8/31/2019 – Michigan 40, Middle Tennessee 21 – 1-0

Well, folks, it's week one.

oof pic.twitter.com/pkMetpJBXg

— Ace Anbender (@AceAnbender) September 1, 2019

Michigan fumbled on the first snap, muffed a punt, fell for the same clapping trick on four separate offsides plays, dropped a sure pick six, dropped passes, and failed to punch it in from the one against a team of ornery koalas. They were also outgaining a decent CUSA team about 450-200 with six minutes to go. (Afterwards there were Backup Events.)

Across the country other teams were experiencing week one in the same fashion, even good ones. Alabama got through a quarter against Duke without scoring. Ohio State jumped out to an early lead and then farted around for two quarters, causing the bits of their Twitter I follow to crab. Clemson… nevermind Clemson. Miami-Florida, that whole vibe, though? That's week one.

It's important to distinguish what's likely to keep happening and goofy week one stuff that will recur in about one game when Michigan plays two standard deviations below their ability. Michigan State rushing for under three yards a carry against last year's #96 SP+ defense? Likely to keep happening. Lavert Hill forgetting what hands are for? Not likely to keep happening, and also largely avoidable anyway.

week one ish [Fuller]

Bad things on defense were limited to injury issues forcing a fullback onto the field and facilitating a missed tackle on a weird TD, plus backup things late. If anything the prognosis there is better coming out of the game because Ambry Thomas is fully functional and Vincent Gray played well, for the most part. Dwumfour's injury is temporary; Jeter's probably back next week.

Offensive issues mostly fall into the unlikely to recur category as well. Michigan dorfed a bunch of things and were primarily stopped because of, and only because of, those dorfs. Concerns about Patterson's third quarter are warranted. He took a number of sacks where he held the ball too long; he had a period of inaccuracy shortly before McCaffrey came in. Maybe that's something you can chalk up to injury. Maybe that's Patterson not getting to where Michigan wants him to be.

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

When not dorfing, though, there were some things. Nico Collins's touchdown felt like it could be the beginning of something with Randy Moss outlines. Who is stopping this?

As Harbaugh likes to say, nooooobody. Michigan threw 25 times in the first half, which was one off Patterson's game average from a year ago, and threw on 11 of 20 first down opportunities. I felt a small twinge of irritation when I checked the box score and Charbonnet only had 8 carries, and then I remembered what that implied.

And yet, the state of the fanbase is already in a pre-wroth state. Dylan McCaffrey got a sizeable ovation when he entered for real in the third quarter; Patterson actually fielded a smattering of boos after an admittedly bad series where he had errors on three straight plays. It is possible our eyes don't quite work right after so many beatings. PFF's All Big Ten QB this week: Shea Patterson. Because he had a bunch of bombs in addition to the above that were on point, only half of them actually caught.

Michigan has an above average number of kinks to work out for a veteran team because of a shift in offensive system. Those will probably keep popping up here and there for much of the season. But it's about ceiling, and Michigan's is about as high as Nico Collins's vertical leap.

[After THE JUMP: a constellation of men all in rotation about each other]

AWARDS

back for the first time [Patrick Barron]

you're the man now, dog

#1 Ambry Thomas. An excellent interception, a fumble recovery, a TFL, and a lot of reassurance about the corner spot going forward. Yessir.

#2 Zach Charbonnet. Only eight carries; got 90 yards on those carries. Also flawless in pass protection(!).

#3 Josh Uche. No stats, literally, but he was a nanosecond from a zillion sacks. Comes off the edge like an insane viking. Main driver of MTSU's "nope nope nope nope nope" gameplan.

[UPDATE: the official scorer was so terrified of J.UCHE IDEA that he now has a sack, a PBU, and a FF from last night.]

Honorable mention: Will Hart backspun a couple of punts inside the five. Jordan Glasgow got both of Michigan's sacks and was solid against the run. Josh Ross flashed some Devin Bush business from time to time. Sean McKeon's back doing downfield things, and blocking well. Patterson fumbled and had some frustrating bits but was also real close to a monster day if his receivers caught a few more balls.

