As a result of the discord RE: The Passing Game, I went back and watched every attempt to make sense of what we saw. I’m a firm believer in WE ARE FINE, SHUT UP. But it made more sense to really dive in take a look and see what happened to create as ineffective of a passing attack as we saw on Saturday. 

Link to all 22 HERE.

I know Seth will kill the offensive UFR this week but this was a passion project because the sky is absolutely not falling. See below: 

 

 

Pass 1: Sainristil can’t block a 275 LB defensive end who reads the swing. From the jump. Good play by the defense. 

 

 

Pass 2: Deep Ball to Roman Wilson. CB makes a play. If he puts it out a little he can maybe complete it, but it’s a small window between a cover 2 safety and an NFL corner who is in phase with a freshman. 

 

 

Pass 3: another swing to Corum that he tips by peaking back before the snap. 2 defenders in hot pursuit. Balls behind corum, Baldwin can’t seal. Poor execution all around outside of the #1 WR who seals. 

 

Pass 4: 5 Wide, safety who’s apexing WRs 2-3 brings a well timed blitz. All doesn’t look like the intended receiver since he’s short of the sticks and is headed towards 3 defenders. Looks like it was intended for Johnson on the 6ish yard hide route. 

 

 

Pass 5: Looks like they lost the RPS. Trips bunched to the boundary with the swing as a check down. From the every snap view, 2 routes are run directly into zones, the back is the natural outlet, the flat defender makes the VERY rare 1:1 tackle of Haskins. 

 

Pass 6: PA pass, max protect from 22 Personnel. This is ironically the downside to running so much, when you PA off of a formation with this personnel grouping, you can end up with an edge defender in your QB’s lap with the running back trying to peel back to force the rusher outside. If Haskins can push the edge rusher out another step and a half the dig is open behind the Mike. Can’t put it on Cade too much. 3 man routes take fooooorever to develop. 

 

Pass 7: Tipped pass on a delayed angle route from the tight end. Right read. Cade is short, it’s his 3rd batted down pass in 2 games. Coming out of HS he was good at changing arm angles, throwing platform. At this point they may need to adjust some of the laser beams to the middle of the field because that’s a 7-9 yard gain to Schoonmaker if he hits. 

 

 

Pass 8: Ding ding ding. Back shoulder fade to Cornelius Johnson. Good ball hits him in stride. Looks designed, IMO. Obvious passing down he gets time and delivers a strike. Cade is good at sideline throws, arm strength isn’t too much of a concern to me through 2 games. 

 

Pass 9: redzone alert. Looks like they wanted to bring Schoonmaker on the cross formation jet motion and the snap arrived early. Broken play. scrap it, dump it, this ones bad. 

 

 

Pass 10: bubble to AJ Henning. Roman Wilson gets blown up at the point of attack. It sucks because he’s got legit 4.3 speed but you gotta work him out of the slot and get him moving north and south. Sainristil, All, Johnson are all better blockers. He needs to get touches (IMO) not lead blocking on split zone or bubble screens. Also the 1:1 wide receiver blocking definitely left a lot to be desired. This whole game. 

 

Pass 11: 5 wide, hits Corum on a stick route and he converts third down and 6. No complaints found the open guy with room to work to the sticks. 

 

 

Pass 12: This was a weird one for me. You had 3 trips to the field, and bridge to the boundary. (Bridge = Eligible on LOS, outside of TE, FB, H who is off the LOS but in the usual TE gap. #1 runs a curl at 8-10 and Honigford runs a 5 yard out. Cade is dialed to the bridge/boundary side the entire way, pressure gets home, he evades and chucks it to the stands. I don’t get the play call, the personnel. Not really sure what to do with this. Call it an RPS loss. 

