10/6/2019 – Michigan 10, Iowa 3 – 4-1, 2-1 Big Ten

The story of the last 20 years of the Michigan-Ohio State rivalry is Jim Tressel gradually transitioning Ohio State from what was then accurately termed "pro style offense" to a spread option system that's been at or near the bleeding edge for 15 years. He inherited Steve Bellisari and Craig Krenzel, neither of whom will be confused with a gazelle any time soon, and transitioned to Troy Smith in a bumpy 2004 season that saw the Buckeyes reach The Game with a 3-4 Big Ten record.

One-loss, #7 Michigan entered a heavy favorite. Four hours later a nuclear bomb had gone off. Smith threw for 241 yards on 23 attempts. He ran for 145 on 18. Ohio State got 52 yards on 14 carries from fullback Brandon Joe; everything else was Smith gaining 9.4 yards per whatever he did.

OSU did not look back. Since November 20th, 2004, Ohio State has had zero sharp turns with their approach. They've pushed things around based on whether their QB was Braxton Miller or Cardale Jones; they've constantly iterated to keep up with the Joneses. At almost no point have they tried to do something completely different.

When they found themselves forced into something pretty different a year ago when it turned out Dwayne Haskins would rather eat a turtle than run a zone read, things were rickety to the tune of a 49-20 blowout at Purdue where the Buckeyes tried a WR screen on fourth and goal from the two.

Doing different things is hard. Especially all at once.

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By contrast, Michigan has had no set offensive identity for longer than a few years. The tail end of the Carr era was almost nothing but outside zone from under center because the Broncos made it cool. Michigan imported Rich Rodriguez, then fired him after two years of Denard Robinson. Brady Hoke put Robinson under center a lot, because he is a neanderthal, and then recruited nothing but battleship pocket passers (and air). Michigan imported an Alabama OC who was no better than the guy putting Robinson under center; Hoke got fired.

In comes Jim Harbaugh, who had a fascinating period manballing it up from every formation that had ever been invented, lost Jedd Fisch, hired Pep Hamilton, threw Tim Drevno overboard two years too late, hired Ed Warinner, turned to Warinner after the Notre Dame debacle, developed a nice arc read package, ditched Hamilton, and hired Josh Gattis.

In the opener Gattis showed an arc read with an option attached that looked like the natural evolution of what Michigan had been running last year, and then for whatever reason all of that got stuffed in a garbage disposal. Michigan cited an oblique injury to the quarterback. Since then they've done various things, with nothing that you can actually call a base offense. Giving total control to Josh Gattis appears to have resulted in Michigan tossing some adequate babies out with the bathwater, and now the babies are not very adequate.

The number of whiplash moments here is approaching double digits, all while Ohio State calmly whittles a stick into a cruise missile. Michigan has repeatedly thrown over their offensive approach midseason.

Michigan doesn't need to go to Columbus for a counter-example, either: after getting ripped by Ohio State last year Don Brown has moved to a bunch of zone coverages. This is a pretty radical makeover itself, but since it's run by the same guy the terminology hasn't changed; the playbook is still the playbook, but different things are coming out of it. You can see where the defense is heading as it adapts to its personnel. Since that personnel has a decided lack of NFL defensive tackles it's been bumpy.

There's no comparison between the two units. Even after getting imploded by Wisconsin, Michigan sits 2nd in SP+ defense. In reality they're probably a few notches down from that—SP+ is still including a healthy preseason component. The offense is 66th, down over 40 spots from last year after returning nine starters. And there, too, optimistic preseason projections are propping that number up.

It's time to start moving certain pieces around, if only to experiment. Piece number one is quarterback, where it's time to see if any of the offseason Dylan McCaffrey hype was warranted.

Maybe that'll be enough for Michigan to dig in at some spot that—while vastly disappointing relative to preseason expectations—allows Michigan to entrench and see a way forward. Maybe not. Either way Michigan has another hard choice to make: continue on with an unproven coordinator off to a confusing, awful start, or throw it all away and try to build another sand castle before Ohio State can stomp it flat.

[After THE JUMP: defense though!]