KFaTAotW Standings

NOTE: New scoring! HM: 1 point. #3: 3 points. #2: 5 points. #1: 8 points. Split winners awarded points at the sole discretion of a pygmy marmoset named Luke.

8: Ambry Thomas (#1, MTSU)
5: Zach Charbonnet (#2, MTSU)
3: Josh Uche (#3, MTSU)
1: Will Hart (HM, MTSU), Jordan Glasgow (HM, MTSU), Josh Ross (HM, MTSU), Sean McKeon (HM, MTSU), Shea Patterson (HM, MTSU)

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

The RPO, RPO, play action bomb to an unstoppable Nico Collins series was a pants discarder.

Honorable mention: Zach Charbonnet rips off a 41 yarder that looks like his high school film; Tarik Black doesn't need his guy to fall down but guy does fall down; Thomas's INT.

​MARCUS HALL EPIC DOUBLE BIRD OF THE WEEK.

Lavert Hill muffs a punt, which turns a potential first-half blowout into an MTSU touchdown and sets the townsfolk a rabblin'.

Honorable mention: Patterson fumbles on the first snap of the game; weird first MTSU touchdown that shouldn't have stood; various drops by M receivers; Michigan spikes the ball for no reason.

OFFENSE

McKeon got vertical [Fuller]

Spreading the wealth. It was difficult to come up with Known Friends because of massive substitutions on both sides of the ball. On offense this manifested like so: eight guys got carries; nobody got more than 11; Charbonnet, Turner, McCaffrey, and Patterson all had at least seven.

Tarik Black led Michigan with four catches; nine different guys had at least one. This is perhaps more spreading of the wealth than desirable since the top end of Michigan's receiving corps is potentially spectacular, but it is of a part with Gattis.

smell you later hosers [Barron]

Introducing: Zach Charbonnet. Tru Wilson was hampered with a hand injury so Zach Charbonnet got the start and the plurality of the playing time. His runs were sometimes over-excited—I thought he failed to set up a block on one chunk run that could have been chonkier—but on his long jaunt he transferred his high school film to college:

Charbonnet with a nice 41 yard gain pic.twitter.com/fKSpvj3fxY

— Due# (@JDue51) September 2, 2019

Explode through the hole, dust the second level with change of direction, step through an arm tackle: yes.

Of equal importance was Charbonnet's pass protection, which was flawless (at least at first glance). He picked guys up, and more than that he stoned them. Even Wilson's celebrated pickup that facilitated the Black TD saw him get trucked. Linebackers capable of trucking Charbonnet are not found on CUSA teams, and possibly not found anywhere.

[Bryan Fuller]

Also this guy! Christian Turner had a couple of impressive runs in limited time last year and added to that against MTSU. He's consistently slippery, low to the ground and tough to tackle. And he finishes with pop. He picked up a first down by trucking a DB who tried to fill, landing on him, and then getting up for a slow-motion pile push. He was in fact down, but the important thing there is not whether his knee brushed the turf but his ability to make yards after contact.

Turner was also able to tightrope the sideline a couple times, turning what looked like modest gains into substantial ones. He's a player.

Two quarterbacks: pass. Not like that, just don't do it. Michigan ate an illegal substitution and a delay of game in their extremely awkward two-QB package. It felt like they'd just threw it in last week, because every time they used it the QB set to go in motion looked utterly confused about when he should go. There were some jet fakes, one unsuccessful screen, and then a QB pin and pull that worked but would have worked if the guy going on a jet was anyone.

This is probably destined for the scrap heap but  if they insist on it it seems like the orbit motion they were using with actual WRs would make more sense. Giving McCaffrey a screen where he has to dodge guys isn't going to go well because his stop/start is QB like. Having him as a potential pitchman on a speed option is closer to his skillset, and moving to a throw off that is much easier.

But really just dump it.

my bad [Barron]

Pickups. The importance of pass protection from your backs was made explicit on back-to-back drives early. On one, Hassan Haskins got third-down duty and got worked; sack. On the second, Tru Wilson took the brunt of a linebacker and got him on the ground. Patterson had enough time to find a wide open Tarik Black for a touchdown.

