Another year, same result... Michigan (Don Brown) #1 in Total D at 233 ypg
What’s craziest about this stat is:
1) I think the general consensus is that the defense has been underwhelming.
2) Gary is either injured or he is just simply not the player we thought he would be. (8 sacks in his career)
3) Penalties have kept them on the field for many extra plays
Some future opponents:
Wisconsin tied at #17
Sparty #28
Penn State #50
OSU #55
September 30th, 2018 at 12:36 PM ^
It's almost like he's a good coach or something
September 30th, 2018 at 12:40 PM ^
NCAA.com has UM defense at #3.
September 30th, 2018 at 12:47 PM ^
I was looking before, I don't think they have yesterdays game included, yet.
September 30th, 2018 at 12:55 PM ^
Well, DEF #1 is the same reason why Michigan has the most wins in FBS...padding vs bottom feeders.
September 30th, 2018 at 1:18 PM ^
This is just a crock of shit. We were better for longer.
September 30th, 2018 at 12:58 PM ^
Cool. Sucks we cant beat our rivals. Until we can, I will steal your title:
Another year, same result.
September 30th, 2018 at 1:07 PM ^
Am i wrong?
September 30th, 2018 at 1:45 PM ^
You are not wrong. Change rivals to rivals, road games, and against the spread as well.
September 30th, 2018 at 1:10 PM ^
imagine what the stats would be like if it eliminated the 1st Quarter!
September 30th, 2018 at 1:39 PM ^
This game showed how much depth we have on defense. We had backups playing like all Americans. Don brown is the o my reason this team is where it’s at right now. Offense is a mess. Gotta fix that and only one more week before the season actually starts. I really hope we’re ready for that
September 30th, 2018 at 2:41 PM ^
We had backups playing like all Americans.
This^
We pout that we can't get up to Ohio State's level of talent and recruiting, but on Defense we are up to their level.
We rotate extreme talent with extreme talent. A guy goes out and the next guy comes in and plays just as well or better. There are few teams that can do this, and we are one of them.
It's the offensive side of the ball that needs to catch up. The defense is there.
September 30th, 2018 at 1:42 PM ^
Yea, people who hate on Gary literally have never played or read up on actual football. Dude is a monster that remains game-planned around every single week.
September 30th, 2018 at 3:08 PM ^
And you think teams aren't game planning around Winovich? Seriously? And yet he makes far more plays than Gary.
September 30th, 2018 at 1:47 PM ^
It's been said like 8 times in this thread but it deserves another say when you go and rat out Gary as if he is underperforming.
Statistics like sacks and TFL's need to be read in context. When every single week the opposition is scheming to avoid you, to double team you, yeah, sure, you have to play a contain a little bit more, especially when you do break through the two of them and are held/tackled routinely without a call.
That's got to be super frustrating. It's great for the team, sure, as other guys can shoot gaps when there are two OT/OG's+RB on you each play, but just about the worst thing you can do as a fan is say the guy isn't working hard. No super star is very happy to play for the team to the extent that their statistics don't show how good of a player they are. He doesn't know for sure how the NFL is going to look at his performance. Let's not call him out as a fan base, especially if we really have no idea how football works (to the extent that our/your rationale for his poor play is that he only has 8 career sacks).
September 30th, 2018 at 5:59 PM ^
First, the “other teams game plan for him” is horseshit. They gameplan for Winovich and he is just destroying fools out there. They gameplan for Bosa, Dexter Lawrence, Ed Oliver, etc snd they put up big stats. Think teams didn’t gameplan for Hurst last year?
As for his play, I put a ton into PFFs ratings and Gary hasn’t rated like a first round pick this year. It’s just the truth. I wish I was wrong. I wish he was just flat out dominating out there and I look like a fool. I would love to be nothing more than to be dead wrong and have you bump this post when he simply goes nuts the next few weeks. But as for now, haven’t seen it this year.
September 30th, 2018 at 2:02 PM ^
Who honestly expected us to win by 3 scores it's NORTHWESTERN .For some reason they do it to us every time we play them the 54-51 game, and quite a few others. Pat Fitgerald had two weeks to pick our tape apart and his team did a great job executing and exploiting the weakness our D has shown. Remember what Don Brown said No more than 17 points and we win well he proved that yesterday. It was an ugly game but we made the necessary adjustments and won.
September 30th, 2018 at 5:59 PM ^
UMProud expected us to win by 6 TDs.
September 30th, 2018 at 2:34 PM ^
I don’t know who is taking Gary with a top 10 pick, I think he could slip pretty far, like late first. But he has a solid all around game and will make a pretty good pro
September 30th, 2018 at 2:35 PM ^
Don Brown's defense is designed to hold teams that normally score 40 points down to 20 points. It's not trying to pitch shutouts.
