question about playing DB

The way refs are these days, I think it's better to play physical and take the occasional PI call rather than give up big plays. If you play soft, refs will still call PI when you get more physical so you might as well start physical and accept the flags when you cross the imaginary line in the refs deranged head. It worked very well for MSU under Narduzzi and it has worked for us.

Those guys were also very physical with receivers but a little better at hiding it. Jourdan Lewis was a magician in the secondary. He would use subtle tugs and pushes to throw off receivers while shielding it all from the refs.

Michigan allowed 6.0 yards per pass play.  Thorson completed just over half of his pass attempts.  If this is getting “torched with regularity,” I’ll take more torching.

Michigan has started to play pass defense the way MSU has for ten years.  I don’t like it, because I think “interfere on every play, since they won’t call it every play” is borderline cheating, but it was effective for MSU and it’s been effective for Michigan.

Michigan is allowing 3.4 yards per play this season, lowest in the country.  I think we need to recalibrate a bit what we consider good and bad defense.

Michigan's defense is top 10 nationally in all categories. They give up 14.8 points a game which is among the best in the nation. Average yards allowed rushing and passing keeps dropping per game. What has changed, however, are the number of penalties and yardage marked off against  the Wolverines per game.

Michigan is averaging almost five more penalties called per game than were called against it last year per game. Nationally, Michigan ranks 118th among 130 college football teams in total penalties and calls against it per game. And it ranks 99th in opponent penalty calls per game.

So far, it has played two teams, Notre Dame and Northwestern, who are among the nation's best in this category as the least penalized teams in the country.

Northwestern ranks fifth in fewest penalties, 3.2 per game, almost 2 fewer than the 4.9  per game it was flagged for last year.  Interestingly, the Wildcats are called for 6 penalties on average per game on the road which was four more than the two they were called for yesterday while Michigan was flagged 11 times. Michigan averaged 6 penalties a game last year, that has risen by 3 per game this season, to more than 9 per game whether at home or on the road. 

In their two road games, the crews officiating Michigan and Notre Dame and Northwestern were from two different conferences, ACC and Big Ten. That difference alone had no bearing on the higher trending number of calls against Michigan in both contests.

It should also be noted that Michigan State, Ohio State, Maryland and Nebraska are among the nation's worst in all penalty categories, with Michigan topping both its rivals. In terms of penalty yardage, Michigan averaged 57.2 penalty yards a game. This year, the average is 84.3 with an 89.7 average during home games and 76 away. The rise in Michigan penalty yardage this year is nearly 30 yards a game. That is the equivalence of two major personal fouls more per game.   

But that number is somewhat offset by the 104.7 average yardage marked off over the the last three games including the 100 marked off yesterday against Northwestern which was flagged for 25 total in penalty yardage by comparison. So, Michigan was called for 11 penalties with 100 yards marked off, or almost 10 yards per call.

In looking at various penalty categories, it's hard to make any discernible generalizations about penalty trends other than noting that certain schools like Navy and Northwestern are annually among the least penalized football schools in the country. And officials apparently know this, and they officiate them differently. For example, Akron, which played Northwestern, is listed as the worst school in terms of penalties called against it per game. Last year, it averaged 6 penalties called per game, a number that rose to more than 10 per game  against Morgan State and Northwestern but then dropped to 6 when the Zips played Iowa State in their last game.

What is interesting, is that national semi-finalists Clemson and Alabama show no real change in the number or amount of yardage marked off against them this year than last year. They both average about 6 penalty calls per game, which is about the same as last year's average. In fact, 6 to 8 penalty calls per game is about normal for most teams.

The team with the nation's largest increase in yardage marked off against this season is UAB, which averaged 49 yards a year ago, and is now averaging 101 yards per game, or 52 yards more.

Defending slants isn't necessarily a problem for our DBs, it's an inherent weakness in our scheme. There are adjustments to be made, but then our LBs can't be as aggressive against the run or pass rush, which is a hallmark of a D Brown system. It's probably something we're only going to be able to mitigate with some well disguised zone, not eliminate entirely without giving up what makes this defense great.