Mailbag! Most of these are twitter questions. I'm not answering anything that's directly addressed in the upcoming season preview, so if your question didn't get picked maybe that's why. Maybe.

does BPONE fit under any of the categories of mental disorder listed in the APA's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders?

— RYCERATOPS ᕕ[ ᐛ ]ᕗ (@ryanmopo) August 20, 2019

The Black Pit Of Negative Expectations is not a mental disorder, it is a defense technique based on a rational extrapolation of past feelings to future events. BPONE trades lower highs for higher lows and is thus a wise approach for people who may wander into the streets to rend their clothing and wail without BPONE.

BPONE is therapeutic. Never tweet during BPONE.

If McCaffrey plays every game, is it a couple of 2nd Quarter drives, or is it a couple of one-off plays each game? Or something else?

— Jonathan Drouin (@JonDrouin) August 20, 2019

To me, "play every game" implies more than some goofy one-off trick plays. If I had to bet, we're going to see McCaffrey get one or two drives per game. This isn't a Henson/Brady situation where the starting job is truly being contested during the season—Patterson is the starter. It is a spot where Michigan has so much faith in their backup QB that it makes sense to get him some meaningful reps in case Patterson is unavailable at some point.

[After THE JUMP: quit asking me about worst case scenarios you BPONE maniacs]

If we assume that one theoretical weak spot breaks down (Interior pass rush, CB, RB), what are the likely outcome for the season in those scenarios?

— Takao Yamada (@TakaoYamadaDeY) August 20, 2019

I wouldn't file running back with the other two. Three standard deviations of bad luck there is

• Wilson and Charbonnet both get hurt.
• Turner can't pass protect.

Michigan's offense has a lot of stuff in it that can mitigate a guy who can't pass protect, and the brief flashes we've seen from Turner with the ball in his hands are encouraging. And maybe they can bring in Van Sumeren to pick guys up on passing downs. RB actually feels like one of the more stable situations on the team. Unless Charbonnet is an instant star the ceiling isn't high; the floor is.

I would also expand the interior pass rush concern to be more of a holistic "DTs are just guys" concern. Kemp, the steady guy who is the good run defender amongst the available options, was an average-at-best run defender last year who looked good because the guys next to him were often bad.

We know what Just Guys DTs look like: last year. Replacing Lawrence Marshall, Bryan Mone, and a little bit of Aubrey Solomon isn't going to hurt. (Losing Aubrey Solomon's potential hurts, but in terms of on-field impact dude had 4 tackles last year.) They can only get better there. Jeter and Hinton are going to have more positive impact than the three departed guys; Kemp and Dwumfour should get meaningfully better, particularly Dwumfour.

Cornerback, though… I do not like it. Deleting Ambry Thomas—and if he's not even in camp I think he might get back for the second half of the season—is real bad. Michigan has been a maniacal man-to-man team under Don Brown and now faces a situation where their second CB is an untested who-dat recruit who looked middling in spring; their third CB is probably safety Brad Hawkins.

Zone? I'm thinking zone. But that's like asking Rich Rod to run manball. It is easy to see Michigan's season founder on the rocks against good passing attacks, if any happen to develop on the schedule. Right now it's Notre Dame and maaaaybe Iowa, which at least has a couple tackles and a returning starter at QB.

why is don brown resistant to the type of two-viper defense that ian boyd proposed in HTTV?

— Jack Warner (@jpwarner) August 20, 2019

Michigan did run a few snaps in a 3-1-7(!) last year featuring both Hudson and Glasgow, but those were strictly limited to passing downs. More generally, Michigan has not been able to run three-man lines without getting gashed—this comes in for more discussion in 5Q5A.

Meanwhile the Big Ten is not the Big Twelve, and Ohio State is not necessarily last year's Ohio State team. It seems like Fields is a work in progress as a pocket passer and will be much more of a runner than Haskins. The answer to "how do we beat OSU?" may not be adopting a defense that works in Air Raid, the Conference.

What is the most likely post-camp position switch not being talked about

— Taylor33 (@Updike_es_todo) August 20, 2019

I don't see a whole lot of obvious candidates that I haven't already talked about. Over the course of the recruiting profiles I've asserted that Erick All should be a WR and that George Johnson III may as well play in the secondary since Michigan's going to have four slots on campus next year and he's the guy who's most safety-shaped.

