poor damn donovan edwards

There's not a lot to gripe about when Michigan has played thirteen games, won thirteen games, and is the #1 seed in the Playoff. But we're going to find a way to do it anyways, because the usage of Donovan Edwards this season has been a consistent annoyance. As good as Harbaugh and his assistants have been about finding ways to crack defenses with tight ends, it's hard to get over the thought that they're wasting a five-star tool in Edwards who could be so much more. This was a point Brian made in the game column:

What are we doing with Donovan Edwards? There were a number of plays on which Iowa showed man-to-man coverage with Edwards split out. Edwards invariably motioned back into the backfield when this happened. They never took a shot at Edwards, or even looked him up on a slant.

Even more frustrating were times when Iowa would show and run man coverage and Edwards would leak out of the backfield and sit down in front of a linebacker. One angle route there and Edwards is running for a million yards. I don't know; it just seems like something is off with him. And the coaches.

He's barely been used in the pass game. #1 must fix before the 'Bama game. Alabama has lockdown corners; Edwards needs to be a factor.

So I thought we'd use this space to talk about this play and some others that have us questioning how Michigan deploys this backfield weapon, and how they could probably do a better job of using his actual skills.

[After THE JUMP: Two gripes.]

FORMATION NOTES: Indiana didn't do the thing.

There was maybe one corner blitz all day. They lined up in off coverage and the only instance of a hard cover two trap was the weird play on the goal line where Johnson ran the wrong route. For much of the second half they were content to sit with six in the box against three-wide and insert safeties late.

SUBSTITUTION NOTES: Wilson, Johnson, Loveland, and Barner in a dead heat around 40 snaps for the leader amongst WR/TE sorts. Morris and Bredeson got about 20 each. Moore, Morgan, and English got around 10, mostly late. For the sickos curious about the third string line: Gentry/Herring/Anderson/Guidice/Noah Stewart.

[After THE JUMP: same thing, different week]