PERSONAL NOTE: Sorry about the delay here. New computer meant there were a ton of technical issues to fix getting back up and running and there was a lot of time I had to spend on (non-emergency) family stuff this week.

FORMATION NOTES: Michigan had two major departures from last year. One was a resurgence of TE snaps. Of 55 charted snaps there 22 with two TEs and five with three. The other was a smattering of under center stuff that was not short yardage.

Meanwhile, CSU was consistently a Durkin-esque 4-3 defense with one very high safety at 15 yards and a box safety who was invariably counted as half in the box by my reckoning.

SUBSTITUTION NOTES: McNamara, then McCarthy, then Bowman at QB with a couple of Orji cameos. Corum a clear 1 and Edwards a clear 2 at RB, with Stokes #3 and Dunlap used in the Cat Orji. Johnson and Bell 1A and 1B at WR with Wilson most prominent after. TE was Schoonmaker/All as expected but in 3TE sets, and even 2TE sets Honigford got a ton of run and popped up as a surprise grading star. Hibner also got some scattered snaps before deep backup time.

With Hayes out OL was Barnhart/Keegan/Olu/Zinter/Jones, and then Keegan/El-Hadi/Olu/Zinter/Jones after Barnhart tweaked his ankle.

Well, I suppose you're going to launch into a quarterback diatribe.

Yes I am.

Go ahead then.

After going over everything in exacting detail McNamara's performance was worse than at first blush.

CADE MCNAMARA

There may be some truth to the idea that Michigan didn't do McNamara any favors with their playcalling, but the bulk of Michigan's redzone struggles with McNamara in the game are directly attributable to him. Also the lack of real zone reads is not a playcalling thing, it's a McNamara thing.

So the other guy has a cannon arm that can effortlessly deliver that 15-yard out to the field that's a requirement to NFL quarterbacks, and he's a much better runner. McNamara can combat that by being the guy who always does the right thing and always puts the ball in the right place. We did not see that in this game, to say the least. He nearly turfed a six-yard throw to an open Johnson on the first drive and when Michigan was set up in the redzone by the Rod Moore INT he threw behind Johnson on a two-yard drag:

Even if you believe Johnson should catch that, the inaccuracy of that ball is going to get him tackled after a minimal gain instead of probably score a touchdown.

Two plays later, the nadir. This is the play we talked about on WTKA, the angle route to All that was nearly intercepted. To me the throw is fine here; All likely catches it in stride without the stumble. Then he gets six yards and you kick a field goal. This is our concern dude.

What I don't get is how our presnap read maven is looking at this and not salivating about what's going to happen to the field.

To the short side of the field you've got two Michigan receivers and three CSU defenders. The playcall is going to flare Edwards to the field. There is a deep safety but he's not in the middle of the field, he's on the same hash you are. When Edwards goes in motion he does not get a chaser, so it's zone, and you have a corner route on for Roman Wilson.

2 v 3 to top

3 v 2 to bottom

At this point CSU is picking how to lose to the field. They chose the worst option, leaving Wilson achingly wide open on a corner route, but even if they don't do this either Bell or Edwards is going to be wide open.

I have been saying things about small sample size but if I'm being completely honest this single play has flipped me from being a shruggie-deploying QB agnostic to full-on team JJ. If Cade McNamara isn't making this read in year two—if Colorado State is absurdly overplaying him to a tendency to throw to the boundary and winning—it's just a matter of time.

Is this "McNamara doesn't want to throw to the field" really a thing?

I can't say either Seth or I picked up on it last year, and nobody was talking about it until this game. Now that it's a meme you start seeing it everywhere whether it's warranted or not. Does Michigan not have a check here when CSU shows pure cover zero on second and goal from the ten?

Or is that to the field and McNamara doesn't want to run it? I don't think it's the latter but now I'm looking at everything owlishly.On one level it doesn't matter, because "McNamara didn't check" and "we don't have this check" both point to JJ being the guy. Once again: the way McNamara stays ahead is by not letting Michigan run into a -2 box on second and goal from the ten.

Then on the very next play McNamara gets a bit of pressure. He's got a clean pocket, though, and can step up and fire. Instead he rolls to a side of the field with nobody on it and boots it out of bounds.

Let's beat the dead horse one more time: McNamara stays in front by knowing to step up and keep his options open. Who cares if you get sacked? Keep the play alive.

Here's a throw to Schoonmaker, who splits wide, and is lined up against a corner, and is very much not open:

I like Schoonmaker as a guy running up the seam against a linebacker, but he's not one of those Notre Dame wonder tight ends who can just go play receiver and it's fine. But that's the boundary sooooo…?

Well, this is a lot of dumping on a guy who won the Big Ten last year.

