Missed blocks (Iowa edition)

After a poor 2009 season blocking for Tate Forcier, Mark Huyge proved himself a decent-to-good right tackle last year en route to Michigan's best offense in over a decade. Unfortunately, 2011 hasn't been quite as kind. Against MSU, Huyge opened SitB for suffering Spartan defensive ends. And against Iowa, he was responsible for the death of a play that was setup to go a long, long way.

The setup:

Michigan is down 6-7 with just over 13 minutes left in the second quarter and has the ball on their own 40 yard line. Michigan comes out in an I formation with stacked receivers to Denard's right. Initially, Kevin Koger is lined up as an H-back on the left side of the field...

He will motion across the formation and line up directly behind Mark Huyge:

This is a basic power play. On the snap, Michael Schofield begins to pull across the formation as the lead blocker. Huyge and David Molk down block. Patrick Omameh needs to get to the second level to seal Iowa's MLB. Koger is responsible to kick out the playside Iowa linebacker. They're creating a hole in the C gap (to the right of the right tackle, Huyge) for Schofield and Fitz Toussaint to run through.

Counter draw play action

Denard had three unfortunate interceptions against Northwestern, but his first might have been the most regrettable because it wasted one of Al Borges' meticulously setup plays. Against Minnesota, Michigan unveiled the long-awaited counter draw to resounding effect. Though much of that was probably opponent dependent, the basic principles of the play are fundamentally sound. Given Borges' predilection for creating play trees (see: two-way Hopkins, 2011 version of QB Oh Noes, etc.), the conclusion seemed obvious:

In these images, the running back gets slightly more vertical than in the counter play above, but the principles are the same. In all of these, you can see the defensive line and linebackers flowing toward the play, often with sizable holes on the backside of the play. Lewan pulling across the play on the counter is a key to the linebackers, but I would be surprised if Borges doesn't tweak the play with that wrinkle involved to further confuse the defense.

Against Northwestern, Borges did almost exactly that (the pulling lineman was Huyge, not Lewan).

It's second and eight on the team's second drive of the game. Michigan comes out in a three-wide set with Koger lined up on the right side of the line of scrimmage. Vincent smith is in the backfield beside Denard.

On the snap, you can see Huyge step away from the line of scrimmage and begin pulling toward the backside of the play. Northwestern's WLB is blitzing and will be blocked by Huyge. Denard and Smith both take a step to the strongside of the field.

A moment later, Smith has planted his foot and begins running toward the weakside of the field like he would on the counter draw. Huyge is about to block the blitzing WLB.

After the play action, Denard now has a solid pocket with plenty of time to throw. Hemingway was lined up in the slot and will run a seam route. You can see him below running down the middle of the field. Northwestern is playing cover-3, so there's a deep safety that will be covering Hemingway.

Pulling linemen on QB stretch

On designed QB runs against Eastern, Denard was being stopped for little or no gain on more plays than I can ever remember happening in the past. Especially against EMU-level competition, the QB stretches and draws that became a staple of the offense in 2010 were being stopped behind or just beyond the line of scrimmage. One reason for this loss of effectiveness is move from a zone blocking scheme to a gap blocking scheme with pulling linemen.

It's early in the first quarter and Michigan has a 1st and 10 on their first drive. The offense comes out in shotgun with two tight ends and two receivers. Toussaint is lined up to Denard's left. Eastern is in a 4-3 under front with both of their safeties in the box.

As the ball is snapped, the offensive line starts blocking to the left line except David Molk and Taylor Lewan, whose first step is away from the line of scrimmage as they pull around the formation.

A moment later, you can see Lewan and Molk pulling toward the playside as LG Ricky Barnum and playside TE Brandon Moore block the playside DT and DE respectively. Toussaint is headed outside the tackles as a lead blocker.

Lewan and Molk are still running to pull beyond Moore and Barnum respectively. The EMU linebackers are flowing with the play. Denard is looking for a hole to run through but there aren't any.

