Best:  Looking Ahead

This diary is honestly not going to focus a ton on the actual play-by-play against NW because, frankly, there isn’t that much to discuss.  The Wildcats had 2 drives that covered more than 50 yards; 1 was the 1-play, 75-yard TD run by Hull which I assume occurred because the entire defense collectively put down their controllers for a play, and the other was their first of the 2nd half that featured a couple of big plays, one absolutely phantom DPI on Turner, and ending in a missed FG.  But beyond that NW couldn’t muster much of anything during the “competitive” portion of the game, with 8 3- or 4-and-outs, including a pick and a fumble, and one 6-play drive that picked up 14 yards.  And because of this consistent offensive futility you get weird stat lines like NW picking up 100 yards on the ground across 23 carries despite having a 1-play, 75-yard TD run thrown in (which equals out to 1.3 ypc on 22 other runs). Or the sense that despite UM nearly doubling NW in total yardage (233 to 457) and running 87 plays to the Wildcats 55, this game was probably even more one-sided than that than the 33-7 score denotes because of costly turnovers and some missed opportunities in the red zone.  This was a game where you couldn’t be blamed to assume UM was looking ahead at MSU coming up and maybe taking the foot off the gas a bit, doubly so coming off a bye week with the usual rust and disjointedness that typically entailed. 

And yet, Michigan absolutely dominated this game save for about 2-3 plays.  I noted the yardage and play disparity above but that belies how dominate UM was on both sides of the ball, starting up front.  Michigan produced exactly 3 negative plays all game, one a sack where McNamara was taken down by an unblocked safety coming from 10 yards out (I will note Henning was running open but hadn’t turned around until just before McNamara was hit), the Sainristil fumble to end the half, and a 1-yard loss by Haskins on 3rd-and-2.  Both Corum and Haskins picked up over 100 yards on the game and 2 TDs each, and McCarthy added 36 as well.  On the day Michigan averaged 5.4 ypc and scored on 6 of their 12 drives, converting on 12 of 20 3rd-down attempts and just as impressively were rarely in “bad” 3rd down distances (they were only in 3rd-and-7 or more 3 times, twice in the first quarter).  They nearly doubled NW in time of possession and limited NW to 5/16 on 3rd down and 4th down, with two of those conversions coming on NW’s last offensive drive.  UM had 4 TFLs, a sack, 7 PBUs (including 3 from Ojabo and one from Hutchinson, who absolutely dominated their blockers on virtually every play), and 4 QB hits as well.  They blocked their first punt of the season, with C.J. Johnson flying in from out of frame to set up another score.  D.J. Turner even delivered a nice interception where his coverage was so spot-on he was able to pop up the errant pass to himself and return it 23 yards.  I could go on but you sort of get the point – Michigan dominated an overmatched opponent on both sides of the ball, largely put the game out of reach early in the 2nd half, and escaped with (seemingly) no significant injuries or having to do much beyond the bare minimum. 

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. 

So it was a complete victory for a team that has been putting a bunch of those together this year, and now the final stretch of the season is coming up.  OSU is back to their death star selves.  MSU looks better than expected (though the fancy stats point to a team that is probably a bit worse than their record, having survived games against Nebraska and Indiana where they failed to crack 500 yards of total offense across those games while giving up over 750 yards), while PSU and IU don’t look nearly as daunting as they did in the preseason.  It took a bit longer than expected but Maryland has entered their usual mid-season swoon, losing 3 straight by a combined score of 151-47.  But Michigan again looks like one of the better teams in the country, and while the rest of this diary is going to be spent dealing with a vocal legion of fans who don’t believe that’s the case, I didn’t want to look past that point.

Meh:  Cyan Cade Forever

Much has been made about McNamara flirtation with “problem spot” coloring during this season, and coming into this week’s game cyber-bullying/thoughtful disagreement led to him being spared this particular indignity.  But the debate has never ended, with a vocal portion of the fandom wanting to see JJ McCarthy replace McNamara at QB due to his stronger arm and plus athleticism.  And while I have defended McNamara at QB and believe he’s the best player at the spot right now, I certainly don’t believe he’s beyond criticism.  He missed a couple of throws he should have made and maybe got away with one or two he shouldn’t (the throw to All was forced and should have been picked, and I assume that’s the one he’s referring to here), and his limitations running the ball are pretty baked in at this point.  But it has become beyond tiring to see him get blamed for every failing of the offense.   If you spent any time on Twitter/game thread/post game threads, you saw this play out in real time even when he was only tangentially related to the play.  The throw to Johnson in the endzone where the NW corner was literally holding him the entire time?  It was McNamara’s “fault” for not throwing the ball better.  The fumble by Sainristil in which between 3 and 5 NW defenders were closing in at the snap because it was blindingly obvious the guy in motion was probably the target?  Apparently it was on McNamara for not throwing the ball a quarter-second faster and transporting Sainristil 5 yards closer to the sideline.

