Rashan Gary vs Purdue

He frees up Chase and Devin by taking doubles every play. Still a talent like him should probably be making more noise. I’m confident he’ll have a breakout game this year. He always gets to the QB a half second late even with double teams. Kid is a beast.

Others are picking up his would-be stats. He's getting doubled and STILL disrupting like crazy. 

Maybe that guy that charted some plays last week will do it for you.

But from my also untrainted eye, it seemed a lot like the first three games, and it feels like the UFR will read similar to last weeks.  It was crazy that Brian was debating whether Hurst or Winovich is our best DL, and it does seem like Gary is 3rd right now, making his season thus far a slight disappointment, just based on outlandish expectations. 

He has eaten a lot of double teams, which is really helpful for the team overall. He is absolutely having a big impact on this being once again a dominant defense.

The better the competition, the more you'll notice Gary. He'll still be drawing the doubles, but the others will have a harder time, and he'll start getting there first...

What happened to the every snap offense and every snap defense videos that were posted last year?

After every game and the answer is always the same. His actual stats are low but when you watch him play he clearly dominates the guys sent to block him, but he draws so much attention that someone else gets the tackle. He is kind of a hybrid speed/power rusher and I think he just needs more reps to figure when to use which moves. Keep in mind he is only a sophomore and is playing a lot of 3 man lines.

I don't think he is a 1st round level talent at the position right now. On the other hand, I don't think he's bad. He gets a hell of a lot of pressure and is part of the reason our defense is so good.

The dude is getting double teamed every down by TEs and LT or RT and they are also throwing FBs/RBs at him, so triple-teamed. And he is still making tackles, half-sacks and sacks.

Stats are not the only indicator for production on the defensive line.

in th country.

Not only is he getting doubled teamed plus the RBs are choosing to block him over Bush / Winovich; teams are also making a concerted effort to run plays away from him 80% of the time.  It is like the opposing strategy each week is do not let Gary beat us even if it means our QB is eating free rushes from Bush / Winovich.

That strategy may have made sense the first two weeks but you would think teams have to be rethinking that.  Bush and Winovich have been sensational and destroying opposing QBs so at some point you would think they change schemes and Gary blows up in terms of numbers.

Don't want to sound like a jerk, but Rashan does much more than any stat sheet will ever reflect

Question. Didn't Rashan make his decision to come here based on the fact we were playing a 4 man front? I thought he and his mom brought this up during the recruiting process. He didn't want to play inside, and he didn't want to play in a 3 man front, because he didn't want to face constant double teams.

Hurst doesn't have many counting stats either.  But he and Gary are removing 4 blockers almost every play.

It's just that you don't know football very well. He's getting doubled on most plays (Hurst is too, maybe a little less frequent) and the other players in our front 7 are so fast that they get to the play before Gary beats his double. Gary is the reason Chase and Devin have a combined 10 sacks in 4 games.

From the double teams, he is also being more disciplined in not trying to run past the QB so as not to break contain in some situations.

In addition, you can see that on 50% of Winovich and Bush sacks, Gary is one step away from getting that stat. Considering he is the one eating doubles, that's impressive.

He is a team player though and teams tend to run away from him as well.

My guess is is that it has to do with him consistently getting double or triple teamed, which leaves guys like Bush and Winovich wide open to go make a play.

But you're right, he's still been a little more quiet on the stat sheet that I would've thought.

RASHAN GARY IS TERRIBLE. HE DOES NOTHING FOR US. WHY DO TEAMS WASTE TIME AND PLAYERS DOUBLE- OR TRIPLE-TEAMING HIM. THEY DONT EVEN NEED TO BLOCK HIM HE IS SOOOO BAD. AWEFUL.



Now on a completely unrelated topic that has nothing to do with this whatsoever, anyone think opposing coaches read MGoBlog for intel?

You sir are insane and never played football I hope. If you never did, I forgive this statement. Just don’t make any more,ever.

he was pretty good against Purdue

Some team is going to try sending an extra blocker at Winovich for a series or two, leaving Gary with single-blocking. He'll feast for 6-8 plays, at which point they'll go back to sending doubles at Gary, and we'll all remember why. I hope the team that tries it is MSU, just because I like to laugh. Also, Purdue completed 13 passes and had 20 rushing attempts. They ran only 50 plays total (not including penalties). Opportunities for stats disappear when you get off the field so quickly, as happened the entire second half, and much of the first half too.

This morning Sam Webb said Gary and Hurst were eating double teams all day and that's why Bush and Winovich were racking up the numbers.  

This post is total garbage.

 

#modsdelete

I think we'll see more stats and flashy plays from Gary when they play 4 man lines against teams like MSU and Wisc.

says it all.

You just were not paying attention.  Gary is the most talented guy on Michigan's D (which has a lot of very talented dudes).

Gary is forcing opposing d-coordinators to scheme around him.  And his performance so far has been excellent and, therefore, continues to force opponents to scheme around him. 

This opens up one-on-one for Winivich and free bliutz lanes for Bush.

So many great players on the Michigan D right now that double teaming Gary means opponents have just chosen an different way to get sacked, hurried, stopped with no gain, etc.

Three-man fronts aren't necessarily designed for the DL to rack up stats. So much of the success of this 3-3-5 look has been due to the ability of Gary and Hurst to demand double teams. So many of those blitzes by Bush and others get home because they're getting free lanes to the QB. You won't see gaudy numbers because it's the nature of the defense, but those guys are absolutely wrecking shop.

Do they double Gary, Hurst, Winovich?

I have no data but I have a hunch that Gary's presence on the field is giving the other guys more opportunities to get to the QB.  We're leading the country in sacks so something is going on in addition to "Bush and Winovich are fast and strong".

Another critical difference from guys like Watt and Clowney is that they're being deployed more like hybrid ends / backers, where it's a lot easier to play matchups to hide from doubles. Gary's a different kind of player with his hand firmly on the ground.

I think one of the answers to that is that because Gary is consistently getting double and triple-teamed, he's not getting the amount of sacks or TFLs you'd expect. But that's also opening the lane for guys like Devin Bush and Chase Winovich to have free shots at the QB. Winovich has 5.5 sacks through 4 games. Bush is right behind him I believe 5 of his own. And there's still 8 games left. 

I'm a little surprised too that he's been more quiet on the stat sheet than I thought he'd be, but this defense is currently #1 in the country and is sacking the QB left and right, and I believe it has well over 30 TFL through only 4 games. Where the production comes from is almost irrelevant as long as the production is happening.