RPOs. I greatly enjoyed the back-to-back RPOs followed by a touchdown bomb to Collins. That felt like a test drive that Michigan is still keeping under wraps some, with a proper unveiling against Wisconsin.

There were also a couple incidents that looked like potential RPOs that miscommunication doomed. Patterson seemed set to throw off one arc read but Collins was blocking, so he had no choice but to take off. Early hiccups.

Dominant traits. Nico Collins had the first out-and-out drop of his career, which ended a drive. Then he sat for  the two-minute drill, which had Cornelius Johnson, Mike Sainristil, and Ronnie Bell out there, and may have gone the rest of the game without a target. MTSU, so whatever, but when you have a guy who can do this:

ope let me just sit on your face a little; sequence here [Fuller]

I recommend doing that. Collins also had a couple of open hitch routes, one of which he was able to turn up for a chunk of YAC.

hit in hands != should catch [Fuller]

Not quite. A game of almosts for the heavily hyped Ronnie Bell. He got a couple of "you gotta catch that" clucks from Twitter that I'm mostly in disagreement with. This particular pass is about to clang off of Bell's fingertips. Bringing this in would be the equivalent of Rashod Bateman yoinking it in against South Dakota State.

Bell's other not-quite event was more catchable as he went up for a contested ball in the endzone; the DB banged his arms and was able to dislodge the ball. That'll probably go down as a 2 in my grading system, which is historically about a 60% shot. (It's impossible to not let results filter into my classifications here, so take it FWIW.) You do want him to catch that.

Also introducing: Ryan Hayes, Jalen Mayfield, and Cornelius Johnson. Blockers need more time to evaluate. At first blush neither guy gave up much in the way of pressure and Hayes had a couple notable blocks to spring Charbonnet off the left side. Johnson made an impressive catch on the two minute drill when Patterson winged it upfield of him on a hitch. When that ball left his hand it felt like fourth down but Johnson was able to dig it out.

DEFENSE

A new world. Michigan's defense felt bad at times but with six minutes to go they'd given up 195 yards, and on a much different number of drives than they usually face. MTSU had eight first half drives—almost whole game's worth for last year's team—and 15 for the game. A couple of short fields made things feel worse than they should have. Until the last drive the longest MTSU drive was 42 yards, but they got two touchdowns out of the two Michigan fumbles.

So that's all the same then. Not the same: massive amounts of rotation. It's going to be a bear picking out exactly who is out there and what the heck they're doing. There was some conventional 4-2-5, some stack, some stuff that's hard to classify because it was stack personnel in a conventional look, extra safety things, potential double viper looks that are again hard to classify because Glasgow is the starting WLB. Looks like this is how the DT chicken salad is going to be made.

ow [Barron]

J.UCHE IDEA IS EVER MORE POWERFUL. Poor dang Josh Uche was about a nanosecond away from three different sacks—I contend he did enough on the bad snap to get one—and eventually I spent the beginning of every defensive play watching him when he was out there. In an expletive, holy shit.

Michigan has to figure out how to configure their defense so that he has a large majority of snaps. Dude is a rocket off the edge. If his run defense sucks, okay, let's figure it out.

Michigan did have him out there as a 4-3 weakside end in certain packages where they drew Hutchinson inside to three-tech. That made sense since Hutchinson is ten pounds heavier than the starting three-tech in this game; if that's Jeter or Dwumfour going forward, fine.

The super power. Little did we know that contracting a disease would give Ambry Thomas super powers:

All weight loss and weight gain are good

— Tom (@L2709Tom) September 1, 2019

Thomas went down 35 pounds: good. Thomas went back up 35 pounds: incredibly good.

Thomas's INT was a mini version of Jourdan Lewis's against Wisconsin—that looked like a pretty good throw I was already getting annoyed by and then Thomas yoinked it. He added a fumble recovery, a TFL, and several instances of comfortable downfield coverage. To go from "this guy might be available for Wisconsin" to that is a major win.

That goes double because Thomas's lack of playing time last year was a little ominous. Michigan had three good corners, but they also had a ton of blowouts in which the starters went way longer than they needed to. Makes you wonder.