WMU stunt blitzes

While rewatching the game yesterday in an effort to track Will Campbell's game time and performance (which were limited and not very encouraging, respectively, and not nearly interesting enough for the full post I had intended on writing), I came across something far more interesting. After diagramming two blitzes that Michigan used on Saturday, both structured around a linebacker stunt and overloading one side of the offensive line, a few commenters wondered whether or not a more competent offensive line might be able to more effectively block the blitzes. Their arguments:

The mistake is buy [sic] the play side guard and center. The guard needs to slide out to take Kovacs and the center take Brinks. When the center sees Heinenger bail into zone, it's obviously a zone blitz and he needs to find the blitzing side and get the guard wide to pick up the safety. With and experienced line who has gelled and knows how to identify and pick up blitzes, this won't work nearly as well.

and

I recall: 1) later the D looking something very similar to this and Kovacs dropping back and getting a tip; and 2) the D turning into a near feeding frenzy as the WMU OLine seemed so confused play after play. Hopefully this is the Mattison effect and it continues into the season.

Fortunately, Western ran an almost identical blitz early in the second half.

Michigan is in a four-wide set with Vincent Smith in the backfield. You may recognize the defensive alignment from the blitzes diagrammed earlier. Western Michigan is crowding the line of scrimmage with linebackers in an effort to disguise coverage and where the blitz is coming from. Much like the plays Michigan ran, WMU is in a three-lineman set with a NT covering the center and three men outside of the offensive guards (in this instance, we'll be watching the weakside blitz [top of the screen]).

As the ball is snapped, Western blitzes all seven men on the line of scrimmage. The outermost linebackers for WMU begin to stunt inside.

As you can see, Taylor Lewan is blocking the edge rusher, Michael Schofield is blocking the WDE, and David Molk is blocking the NT, leaving a hole in the A gap for the stunting WMU linebacker to blitz through unblocked.

As the WMU blitzer shoots the A gap, blocker extraordinaire Vincent Smith recognizes the weakside blitz and steps in front of Denard to make the block.

Smith steps up and chops down the WMU defender, allowing Denard to get the pass off (it will fall incomplete to Roundtree, mostly because this was at the beginning of the torrential downpour).

I think we all would agree that Michigan's offensive line is more cohesive and talented than Western Michigan's, yet the Broncos were still able to get essentially a free blitzer into the backfield with the same stunt principle. Fortunately, Smith chops the blitzer before he can cause any real damage, but the schemes are what I'm concerned with. Notice also that WMU executed this stunt blitz on the strongside of the field as well. You can the WMU linebacker #29 about to shoot the strongside A gap between Molk and Omameh completely unblocked.

Obviously, there are some differences between this play and the ones Michigan ran. First of all, the WMU nose tackle rushed rather than dropping off into coverage. This changes the play in a number of subtle ways. Whereas Michigan blitzers Kovacs and Demens shot the B gap (between the guard and tackle), the WMU blitzers were attacking the A gap (between the guard and center). In my opinion, this probably made it easier for Smith to recognize and block the weakside blitz as he only needed to step up in the pocket rather than come across the face of his QB.

Secondly, with or without the NT dropping into coverage, it's the guard's responsibility to block the defensive end shaded to his outside shoulder. Given that there are three players outside of the guard, including a DE at the 3-tech spot, it's the guard's responsibility to block that DE while the tackle is responsible for the edge rusher, and the running back is responsible for the stunt blitz. In this play, we see Schofield block the weakside DE (Omameh blocks the SDE), Lewan blocks the edge rusher (as does Huyge on the strongside), and Smith steps up to take out the blitzer stunting to the middle. When Michigan used this concept, the NT dropped into coverage and the WMU center doubled the DE. This necessitated that Michigan blitz the B gap instead of the A gap as WMU does here.