I'm not done! Also in direct contrasts to McCarthy, he gets cut off by a DT here and boots the ball out of bounds:

McCarthy gets around Iowa linebackers, he's getting to the corner there and finding an open Cornelius Johnson on the drag. McNamara should probably try that anyway; there's a good two yards of separation there. Instead, field goal time. I do not want Jake Moody to win the Groza again.

This is exceptionally harsh. Have you the memory of a goldfish?

Yes, take a breath, toss it in the garbage, and move forward. This may have been the worst game of McNamara's career, given the context. That's alarming but also that's not his baseline moving forward.

You're about to say "but"

BUT!

JJ MCCARTHY

Not a whole lot here but what is here is good.

Also that arc flat was nice. More encouraging than the arc reads that were pretty blinding was McCarthy looking at a gray-zone DE shuffling and calling his own number. This is not obvious:

Maybe that doesn't work against an NFL level guy; we'll see. To me it looks like that DE played it about as well as you could and still got beat to the corner. After that you can hand off and McCarthy functionally blocks a guy:

CSU LB #17 to top

There weren't a whole lot of throws and nothing went downfield but given the above, the velocity on a seven-yard out to the field is notable:

And we had a somewhat analogous play to the shoulda-coulda drag to Johnson when McCarthy eased around a DE and dumped it to Stokes.

Everything felt easier with McCarthy out there. Also sometimes when he wasn't but it seemed like he was. The bizarre subplot of Michigan's all-run touchdown drive is that CSU lost its mind and flung guys at the QB like it was 2011:

CSU DE to top

This was particularly bizarre on the Corum chunk. What is 17 doing here?

CSU LB #17 to far right

I designated this a "Hat +2" play, as there's not a whole lot of points assigned for a 19 yard block. That's a freebie. I do think it is meaningful in a way, because the running output there wasn't McNamara checking into a bunch of stuff that exploited the CSU alignment. It was the kind of stuff you'd expect with McCarthy out there. Against teams not in their first game under a new head coach we're only going to get the McCarthy reaction when he's, you know, on the field.

It is possible to get free blocks when McNamara is in there—Corum's first chunk run saw Michigan successfully run away from two field-side blitzers without blocking them. It's just harder, and sometimes there's a play where you're like "ooooh what if", like that speed-option-type-substance at the end of the first half:

CSU DE to bottom

Any extra bit of hesitation from that defensive end and Edwards is one on one with a safety for a touchdown.

We did not see a whole lot from McCarthy to indicate that whatever wildness he showed in practice has been mitigated, and we probably won't get to see it against Hawaii since he might be choosing between wide open guys. What I do think is clear is that his mobility is a real weapon both on the ground and in the air and that if he's anywhere near McNamara in terms of game management it's his job.

I would like to rabble about the running game.

Go ahead.

Rabble, rabble, rabble.

I feel this rabbling is unwarranted. CSU is not good but I don't think they're abject like the next two opponents, at least in this department. Corum and Edwards combined to average 5.6 YPC on 25 carries despite having a long of 19. As a team Michigan put up 254 yards on 39 carries, 6.5 per. A couple of chunk plays were almost there; add one of those and we're talking whiz bang numbers.

Well then why are you having me rabble?

Because, bolded alter-ego, I felt myself internally rabble during the game, and in UFR when Michigan dumped out 3TE sets. I must admonish myself after going through everything. If only there was some sort of convenient device with which I could summarize information.

Like a chart?

Ah yes one of those.

Overall numbers aren't that high because I didn't chart a ton of snaps. But aside from a disappointing pass protection number that's an excellent start. Michigan got contributions from expected guys. They got a dynamite opener from their transfer center. And they even added a couple of guys to the "might be good?" list.

#1: Gio El-Hadi looked very plausible. Degree of difficulty caveats apply but here he's able to stand up and control a DE coming into him with a significant amount of momentum:

LG #58 pulling to bottom

And this is a quality stretch combo block with Oluwatimi:

LG #58 just below center

He did not dorf anything, which is a win in and of itself for your #7 OL getting his first meaningful time. I kind of like him better than Barnhart already, at least at guard.

#2: This site appreciates Joel Honigford making a last-ditch bid to validate his Sleeper of the Year nomination. Michigan used him a lot and he whipped some guys. Here he crushes the one good DE CSU has:

#84 TE on LOS to top inside of Schoonmaker

Michigan used him a ton, and usually next to Schoonmaker. All's blocking was virtually unused, which says something about something.

We also saw Hibner in non-garbage time action (insofar as any of it was non-garbage time action for the first time). I clipped a couple of blocks he made largely for season preview purposes. He did look the part in terms of size and agility.