Thomas hasn't answered all questions yet; he did take a major step towards doing so. And as a bonus…

fourth down stick [Fuller]

Gray hype ticks towards real. Vincent Gray was also good. I think he failed to crack replace on the first MTSU screen but once Michigan moved to a lot more zone looks he was frequently the cover-two corner and blasted various guys for no or negative yardage. He was tested a few times in coverage, usually on balls that missed, and was step for step.

By the second quarter it felt like Gray and Thomas were the primary corners, with Hill getting fewer snaps than either. I don't think that's because Hill was dinged—they had him on punt returns—and the game wasn't really out of hand until the fourth. So they were just out there.

Cornerback, which was one of three primary worries entering the season, now seems in good hands. Provisionally, of course. Going to have to see some games against teams that can pass protect longer than a nanosecond.

Farther away 50 yards later [Barron]

Big cliff, though. Jaylen Kelly-Powell's late cameo did not go well. He first got hit on a back shoulder fade that seemed like a bad throw, but he was far enough behind that he was in catchup-and-tackle mode only, with no play on the ball. That was almost their only downfield completion until the next one. JKP was beaten, Woods got a great jump but airballed on the WR and the ball, and then it was a footrace. Kelly-Powell was a step or two behind at the 50, and three or four by the ten, when Kelly-Powell downshifted.

Since Kelly-Powell's other major career event was a slot fade on which he couldn't tackle, let alone contest, two years ago against Wisconsin, it really feels like he has a fatal lack of speed.

FWIW, DJ Turner was getting some skeleton snaps with the twos and feels like the guy on deck.

Mason is not ready. Injuries to Mike Dwumfour and Donovan Jeter forced Ben Mason into the starting lineup. Things went about how you'd expect for a 270-pound DT who was playing fullback last year. Mason ended up on the ground a lot; virtually everything that looked bad up the middle was because Mason had gone a long distance in a short time against his will. He did have a couple of plays, but if that's what happens against Middle Tennessee it does not do to think what might go down against Wisconsin.

I don't know what to make of the absence of the two freshmen. Yes, I am the purveyor of Freshmen Defensive Tackles Suck. In this case you've got a five-star with NFL bloodlines and a man-bear who enrolled early. It would seem like they would easily slide in ahead of a walk-on (Jess Speight) who was previously so obscure I was pretty sure he was an OL and Mason.

DEs: ask again later. This whole gameplan was based around not allowing Michigan defensive ends time to do anything. Uche almost did stuff anyway; Danna also had a couple of flashes. Paye and Hutchinson were less notable. That is about circumstance more than anything.

[Fuller]

Sideline to sideline from the linebackers. Ross had a Bush-like play where he was able to smoothly avoid a pick and get to the sideline for a stick after a flare. Glasgow had a similar play and also turned in two sacks. Both guys got some tough assignments because of the DT situation and coped well.

Ross got all meaningful snaps at MLB. Gil rotated in a bit for Glasgow. His only notable play was an unfortunate one when he got put on his butt on an MTSU screen. Anthony and McGrone only got in late.

SPECIAL TEAMS

[Barron]

Not quite blocked. No stat for Khaleke Hudson on MTSU's 19-yard punt but as the above photo makes clear that's either the Blue Raider punter making a great play to avoid a block or getting lucky. Glasgow also nearly got one. Michigan's ability to crunch spread punting continues.

Hopefully Dax Hill is being groomed in the Hudson role for next year.

Hart adds to his arsenal. Will Hart was good at bombing them long last year but didn't have much short game. He had just 11 punts inside the 20* against 9 touchbacks last year. That's not a great ratio. Seems like Hart spent some of his offseason working on the nose-down approach that has become popular. That spins the ball end-over-end, gets a lot of hangtime, and can cause the ball to bite hard when it lands. Hart's first pooch landed at the two and went backwards a couple yards before Michigan could wrangle it.

*[I really wish we'd modernize punting stats by at least updating this to punts inside the 10. Nobody's impressed when you hang one up at the 16.]

FG/XP rotation. Moody on field goals, Nordin on extra points. Weird since Nordin's missed four extra points but I guess it's a low-leverage way to keep Nordin involved. (He also got one kickoff.)