AWARDS

Clark Kent mode: still dormant [Fuller]

Known Friends And Trusted Agents Of The Week

you're the man now, dog

#1 Kwity Paye/Aidan Hutchinson. 2.5 TFLs each; Paye's were all sacks; Hutchinson had one sack. Hutchison also added a forced fumble on the first play from scrimmage—nice when that happens to the other guys—and a PBU when he deflected a pass at the LOS. The relative proficiency of both guys on the interior allowed Michigan to put their rush package on the field on anything resembling a passing down and survive.

#2 Khaleke Hudson. 11 tackles, a QB hurry, a TFL, and suffered a hold so blindingly obvious that it drew a flag. Missed one tackle on a crossing route; otherwise excellent.  

#3 Cam McGrone/Jordan Glasgow. McGrone had some off moments but was also instrumental in Michigan's constant Stanley-shattering pressure; he's getting a +3 in UFR for a sack on which he took off from the linebacker level on the snap, dusted the RB, and finished. Glasgow converted a run blitz to a similar sack.

Honorable mention: Nico Collins was most of Michigan's touchdown drive, and he also got targeted two more times. Dax Hill had an impressive fourth-down PBU. Josh Metellus got over the top for an INT; so did Lavert Hill.

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.

13: Aidan Hutchinson(#1 Army, HM Rutgers, T1 Iowa)
10: Zach Charbonnet (#2 MTSU, #2 Army)
9: Shea Patterson(HM MTSU, #1 Rutgers), Josh Uche (#3 MTSU, #3 Army, T2 Rutgers), Ambry Thomas (#1 MTSU, HM Rutgers)
7: Kwity Paye (T2 Rutgers, T1 Iowa).
5: Khaleke Hudson (#2 Iowa).
3: Ronnie Bell (HM Army, T3 Rutgers), Cam McGrone(HM Rutgers, T3 Iowa), Jordan Glasgow (HM MTSU, T3 Iowa)
2: DPJ (T3 Rutgers), Nico Collins (HM Rutgers, HM Iowa), Dax Hill(HM Rutgers, HM Iowa), Josh Metellus (HM Army, HM Iowa), Lavert Hill (HM Army, HM Iowa)
1: Will Hart (HM MTSU), Josh Ross (HM, MTSU), Sean McKeon (HM, MTSU),Brad Hawkins (HM Army), Christian Turner (HM Rutgers), Christian Turner (HM Rutgers).

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

Nate Stanley is buried under an avalanche of persons on fourth and forever.

Honorable mention: The many and various sacks. Nico Collins catches a bomb.

​MARCUS HALL EPIC DOUBLE BIRD OF THE WEEK.

Moody misses a chip-shot field goal that would have essentially ended the game.

Honorable mention: Nordin gets iced at the end of the first half. Patterson throws a pick trying to get over a dropping defender on hi/low read. Patterson… well, just read the next section.

OFFENSE

McCaffrey time. Shea Patterson had one 51-yard bomb to Nico Collins and 25 other attempts on which Michigan advanced 96 yards, 3.8 yards an attempt. He threw a very bad interception and tried to throw another one. Both of his sacks were on him; he sat in the pocket forever on the first and then ran himself into pressure on the second.

I like Joel Klatt but when going over the game I about passed out when he lamented how no one was open on the first sack.

Literally everyone is open! This coverage is a giant Iowa bust on which a corner playing outside leverage expects safety help and that safety help is moving up on a crossing route, which is also open. It really seems like this is the whole point of the play, as Bell takes his route vertical for a few steps to draw the safety's attention before breaking to the crossing route.

I should note that after attempting to match this up with the rush, the point at which Patterson needs to decide to throw is this:

Since both LBs are moving left and the safety has committed these guys are in fact all open but I didn't want to be accused of cherry picking a moment too late. We saw McCaffrey make a nice anticipation throw to McKeon against Wisconsin, it's not unreasonable to expect Patterson to decide any of these guys are open. Also the wide open post needs no anticipation.

Various other incidents where Patterson sat in the pocket and couldn't find anyone didn't get the downfield cam treatment but I imagine many of them were like this, because this has been a consistent issue any time Patterson goes up against a zone defense.

