A forgotten classic

#24 Northwestern 31 - Michigan 38 (OT)

Melanie Maxwell | AnnArbor.com

Saturday's game will never go down as a classic. My freshman year of college, we had Braylon-fest, an improbable comeback against Michigan State. A few years later, Tate Forcier saw cover-zero and scampered 40 yards into the endzone before finding Greg Matthews on a circle route with 11 seconds left. The next two years, Denard Robinson broke Irish hearts in gif-able fashion. But these games are legendary as much because of the helmets that didn't have wings on them as the outcomes themselves.

The ending of Saturday's game was more improbable than any of those prior classics, but it will probably go forgotten. Beating Northwestern should be a certainty, not a cardiac event. Michigan's chances of playing for a Big Ten title this year are probably dead following yet another fortuitous (and incorrect) officiating call that went Nebraska's way. And this wasn't even a miraculous Denard Robinson performance during his senior season. This was a game that was uncomfortably close and probably ultimately meaningless.

Perhaps if I had been in the stadium, my impressions would change. By the time Michigan got the ball back with 18 seconds left, I was resigned to the team's fate: best case scenario was a long bomb followed by a coinflip field goal to tie the game because, let's be honest, Junior Hemingway ain't walking through that tunnel. But then a miraculous apparition appeared. Number 21 had the ball pinned to his shoulder, setting up the most vicious spiked ball in Michigan history. When overtime started, there was just a sense that Michigan would pull the game out. They had too much momentum, but more concretely, in overtime, always side with the team that has the 6'4" robobeast quarterback.

After Michigan scored in overtime and put the pressure on the Wildcat offense, the ensuing possession went about as well as you can hope for against an option team: 7 yard gain, 2 yard gain, 1 yard loss, 0 yard gain; game. Though Northwestern had been gashing the Wolverine defense on the speed option all day, they opted instead for a veer option. Jibreel Black beat a block, forced a cutback, and Kenny Demens treated Tyris Jones like an excited puppy jumping into its owner's arms after a month-long vacation.

This game was another good audition for Devin Gardner, but it highlighted something that appeared the week before. It seems like Al Borges treats Gardner differently, and not just in playcalling. Gardner gets to the line of scrimmage, surveys the field and calls audibles, and uses a hard count to draw the defense offsides. I refuse to believe that Michigan's three-year starter, senior quarterback can't make the same checks or keep the defense on its toes--it's possible, but seems unlikely--so the question becomes, why does Borges treat the two quarterbacks so differently?

Playing almost exclusively under center helps with a lot of these issues. Hard counts can be used under center more easily, but making checks at the line of scrimmage is something that we've seen Gardner do a few times in the last few weeks that Denard hasn't done once in two years. The other advantage of playing Gardner under center so frequently is getting the play in and lining up faster. With Denard in the game, Borges changes formations from I-formation sets featuring two tight ends and a fullback to shotgun looks with three and four wide receivers. That much rotation of personnel has resulted in a lot of wasted first-quarter timeouts when Denard is in the game. With Gardner playing, the offense just seems more complete, a function of Borges more than the anything the quarterbacks are doing.

Regardless of why the difference exists, it's a very real aspect of this offense now. The offense looks better under Gardner, which unfortunately just highlights how improperly Borges has been using Denard the last two years, but there's no need in fretting over that now. Next year looks a lot more encouraging after the last two weeks and Michigan is still technically in the running for the Big Ten Title this year. Go Minnesota. Go Iowa. Ugh.

Bullets

• Michigan struggled on defense in this game for a number of different reasons. Jake Ryan and Frank Clark both lost contain frequently which gave Northwestern big gains on the ground. In addition, and I think Mattison figured this out before the fourth quarter, but Michigan was defending the speed option in an unsound manner. The playside linebacker was always playing the quarterback, forcing a pitch to the running back who had nothing but blockers in front of him. I think Mattison assumed his corners and safeties could get off of their blocks on the outside the help contain the rushing attack, but Michigan's corners aren't very good at doing this. By the fourth quarter, Michigan started forcing the runs back inside.
• Michigan's third-down defensive struggles where a different matter. Mattison couldn't use his okie blitzes because Northwestern spreads the field too far. Instead, he drew up a strong safety blitz that was largely ineffective. I'll draw these up later this week, but Mattison finally figured out what the problem was: he kept bringing Jordan Kovacs on a safety blitz from Colter's frontside, allowing him to recognize the blitz and scramble around. The one time the blitz actually landed, it was because Mattison flipped the field and brought the blitz from Colter's blindside.
• Kain Colter is slippery. Michigan had him in the backfield a few different times but was unable to bring him down. Will Campbell pushed beyond the line of scrimmage only to see Colter scamper around and one of Michigan's defensive ends dip inside, giving up the edge and a huge rushing lane. This was the least disciplined defensive performance from Michigan we've seen all year, helped along by perhaps the best running quarterback Michigan has played.
• The interior of Michigan's offensive line is broken. At this point, you don't burn redshirts, but Michigan's offensive line may be the weakest unit on the entire team. This is also why Fitz Toussaint is broken. He won't break 100 yards per game once this season.
• I'll have to rewatch the game, but the linebacker rotation confused me. Michigan gave a lot of time to James Ross and Joe Bolden. Then again, Ondre Pipkins saw significant snaps again (and was much improved), so it may be that the defensive staff is willing to rolling the dice during the game more frequently in order to get these younger players some meaningful snaps.
• This was far and away Roy Roundtree's best game as a Wolverine in the last two years, and not just because of his miraculous, game-saving catch. He was getting separation, making shoestring catches, and showed a bit of open-field shiftiness.
• Michigan's secondary is very not good. I really worry about next week's matchup. Despite the fact that Iowa is terrible, they may have a decent pocket passer. Thomas Gordon has looked a stepped behind whoever he's defending for the last few weeks and JT Floyd didn't do much to alleviate fears that he's still too slow to keep up with Big Ten receivers. 
• Devin Funchess is tall, and thank god.

