slot fades

Timing Note: Sorry for the lateness. Blame the young voters, who wouldn't stop coming from the moment the polls opened until they closed (and one guy with the Michigan hat who came after and sadly had to be turned away). I know everybody was just dying to know how our team did against the [checks notes] Rutgers offense. The UFR Glossary lives here.

Substitution Notes: Too much to keep track of as starters were subbed routinely. Morris/Upshaw started but D.Moore was in on 3rd down, and McGregor got the next drive.

Formation Notes: Last year I started noting when positions are swapped with arrows. Here the TE is lined up as an RB and RB is in the slot. I called it "Gun 4w Y->R" and then you can infer from there being a TE (Y) in the name that it's still 11 personnel.

Also a reminder that "ARO" stands for America's Rollout Out. I've shorted "Racecar" to "RC" for Michigan's pass rush package with a DE (Morris or Upshaw) at DT.

[After THE JUMP: An even shorter show]

10/30/21 – Michigan 33, Michigan State 37 – 7-1, 4-1 Big Ten

Any close game is going to have its share of coulda-shoulda-woulda moments. There's always missed free throws or shots that hit the post, etc. Saturday's game will stand out in my memory for sheer quantity in this department. It felt like every third play was a Fateful Moment, from Andrel Anthony ripping through the MSU secondary for 93 yards to Blake Corum dropping a swing pass with almost nothing but grass in front of him to David Ojabo's sack-strip touchdown to having that taken off the board by the replay official.

The previous sentence didn't get out of the first half. Also it could have included several other items. You see what I mean. This game was jam-packed with stuff. Bombs! Exciting runs! Special teams disasters! Aztecs invading Europe! Four straight field goals from the same guy at the same spot on the field! Boggling attempts to substitute while the other team was going up-tempo!

Unfortunately for Michigan, the most fateful thing was the backup quarterback coming in and having a mutual misunderstanding with Corum about who was supposed to have the ball. Michigan was up three and at their 45 with seven minutes left. They had almost 500 yards of offense at that point. JJ McCarthy had already fumbled, and so there is nonstop rabbling in the Michigan fanbase this day. Ah well.

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

Here, as always, the particular Michigan mania sets in to ruin everything. This is a team with a more-or-less first year starting quarterback that could bring back literally everyone on the roster except for Andrew Vastardis and Brad Hawkins. Even when you account for likely NFL departures like Aidan Hutchinson and Dax Hill, this team looks more like a team building towards a peak roster year than something for the here and now. Anthony is breaking out on offense; Ojabo is breaking out on defense.

To many programs that would feel pretty good. There are scattered outposts of Michigan fandom attempting this zen even now.

To me it's difficult to get there because this is year seven of Jim Harbaugh and it seems like the error rate is baked in at this point. Michigan took three illegal substitution penalties and failed to get lined up on several other plays because of basic college crappe like "sometimes we use tempo." When Michigan tried it themselves they ended up asking AJ Henning to block a linebacker. Then they false-started on a fourth and one attempt and the punter did not get a punt off.

You could ascribe some of that to a near-complete staff reboot. I'm not particularly inclined since this is a program that has made shooting itself in the foot in miserable fashion a trademark. Sometimes they're pretty talented and it doesn't matter until they get to the games where the opposition is capable of matching them. When they are, though, it's always Michigan turning around to hand the ball off and failing to, you know, do that.

This does not have to be fate. LSU just won a national championship with a coach they'd fire less than two years later because he is excessively horny. Whatever Ed Orgeron's assets are, they do not include "is organized" or "suitable for indoor use." But man am I inclined to jump off the moving car that is football season as soon as this stuff rears its head again. It doesn't feel like Michigan is building to anything except another Michigan Football Season where they win enough games to make you think they're going to win the important ones and then don't.

So when McCarthy's in the game because Cade McNamara is briefly in the injury tent it doesn't feel like a weird one-off that you can shrug about and leave in the past. It feels like something that's going to happen against Penn State, and Ohio State, and so forth and so on. Maybe that's irrational. At this point, expecting Michigan to do something other than one-up themselves in late game failures seems more irrational to me.      

AWARDS

Known Friends and Trusted Agents Of The Week

[Fuller]

you're the man now, dog

#1 Cade McNamara. My pregame take was that I thought Michigan would probably win if they got equal QB play but I was very nervous about that. McNamara blew expectations out of the water with a 383 yard, 8.7 YPA day where he was lasering in pinpoint passes while under some duress.