There is no reason to expect this to improve, so I'm on Team McCaffrey as soon as he returns from injury.

rarely does it come easy [Fuller]

A brief bit of sun. Michigan's other drive—the one that ended in the missed field goal—was frustrating even when things were working: it interspersed one two-yard run with completions to Collins, DPJ, and Black on two hitches that wobbled their way out there but were still easily completed and an out on which Tru Wilson picked up a CB blitz and Patterson threw it where that came from.

It's impossible to see that bit and not think about why it couldn't be this easy all the time. After the deep shot to Collins Iowa cornerbacks were playing in the parking lot or showing more aggressive coverage and bailing just before the snap. Michigan threw one hitch at that until the fourth quarter, that the Sainristil third down conversion.

To be fair to Gattis, Michigan did try to high-low Iowa on a couple of different instances only for Patterson to throw an interception on one. And the wobble on those hitches may have been oblique-induced. They were not confidence inspiring.

no sale [Fuller]

Legitimate complaint. One complaint about the WR corps that I do think was legitimate was a distinct lack of Grant Perry route artisanship on red-zone corner routes, which were continually well-covered because Michigan's double moves on them were weak or nonexistent. Perry liked the weak first move followed by a more convincing second one inside, and then he'd break out. Iowa's a lot better than Hawaii and Geno Stone in particular was amazing in this game; still would like to see some guys bite on your moves.

Wildcat. I'm of two minds about the wildcat snap: yes, it was sort of a six-v-six situation on which the OL didn't win. (I say sort of because the overhang linebacker flew into the box on the snap.) On the other, Michigan took a passing down and waved a giant flag that they were going to run. Pass protection gets worse once the opposition doesn't have to worry about the run—Michigan had 15 pass protection positives before their first negative against Wisconsin, and from there things went to hell—and no doubt that dynamic exists for obvious runs.

Meanwhile, Michigan's other trick play was supposed to be an end-around pass from DPJ to Erick All. All fell over, Iowa didn't bite anyway, and DPJ seemingly had not been coached to get rid of the ball if his passing option was not there.

Ground woes continue. More whiplash: after a week where Michigan ran power, outside zone, and inside zone with meh success and seemingly quite a bit of confusion Michigan flipped to approximately one run play: inside zone. There was some split zone in there and a couple of arc plays, but after some early success Iowa got locked in on the one thing Michigan was doing and turned it into a struggle.

It is depressing that Michigan's gone from a team that can throw a lot of stuff at your face and run it all pretty well to one that does literally nothing well enough to be a base play. That goes double given the returning starters Michigan has. A lot of this has to do with the suddenly non-functional QB run game—that one arc read outside of four-minute-drill time was so open it was painful—but I don't know what to do with a team-wide regression so comprehensive. Players are supposed to get better as they get older.

I don't even know man. Michigan threw one bubble in this game, when they put Eubanks outside of DPJ. Iowa rolled their CB up to the LOS and slid their LB corps heavily to the field, with an OLB, who is a real OLB since it's Iowa, head up on Eubanks. The presnap look was a giant blinking DO NOT THROW A BUBBLE.

Bubble. I'm going to walk into the ocean now.

Michigan can't throw a screen of any variety. No TE screens, no WR screens, no RB screens. No tunnels, no bubbles, no flash screens. Speed in space is nonexistent.

DEFENSE

Dax Hill: a man. Hill got another chunk of playing time and flashed eye-popping ability. His fourth and two PBU was a drag route on which he lined up with outside leverage, got a step behind, and then made up the distance in a flash. Almost casually. I look forward to fully actualized Dax Hill.

at least there's someone missing a tackle [Fuller]

Mesh: a plan. Michigan got hit with a few different crossing routes in this game, but in almost all cases this was because someone messed up. McGrone had one; Hudson missed a tackle; I think Thomas was late recognizing his responsibility on the one to Iowa's little scatback. Like last week's not-quite switch-em-up that seemed like Dax Hill busting a trap coverage. Michigan is still getting used to a much more diverse defensive approach but it's working pretty well; see the column section above.

