),Mike Sainristil (HM WMU),  Mazi Smith (HM Wash), Gemon Green(HM NIU), Chris Hinton (HM Rutgers), Erick All (HM NW)

Who's Got It Better Than Us(?) Of The Week

Difficult selection since Michigan didn't have a scrimmage play longer than 24 yards, but for my money it's the Corum third down run right before Michigan broke up M00N 2, because just look at this:

Blake Corum jukin fools.

My goodness. pic.twitter.com/EUoo12OhJR

— Due# (@JDue51) October 24, 2021

That turned a dicey redzone proposition into a touchdown, as Michigan just went hurry-up and dove in with Corum right after the above.

 

Honorable mention: Rugby scrum run, Hutchinson dump truck sack, the other Corum run where he WOOPed two guys, James Ross breaking up a third consecutive third down screen.

​MARCUS HALL EPIC DOUBLE BIRD OF THE WEEK.

Northwestern gets a 75-yard touchdown that sets Twitter on fire for halftime.

Honorable mention: Michigan's drive after the 75-yard TD ends in a fumble on some cute perimeter stuff. McNamara misses various deep shots. Egregious PI call on Turner is egregious.

[After THE JUMP: 1 and 3]

OFFENSE

[Fuller]

In which radically positive podcast takes are not radically positive enough. I thought Blake Corum was PFF's top-ranked running back and that Hassan Haskins was around 15th. This was actually underselling it:

Corum and fellow backfield partner Hassan Haskins tore up the Northwestern defense Saturday and find themselves first and third, respectively, in the overall running back rankings with Texas’ Bijan Robinson sandwiched between them. Against the Wildcats, the duo produced a 0.58 missed tackle rate and gained a first down or touchdown rushing on 43% of their carries while averaging 5.5 yards per carry and four yards after contact per rush.

This provides a valuable sanity check for Seth's numbers, which are way out of line with historic running back UFR +/-. That does not appear to be an artifact of grading differences between us. They're just real good.

[Fuller]

Outside bottled up largely. Michigan could not be accused of mindlessly bashing it up the middle in this game. A number of end-arounds got decent to good yardage and if anything Michigan's redzone playcalling could be accused of being too cute on the edge. The above from Henning was productive but required him to zip through a couple tackles, and on other attempts Northwestern successfully bent the ballcarrier away from the LOS.

Two backup guards. Northwestern is a very bad run defense, granted. Still worth mentioning that Michigan did their clobbering without either of their starting guards and the dropoff didn't seem that big. There was the one missed blitz pickup when Northwestern successfully disguised that a safety was coming, and I'm sure there were some run game hiccups. I'll take that performance from backups.

FWIW, this play was discussed in some depth on the podcast. Seth noted that the line call probably did not account for the safety, and I asserted that while that is likely true there are situations where the line call needs to be overridden by your OL spidey sense. When Filiaga checks right here and then left and the guy on the left runs that far away from him this needs to spur some Admiral Akbar in your head:

Here's the blitz NW ran on 2nd down that led toba 10 yard loss.

Well timed. The live wasn't expecting a saftey obvi. pic.twitter.com/svOUag7rEJ

— Due# (@JDue51) October 24, 2021

It's a trap.

Anthony over Baldwin. Andrel Anthony was much more prominent in the second half of this game than he had been all year. One dollar says this is directly traceable to the end of the first half, when Baldwin was tasked with a crack block on a safety that he completely whiffed, leading to the Sainristil fumble.

Anthony didn't do a ton but did get an end-around that he was forced to bend way back to avoid a DL who was way upfield. Making five yards out of what looked like a big loss was impressive. If that's truly indicative of his size/speed combo he's got a bright future.

[Campredon]

All gets involved. I was watching Erick All in pregame warmups and he's a guy who just jumps out as a different dude, even in drills. Michigan's failure to translate that to production has been frustrating, although All has had a part in that with some quasi-drops. Here he was a reliable underneath target to move the chains and Michigan's leading receiver. Hopefully Michigan can get additional production out of him.

Rugby. This is up there with Mike Hart's eight yard run against PSU in the category of "shortest run everyone was super hype about":

Look at @UMichFootball's Hassan Haskins move that pile. pic.twitter.com/ejojmZ5aTS

— Big Ten Network (@BigTenNetwork) October 23, 2021

I don't know how much to credit that to Haskins since at some point he's just passenger on the beeftrain, but to be able to come out of that with any balance whatsoever and then rip off another chunk is impressive.

Looks like split but it's going off the front. It's always hard to tell what's baked in to a gameplan that uses a lot of zone and what's improvised; here it felt like Michigan made a concerted effort to show split zone and their insert isos off of it and then just run to the frontside of the play once the linebackers had reacted to the split flow. Michigan got multiple touchdowns as a frontside double blasted back the NU DT and then there was no one scraping over the top of that until it was too late. Those were walk-in TDs for Haskins and Corum.

DEFENSE

Touchdown first take. Here it is:

pic.twitter.com/Ou9ewUm74Q

— Due# (@JDue51) October 24, 2021

IMO: Michigan is dropping Ross out to defend RPOs and inserting Hawkins in to the box to make up the numbers. Colson, a true freshman, should funnel to help, which is usually Ross but not on this play. So that cuts Hawkins out, Ross understandably can't recover in time, and then RJ Moten inexplicably seeks out contact with a blocker instead of running after the ballcarrier.