And that’s what is so infuriating – every failure of the offense seems placed (mostly) at his feet while every success is spread around.  The fact the running backs have gotten going a bit recently is due in no small part to the passing game posing a real threat, and against Wisconsin and Nebraska you saw defenses soften up as the game progressed and UM had success downfield.  Any functional offense is like a living organism, intertwined and dependent on each other.  The running game works because the backs are good at exploiting the blocks provided by the offensive line, itself aided by solid playcalling and the threat of the pass if defenders sell out too hard.  The passing game similarly relies on the threat of the run and good pass blocking to give the QB opportunities to find receivers downfield.  To paraphrase Elton John, it’s the Circle of Life in football and assuming it’s always Pumba’s fault because you think there’s a better warthog in the bush behind him doesn’t make a ton of sense.

I’ve been a vocal defender of McNamara in part because I lived through the Brady/Henson era and saw firsthand how people assumed the current guy was the base for the “better” option despite little evidence that was the case in year 1.  There’s always been this revisionist history around Brady, that he was some diamond-in-the-rough college QB who “true” Michigan fans knew was the future Hall-of-Famer.  But the reality is that he had a pretty pedestrian college career despite being surrounded by some pretty talented teams.  His first year starting in 1998 began with 2 losses to ND and Syracuse (who had Donovan McNabb at QB) before reeling off 8 straight wins until a loss at OSU (and then a very surreal road win at Hawaii ((!))) and a bowl win against Arkansas.  It was a disappointing season coming off a national title but also, in hindsight, not a huge surprise given the talent loss, and Brady as a first-time signal caller was solid if unremarkable.  But the talk all season was that Drew Henson, the wunderkind 5* QB/baseball player from nearby Brighton, should get the start because of his plus athleticism and cannon for an arm.  And Henson did see the field that year in a couple of games (most of his production came against EMU and when UM was down 38-7 to the Orangemen), usually as a change-of-pace for a play or two.  But it was clear that first year that while he was the most physically talented QB on the roster, he clearly didn’t have a great handle on the offense or the speed of college football.  He missed guys downfield, threw the ball with limited touch, and generally looked like a guy who was still trying to out-athlete everyone with middling results.  The 1999 year was one where the debate between Brady and Henson really kicked in because Henson clearly had a greater understanding of the offense and Brady struggled at times, and I fully expect there to be a spirited competition next year between McNamara and McCarthy. 

Does a fully-functional McCarthy raise the ceiling for this team?  Absolutely.  But getting to “fully functional” isn’t trivial and thus far McCarthy still seems a step slow in reading defenses, his accuracy still needs to improve, and he still sports the usual HS bravado that assumes you can out-athlete/out-muscle plays because you’re better than your opposition.  It’s cliché to say but he’s a better athlete than a college QB right now, which is completely reasonable and not an indictment of him, the coaching staff, the universe, or your personal moral failings as a fan.  He had two really solid runs in this game, helped in no small part by NW not being able to tackle in open space.  But good back and look at his throws and you see him turfing a ball to a wide-open Johnson and Taco Pant-ing another ball to Sainristil.  His long completion to Sainristil later on came at the end of a 4-5 second survey in a clean pocket, and his 4th-down “conversion” on the last offensive drive that turned into a missed FG featured at least 2, maybe 3 wide-open receivers missed and him instead scrambling back 15 yards before a penalty brought back his off-balance throw.  Those are totally understandable learning hiccups but for those people claiming “the offense couldn’t be any worse” with McNamara at QB, I have on good authority that there’s a world of hurt below the 22nd-ranked offense in the country and starting a true freshman QB absolutely nudges you in that direction.  College QBs do not “evolve” from each other like some weird Pokemon, and so McNamara doesn’t represent the “floor” that McCarthy would build off of.  He’d have all the issues we’ve seen thus far and probably a bunch more as defenses would be able to narrow in on him and not be somewhat caught off guard by a guy who is a change-of-pace player.