So what are we rabbling about?

Basically any unsuccessful run, because *gestures at schedule.* The shuffling on the left side contributed to some bad play. Barnhart is a jack of all trades across the line and maybe that contributes to some mental errors. I issued a –2 to him here for this double, which is pointlessly extended:

LT #52 second from top of line

It's questionable whether he needs to double at all here, but as soon as Keegan puts that guy decisively to one side Barnhart needs to find other work. By the time he decides to he's running past the LB burying Edwards at the LOS.

Here's Oluwatimi providing a demo:

#55 center

That is also a guy lined up shaded outside of his partner; Olu chips to put him to one side and then he's  gone to the second level. You may be saying… wait, we have a convention for this.

If this is the same situation at a different spot on the line why does Barnhart moving around matter?

uhhhhh good point. Maybe that's why he's a backup.

There were issues that can be directly traced to the shuffle, though. Edwards got boxed in on a one-yard zone stretch largely because Keegan, at left tackle, let a defensive end shoot inside of him. If a DT does that he's just put up a –3 and you're getting a chunk, so it's understandable why giant question marks appeared above Keegan's head on this play. Usually he's at guard, where this is not an issue.

But those grades!

Yes. The good news is that multiple players generated a ton of movement. That's necessary but not sufficient to declare them good given the level of competition, of course. It is still heartening to see large men consistently blasted. Here's Zinter:

RG #65 just above the center

And here's Oluwatimi:

center

An Olu/El-Hadi combo was crushing on the McCarthy TD; while not directly relevant to the play whenever a linebacker sees his DT getting wrecked he's going to move up and try to put out the fire, so there was no one left but the safety.

And here's a combo from Schoonmaker and Honigford:

TEs 84 and 86 to top

This pairing was surprisingly frequent and got the job done. Michigan ran over them on the next play, which was the easy Corum TD.  Both guys looked like they'd made major leaps from last year, when Honigford was extremely inconsistent after dropping 30 pounds to be more of a tight end and Schoonmaker was up and down for former QB reasons. Here Michigan relied on them to carve out edges with some frequency.

#86 to top

Both came in for big scores.

Jones's athleticism was on display as Michigan pulled him from right tackle on multiple occasions:

RT #53 second from bottom on LOS

Unfortunately for this site's season preview predictions, which projected Jones would be a downgrade on the ground and an upgrade in pass pro, he was shaky on the outside. There was the thundersack given up to Kamara:

That's the most ominous thing that happened on Saturday.

We need something to properly welcome you back. Something traditional.

Maybe I could complain about a running back?

That'll do, yes.

Feel a little bit like R Lee Ermey coming back to the barracks here but I had a few problems with Edwards. I am still not sure about his vision and ability to maximize his blocking. Here he's breaking to the second level.

What do you want him to do? Cut off Zinter's butt since that LB turned 90 degrees from square isn't doing anything if you cut back. If the other guy gets you whatever. Instead:

That's in addition to the two questionable decisions to give ground in an effort to dodge tacklers.

Edwards did slalom through the gates well on a couple other runs…

…so it's not all bad. I just cannot remember Corum doing anything like the above. There are levels of polish; Edwards is still climbing towards Corum's.

Receivers?

I have very little to say about the WRs other than catch the ball please. With a near total lack of downfield vision both live and on replay I don't know if they were open.

While Anthony didn't have much impact as a receiver on his two targets I want to shout him out for a superior block:

WR #1 to bottom

You do not often see WRs do anything there. Also in this category, welcome back, Ronnie Bell. Yes, he caught a pass and almost fought through two guys tackling through him for another chunk but this was the most Ronnie Bell event of the day:

He moves that guy enough that Wilson does not have to break stride or change direction and that plus Wilson being very fast is what turns a basic screen into a 61-yard touchdown.

Heroes?

Pretty much anyone run blocking but Oluwatimi, Honigford, and Schoonmaker are a nose ahead. Corum. McCarthy, and McCarthy hypnotizing CSU into thinking he was on the field on that one drive.

Maybe not so heroic?

Unfortunately, McNamara.

What does it mean for Hawaii and beyond?

Advantage JJ. McNamara did not display the things that make him win the job. McCarthy displayed some of his toolbox but not all of it.

New blood, some of it old. El-Hadi, Honigford, and Schoonmaker were surprise standouts. All have to see if they can ramp it up against better competition later in the season. I'm betting they do.

Wondering about Jones. Most of the pass protection minuses came from guys who probably aren't going to play much or weren't playing at their natural position. Jones had two bad pass pro events and now we're going to be nervous about him until we shouldn't be.

Not a whole lot else. I have no WR takes.