Next Week

Michigan takes on Iowa in a game that will be closer than it should be. Were it not for three Purdue turnovers, Iowa would have been summarily beaten. Purdue managed 490 yards, 8.0 YPA through the air, and 4.8 YPC on the ground. In contrast, Iowa had only 264 total yards, 5.3 YPA, and 2.4 YPC, and yet they only lost by 3 points. Michigan should win, but this game will expose the Wolverine secondary in a way that we haven't seen this season.

Linebacker/nickelback blitz vs. Air Force

Staples of this blog last year were posts that lauded Greg Mattison's awesome NFL-style zone blitzes. Michigan didn't really use them all that often against Alabama and rarely had an opportunity to against Air Force because of the offense they run. But fortunately, on second viewing of the game, one blitz late in the first half stood out as another piece of Mattison mastery.

(If you're new to the site this year, above is a diagram of the blitz. Michigan's players are all denoted by their numbers. The lines with arrows at the end indicate a blitz. The lines with squares at the end indicate a zone drop. The light-yellow squares indicated the approximate defensive zones.)

With six minutes left in the first half, Michigan gets Air Force in a 3rd and 8 passing down. The team lines up in its Super Nickel package: Craig Roh (#88) and Jibreel Black (#55) at defensive tackle, Frank Clark (#57) and Cam Gordon (!!!; #4) at defensive end, two linebackers, three corners, and two safeties. Almost any time Gordon lines up with his hand in the ground as a defensive end, I get angry, but this is the first time Mattison has actually done something innovative with it.

As the ball is snapped, all four defensive linemen begin to rush. In a moment, Gordon (bottom of the screen) will drop out into coverage. Courtney Avery (playing nickelback) and Joe Bolden (strongside linebacker) are also blitzing. What this will do is overload the strongside of the offensive line with pass rushers.

Below, you can see Gordon dropping into coverage. Roh and Black both slanted toward the weakside of the field, forcing their offensive line couterparts to follow them that way. This leave the Air Force left guard to block both Bolden and Avery (highlighted).

The left guard decides to block Avery (highlighted), giving Joe Bolden a free lane to the Air Force quarterback.

Black and Roh also beat their blocks, so there are now three Michigan blitzers in the face of the Falcon QB.

Before getting the sack, QB Connor Dietz throws the ball off his back foot (hey, I've seen that before) out of bounds.

Video

The Takeaway

This is what you pay defensive coordinators for. Much like some of Michigan's blitzes last year, the defense overloads one side of the offensive line in order to get a free rusher on the quarterback. Often, Mattison is able to do that with only four rushers. Here, he uses five because, well, he wants to.

You may have noticed that Jordan Kovacs is all alone in the deep middle of the field with only zone coverage underneath. This play is designed so that the need for Kovacs to make a play is the worst-case scenario. The blitz is intended to force opposing quarterbacks to get rid of the ball as quickly as possible, hence the five underneath zones.

The good thing about this particular blitz is the personnel and zone assignments. A few times last year, Mattison's zone blitzes failed because linebackers or defensive linemen were asked to make unrealistic zone drops into coverage and failed to get into position on time. Here, the only "defensive lineman" dropping into coverage is a wide receiver free safety strongside linebacker. The rest of the zone coverage comes from linebackers, corners, and safeties who are already positioned near their coverage zones. Most importantly, the blitz did exactly what it was supposed to do, forcing an incompletion and getting the defense off the field.

What to expect: Linebackers 2012

Previously: Quarterbacks, Running Backs, Wide Receivers, Offensive Line and Tight Ends, Defensive Line

Projected Starters (SAM, MIKE, WILL): Jake Ryan, Kenny Demens, Desmond Morgan

Last year, Michigan's linebacking corps hovered somewhere around Pretty Good, but that's to be expected when you're starting freshmen (one a redshirt) at both the strong- and weakside positions. In 2012, Michigan returns its entire starting linebacking group headlined by senior anchor Kenny Demens.