Drop-out blitzes: a canal. Michigan's TFL issues were always a product of who they played. Army is Army. MTSU and Rutgers have offenses designed around the fact they can't block anyone. Wisconsin is Wisconsin, and they only had to throw 15 passes. It wasn't likely that a Don Brown defense was going to be bad at getting to the QB.

But even the most optimistic view wouldn't have projected eight sacks and an intentional grounding that was functionally a ninth. Michigan obliterated Iowa's pass protection. They were extremely eager to throw their rush package on the field—second and seven+ was good enough—and in the second half they threw in a ton of threatened rushes and late drops that sent a ton of guys through untouched. McGrone zipped through the interior of the line when Uche dropped out multiple times; Hudson got a free run off the edge; etc.

Panama. I like Panama because on a continent where way too many countries have national anthems titled "The National Anthem," the Panamanian national anthem is "The Hymn Of The Isthmus."

how Stanley didn't fumble in this game is unknown [Fuller]

McGrone, up and down. As mentioned above, Cam McGrone had some negative blips here. He was set to jam a crossing route from Smith-Marsette and airballed on him; there was a chunk iso run where he got thwacked by the fullback and didn't funnel to help.

But the dude has the Devin Bush thing where he can come from the linebacker level with no warning and get in on the quarterback in a flash. Iowa was constantly turning him free on blitzes up the middle in part because of that—there are guys who seem dangerous and guys who don't based on their positioning. McGrone was also excellent at not tipping when he was coming.

Handsy. A pretty frustrating game for both offenses in the PI department. Michigan had an open-drive TD that didn't quite come off because a DB who was beaten clean by Black yanked him from behind without a call. For Michigan's part it seemed like they dodged a couple of penalties: an official made the uncatchable signal after Ambry Thomas mugged Oliver Martin on a fade, and a Lavert Hill PBU saw some serious jersey tugging both ways.

On the latter play an official had tossed his hat to indicate the WR had stepped out of bounds. If you step out of bounds and are ineligible to touch the ball first, can you be interfered with? It seems like the answer should be no. But I don't know.

Michigan did get hit with an inevitable flag on a badly underthrown go route.

[Fuller]

All right-thinking persons believe these flags are an affront to momentum and should not be called. Michigan was the beneficiary of one against Army, which felt dirty but was badly needed at the time. It is unfair to penalize someone when they are running in a straight line and the WR decides he needs to go through your body.

SPECIAL TEAMS

What are you doi—ok. DPJ fielded a punt at the four, which was bad. Then he DPJed his way out to the 40, which was good, and then he fumbled, which was bad, and then Michigan jumped on it, so that was okay again. Michigan got some fluck in this game to offset earlier bad luck.

Golden godhood: nah. Aussie drifter Michael Sleep-Dalton only averaged 38 yards a kick and didn't pin Michigan inside the 10. (Punting stats should record inside the 10, not inside the 20.) He did have a very frustrating line drive he hammered to the left after rolling right; DPJ had no shot at fielding it and it ended up being 56 yards with no return. Sleep-Dalton put a couple in the sideline as compensation.

By contrast Will Hart was his usual self: boom everything, live with the consequences. Iowa picked up 54 yards on four punt returns with a long of 17—ie, everything that got fielded came back a long way, and six of the eight punts either got returned or went into the endzone. So despite a 46 yard average, Michigan only netted 34 yards a punt once touchbacks and returns are accounted for.

These are the costs of Michigan's punting approach.

What was with the pop-ups? Michigan popped up their first two kickoffs. Smith-Marsette caught the first one on the dead run but had fair-caught it. The second one he took out to the 50. The opening kickoff of the second half went into the endzone, and you have to wonder why Michigan wasn't doing that from the beginning.

Nordin: very large leg. Consecutive 58-yarders were easily long enough; the second one got pushed wide after a bad snap.

MISCELLANEOUS

End of half, again. The end of half bugaboo struck again. Michigan was rightfully turtling until Kirk Ferentz called a somewhat unusual timeout on third and one; Haskins ripped off Michigan's longest run of the day—18 yards—and Michigan decided to try to get something with 20 seconds left and one timeout. Out of the timeout they threw a hitch, and DPJ got tackled in bounds. Michigan let the clock roll, threw another short pass, and then called timeout with one second left.

