This is spring ball. There are guys on the field who are never going to play, there are guys on the field who are going to play who not playing very well, and the coaches, whom I haven't spoken to, are not going to show the really juicy stuff in a public scrimmage. Therefore all of this is written in very light sand.

But I think…I think I saw a cool variation of a thing that's all over Don Brown's 2013 playbook, and if you'll bear with me and a lot of asterisks we might learn a thing about how Michigan's personnel fits the stuff we've been talking about in the Dude Glossary.

So late in the spring game the Blue team ran a backside power play and got stuffed. Some of that was good play by the defense, some of that bad play by the offense. But the play design itself appeared to illustrate an example of a "Bear"-like* defense they can get into any time they're in 3rd and short or near the goal line, and then change up at the line based on what the offense shows.

* [It's not a real Bear because the backside DE is not in a 3-tech. Speaking of the Bear, JeepinBen wrote a thing on Buddy Ryan's 46 Defense when it appeared in Hoke/Mattison's first year if you want a refresher on that)]

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THE PERSONNEL: BUTKUS, TECHNICALLY

"Butkus" is the one I described where they trade some middle meat on the line for extra upfield rush. BC would usually use this formation for a 46 Bear defense. I mentioned at the time that Michigan's NTs work just fine as the gap-attacking meatheads the Bear likes, and here Maurice Hurst is indeed the tackle. The "Butkus"—a hybrid specialty position that's meant to be a DE/OLB (Jake Ryan-esque player), is Alex Kaminski, who is 5'10/215 (the standup guy hanging off the edge at the top of the line above).

As for the rest, the End (E) is Chase Winovich, the Will (W) is Mike McCray, the Mike (M) is walk-on Cheyenn Robertson, the free safety (F) is Dymonte, the Anchor (A) is walk-on Garret Miller, the Rover (R) is Tyree Kinnel, and the Sam (S) is Lawrence Marshall.

If you said "huh?" at the last bit, yeah Marshall is a defensive end. In this formation that's not so important since he, like the Butkus, is in there primarily to be an edge-rusher/-setter. Forget that "Sam" is a "linebacker" and instead think about Will Gholston lining up outside tight ends and getting unblocked sacks.

Also remember Peppers is going to be somewhere on that map this year, and it's my guess from the way Brown set this up that the somewhere will be Butkus, i.e. the place they've got Alex Kaminski.

Anyway if you're counting that's really four DL who are the same as the white team's base DL, three linebackers who were the base linebackers, and the same four defensive backs. In other words Brown didn't take his 4-3 personnel off the field. He did, however, put them in places that emphasized different skills. I bet that will be a regular feature of this year's defense.

[After the jump: how they attack (I think) and how it works (I'm pretty sure)]

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THE PLAY: BEAR (WHAM) FALCON (kinda) (not exactly though)

click the others for big.

Above you see 10 different plays with the same name out of the 2013 BC playbook. They're really the same play, with a bunch of checks based on the offensive personnel and how they line up. The first one is the nearest version:

It's a cover zero with 6.5* blitzers. Let's go over all those terms.

BUTKUS BEAR WHAM FALCON—Butkus is the personnel. Bear is the alignment. WhaM means the Will and Mike are blitzers. Falcon is the coverage (cover zero).

RAM/LION—Right and left, i.e. which side are we calling the strong side? On a "RAM" call the anchor lines up on the right side, the tackle will go in the right A gap, and everybody else sets their assignments based on that. On a "LION" call the tackle goes to the left A gap.

LATCH—I am close to certain that this is the same thing as “peel” and refers to the DE/OLB on the edge being responsible for man-to-man coverage on an RB releasing to his side. They're blitzers, but they check the RB and if he's leaking out to the flat to their side these edge guys will "peel" after the RB and cover him man to man. I ran that by Ian Boyd and Steve Sharik and they agree.

"ME"—The MLB and the WLB will have a call to determine which one of them is going to be up on the line blitzing, and which is going to start in a normal linebacker position and then blitz. The MLB makes this call; if the MLB is up on the line he yells "Me!" at the WLB, and if the WLB is supposed to get up on the line the MLB yells "You!" at him.

Dotted lines—Man coverage. The rover (strong safety) takes the tight end.

Those FS instructions—The free safety takes one of the backs in man, either the fullback or whichever one is offset (for example if the RB motions out into the slot like M used to do with Vincent Smith in 2011 and now you're remembering UTL and me too good times).

* [There are seven guys blitzing, but the Sam or Butkus has the 5th eligible receiver, the RB, if he goes out (see LATCH above). That includes before the snap so, e.g., if the offense goes with an empty formation then the Sam or Butkus is in man on that guy and there's technically six blitzers.]

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THE THING: THIS IS NOT THAT.

A short list of things that make this different than any of the Bear (Wham) Falcons you see from the 2013 playbook:

1. Winovich is outside the right tackle, and McCray is over the guard instead. I am guessing they did this because Winovich is listed at just five pounds more than McCray and when you see them both together you'd think McCray is more like 250 and Winovich is like 230. The current thinking around here is that Chase can gain 5-10 pounds by fall to be a plausible DE; asking him to play 3-tech right now however is just too much. So Brown’s concocted some weirdness to accomplish the deed.