Also, yes, the line got creased but that's a reason Northwestern might get a 10 yard run, not a 75-yard one.

Two other things that happened. Other successful Northwestern plays came in two varieties: overloading zones with flood stuff and picking the open guy on the sideline, which happened about three times, and that drive where Northwestern ran screens on every third down. Michigan finally adapted on number three and Josh Ross dropped off to knock the pass away. Screens have been productive for the opposition this year even though Michigan's got a little fortunate with deflections. Something to work on.

[Campredon]

Welcome to the show, DJ Turner. Turner supplanted Gemon Green in the starting line up and was up to the task. The juggling interception above is one thing but he was there to PBU on a quick hitch, which is probably more important in the long term than his ability to bat the ball to himself several times and then bring it in.

Northwestern isn't the sternest test for a new CB, especially after Stephon Robinson went out. Encouraging nonetheless.

Uh… that's it? Everything else went basically as expected and there is not a whole lot else of note when Hilinksi's opportunities to hit guys downfield are spurned.

SPECIAL TEAMS

HUGE special teams play by Cornelius Johnson.

Lays. Out. pic.twitter.com/qXvdxlVi4z

— Due# (@JDue51) October 24, 2021

A blocked punt. Cornelius Johnson picked up Michigan's first blocked punt of the year on a free run from the edge. Special teams has been so good that it's been easy to forget that Michigan used to block punts all the time; nice to be reminded that doesn't have to be past tense. The way they did it was fairly typical: send three guys at the shield and then run a dude around them. Michigan has to set that up so that they can get a free run—nobody touched Johnson on the play—and that requires a series of feints and misdirection about who's actually coming, but the regularity with which they get through remains impressive.

Clockwork. Robbins punts: 48 yards, 47 yards, 47 yards. Unfortunate not to have one slightly shorter, as the coverage team couldn't handle a ball that landed at the ~2.

MISCELLANEOUS

[Campredon]

Cumong man. The guys above are probably reacting to the PI on Turner but it's possible they were looking at various things that were done to Aidan Hutchinson that are not in fact legal. OL are not allowed to convert themselves into backpacks. This is not a viable method of dealing with Aidan Hutchinson, except it kind of is. Josh Ross was also the subject of a pretty obvious yank-back just before he was going to get to Hilinksi on a third down.

There's a lot of complaining about holding that is not valid but the Hutchinson ones in particular are baffling to me. If you're all the way around a guy and suddenly it looks like you're on a treadmill you have been held.

So hockey started and did not stop over and over again. Just for comparisons sake, there are 20 halftime minutes in football and 24 intermission minutes in hockey. There are six minutes of commercial breaks in the rest of a hockey game. Football eats up that ten minutes of Stuff Isn't Happening in the first half of the first quarter. After not having gone to Yost for a season, the first time sitting down and watching a hockey game that was over in two hours and change was shocking. These sports nominally have the same amount of time on the clock.

HERE

Best and Worst:

And while NW’s offense is exactly as bad as you expected coming in, the Wildcat defense is pretty good (though below their usually hyper-gritty selves).  They came into the game 31st per SP+, putting them around Nebraska (29th), Arizona St. (30th) and Kentucky (37th) in that metric, and yet Michigan seemed largely unfazed after the first possession or two.  UM moved the ball mostly at will, with drives often stalling because of bad execution or bad luck and less because NW was truly limiting what UM wanted to do.  And that continues a pretty consistent trend for UM against P5 teams this year – they’ve faced the #48 (Washington), #29 (Rutgers), #25 (NW), #24 (Nebraska), and 1st (Wisconsin) defenses per SP+ and have averaged a healthy 5.3 ypp in those games.  And defensively they’ve risen to #8 in the country largely on the strength of giving up few big plays; the 75-yard run by Hull was the first (and only) play this year over 50 yards.  And perhaps just as impressively, they’ve only given up 68 plays of over 10 yards a game this year, which given the fact they’re breaking in a new DC (and a new scheme) is one of the more pleasant surprises of the season.

State of Our Open Threads:

Indeed, after the 299 fucks given during the Nebraska thread, we only gave 96 fucks yesterday, which is our second lowest total this year (our lowest if you want to just not count the meager 18 given for the Northern Illinois game). It is certainly the lowest among the four conference games we have played so far, so if nothing else, yesterday was a brief respite for us.

More on the QB controversy-type substance:

I get it; JJ McCarthy is Dyno-mite:

And when he's out there, there's always a chance for something electric to happen, he's got IT and I won't argue that, But the TEAM(3x) is riding an undefeated season, based a lot on the unity in the locker room, why would a fan want to risk upsetting that? And saying that, I hope the staff is preparing JJ to be ready to start every game and I hope he sees plenty of snaps at meaningful times to get him ready. I'll be so stoked when it's his time. But to think his time is NOW, is pure lunacy.

I get it, he's a 5* legit! but which one of those stars means he's ready to win rivalry road games in his first couple starts? Which one means he won't thrown an interception in his first 150 passes? Is he ready for a "whiteout"?

This is pure Hubris.