Zero returns. The stadium took to booing Ty Lee as he fair caught kickoff after kickoff on the one. That was the move since Moody was able to hang it high close to the sideline with consistency.

Some returns. On the other hand Giles Jackson had a couple of nifty sequences, one of which even got Michigan past the 27 yard line. (He got out of the 39.) I fully support slot guys getting special teams touches instead of mission-critical cornerbacks who probably aren't any better at returns than your 3.8 shuttle guys.

MISCELLANEOUS

A note on Mr. Worldwide. Since the award is in large part about making your teammates better it is necessarily going to involve a lot of blocking and, on defense, paving the way for your fellows. I won't have a complete picture of either of those things until after UFR is done, so that race will be covered in those posts.

Injury status. Harbaugh was pretty vague, but Michigan's knocks, approximated:

• Tarik Black went up the tunnel because he was cramping; he's fine.
• Donovan Peoples-Jones is also week to week; I'd bet we don't see him against Army and then he's available for Wisconsin. In a way the walking boot is a good sign since the ominous offseason injury was supposed to be a groin or hamstring thing. Webb said this issue was a "high ankle [sprain]," which can be a longer-term issue than you'd expect.
• Runyan should be available next week.
• Donovan Jeter should be back next week, per Harbaugh's postgame.
• Dwumfour is more uncertain since his hand issue may have been exacerbated on his single snap.

Nervous moments but so far it seems like Michigan is down just Stueber for the long term.

Tempo: better. Not good. Play clock on clock-running snaps during Michigan's two minute drill: 28, 20, 15 (after a reset to 25), ~23. This is less despondent than last year, but Michigan took two timeouts into halftime and severely cramped their ability to score a touchdown. There were two main issues:

• After a penalty Michigan has the ball with 1:08 on the MTSU 27. They let 10 seconds run off the clock, run the ball, and then let the clock roll down to :33 before the next snap. They'd been doing well before this and then burned 35 seconds on one play. I kind of get that they want to run the clock down so there isn't a riposte (in a hypothetical game against a quality opponent) but that's way too profligate. If they call TO after the run they have 50 seconds.
• They SPIKE THE BALL after Cornelius Johnson bails out Patterson and gets them down to the 14 with a first down. This not only wastes a down but it wastes four important seconds, taking the clock from :24 to :20. At this point Michigan has two timeouts! Not just one! Two!

Patterson runs for five yards on second down and then they take a shot at a slot fade at Sainristil—the worst guy on the roster to throw a slot fade at—then kick a field goal.

Madden kid! Now! MADDEN KID NOW.

Refereeing complaint. MTSU's first touchdown shouldn't have happened. Michigan jumped offsides. Three different MTSU players then jumped themselves. At that point the play was dead and Michigan should have been hit with an offsides call. Instead: weird touchdown play thing.

HERE

Preseason UFR visualization.

Best And Worst:

Best: The One Where The Order Shouldn't Matter

So the early part of this game was a bit eventful, with the team throwing for 3 TDs, fumbling the ball twice, picking up about 280 yards of total offense and being roundly praised for it's emergence as a dominant unit in the conference. Oh wait, sorry, that was Ohio State putting up those numbers against last year's 82nd-ranked defense. No, instead Michigan finished the first half with basically identical yardage (277 to 280), about the same overall yardage breakdown (197 yards passing vs. 220, 80 yards rushing vs. 60), and did so against last year's 68th-ranked defense. Now, to be clear neither team played a particularly stout defensive unit, but both Michigan and Ohio State looked about how you expected given the first game of the year and with a certain amount of uncertainty/upheaval on the offensive side of the ball. But whereas Shea Patterson fumbled on his first carry and Michigan suffered a few early drops, Fields was responsible for TDs on OSU's first 4 drives. But watching the game, a lot of his early success was helped immensely by FAU's numerous mistakes and misplays. That 51-yard TD run was quite open, a 4-lane highway that basically any mobile QB could have sauntered through. Fields looked fine throwing the ball, but he didn't have tough windows to hit, and it's telling that as the game wore on and FAU tightened up its coverage Fields started missing guys with some regularity. In fact, a lot of his yards later on were on the type of screens and YAC throws that may not be as fruitful against better defenses.

