donovan edwards is the real thing

The 2024 team is going to have at least one of its major offensive weapons back.

Why is this coming out in May? Because I need the grades for HTTV.

Why isn't Brian doing it? Because it's May.

Where's the B1GCG? Brian already charted it, will write it up soon.

FORMATION NOTES: TCU runs out a 3-3-5 base personnel with a couple of hybrids, and moves them around for different looks. Often one of the hybrids is a 3rd safety, but one (or both) can also become 3-4 OLBs. It's most obvious against this covered formation:

This also lent itself to something like Mint fronts, usually having the hybrids follow Michigan's TEs and walking down another safety to get 8 in the box from a deceptively light pre-snap look. I just called this 335 Over:

And when Michigan showed a spread formation the same personnel became a Tite front. TCU calls #13 Dee Winters an "OLB" but I used "SAM" whenever referring to him.

SUBSTITUTION NOTES: Normal. Schoonmaker went out for the game after his long catch and Loveland-Honigford-Hibner were the TEs except when Bredeson was in for heavy stuff. Edwards the whole way at RB except short situations for Mullings—the one he fumbled he lined up as an offset fullback. Trente Jones came in as a 6th OL, and El-Hadi got a snap as a 7th OL. Wilson went out with a stinger early but came back. When they went 5-wide they just had Edwards and Loveland line up as receivers.

[After THE JUMP: Nose tackle got whupped and he don't care.]

Purdue had an interesting approach to Michigan's running game. Rather than throw bodies at the problem like Illinois, or throw bodies at the problem and get their asses handed to them for the second year in a row except this time at home like Ohio State, Purdue decided to take a mixed approach: add an extra hitter, but try to disguise where he was going to be.

Here's the part you may have noticed: Often before the snap, the Purdue DTs were quickly shifting their fronts. One of the purposes of this was to try to draw a false start (they didn't). But there was more to it than that. The Boilers were trying to disguise their attacks so Michigan wouldn't be able to pick out oddities before the snap and adjust their schemes to take advantage of them. Let me show you.

This is a run in the 2nd Quarter that got stuffed because Michigan set up for one blocking scheme and then didn't adjust on the fly when Purdue shifted the line late.

Power runs are brutal to observe on film so we'll go to my standardized color scheme:

• Purple: Blockdowns.
• Orange: Kickout.
• Green: Lead blocker.
• Blue: Running back, free hitter(s).

Here's what Michigan thinks they're getting before the shift.

Zooming in on the point of attack, Michigan wants to block down to the WLB, sealing both DTs with their guards, while kicking out the edge with their center and swinging Loveland around as a lead blocker. The hope with Counter is always that the defense will see your running back start moving to the opposite side and start shifting that way, creating a wider gap to run through.

Even before the snap however, Purdue does the opposite. Here's what Michigan really gets:

The only difference is the DTs moved over. Don't bother trying to parse out where everybody's going. Just look at the mess they've made of the point of attack. How're we supposed to run through that?

[After the JUMP: Another angle]