The point is that Mattison's defensive principles are sound and will work independent of the opposition's skill level or coaching. The chances that Michigan can land the punishing sacks that they did against WMU against better opposition is unlikely as more skilled running backs will probably make the block that Smith does here, but I'm willing to risk sending Kovacs or Demens full bore against a running back in the backfield.

UPDATE
Per a commenter's request, here's video of the play in question (:41 mark)


For what it's worth, I'm still working on getting an open source video editor to do this myself.

Where are they now?: The 2010 offense

After seven games, Michigan sits at 5-2 with losses to Iowa and Michigan State that rank somewhere between disappointing to soul crushing. Denard Robinson went from Heisman front runner to footnote. And Michigan's defense is quickly proving to be even more inept than last year, although with the attrition and God-hates-us loss of Troy Woolfolk before the season, this could be expected. Now it's time to take a look at how the team is performing as a whole through the first seven games of the year and where that puts them for the rest of the season. First up, the offense:

Quarterbacks. Denard Robinson has planted himself firmly in the starting position with his other-worldly performance early in the year and his promising, albeit mistake prone games against Iowa and Michigan State. When Denard has been on his game, he's more or less single-handedly carried Michigan to victory. Unfortunately, he's been sporadic of late. When Denard has been out of the game, Tate Forcier has relieved him to resounding effect. Which is to say that Michigan finally has depth at the most important position on the field. Behind Forcier, we've seen brief, unimpressive appearances from true freshman Devin Gardner. Gardner now has some injury concerns and may be able to apply for a medical redshirt which would be best for all parties involved.

Denard still has a lot of work to do. His recent plague of interceptions in the last two games show his infancy in the passing game and will present problems going forward against defenses like Wisconsin and Ohio State. So while Denard has shown he can lead Michigan to extraordinary heights, he also presents the same problem that Michigan encountered last year: You live by the Focie... Shoelace, you die by the Shoelace.

Running backs. Michigan's running backs have been, in a word, unimpressive. This blog projected that Vincent Smith was going to come into the season as the starter, but an off-season ACL surgery put him behind the 8-ball. Mike Shaw has been the nominal starter and has fluctuated between mediocre and pretty good. Smith, meanwhile, hasn't shown much aside from showing a few flashes of Mike Hart-itude.

On the more positive side, Stephen Hopkins has come on in the last two games and shown that he's more than just a short yardage back. Hopkins provides the size that Michigan's other backs can't, but more impressively, he's shown unexpected quickness and good lateral movement. If Hopkins continues to improve the way he projects to, he could be Michigan's starter next year (alongside recent verbal commit Demetrius Hart, who looks to make an immediate impact on a lackluster backfield).

Wide receivers/Tight ends. This could look identical to the running backs section above. Michigan has a bunch of Big Ten average wide receivers that all get the job done. Roy Roundtree, as expected, has been the most targeted receiver of the year, as he was at the tail end of 2009. Darryl Stonum has also improved from his sporadic 2009 season and become a consistent threat. The most encouraging sign in recent weeks, however, has been the emergence of injury-plagued Junior Hemingway. After recovering from yet another injury, Hemingway has proven that he's the most consistent downfield threat for Michigan and might have the best hands on the team.

In less encouraging news, frequent workhorse Martavious Odoms broke his foot and will be out for most, if not all of the season. And Michigan's other receivers (Kelvin Grady, Jeremy Gallon, Terrence Robinson, Je'Ron Stokes) have made very little impact.

Michigan's tight ends have been largely removed from the passing game and have been used more in the H-back, linebacker-clubbing role. Kevin Koger and Martell Webb have both become some of Michigan's more effective downfield blockers and are vital in Michigan's short-yardage package. This isn't much of a let down as Michigan's offense has enough weapons without them, and they've both been performing exceedingly well in the running game.