Compare that to Patterson, who threw a number of deep balls in stride and into decent windows, completing a couple of nice deep balls while also suffering at least 2 drops in the endzone. He got hurt around halftime and his performance took a bit of a dent after that, as he was late or failed to make the right reads on a couple of passes, but in a game where MTSU was blitzing almost the entire time Patterson showed great poise and a good grasp of the offense.

Takes post slow-watch:

RB is not an issue! (definitely one of the big Qs coming into the season along with CB that are both probably gonna be fine)

• Charbonnet is the truth!
  • Moves the pile
  • Fast, great acceleration
  • Solid in pass pro
  • Vision and cutting ability, as was shown in...
  • His long run was actually a thing of beauty (I just got goose bumps!) He sliced through a very narrow crease and was to the second level in NO TIME. Once there, he feigned a bit of an inside move before cutting explosively to the outside and really turning on the jets. Damn. I'm excited beyond words for this guy. He's gonna be a star.
• Turner is also fine! (He's no Charbonnet though, but hey.)
• Tru is gonna be fine

ELSEWHERE

Hoover Street Rag:

Harbingers don't actually exist, except in retrospect.  But the longtail of history also gives the canny observer patterns of things to look for when things are turning sideways or worse.  So you can forgive the 110,000+ fans in Michigan Stadium got a sense of dread when the first play from scrimmage of a new season with a new offense ended with a Shea Patterson fumble and a Middle Tennessee State recovery.  That the Blue Raiders then went 42 yards in four quick plays and Michigan was down 7-0 just a shade under 130 seconds into the game.

M&BN:

Games like this can be frustrating. Clearly the team was not happy with how this game went...nor were the fans. Yes, nice to get the win, but this was not a satisfying opener by any stretch. Typical opening game miscues kept this one closer than it should've been. This felt every bit like a first game with a first-year OC and a completely new offense. There were flashes of what this offense could be...there were some really well-executed RPO's that worked flawlessly. But at times, this felt very much like a new system still working through some things.

Wolverines Wire:

If you’re looking for takeaways in the aftermath, it’s that there were no glaring issues. There was a veritable cornucopia of styles rolled out in Michigan’s 79 plays run on offense, but that will eventually become more streamlined. We saw as much last year. There’s no seeming Achilles’ heel that this team faces, whereas two years ago, the offensive line seemed to be the culprit — much like it looks to be for rival MSU.

Orion Sang:

LB Jordan Glasgow

Several defenders stood out, including Ambry Thomas and Vincent Gray at cornerback, but we'll give the nod to Glasgow. The former safety and 'viper' appears to have found a home starting at weakside linebacker and finished with six tackles and two sacks. Glasgow brings solid speed to the position and looked like he had the requisite instincts to play inside linebacker. In addition to Glasgow and Josh Ross, the starter at middle linebacker, the Wolverines had three other inside linebackers vying for playing time: Devin Gil (last year's starter at WILL), Cam McGrone and Jordan Anthony. But Glasgow played the vast majority of snaps next to Ross.

Michigan is –23 against Army. Iowa's Alaric Jackson got hurt against Miami (Not That Miami) and it seems like he'll be touch and go for the Michigan game five weeks from now:

"Every injury is serious, but the good news is, it doesn't look like it will necessitate any kind of surgery," Ferentz said. "I think we're looking at a matter of weeks right now, but it could have been a lot worse."

At minimum, it sounds like the 6-foot-7, 320-pound Jackson — a second-team all-Big Ten pick a year ago and a potential first-round NFL Draft pick — will miss this week's conference opener against Rutgers and the Sept. 14 showdown at Iowa State. After that, Iowa has an off week and returns to action Sept. 28 against Middle Tennessee State.

It would be excellent news if Jackson could return in time for the brunt of Iowa's Big Ten schedule, which begins Oct. 5 at Michigan.

We're never off the hook.

Georgia State coach said beating Vols ranks No. 2 in program history behind bowl win over Western Kentucky. https://t.co/YnxCFTis36

— Phil Kaplan (@philkaplan) September 1, 2019

But I feel like we're a little off the hook?