2. The MLB and WLB are blitzing the same gap. This is indeed a changeup, possibly related to the size issue I just mentioned.

3. To make up for the lack of a player on the strongside C gap the defense has the Rover, Kinnel, right up on the line where the blitzing LB would typically be. Michigan is overloading the backside and having the safeties play the frontside super-aggressively, and slanting right  to make up for it.

When you watch the play give a round to Dymonte Thomas at free safety as he tracks the fullback's Mike DeBord Memorial shuffle. On 2nd and goal from the four the defense is cheating to run.

They're gambling that Kinnel won't get mauled by that tight end (Jocz). Ultimately he won't. I really like Kinnel, and this is a tiny bit of possible evidence the coaches do too.

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WHAT'S THE OFFENSE DOING: BACKSIDE POWER WITH A TWIST

Don’t hold me to the name. It’s a backside power play where the pulling guard and the fullback switch jobs, i.e. the puller has the kick-out (why I called it a trap) on the EMLOS. The fullback shuffles to the strongside before the snap to sell a frontside run, then acts as lead blocker.

HOW IT WORKS OUT:

It's going to be really hard to learn anything from backups and whatnot but this is Neck Sharpies so might as well watch the play.

We'll just run through the matchups that mattered:

1. Kaminski (Butkus) vs. Kareem Walker (RB): This goes as well as you might expect from the talent disparity. Kaminski is the free hitter here and doesn't have the athleticism to form up at the handoff then shoot out of that once he registers it. Walker cuts inside of Kaminski's tackle attempt, but is slowed up. I like Walker's vision to cut past Kaminski and Winovich and then try to get into the hole. If that's Peppers coming though…

2. Winovich (End) vs. Runyan (LG, pulling): This wasn't great from either of them I think. Winovich gets some credit for not losing a bad matchup, forming up and popping a 300-pound Runyan with a head of steam and getting enough that the pulling guard is now a big load of meat right in the way of the play.

If that's an MSU or Wisconsin guard (or—eek—Ohio State's All-American) I imagine that block knocks Winovich into Kaminski and it's a coast to the end zone with a lead blocker. Runyan's a redshirt freshman but he's over 300 pounds, so he comes off worse. Still, Winovich ends up getting outside Runyan and that's bad. You want to see the DE's helmet inside, spilling the RB to the unblocked Butkus. Instead there's a hole here that Kareem nearly takes.

3. McCray (WLB) vs. Magnuson (RT): Mags wins handily. McCray shuffled to get in his gap and didn't even see the OT until getting bashed into the endzone and past the hashmark. McCray did spin off that and try to work his way back but it could have been disaster. McCray's got to be more aggressive. Get into that gap and get upfield and this play is over. There were other good plays all game from him, but four yards from the end zone in the fourth quarter…right, yes, just Spring.

4. Kalis (RG) vs. Cheyenn Robertson (MLB): His name is Cheyenn, with no 'e' at the end of it. Kalis blocks him to Wyoming anyway. The end.

5. Hurst (T) vs. Kugler (C) and Henderson (FB): What were you expecting? Hurst bursts into his A gap, but when McCray is blown to bits Hurst works his way to the attack point, stiff-arming Kugler back a bit. This doesn't get Hurst to playside (not his gap anyway) but center in the backfield is usually a bad thing for an inside run. Henderson is now coming through the hole and helps keep Hurst sealed behind the wall of Kalis and Mags.

6. Miller (A) vs. Braden (T) and Kugler: We are into the backside B gap and Braden's job is really to just make sure the Anchor isn't shooting through it so fast it kills everything. He gets a shove on Miller and looks to the next guy, Kinnel, who's working down (I love Kinnel). Kugler lets Hurst loose to then deals with Miller, i.e. he sits on him. But this is happening so deep in the backfield that Miller gets his hat into the ballcarrier's feet. Thus stopped, Kareem is swarmed by first Winovich and Kaminski, and prevented from falling forward by McCray and Kinnel (<3) arriving.

SLOW-MO SET TO OBLIVION MUSIC

(The song is “American History XXX” and I actually contributed to some of the lyrics you can’t understand since Tres is yelling).

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THINGS TO TAKE AWAY:

Nothing. It's a spring game.

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THE POINT OF THIS WHOLE EXERCISE:

Don Brown can do a lot more within the basic structure of his defense than what we've managed to pull so far, but it does seem that structure is the same. This was an interesting take on the Bear defense, which has historically been murder on two-back offenses. We're a long way from the Ohio State game, and Ohio State's had Bears thrown its way before*.

But I do think we're seeing the first signs of what Brown intends to do with the wealth of multi-talented players that will be available to him this year. Here he gave Kinnel a hard assignment, got the offense to feint as if it was going to attack that spot, and then won a TFL despite both interior LBs getting blown out of the hole. One play's not nearly enough to tell anything about these players, but this one play says a lot about Brown's ability to tap all sorts of abilities in his personnel inside a rather simple scheme. I think. It's spring.

* [Va Tech beat them with it, then got creamed the next time they tried it]