the whiff [Marc-Gregor Campredon]

Unverified Voracity Has A Box Score You Don't Want To See Comment Count

Brian September 10th, 2019 at 12:08 PM

Advanced box score. Bill Connelly has heard the college football internet's cries for box scores where sacks are counted against passing yardage and has posted various games from last week on twitter. Michigan-Army is one. The link has the big version. The bits that stood out other than three targets for Nico Collins are here:

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That success rate is a full-on Lloydball turtle, and the explosiveness of Michigan's rushing game is horrendous, because Michigan spent the whole game playing 10 v 11. Michigan's rushing game was less explosive than a team that ran 29 fullback dives.

Also in this. PFF's weekly All Big Ten team has Mike Onwenu on the first team and Jalen Mayfield and Zach Charbonnet on the second team. So Michigan was less explosive on the ground than a team that ran 29 dives and half of their most important players on the ground (OL+RB) graded out at an All Big Ten level.

FWIW, Metellus, Hutchinson, and Kemp (second-team) made their defensive team.

[After THE JUMP: Don Brown things will make you feel better.]

Don Brown things. Don Brown's press conference probably has to be watched to be appreciated this week. Here he is going into detail on the goal-to-go stop:

Brown on Jordan Glasgow:

10 o’clock at night: ‘Coach, I’ll be available tomorrow morning at 7:20. I’d like to go over my plays.’ ‘Okay, I’ll see you tomorrow to go over your plays.’ ‘I specifically want to go over my nakeds.’ ‘Okay, we’ll go over the nakeds.’

“I mean, he’s a junkie. He might be one of the funnest guys in the world to coach, because he loves it. He eats it. He drinks it and he backs it up, because he smashes everybody that moves.”

Brown also said Ross's injury was a "stinger," so he should be back for Wisconsin.

Quit scheduling service academies, part one billion. All of this time could have been dedicated to OSU:

Michigan won't face an offense like that again, which is why preparing for Army was "very disruptive."

And the Wolverines allocated a lot of resources toward stopping the Black Knights. In at least 10 of 15 spring practices, one period was "donated to the triple option." From the third practice of fall camp through the week of the Middle Tennessee State game, Michigan practiced its triple option defense every day.

What are we doing dot gif.

Offense structure and Patterson health. Meanwhile, Gattis:

“No, nothing’s by design,” Gattis said of the Patterson holding onto the ball. “Everything we do has some level of a read, whether it’s an RPO read or quarterback read run. It’s a little bit complex when you look at it, as far as the reads, because you have to decide how they’re playing. Obviously, Army did some things on Saturday, jetting their guys up the field to be able to take the quarterback read away. But it gave us favorable matchups inside – six-man boxes and six-man blocking surfaces.

“One of the things they did a really good job of is continuing to pressure. I think they pressured 85-something percent of the time. It’s just cleaning up the little things. Every quarterback read run isn’t always going to be a pull. There was some that he should have pulled, and there was one he shouldn’t have pulled in two-minute (drill). That was one that he should have gave the ball."

The one he shouldn't have pulled was a corner blitz on which the RB was going to get crunched by the end, so that's an RPS issue by my reckoning, not a Patterson one. The ones he should have pulled are apparently going in the Patterson bin; he's going to have another mega-negative run grade.

Gattis also confirmed the oblique injury:

“He’s been banged up the past two weeks with oblique,” Gattis said. “Something that he’s struggled with since the first week of Middle Tennessee. That had no effect – I hope it had no effect on his decision-making from that standpoint."

I hope it did, though? Gattis then asserted that the rando in the stands is not equipped to say whether a pull was correct all the time and that Michigan had "favorable matchups inside – six-man boxes and six-man blocking surfaces." There is some of that, but pretty frequently in my charting the lack of a pull puts Michigan in a situation where there is a free hitter in the box. I think some of this is just covering for some extremely bad decisions.

Do you need video of a distressed anthropomorphic bagel? The alumni association is a font of bagels and coffee  for students every Wednesday, but construction has troubled our little town.

This is posited as helping the bagel but really they're just going to slice it in half and feast on its corpse. Anyway, happy bageling!

Prompt service. Remember last year's scourge of yellow down and distance chyron? It took a few weeks before the appropriate person was thwapped upside the head and saner colors prevailed. This time around—how does this person keep getting hired?—the flag-impersonation chaos agent was in the NFL and didn't last for even one game:

ESPN pulled it at halftime and replaced it with a nice black logo that did not seem like a flag on every play. When this happens in the CFL next year you'll know this person has been fired and emigrated.

The fake punt. Harbaugh on Attack Each Day:

"Special teams, there’s the play of the game, Mike Barrett to Dax Hill, that was great to see," Harbaugh said. "The penalty was on us. We were called for a penalty. They were showing a corner pressure and Chris Partridge came up to me and asked if they could fake it, which was a pass from Barrett to Dax Hill. I said, yeah, let’s do it. That was fourth and 10. Mike made the throw to an open Dax and Dax had the wherewithal that he didn’t have the first down yet. He caught it after seven and had another three to get. Made an inside move and picked up about 10 more. It was great."

