jeffrey persi

Previously: The Story. Quarterback. Running Back. Wide Receiver. Tight End. Interior OL.

TACKLE: I HOPE YOU DIDN'T EXPECT TO GET SOME OF THAT BACON BECAUSE THERE ARE SO MANY OFFENSIVE TACKLES IN THIS ROOM THAT THEY'RE PROBABLY GOING TO EAT ALL OF THE BACON AND WHY ARE YOU HAULING BACON AROUND LIKE THIS ANYWAY IF YOU ASK ME THAT'S PRETTY WEIRD BEHAVIOR

RATING: 4

[Bolded player rules: not necessarily returning starter, but someone we've seen enough of that I'm no longer talking about their recruiting profile (much, anyway). Extant contributor.]

LT	Yr.	LG	Yr.	C	Yr.	RG	Yr.	RT	Yr.
Karsen Barnhart	Sr.*	Trevor Keegan	Sr.*	Drake Nugent	Sr.*	Zak Zinter	Jr.*	Trente Jones	Sr.*
LaDarius Henderson	Sr.*	Gio El-Hadi	So.*	Greg Crippen	So.*	Reece Atteberry	So.*	Myles Hinton	Jr.
Jeffrey Persi	So.*	Amir Herring	Fr.	Raheem Anderson	So.*	Connor Jones	Fr.*	Andrew Gentry	Fr.*

Well… it's going to be a little weird. Harbaugh liked his quarterback competition from last year so much he's going to replicate it wherever he can:

“There’s four starting tackles that we have and it'll go through camp. I envision starting two tackles one game — the first game — and two tackles the second game."

Those four guys are Karsen Barnhart and LaDarius Henderson on the left with Trente Jones and Myles Hinton on the right. Compounding the lack of clarity is that guys are perfectly capable of flipping sides—Barnhart played right tackle last year plenty—and this is really just a pile of tackles that Michigan will select two from. Our chart above has to say something, so we're going with the current depth chart, but this space believes that Henderson will move into the starting lineup after a few games, leaving Barnhart and Jones fighting over the right tackle spot. Hinton is a longer-term play. Probably.

In any case, Michigan has five different tackles with college starts and four different guys with extensive experience. Nobody is an established, elite college tackle but short of having one of those this is about the best possible scenario to find yourself in.

FORMATION NOTES: Rutgers uses a blizzard of different fronts but spends the game in a nickel with said nickel over the slot almost all the time, and then that guy gets nosy in the box almost all of the time.

Here they've shifted their line over to the strength of the formation and the nickel is the littlest LB closes to the center of the field.

SUBSTITUTION NOTES: Usual at QB, obviously. Edwards got more carries earlier than usual; seemed like Corum may have been ill and Michigan was trying to limit his usage. At TE, Schoonmaker went out for a portion of the game and this led to more Loveland snaps. At OL, Persi took over for Hayes. On some goal line snaps Persi went out, El-Hadi came in and Keegan kicked out to tackle. Also El-Hadi got the last drive with the starters when Keegan got dinged.

WR saw more rotation with Wilson out. Walker and Morris both got targets and Anthony was a bigger part of the gameplan. No Clemons.

[After THE JUMP: a much more interesting defense]

11/5/2022 – Michigan 52, Rutgers 17 – 9-0, 6-0 Big Ten

This season is a test of patience. A test of how zen you have become after 2021 exorcised a fair number of demons. Michigan, it must be said, is absolutely blasting opponents. SP+ is the industry standard for forward-facing predictive rankings based on how you're playing, not how much luck you're fielding. It has Michigan third in the nation, a healthy margin clear of Alabama. Very few football teams would be doing what Michigan is doing to their schedule. This is an elite outfit.

And yet. Look at the halftime scores of Michigan's Big Ten games: 17-13. 13-0. 10-10. 16-14. 13-7. 14-17. Look at them! Behold this pile of anxiety. Itch rapturously. Feel the hives forming on your back. It is three AM, you cannot sleep, and the clock says we are losing to Rutgers at halftime.

Are you, a Michigan football fan, capable of waiting one whole half of football before the thing you're looking at with your eyes is reflected on the scoreboard? Have you repented and changed your ways? Can you look in the black pit of negative expectations and say "not today, Satan"?

For some, the answer is yes. For the people in my twitter mentions, the answer is largely no. Our open threads had a bit of a spasm this week, as well:

While "suck" seems to be slowly stabilizing again, as a group of people posting in a thread for a game we were all watching, we certainly were not happy - at all really - with certain details. Indeed, there were 81 instances of "fire" in that thread, with 66 of them being in the portion which covered the first half. Mostly, the ire was directed at Moore and Weiss, but a fair amount was also tossed at Minter, and even one or two people asked for Jim's head

Even your author has to admit that there was a point in the second quarter when Michigan took what felt like forty-five straight penalties where the gray plain of cool reason began to buckle. Maybe, just maybe, our new reasonable spacetime deformed just a hair.

Maybe it felt like the lead picture to any scientific article about gravity. Just for a second. And twenty minutes of halftime.

------------------------------------------

For the sixth straight week, Michigan came out of the locker room with a flamethrower and laid waste to the opposition. Michael Barrett turned into the Predator; Gavin Wimsatt ceased registering him as a threat, until it was too late. Donovan Edwards motioned out of the backfield and found a safety lined up over him. Blake Corum did Blake Corum things, etc.