 

Pass 13: the taunting play. Dumps off to Corum from a 3x1. Seemed like #1 to boundary is running a go but can’t tell (broadcast view). Cade goes to Corum so quickly I kind of think this is a simulated screen/get our fast guy the ball in space because by the time you see Johnson in frame (#1 to boundary) he’s not even at the sticks yet. Harbaugh seemed content with going for it on 4th on Saturday so with hindsight it seems like they were working to get as many yards as they could to set up a good 4th down distance. The taunting resulted in a 1st down and ultimate touchdown. 

 

Pass 14: Bubble screen. Schoonmaker wiffs on his block. I don’t have issue with running these but the blocking has to improve. It’s a layer player that sets up throws behind and in front of the bubble but it’s not working with the current state of space blocking by WRs and TEs. Also maybe Washington’s DBs are just that great at attacking the LOS. They were consistently the best tacklers 1:1 for UW all day. Made tons of plays all day. 

 

Pass 15: This is a bad read by Cade. They go 3x1 try to get it to Sainristil on an out but it’s covered by their safety who’s down splitting 2 and 3. Cade has Corum 1:1 against a linebacker running an angle route which is a take 11/10 times. Just didn’t see him. Bummer. 

 

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In summation, we get a mixed bag in terms of results and faults. 4 pass attempts are straight designed bubble screens which are effectively a continuation of the run game. Cade “missed” on one but it was dead in the water. You have to give credit to a position group being that good at attacking bubbles. They used to play Wazzu and Mike Leach every year where bubbles are a large part of the Air Raid and they have Oregon in the division. It makes sense for a position group that’s coached that well to be effective at taking that away. You can also see there skill with this in their 1:1 tackling in space. They played really, really well. 

 

Outside of the bubbles it looks like 2-3 more plays where getting the ball to the back is the primary read. Cade hits them both times but they’re covered. 

 

We have one deep attempt to Roman Wilson where their very good corner makes a very good play. Props. 

 

We have a tipped pass at the LOS which as I stated may become a concern. I count 3 in 2 games. 

 

We get a broken play in the redzone allegedly due to the noise. Looks like Michigan fans may need to adjust to noise rules; be quiet when we’re on offense please. 

 

We have Cade throwing into a blitz and All taking a stab at a ball not intended for him. I think it’s the right read by Cade but the defense just kind of won that one. Tough break now but they can tighten the routes up. 

 

The max protect, 3 man route is a Harbaugh staple but they rarely work out. An incompletion on a good pass rush is a bummer but idk how you get rid of a big Play action production like that with Harbaugh as your coach. He seems less inclined to pull them out than he did a few years ago which is good. 

 

They tried to run a cover 2 beater from 5 wide with Honigford and pressure and pressure got home. This seems like a poor use of personnel to me. Honigford is easily the worst pass catching, route running, play making tight end but he was in the route on the play side. I’m not sure on that one. Harbaugh did say they have to tighten up their communication and did point to their personnel groupings as a point to clean up. 

 

And finally missing Corum 1:1 against a line backer. Missed read, can coach this up. 

 

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All in all, there were really maybe 9 or 10 true passing attempts if you remove the bubbles and plays where the RB is the primary read. 

 

That becomes 7 or 8 due to pressure blowing the play up. From there you have a tipped pass which is a concern. You have a deep shot the defense won, a back shoulder you won. A first down on a stick, a bad read, and a broken play in the red zone. 

 

They really didn’t need to rely on Cade’s arm which has been said Ad Nauseam but when you look at the calls they ran I don’t necessarily think it’s an indictment of our passing games ceiling. You poor space blocking which is a concern, you have another tipped pass which is a concern but outside of that they didn’t explicitly fail at passing the ball. After watching the every snap offense multiple times today, the game flow makes a lot of sense. Parking  two defenders 12 and 15-20 yards off the ball kinda takes away the incentive to throw especially coupled with the YPC (6.1) they were averaging. They’re probably not done shuffling specific roles in the receiver room as we’re only headed into week 3. They’ll figure out better ways to deploy the talent they have in that room. NIU and Rutgers will certainly allow time to workout kinks and with the ability to lean on a legit 2 headed monster at RB. They’re in a fine spot.