Other than that it's going to be dudes bumping down from DE to DT (Julius Welschof if he's not done filling out) and other minor moves from one linebacker spot to another.

which Drevno misstep haunts your soul the most?

— Darth Burrito (@TisActuallyJohn) August 20, 2019

Alaric Jackson and it's not close. Other situations, like Michigan striking out on a series of high-profile tackles, are mitigated by the fact that Alabama and Georgia are paying kids six figures and Michigan is not. And Michigan had a decent backup plan after Leatherwood/Wilson/etc went elsewhere by picking up Stueber, Filiaga, and Honigford. Swinging at Ulizio is understandable since it's a transition class.

That leaves Jackson. For context, this was the class where Michigan booted Erik Swenson and was blindsided by Devery Hamilton decommitting. Michigan replaced those two guys with Stephen Spanellis, an interior OL. This meant a year after taking a tackle class of Ulizio, Michigan lined up zero or one tackles depending on your opinion of Ben Bredeson's viability on the outside.

Then they flipped Jackson, an in-state OL ranked in 3.5* territory by 24/7. Late recovery! Not an ideal prospect but he's an OL, so you can get dudes from three-star lottery tickets. Then they fail to send him a LOI on Signing Day. They chose air over a guy who's got a shot at going in the first round this year.

Putting Jackson on the roster radically changes Michigan's last two years. As a redshirt freshman he was the starting left tackle for an Iowa team that put up 55 points on OSU. Michigan was running out Ulizio and Juwann Bushell-Beatty on a team that got two quarterbacks hurt and would clearly have beaten both MSU and OSU with either Speight or Peters available. Replacing Bushell-Beatty with Jackson on last year's team doesn't do enough to beat OSU, probably, but Notre Dame… maybe.

Michigan didn't get beat out, they just shot themselves in the kringle-krangles. Truly the most stupefying decision since I've been paying attention to Michigan football recruiting.

 

to slant or not to slant [Eric Upchurch]

Will the coverage of slot receivers adjust again this year? (Seems like we were better off giving up perfectly-thrown slot fades in 2017 then getting slanted to death and weakening our blitzes in 2018.)

— Jonathan Chait (@jonathanchait) August 20, 2019

Assertions like this were the cause of several testy Don Brown press conferences over the course of last year, and it seemed like he'd won the argument until the Indiana game. Then the DEs got doubled every play and Michigan didn't have the down to down blitzing that could prevent that from happening, because they had to buzz slots. Then they didn't touch Haskins against OSU thanks to injured DEs.

I can see the argument for going back to head-up or even inside leverage this year. Michigan's defense is probably taking a step back and if you're forcing long fade throws you're going to give up some big chunks but you're also more likely to get yourself in a passing down where you can put out your Uche package. And it seems like the guy most likely to be checking those routes is Brad Hawkins, a former receiver who was a jump ball maven in high school. He could be better at defending fades than slants. Probably is.

I think we might see a different approach entirely, or at least one that mixes in more zone. It's tough to predict what's going to happen when you have a long-term, extremely successful coordinator coming off two hamblastings. If I had to pick between the slot fades and the slants, this year I'm taking the fades.

 

just slap some glasgow on it [Patrick Barron]

Which positions can most and least afford an injury to a starter?

— Matthew Duprey (@PharmDuprey) August 20, 2019

"Most" was easy until Stueber went down. Now it's WLB, where any of Gil/Glasgow/Anthony/McGrone would be fine. I guess that's still easy. Second place is outside WR, where Michigan has four outside guys who are going to be plus players this year and Cornelius Johnson. Three or four of those guys can hit the field at the same time, though. Depriving Michigan of packages where they can put DPJ in the slot and run him at a terrified safety is a hit. Also… QB? If the McCaffrey hype is real, then QB.

Least: tight end could see a huge dropoff if McKeon goes out and Eubanks hasn't improved his blocking. CB and RT, the spots that have already taken half-season hits, are also vulnerable. With CB (and safety) it depends on who gets hurt. Hill or Metellus would be very bad. Gray or Hawkins would be less of an issue.

Playoffs or bust? https://t.co/5uO2txJNa8

— Mike McCoy (@mccoym03) August 20, 2019

There are non-playoff scenarios that I think people would be happy with, like going 10-2 with losses to Notre Dame and anyone but OSU, then winning the Big Ten. Honestly ND stands out as a game that will have almost no impact on how people feel about the season once it's over. Did Michigan beat OSU and win the league? Yes? Okay.