All those halftime scores have given way to blowouts. A Maryland touchdown with 45 seconds left is the only reason Michigan has not won every game this year by at least two scores, and there were a lot of people saying things like "and it wasn't that close" after Michigan beat a top 15 Penn State team 41-17. You can show up against Michigan and maybe they'll fart around for a bit, kicking field goals and suffering the odd outrageously misfortunate touchdown. All the while they will be battering down your run defense five or six yards at a time, and when that gives way you get flat—all the way flat.

It is soothing, in its way. Yeah, whatever, the game is close. Michigan's outrushing them 200 to 4. It is not possible that the game continues to be close. That is not how things work, when you can do the low-variance thing over and over again until a safety explodes into a thousand parts trying to tackle a streaking running back.

This Michigan team is inevitable like gravity.

AWARDS

Known Friends and Trusted Agents Of The Week

[Paul Sherman]

you're the man now, dog

#1(T) Blake Corum and Donovan Edwards. 109 rushing yards each for the two-headed RB monster, with Edwards adding another 52 receiving yards. Corum's YPC was only held down by an illegal formation call and a lot of goal-line pounding. Also he looked absolutely terrible and was clearly playing through some sort of illness. Five points each.

#2 Michael Barrett. Was responsible for the blocked punt and that knocks him off the pedestal, but 2 INTs, one returned for a touchdown, and four tackles on a night where Sainristil led Michigan with five. Really saving Michigan's ass in the wake of the everlasting Nikhai Hill-Green injury.

#3 The Offensive Line. One sack allowed and 5.3 YPC despite losing a long run to that penalty. Blocked up a tricky defense and did some mashing. Issues inside the two not really their deal but a bull-headed insistence on manballing it in, which ultimately did work.

Honorable mention: Will Johnson had an interception and a PBU. Mike Morris added a sack and a half to his not-that-far-off-Ojabo season pace. Kris Jenkins was excellent with his screen recognition and was dominant on the ground. JJ McCarthy probably should have had a much better statline than he did but he didn't get a lot of help from his wide receivers.

KFaTAotW Standings.

(points: #1: 8, #2: 5, #3: 3, HMs one each. Ties result in somewhat arbitrary assignments.)

40: Blake Corum (#2 CSU, #2 Hawaii, HM UConn, #1 Maryland, #2 Iowa. HM Indiana, T2 PSU, #1 MSU, T1 Rutgers)
21: JJ McCarthy (#1 Hawaii, #2 UConn, HM Maryland, HM Iowa, #3 Indiana, HM PSU, HM MSU. HM Rutgers)
17: Mike Morris (T3 Hawaii, HM Maryland, #1 Iowa, T1 Indiana, #3 PSU, HM Rutgers)
16: Ronnie Bell (HM CSU, HM Hawaii, #1 UConn, #2 Indiana, HM PSU)
15: The Offensive Line (#3 Iowa, #1 PSU, HM MSU, #3 Rutgers)
14:  Kris Jenkins (#3 UConn, T3 Hawaii, HM Iowa, T1 Indiana, #2 MSU, HM Rutgers)
13: Mazi Smith (#1 CSU, T3 Hawaii, HM Maryland, HM Iowa, HM MSU)
9: Donovan Edwards (HM Hawaii, T2 PSU, T1 Rutgers)
7: Gemon Green (HM UConn, T2 Maryland, HM PSU)
5: DJ Turner (T2 Maryland), Junior Colson (#3 CSU, HM UConn, HM PSU), Luke Schoonmaker (T3 Maryland, HM Iowa, HM Indiana, HM MSU), Michael Barrett (#2 Rutgers).
4: Eyabi Okie (HM CSU, HM Iowa, T1 Indiana),  Jake Moody (HM PSU, #3 MSU).
3: Derrick Moore (HM CSU, T1 Indiana), Jaylen Harrell (HM CSU, T1 Indiana), Mason Graham (HM Hawaii, HM Iowa, HM Indiana), Rod Moore (HM CSU, HM Indiana, HM MSU)
2: Roman Wilson (HM CSU, HM Hawaii), Max Bredeson (T3 Maryland), Joel Honigford (T3 Maryland), Mike Sainristil (HM Maryland, HM Indiana)
1: Braiden McGregor (HM CSU), Makari Paige (HM Hawaii), Rayshaun Benny (HM Hawaii), Cornelius Johnson (HM Hawaii), , AJ Henning (HM UConn), Caden Kolesar (HM UConn), RJ Moten (HM Maryland), Will Johnson (HM Rutgers)

Who's Got It Better Than Us(?) Of The Week

Barrett's second interception is returned for a TD and even the vague hint of an upset is dispelled.

Honorable mention: First Barrett INT; Johnson INT. Quinten Johnson hops on the surprise onside kick. Donovan Edwards has a sweet 40-yarder. Ditto Blake Corum. The entire third quarter.

?MARCUS HALL EPIC DOUBLE BIRD OF THE WEEK.

The blocked punt is returned for a TD, completely scrambling all brain until about midway through the third quarter.

Honorable mention: Two more deep shots against the Michigan cornerbacks raise Concerns. Second quarter malaise period with a holding penalty on a KOR and a delay on a punt, and general team-wide WTF. Jake Moody misses two 50-yarders, which somehow qualifies as a surprise.