Offensive line. Aside from Denard's early-season emergence as a Heisman hopeful, Michigan's offensive line has been the most encouraging part of the year. Though they've shown flaws in the last two weeks (primarily issues with stunting defensive linemen and some pass protection issues), the O-line has solidified themselves as possibly the best unit in the Big Ten. Redshirt freshman Taylor Lewan's emergence as a force at left tackle is a huge win for the future of the program. Meanwhile, the healthy return of David Molk has been a godsend (despite, ya know, his injury against Iowa). Steven Schilling was talked up by most media outlets before the season, but he has been thoroughly just-OK. Patrick Omameh has shown some pass-protection problems, but is unstoppable in the run game. And Perry Dorrestein has been unremarkable, meant in the most flattering way.

What does it mean for the future?
Michigan's offense is in line to be arguably the best in the Big Ten and one of the best in the country. With the health of Denard, however, goes the health of the offense. Despite Forcier's ability to move Michigan up and down the field against quality opponents, Denard is the electricity that makes it run.

Surrounding Denard is now a squad that not only has good starters but often equally as good backups. In two years, the offensive line went from one of the team's biggest liabilities to one of its biggest strengths. And at the other skill positions, Denard has playmakers that can do just enough to make this team truly dangerous. However, the lack of a game changer at either the wide receiver or running back position is going to hurt the team down the stretch.

Next year, Michigan is going to return almost everyone on the offense (the joys of having a young team) save a few offensive linemen whose backups are firmly entrenched and have shown promising upside. Long gone are the days of the Nick Sheridan/Steven Threet monster that made the future of the program looks hopeless. If nothing else, Rich Rodriguez has turned Michigan's offense into the relative juggernaut everyone expected when he arrived in Ann Arbor, and has the team poised to get stronger on that side of the ball in the coming years.

Up tomorrow: The 2010 defense

Notre Dame and snap counts

Ed. note: In lieu of a UMass preview, something that, unless something awful happens, should be useless, I wanted to do a little breakdown of Notre Dame's defensive line shift that was effective because of Michigan's predictable snap count. For a comprehensive UMass preview, visit MGoBlog.

I mentioned in Wednesday's Good Idea, Bad Idea post that Michigan is continuing to use a predictable snap count. When I was watching the game live, I saw Notre Dame shifting their defensive front right before Michigan snapped the ball, and finally found some video of comparable plays that shows that it may actually be more detrimental to the team's blocking schemes and production--aside from the obvious: allowing defensive teams to time blitzes--than originally thought. First up is a play in which Notre Dame uses the defensive front they originally showed:

Here, Michigan is set up with Denard in the shotgun and Michael Shaw to his right. They're using an H-back (Martell Webb) in this formation. Notre Dame is in the 4-3 base set that they had shown for most of the game. This will eventually be a passing play, but the important thing to watch is the blocking of the offensive line.

After the snap, Denard rolls to his right. David Molk and Patrick Omameh double team the strongside defensive tackle. Perry Dorrestein has one-on-one blocking against the strongside defensive end. Mark Huyge is charged with blocking the weakside defensive tackle and Steve Schilling is being given a free release into the second level. Martell Webb is supposed to get to the second level and block one of Notre Dame's corner backs as this will eventually be a counter screen pass to the weakside of the field. The weakside defensive end is unblocked.

Regardless of how this play ends, you can see that the offensive line is tied up with their appropriate defensive players. Huyge has passed the weakside defensive tackle to Schilling and is releasing to help block on the screen pass. Omameh and Molk are still driving back one of Notre Dame's defensive tackles. How the play ends is beside the point (it ends poorly, for the record). But you can see that there's order. All of the offensive linemen know where they're supposed to be and who they're supposed to block.

In the next play, Michigan is in the same formation and, at least initially, Notre Dame is in the same defensive formation. But because of Michigan's predictable snap count, Notre Dame was able to change their defensive front just before the snap and confuse the offensive line.