So that was not an option Barrett has whenever he sees it. 

The bill proceeds. Nancy Skinner's bill to restore name and image rights to athletes at California schools passed the full state assembly 72-0—one wonders if the NCAA got Rutger'd here—and now has just a reconciliation between the assembly and senate versions before it hits the governor's desk. The NCAA has threatened to ban California schools from post-season activity:

Scott and other leaders in college sports — including the N.C.A.A. president, Mark Emmert, in a letter to California legislators this summer — paint a doomsday scenario for the state’s athletic teams if the bill becomes law. They say that colleges in California could be prohibited from competing for N.C.A.A. championships because they would have an unfair recruiting advantage — being able to lure athletes with the possibility of cashing in on anything from jersey sales to sponsorship deals.

“It’s like you and I sit down to play Monopoly and I pull out a different rule book and every time I pass Go, I’m going to give myself $400 instead of $200,” said Andy Fee, the athletic director at Long Beach State. “I don’t imagine too many people are going to be willing to allow California schools to compete for N.C.A.A. championships.”

But relevant law-talking guys think this would be impossible under antitrust law, which bars trade organizations like the NCAA from having bylaws that violate state or federal law. Also:

…the NCAA's attempt to ban California colleges from postseason tournaments in retaliation for the State of California passing a bill to increase the financial rights and economic well-being of college athletes is likely to be deemed to violate the implied common law rights of good faith and fair dealing that exist in every contract. This is because the NCAA, as a monopolist trade association, is punishing several of its private members for doing exactly what their state law requires them to do.

There are nascent versions of Skinner's bill in various state houses that may get through before 2023, when the Skinner bill is set to take effect. (The delay is to allow the NCAA to adjust to the new reality.)

Etc.: More on Mike Danna. Glasgow got a real nice PFF grade last week.

Comments

imafreak1

September 10th, 2019 at 2:28 PM ^

Was MTSU also doing the super secret thing that Army was doing to make Patterson give every time? That no one else can diagnose. And then they stopped when McCaffery came in?

This play seems pretty stupid. An option that can be forced to so easily and still stopped. Maybe they should stop running it like every down?

I'm not necessarily down on Gattis. I was just trying to highlight the absurdity of his coach-speak. I am not really concerned about his words anyway. If Michigan does the same thing against Wisconsin, as they did in the second half against Army, then we can start wondering why Pep was fired at all. But I very much doubt that will be the case. Hope really does spring eternal.

treetown

September 10th, 2019 at 2:32 PM ^

OK - I was at the game and suffered along with everyone else and was deep despair when it looked like Army was going to be up two scores - until Lavert Hill's INT.

But let's look at this from another viewpoint.

Army's strategy and that of all of the service academy is based on a realistic approach to their personnel. They can't / won't recruit in a manner that they can play in a conventional "current" fashion. I know that MGoBlog likes to label this as some form of antediluvian throwback form of FB closer to some proto-rugby game.

But consider this another way. It is actually a form of asymmetrical warfare. It was a strategy lesson.Maybe it is a glimpse of the future of schools that want to play D1 but lack the resources.

The service academy's can't go out and compete against Michigan, OSU, Oklahoma etc. and match them RB for RB, QB for QB, DT for DT, gilded palaces of weight lifting, just like some groups/nations can't compete with the US military, tank for tank, plane for plane, ship for ship, etc.

So they go another way - this is the football equivalent. They changed the game from 60 minutes to one half. From one half to one quarter and finally down to one drive. Michigan couldn't covert the 4th and 2, and Army was just a few degrees off of the kick to the right otherwise they would have won the game 17-14 as time ran out. 

Against more conventional opponents, the Wolverines probably will do better, much better, but against teams that are very unconventional, they have play much better.

Minent Domain

September 10th, 2019 at 2:58 PM ^

Totally agree that Army's playing smart football that increases the opportunities for a few flukey things to swing the game their way (e.g., multiple fumbles). But BPONE holds that unless Michigan consistently beats the spread it's a sign that the coaches are overrated/overpaid.

I'm confused by the persistent running and don't necessarily agree with it, but I can kind of understand playing this game with a "survive with the win" mentality given that it's non-conference and such an unusual-style opponent. It was ugly, it was painful to watch, it was boring, but it kind of worked (albeit a closer call than I would have liked). When we have back-to-back seasons with under 10 wins I'll fire up the torches and pitchforks, until then, it's all part of the game and I just hope it keeps getting better.

LKLIII

September 10th, 2019 at 3:15 PM ^

I agree it's smart strategy on Army's part.  Joel Klatt wondered in the broadcast why more weak/inferio Power 5 teams don't employ the same strategy.  I think it makes a lot of sense, as even the weaker Power 5 teams theoretically get better athletes than the service academies.  

Hypothetically, a well-coached Purdue or Northwestern totally committed to the Army style of play could end up doing really well.  Not likely well enough to make the CFP, but well enough to maximize the odds of at least making it to Indy most years out of the Big Ten Western Division.

dotslashderek

September 10th, 2019 at 3:40 PM ^

I don't think this makes sense.  The service academies run the offenses they do because their players are for real cadets first and it's hard to be a cadet if you're the sort of 6 6 350 lb lineman coaches look for to pass protect.