I doubt this debate will ever end this year and that’s fine – Michigan has two options at QB and both have strengths and weaknesses.  But the discourse around a potential change is seemingly based on a different reality than the one we currently exist in.

 

Best:  Keeping it 100

As noted above, both Haskins and Corum picked up over 100 yards on the ground in this game.  That’s the second time they’ve done that this year on the ground, but more importantly the running game has now had two solid performances against good defenses after struggling (relatively speaking) to move the ball against Rutgers and Wisconsin.  And when you factor in receptions it’s also the second-consecutive game that both of them have contributed over 100 yards from scrimmage, with Corum also taking the team lead in receptions (18) as well as total yardage over that span.  There were concerns, especially after Rutgers, whether or not “the book” had gotten out about Michigan’s running game and teams would deploy various counter-measures to slow them down.  Cade McNamara, as has been a pattern with many recent UM starting QBs, wasn’t posing much of a threat on the ground and yet Michigan still kept trying to run split zone, a playcall that necessitates a credible threat from the QB.  And so teams started to cheat, largely ignoring the QB exchange and overwhelming the running back.  It’s how Rutgers was able to hold UM to only 112 yards, and Wisconsin’s Even when McCarthy subbed the overall threat wasn’t demonstrably different, as his weakness throwing the ball signaled the high probability of a run and defenses adjusted accordingly.  It’s why McCarthy’s first run is usually his longest, as defenses seemingly are caught off guard by him keeping the ball (even though he’s not posed a particularly daunting passing threat) before adjusting appropriately.

But UM adjusted as well, getting Corum more involved in the passing game (10 receptions in the past 3 games) and throwing in a variety of wrinkles that helped to compensate without monkeying around too much with the base offense.  They’ve run fewer split zones with McNamara (I’d be interested to see how NW grades out because to my eye it seemed like they didn’t run it much) and have relied more on short passes, bash, crashing their TEs inside, etc. to keep the ball moving and soften up defenses.  And sometimes it’s just been through good old-fashioned blunt force trauma, as Haskins (and the rest of the offensive line) did a Washington revisited and turned a 3-yard gain into a 15-yarder by rugby scrumming down the field.  Northwestern isn’t a great run defense by any means but they’re absolutely built to stop this type of rushing attack, and yet once UM got rolling the Wildcats had no answer on the ground.  MSU will pose a different sort of test as the Spartans have one of the better rush defenses in the country (though the only top-50 rushing outfit they’ve faced thus far is Nebraska and the Cornhuskers had decent success on the ground even excluding Martinez), but UM’s performance on the ground this year has a pretty high floor that it feels like they’ll find ways to adapt to whatever MSU throws at them.

 

Worst:  Missing Threat

A thing I’ve harped on for the past couple of weeks is my growing concern with the wide receiver corps.  They are reasonably talented and, when combined with the tight ends, present a decently robust set of weapons for the passing game.  But when Bell went down to start the year everyone had to bump “up” a weight class in terms of usage and responsibility with mixed results.  Erick All has basically doubled his career production in the first 6 games, Sainristil has been a consistent and willing blocker, and Johnson and Wilson have shown flashes of downfield potential.  But overall I’ve noticed that they struggle at times to get separation downfield against even average secondaries and don’t tend to win the 50/50 balls in traffic at, well, a 50/50 cadence.  I’m sure there will be a lot of debate about the couple of miss-timed deep shots in the first quarter and while McNamara deserves blame for not leading Johnson more inside, in both that case and the Sainristil throw preceding it the receivers were tightly covered and it would have been a tough catch even if it had been perfectly thrown.  I saw similar instances against Wisconsin, Nebraska, and UW, where the receivers struggled to get separation and so throws were made significantly more difficult; it’s probably why the throws that were a bit short were more effective because it gave the WR a chance to fight “thru” the blanketed corner and not have to engage in a foot race. 