Here you can see that Michigan is in the same alignment they are above. Denard is in the shotgun with Michael Shaw to his right. Martell Webb is in as an H-back. Notre Dame is showing the same 4-3 defensive front. But because they're able to time Michigan's snap, the defensive line shifts from a 4-3 to a 3-4, changing all of the blocking schemes for the offensive line:

As you can see now, Notre Dame has shifted into a 3-4 front with the weakside defensive end becoming a stand-up linebacker, and the rest of the defensive line shifting over so that now they have a nose tackle and two defensive ends. Worse still is that all of this happens with Molk's head down, waiting to snap the ball; when he picks his head up, he'll be greeted with a completely different defensive front.

Because this is a different play than the above example (this is a designed QB run), there will be some differences in how it plays out. But the important thing to watch is the offensive line. If Notre Dame was in a 4-3 front still, Molk would've reach blocked the strongside defensive tackle with Omameh, Dorrestein would've seal blocked the defensive end, and Michael Shaw would block the playside linebacker. Instead, Molk goes for a reach block on the defensive end who has taken place of the defensive tackle. Omameh looks to double team the defensive end and Dorrestein, who was able to see the changing blocking schemes, also hits the defensive end and then releases to the second level.  Long story short, there are three linemen blocking a single defensive end. The nose tackle is being left unblocked by the front line and is now the responsibility of Webb, who is supposed to release to the second level to block one of the middle linebackers (about more which later).

The next thing you see is utter chaos. Molk and Omameh and still tied up double teaming the defensive end. Dorrestein and Schilling have released to the second level to block linebackers, and Huyge is tied up with the weakside defensive end. Shaw is locked up with the playside linebacker. The nose tackle is going completely unblocked and is able to, along with the playside middle linebacker, keep contain on Denard and force him back into the defensive help.

More chaos. Denard has no where to go and is being forced back into unblocked defenders. You can see the nose tackle in the middle of the scrum without a single Michigan player looking at him.

Denard has to cut the play back, and runs into the defensive end that Omameh and Molk were supposed to double team. The nose tackle still hasn't been touched.

This is admittedly a bit of a convoluted example, but the evidence is clear: when Notre Dame was switching defensive alignments just prior to the snap, the offensive line was confused, missed blocks, and didn't know its assignments. We've already seen Michigan State time Michigan's snap count to devastating effect, and if Michigan doesn't change their count, problems like this will continue to arise. Notre Dame has question marks on defense and was able to confuse Michigan's offensive line. Similar moves against Wisconsin, Ohio State, or Penn State could crush Michigan this season.

QB draw comparison: 2009 vs. 2010

As I mentioned in my UConn game column, one of Michigan's more effective plays on Saturday was the oft-lamented Totally Surprising Quarterback Draw that Michigan used Denard Robinson for last year to middling effect. The offensive line came in for a lot of praise on Saturday and you can look no further than this play to see why. I did a little digging and found comparable plays from 2009 and early in the game against UConn to see the differences. In short, they're drastic, and you can now see why Rodriguez wanted to run this play so much last year. Simply put, the running backs and offensive line just didn't have the play down last year to run it effectively. So without further ado:

Iowa 2009
This play was on Denard's touchdown drive in the fourth quarter. Michigan is set up in a 4-receiver set (trips to Denard's left) with Brandon Minor in the backfield. Iowa is essentially playing a 4-3, cover-1 with one of their linebackers shaded over Michigan's slot receiver.

After the snap, the two offensive guards and center look to move Iowa's defensive tackles. The left tackle is supposed to seal Iowa's defensive end to the outside and Brandon Minor is the lead blocker charged with taking out the play-side linebacker. Denard is supposed to zip through that hole and take on the deep safety one-on-one in space. The receivers are all charged with getting downfield and blocking the men who are lined up over them. In theory, this is how the play should work.