It takes risks to put pressure on QBs. He knows that he will get gashed by plays periodically, but he's making a bet that college-level QBs can't consistently make those plays.
Brown's offense is not designed to win old fashioned Big Ten games 10 - 7. It's going to give up some scores. So the offense needs to help. You give Don Brown 24 points on offense and he will give you wins.
What is most encouraging is that we are starting to have the offense that can do just that.
Our offense is not pretty or even all that effective yet, but even still, if you had this season's offense coupled with last season's defense, you would have won every game last year except at PSU. That includes Ohio State.
Yes, please.
September 30th, 2018 at 2:36 PM ^
PSU D looked pretty dominant until the screens appeared.
Maybe that was just bias on my part, but they looked fast and overwhelmed the Buckeyes in 1st half.
September 30th, 2018 at 2:40 PM ^
I am sick of these posts questioning Gary every damn time. We are winning and he is the top 5 reason. Let us worry about draft after the reason. Dragging a player's name around because he didn't fit the ranking is asinine.
September 30th, 2018 at 2:44 PM ^
And I would argue he does fit the ranking. He makes everyone else around him better because he's game-planned around so much.
A sack is a sack. A QB hurry is a QB hurry. A TFL is a TFL.
When those good things happen on defense, more often than not he's a catalyst for them happening.
September 30th, 2018 at 2:53 PM ^
He and his defense get too much credit
they fold in the clutch and don’ Force enough turnovers
September 30th, 2018 at 3:23 PM ^
We aren’t even halfway through the season and haven’t played the toughest of opponents yet.
bring this up again after MSU and let’s see how we look and feel then.
September 30th, 2018 at 3:25 PM ^
I’m a huge fan of Gary and his impact on the defense. With that said, I’m not sure what games everyone else is watching but Gary doesn’t get many if any doubles in the pass game. He doesn’t even get chipped. Gary has all the physical tools to be dominant in the pass rush phase of the game but he seems to have two moves and not many counters. He either speed or bull rushes. He needs to add a rip through, a pull down for when the tackle lunges forward with arms out, and a spin move as a counter to his speed rush. This would lead to more sacks and then those chips and doubles people speak of that he doesn’t actually get at the moment.
With that said, he is still very dominant and his impact is on par with Bush and Winovich.
September 30th, 2018 at 3:26 PM ^
I prefer to use an advanced metric like S&P. It says that Michigan has the fourth best defense in the country. That isn't much lower than number one, but it feels slightly closer than what we've been seeing. Ie, a great defense, but not yet up to the elite 2016 level. It can get there.
September 30th, 2018 at 5:37 PM ^
Near the start of the game, they showed that graphic identifying the Michigan defense as the nation's best in plural categories (including total D) since 2015.
Can anyone recall or find that? I've tried but failed so far using google image.
September 30th, 2018 at 8:24 PM ^
Some moron in the game thread said Don Brown's defense is gimmicky and can't keep it up against good teams. Lol. I hate this fanbase.
September 30th, 2018 at 8:59 PM ^
We’ve played one decent team. If this defense spots Wisconsin, MSU, Penn St, and OSU 14+ points, we’re going to finish with 5 losses.
October 1st, 2018 at 2:36 PM ^
General consternation with the defense vis a vis scheme against slants as it was a huuugggeeee annoyance to me back at the tail end of the Hoke days where Mattison would set his CBs at 7 yards off the LOS with outside leverage and get slanted to death.
When you're running zone coverages and dropping LBs into throwing lanes, I get not requiring your CBs to take away the slants because you have someone ready to step in and tip/INT the ball.
Brown doesn't run a lot of zone and sends blitzing LBs all the time, leaving gaps in the field behind them. I'm ok with this because the general benefit outweighs the costs more often than not when the LB/DL can get to the QB. When that doesn't happen (OSU, Wisconsin, maybe MSU/PSU if their OLs hold up) you leave a lot of space to get picked apart. OSU last year was a case of their WRs running drags and crossers with Hill and Metellus trailing. Haskins won OSU the game by throwing 3 yard passes.
Going man against teams that run slants and crossers without those LBs standing in the way creates easy throws if your DBs are maintaining outside leverage. You'd rather the QB have to throw a slot fade ~30 yards and drop it into a bucket than a slant where the ball travels ~10 yards IMO.
So, if the process is Team A is running a bunch of slants, it's not a "jump the slant" type deal (which can result in slant and goes) so much as it is a maintain inside leverage and force the fades or throws that require the ball to travel 2-3X longer a distance. Wimbush hit those passes but 2 of them were literally perfect throws that I can't imagine had a higher success rate than a drag or slant. It sucks, but I can live with perfect throws beating a defense, not 10 slants. This idea of halftime adjustments ignores that adjustments need to be made on a drive by drive basis. If you don't make those in time, you get down 2 scores and won't come back against better defenses or teams with offenses that don't go completely stagnant.