#2 Andrel Anthony. Hello Mr. Anthony. Randy Sklar lands the second-best Hot Take of all time by predicting Anthony would break out as Michigan's #1 receiver by next year; that took about a game to seem true. Anthony outran the entire secondary on his 93-yarder, had a Braylon/Terrell leaping TD later, had the wherewithal to get out of bounds on a late first half catch, and nearly made another spectacular leaping grab late on. It's not just the catches, it's the way he made them. Looks like a future star. Maybe a current one.

#3 Aidan Hutchinson/David Ojabo. Three sacks and one erroneously deleted touchdown between them. Generally unblockable. Three points each.

Honorable mention: Erick All had ten(!) catches, building on last week, and looks like he's emerging into the kind of dual-threat weapon Michigan fans had envisioned from him for years. Dax Hill forced an INT with a PBU, had another one, and tracked down a would-be TD, for all the good that did. Jake Moody was 7/7 on field goals, four of which counted.

KFaTAotW Standings.

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

31: Aidan Hutchinson (HM WMU, #2 Wash, #1 Rutgers, #1 Wisc, HM Neb, #2 NW, T3 MSU)
18: The OL (#1 Wash, #1 NIU, HM Neb, HM NW)
17: Hassan Haskins (HM WMU, T3 Wash, T2 NIU, #2 Neb, T1 NW), Blake Corum (#2 WMU, T3 Wash, T2 NIU, HM Neb, T1 NW)
8: Ronnie Bell (#1 WMU), Brad Hawkins (#1 Neb), Cade McNamara (#1 MSU), Dax Hill (#3 WMU, HM NIU, HM Rutgers, HM Wisc, HM Neb, HM MSU)
6: Nikhai Hill-Green(HM NIU, #2 Rutgers), Jake Moody (HM Wash, HM Wisc, #3 Neb, HM MSU)
5: David Ojabo (#2 Wisc), Brad Robbins (HM Wash, #3 Rutgers, HM Wisc), Josh Ross (HM Wash, HM NIU, HM Rutgers, HM Neb, HM NW), Andrel Anthony (#2 MSU)
4: AJ Henning (HM WMU, #3 NIU)
3: Donovan Edwards(T2 NIU), Roman Wilson (#3 Wisc), DJ Turner (#3 NW)
2: Cornelius Johnson(HM NIU, HM Wisc), Erick All (HM NW, HM MSU)
1: Andrew Vastardis (HM WMU),Mike Sainristil (HM WMU),  Mazi Smith (HM Wash), Gemon Green(HM NIU), Chris Hinton (HM Rutgers)

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

Anthony takes a crossing route 93 yards to paydirt.

Honorable mention: Sack-strip by Ojabo; the other sack-strip by Ojabo; McNamara threads a needle to convert on a crossing route to All.

​MARCUS HALL EPIC DOUBLE BIRD OF THE WEEK.

The fateful fumble.

Honorable mention: Corum drops that swing pass; various tempo follies; TD taken off the board wrongly by replay official; Johnson drops a back shoulder bomb; no PI on fourth down; more tempo follies; false start on fourth and one; subsequent punt dorf; I could keep going but will not.

[After THE JUMP: ack]

Previously: The Story. Podcast 12.4A, 12.4B, 12.4C. Quarterback. Running Back. Wide Receiver. Tight End. Interior OL. Offensive Tackle. Defensive End. Defensive Tackle. Linebacker. Cornerback. Safety. Special Teams. 5Q5A: Offense.

1. What's the point of anything if OSU is just going to put up 60 on us?

Well… you see… I mean… you know?

Your author has to admit that every time he gets even slightly intrigued about football happening he quickly remembers that OSU has put Michigan in a blender the last two years, and there's no real reason to expect it will stop. I am still not over two years ago, when Michigan entered the OSU game with the #1 pass defense in the country, by both regular and fancy stats, and was systematically dismembered because their third cornerback was suddenly a giant liability.

The idea that might be a fluke went out the window last year. And now we're looking at a season where the corners are Vincent Gray, who might be okay, and the vague hope someone out of the hodge-podge of other guys breaks through. And then they need a nickelback.

I don't mean to be a downer, but what's the mechanism via which Michigan gets from gives up a zillion to anything else? To my eye the best argument you can muster is that hiring Bob Shoop gives Michigan a crafty zone expert who can anticipate and defeat OSU's approach. That feels extremely thin, because he's not the defensive coordinator.

The other way Michigan could turn around the last two years is to have a defense that's on par with OSU, talent-wise. This is not that year.

[After the JUMP: good news! we got the depressing stuff out of the way]