It's difficult to see below (sorry, there are YouTube'd screen shots), but the left guard and center are still tied up on one of Iowa's defensive tackles. This becomes problematic, because the left guard is supposed to leave that block and get to the second level to take out the weak side linebacker. He never does. Meanwhile, Minor is entering the hole and about to take on the playside linebacker. Minor doesn't execute particularly well and Denard's hole becomes restricted.

Now, Minor has completely whiffed on his block, the left tackle's block is slipping, and Denard is running directly into the playside linebacker in the hole. He's about to be engulfed by three Iowa players who have all beaten their blocks. Doom lurks.

Doom. Denard is wrapped up by #43 (2nd round draft pick Pat Angerer) and headed to the ground despite a decent gain. Regardless, this is not how this play is designed to go.

So that was last year. Michigan's linemen were unable to hold up their blocks long enough, Brandon Minor whiffed terribly on his block, and Denard was wrapped up for a short 3-yard gain, not to mention being pounded by several different Iowa players. The same play against UConn is after the break.

Penn State: Where the similarities are uncany

When the Michigan men's basketball team had an improbable run against Top 5 teams last season, beating both UCLA and Duke early in the year, the team went from promising upstart to potential Big Ten contender, rightly so or not. As the season waned, so too did the team's momentum, and their youth and flaws began to show. Close matches between Savannah State and Indiana, coupled with back-to-back-to-back losses to conference foes (Illinois, Ohio State, and Penn State) raised alarms for fans and made an NCAA berth go from a certainty to a realistic, best-case scenario.

So too seems to be the arc of the football team. After a nonconference win against then #18 Notre Dame, the preseason projections of 7-5 suddenly looked more like 8-4 (or 9-3 at best). But in the midst of the Big Ten slate, Michigan has stumbled, falling to Michigan State and Iowa (which included a benching of the team star, Forcier, much like the similar, controversial benching of Manny Harris against Iowa in an overtime game), a close win against lowly Indiana, and now a crushing defeat to Penn State; 8-4 is a pipe dream now, and the team is now in line to play the worst two Big Ten teams in what feel like must wins.

What can we can learn from this Penn State game is a little more concrete: David Molk really is as valuable as we all thought; the shine is beginning to come off of freshman savior Tate Forcier; the turnover problems from 2008 are far from resolved; and the defense is worse than we all thought.

I'll get into this later in the week, but the secondary is in far more dire a situation than was widely presumed at the beginning of the season. Stevie Brown and Mike Williams are mostly incapable of covering anyone in space. Jordan Kovacs, who had been anointed as Michigan's Rudy two weeks ago, has been exposed time and again, allowing a number of touchdown passes that have crushed the team. The defense appears incapable of playing man coverage, while the defensive line is flailing without much success. Simply put, this team is in a lot of trouble as the offense continues to have difficultly scoring behind an injured Forcier, fumbly running backs, and receivers whose recent case of the dropsies is nothing short of a massive disappointment after their respective performance early in the season.

On the other side of the field, it would appear that I greatly underestimated how good Penn State is. Not that any team that beats Michigan so resoundingly is suddenly much better than we thought, but Penn State is clearly a legit contender in the Big Ten and will still finish second or third in-conference; their stats, though against mostly cupcakes, are no joke. Evan Royster trounced what was otherwise a particularly stout defensive front, putting up 5 YPC on 20 carries. Meanwhile, Michigan's rushing attack looked exceedingly mediocre. Basically, everything that could've gone wrong did.

In other words, Michigan is reeling. I don't know what they need to do to get better. The secondary doesn't look like it has the talent to perform against Big Ten offenses. The offense has gone from fast and high-powered to a sputtering collection of players that look like they are trying to win by themselves (see also: Michigan 2008). Meanwhile, I've got questions about the defensive play calling and the offensive personnel that Rodriguez has been playing. When once we hoped that the Illinois/Purdue stretch would be gravy, it now becomes a crucial stretch of the season. Michigan is in trouble and they don't look like they have any answers.