After the hitch the announcers clucked about how DPJ had to get out of bounds, something that would have been much easier if he'd been running an out. Why was he getting a throw at the numbers, five yards from the sideline?

homecoming without lots of homecoming [Bryan Fuller]

No halftime show. Homecoming didn't have the alumni band performance. No Temptation, no War Chant. I don't even know what we're doing here if we're not preserving even extremely easy-to-preserve traditions. Let's become the mauve and taupe.

HERE

Best and Worst:

Meh: The Offense

I'm going to be a contrarian here and say the offense legitimately looked like it was making solid strides against what is a very good (if unspectacular) defense. Yes, Jim Harbaugh is probably trolling a bit when he says he thinks the offense is hitting its stride, as 10 points in any game is rarely a sign your team is firing on all cylinders. But I re-watched this game and there were a number of times where a play here, a play there turns what was a nail-biter into a blowout and we aren't having as many existential conversations about the state of the program. I know Iowa players said they didn't make adjustments to the pass defense, and I guess if your philosophy is "zone them hard and grab anyone who tries to get away", then in broad strokes that's probably correct. But Michigan still ground down the field at a decent clip (4.1 ypc after you excise sacks, kneel-downs, and whatever happened during that DPJ play), and perhaps most importantly stayed ahead of the sticks consistently (Iowa only picked up 4 TFLs, and two of those came on sacks and a third was the aforementioned DPJ play). Iowa's one of the worst teams in the country in generating tackles behind the line, but as we've seen past performance does not remotely portend future results. And heck, Patterson actually kept the ball on a couple of plays and picked up a couple of first downs in the process.

Also podcast, Ace's recap:

This was ¡El Assico! 2: This Time in Blue. Neither team cracked 270 yards of total offense. Of the game's 26 real drives, there were:

• 15 punts
• four interceptions
• a lost fumble
• two made field goals
• two missed field goals
• a single, solitary touchdown
• Iowa's eight-play, 12-yard drive to end the game.

The defense, obviously, emerged as the game's heroes.

ELSEWHERE

Go Iowa Awesome:

THE BAD: ROAD NATE STANLEY

This is Nate Stanley’s worst performance on the road against a ranked conference opponent since…well…the last time Nate Stanley was on the road against a ranked conference opponent. In 2018 it was against Penn State, when he completed a pathetic 37% of his passes for 205 yards, threw for two interceptions and was sacked three times. In 2017 it was at Wisconsin where he completed eight (8!) passes for 41 yards, one interception and was sacked four times. His QBR against Wisconsin was 6.0. Six, point, zero.

Comically, this was statistically his best performance of those three games, as he threw for 260 yards and completed a more impressive 54.8% of his passes. Unfortunately, there were also the three interceptions and, oh yeah, the EIGHT sacks. Some of those weren’t his fault (which we’ll talk about), others, like the one where he had about 5 seconds to throw the ball away as he was running towards the sideline and decided instead to take the sack, were. Stanley turtles on the road in tough conference games and his decision-making is about a full two seconds slower. That was the case when he first started and unfortunately, that’s the case in his final year.

HSR:

A win is a win. Which is something you say when your team wins ugly.  But Michigan really needed this win, which, of course, will be immediately devalued by the national press because of how bad Iowa looked, and Iowa was overrated because who had Iowa played really?  It's going to happen because it's what always happens.  But things need to get fixed this week on the offensive side.  Figure something out, because you can't keep telling the defense it's all on them week in, week out.

Sap's Decals:

DEFENSIVE CHAMPION – I’m just going to come right out and say it, the ENTIRE DEFENSE played lights-out for Michigan. I mean, this was a total TEAM EFFORT. From Don Brown mixing up his schemes and his calls, to the d-line sacking the Iowa QB eight times, to the defensive secondary getting 3 interceptions, to the linebackers limiting the Hawkeyes to just one yard rushing. It wasn’t perfect, but in a one-possession game where the offense was having problems getting into the end zone, you just knew the defense was going to have to make the last stop – and they did.