It isn't as much about not being able to recruit elite players as it is about fielding a team with a massively undersized o line.  That constraint doesn't apply to the purdues of the world.

Cheers.

reshp1

September 10th, 2019 at 2:59 PM ^

I think I'm going to do a diary on this, but I don't think Patterson is going to get a massively negative number. There were a few he should have pulled, but unlike MTSU, Army's optioned player was mostly trying to play both sides of the option and at the very least most of his gives were defensible, if not down right correct. Only on a couple occasions was the optioned player relevant to stopping the RB until well downfield. When it got to short yardage, I think Michigan abandoned the read and most of those plays were indeed 10v11, some were successful in burrowing for the couple yards needed, others were blown up in the backfield from free edge defenders.

Also, a lot of what I thought were non-reads live seemed to have a coverage read and give based on a LB or S staying in coverage. Again, very few of those defenders ended up rallying to the RB, so I think those reads were mostly correct as well. Michigan seemed to just straight up blow a lot of blocking assignments 1v1 that borked a lot of runs to me. Army also would run blitz the opposite side of the line that Patterson was reading a lot, not sure if that's just lucky calls or something they saw on film. 

LKLIII

September 10th, 2019 at 4:11 PM ^

Honestly, a lot of the comments both Harbaugh and Gattis said in their press conferences struck me essentially as inconsistent word-salad.  It seems like no matter how you interpret what they say, it's impossible to do so in a way that paints a consistent narrative.

Bottom line is, I think both were effectively obfuscating just to feed the media *something* without giving any useful information that future opponents might use against the team. 

I think a bunch of it is covering for the nature of Shea's injury & to what extent that might/might not negatively impact his individual play, as well as the overall playbook/play calling strategy generally. 

I'm convinced (i.e., hope) that a decent chunk of the plays where the QB didn't pull on obvious option plays were becasue of coaching instructions.  Either the coaches literally instructed them to NEVER pull it, or they effectively said as much by telling the QB to pull only if it is SUPER clear that he could pick up a bunch of yards & not get hit. 

I also think (hope) that a bunch of the other sloppiness issues are also related to injuries & that they will be largely fixed once certain players get healthy.  Runyan back improves pass protection, thus hopefully boosting Shea's confidence in the pocket.  It also improves the run game so that we aren't so predictable interior or right-handed.  DPJ back helps with the punt returns, and also some of the route timing, as I think some of the long routes where Bell *just* misses are completions if DPJ runs those same routes.  And most imporantly, Shea more healthy may improve several items.  It'll give him/the staff more confidence in QB pulling/running w/ the ball, which greatly boosts the effectiveness of the zone read/arc block stuff whether it's a hand off or pull.  It may reduce turnovers if he's able to tuck the ball more firmly into his side/abdomen mid-sack. And it will improve his throwing accuracy for certain throws that are currently impacted by his injury. 

Overall, I think there is a plausible case that the injuries are the root cause of a lot of these problems.  They are materially contributing to the sloppy play/turnovers, and to a Gattis decision to temporarily restrict the playbook in a bid to maximize player health going into the bigger games.

Now, if more key players get hurt or continue to be hurt, then we are likely screwed.  If those key players get/stay healthy & we STILL dorf up the offensive play calling or execution of an otherwise good game plan, then we are screwed.  But I'm not going to be overly concerned until one of those two things happens.

 

cornman

September 10th, 2019 at 7:18 PM ^

I know you really want the players to be paid, but please try to be objective.  All the NCAA needs to unwind the idiotic legal argument you think you have is for one state to pass the opposite of the CA law.

 

A single state can't force a national organization to change its bylaws.  The California schools will just get kicked out of the NCAA if this law passes.

ca_prophet

September 11th, 2019 at 3:09 PM ^

You have that exactly backwards, actually.  Trade organizations like the NCAA cannot pass bylaws that contradict state or federal law, and they cannot retaliate against members for following the law.

If a state were to pass a law that athletes cannot profit from name and/or likeness, and it wasn’t immediately laughed out of court, the NCAA would still have to honor the CA law and allow its athletes the option.  Then they are complying with both laws.

turtleboy

September 11th, 2019 at 8:47 PM ^

I did want to see it, honestly. Not because I enjoy us playing poorly, but because I thought I might've been taking crazy pills. I could've sworn we went full sludgefart on offense in this game, but a lot of people said: nah turnovers and bad refs, everything is rainbows and kittens! It's nice to soberly see a chart saying the same thing my drunken eyes thought they saw on game day.

Murder Wolv

September 12th, 2019 at 5:07 PM ^

Today: "California's state Senate voted Wednesday to pass the Fair Pay to Play Act with a tally of 39-0. The California State Assembly approved the bill by a 73-0 vote earlier this week. The bill now moves to Newsom, who will have 30 days to decide whether he will sign it into law"

Not much of "decision" with both houses unanimously voting in favor of it.