That isn’t to imply these players aren’t talented; they absolutely have the physical skills to be one of the best receiving groups in the league.  But I’ve long harped on the lack of a dedicated WR coach and it remains an issue in my eyes.  Routes could be crisper, guys could improve their blocking at the point of attack (I didn’t think the play had a high likelihood of succeeding but Baldwin’s ole block on the Sainristil fumble erased even that small margin), and all the little nuances and improvements we’ve seen out of the running backs would likely be unlocked for the receivers.  McElwain’s one year as WR coach featured the best all-around performance from the WRs since Harbaugh arrived, and I don’t think that’s a coincidence.  Given limitations on staff size it’s unlikely they’ll be adding a WR coach any time soon, but if/when that’s an option again I really hope they consider it because I do believe the WRs’ performance are holding back the offense more than people care to admit.

 

Best:  Holding On

I find myself struggling to write much about this defense most weeks because it’s just quietly dominant yet again.  Other than against Nebraska they’ve yet to have an offense really challenge them, and they’ve largely accomplished this without a ton of turnovers (they’ve only generated 10 in 7 games) or giving up big plays.  But at all three levels they have playmakers who limit leaked yardage, get their hands on passes and into throwing lanes, and generally play within themselves.  While the standout players, like Hutchinson and Hill, are receiving the lion’s share of attention nationally and marching up draft boards, the fact we rarely hear about corners, safeties, or linebackers blowing plays or tackles being manhandled up front is a massive improvement from last season and feels organic and reproducible, not merely the by-product of some luck and new-coach smell. 

Perhaps the most inspiring part of the defense’s performance thus far is that they’ve also shown an ability to adapt mid-game that has, frankly, been missing the past couple of years.  Case in point: both NW and Nebraska noticed that UM was somewhat susceptible to the HB screen, with Nebraska getting a bit gain on that play to start last game.  The Cornhuskers then tried the play a couple more times and got diminishing returns.  NW tried running that play early in this game and UM snuffed it out, and even though NW later pulled it out again for a nice gain in the 3rd quarter Michigan defenders were largely in position and just missed the tackle.  That was a bit of self-scouting that led to a correction and a weakness addressed, and while it may seem simple on paper to do so college football is full of teams that don’t adjust appropriately. 

Again, MSU is likely to throw a bunch of wrinkles at UM, and with guys like Reed, Nailor, and Walker they have the playmakers to make UM pay.  But it’s hard not to look at the defensive performance thus far and have confidence that they won’t be caught flat-footed too much against any team not called OSU remaining on the schedule.

 

Worst:  Too Much Holding On

This is a common complaint I’ve had for years now but Michigan again went an entire game without getting a holding penalty called for them, despite the fact guys like Hutchinson and Ojabo were practically living in the offensive backfield.  NW clearly didn’t have much hope in stopping Michigan’s defensive line one-on-one and there were multiple times during the game when you’d see one or both of these players screaming around the corner only to suddenly…stop moving at the last moment as one or more purple-clad linemen dragged them down from behind or bear-hugged them.  I have always accepted that holding and defensive pass interference occur on virtually every play so referees are loathe to call it but I also think that in a game where D.J. Turner is called for DPI because the WR threw him out of the way on an underthrown ball you’d get at least a token holding call just to recognize that, yes, Michigan’s defensive ends are being robbed of sacks and TFLs.  My bigger concern isn’t in a game like this but that going forward they’ll run into offensive units like MSU’s and PSU’s that will likely hold just as often but have more effective offenses that will be able to capitalize on this normalization of no flags. 

 

Next Week:  Hate Week

MSU has absolutely surpassed expectations this season, and credit to them for relying on some returning talent and some nice transfer portal pickups to shore up weak areas.  Walker is a really good back and MSU has the potential to take the top off your defense vertically, but I also get why they their SP+ offensive rating is hanging around 50th; they are 100th in the country in 3rd-down conversions (UM is 22nd) and that points to a major boom-or-bust offense that, perhaps unsurprisingly, has struggled even more against the “better” defenses they’ve played all year.  Nebraska held them to 1-for-10 and both Rutgers and IU kept them around 33% conversion.  UM’s 3rd-down defense is #20 at 33%, and it feels like if UM can force MSU to try to march down the field they’ll stall out.  But I fully expect it to be a slog, especially on the road, and UM will need to play like they did against Wisconsin and Nebraska on the road to come out ahead.  It’s going to be a nerve-wracking game, but I think UM pulls it out in the end at the Woodshed.