By this point, you probably know Demens' game: a downhill, hard-hitting middle linebacker. MGoBlog is high on his coverage skills, but I'm not quite as certain he's a great coverage linebacker. While Demens is able to run with linebackers heading down the field, he struggles mightily in zone coverage. His ability to cover seam routes is a bonus, but his underneath coverage stuggles because of his lack of route recognition. A number of times over the last two years, Demens has been frozen by play action and has struggled to defend underneath passing routes. He completely blew his assignment once against ND last year and showed his hesitancy against an EMU jet sweep. The good news is that during both his sophomore and junior seasons, he's quickly corrected his mistakes.

The point is, the strongest aspect of Demens' game is coming downhill on blitzes and stuffing the run. I don't think he'll ever be an elite coverage linebacker, which limits Mattison's blitzing schemes a bit, but not enough to be a hindrance. This year, expect the same from Demens: stout against the run, good at wrapping up tackles, and a suspect cover guy. It wouldn't surprise me to see Demens pulled off the field occasionally on nickel packages to get a more fleet-of-foot linebacker on the field. Otherwise, Demens is the defensive anchor in the front seven.

Flanking Demens will be sophomore Desmond Morgan (weakside/WILL) and redshirt sophomore Jake Ryan (strongside/SAM). Ryan was the talk of the town following the 2011 spring game and delivered on that promise during his rookie campaign. Ryan finished 2011 with 20 tackles, 17 assists, 11 TFLs, and 3 sacks. His season wasn't without hiccups though. Against MSU, he got confused on a zone vs man coverage scheme negating a great blitz by Michigan, and he showed frequent issues early in the season maintaining the edge against the run. As the year progressed, those freshman issues worked themselves out and Ryan proved to be one of the most consistent impact performers on the defense. Expect Ryan to maintain or slightly improve his numbers from last year while almost eliminating those mental mistakes. If he experiences the kind of freshman-to-sophomore year spike that you generally see, Ryan should garner All-Conference consideration by the season's end.

At the weakside linebacker spot will be Desmond Morgan once again. Morgan, like Ryan, exhibited a lot of rookie mistakes in run support, letting people get outside of the defense for big gains, but overall, he had an impressive season for being a true freshman probably playing out of position (he's more suited for the downhill middle linebacker slot than the rangy, lanky WILL). Even with some early struggles, Morgan charted 26 tackles, 37 assists, 4 TFLs, and 1 sack last year. Like Ryan, expect those numbers to rise slightly while cutting out many of the freshman mistakes. Morgan will never be the prototypical weakside linebacker, so expecting much more out of him is probably out of the question, but he'll be a player that will be in the right position and make tackles when they head his way.

The Backups (SAM; MIKE; WILL): Cam Gordon; Joe Bolden, Mike Jones; James Ross, Brandin Hawthorne

For the first time in three seasons, Cam Gordon is not coming into the season being hyped to the moon at a new position. This is a good thing for both the team (his previous appearances did not go as planned) and Gordon himself (he's finally playing the position he's supposed to). If not for the breakout season by Ryan last year, Gordon would be a serviceable starter at the SAM position. As it is, he will likely moonlight on nickel packages when Ryan bounces down to a defensive end position and Michigan needs more coverage skills in the field. Gordon will likely appear in every game and make a few plays that make you think, "Wow why doesn't that guy play more?" By the end of the season, you'll just be glad that Michigan finally has a quality backup at some defensive position.

Coming off the bench behind Demens will be true freshman Joe Bolden and journeyman Mike Jones. Bolden comes in with a load of recruiting hype and has impressed during spring and fall camp. Bolden is known for laying the lumber on ball carriers and proved to be an adequate coverage guy in high school. He'll get plenty of snaps this year and the hope is that he can approximate Demens' production without too many rookie mistakes. Playing time against Alabama will probably be scarce, but the next few games should see Bolden engrain himself in the rotation. Mike Jones will continue to be Mikes Jones: getting essentially zero snaps barring injury.

On the weakside of the field, true freshman James Ross and Brandin Hawthorne will give Morgan rest when he needs it. Ross, like Bolden, is a touted recruit who came onto campus and quickly became the #2 at his position, surpassing an upperclassman. The man that now sits third on the depth chart is Brandin Hawthorne who made a few game-changing plays against Notre Dame last year but remains a tiny, inconsistent linebacker. You'll probably see Hawthorne on occasional nickel concepts, but otherwise, he's deep in the reserves. Unless Morgan gets injured and Ross proves to be untenable at the WILL position, Hawthorne will spend most of his season on special teams.

Conclusion
(I probably should've done a conclusion section for each of these previous but I didn't. The more I wrote here, the more it seemed appropriate.)
Like most positions, Michigan's starting linebackers should all be somewhere from good-to-great this year, but injuries could send the unit into a tailspin. The backups are recruits with solid pedigrees, but they're still just freshmen for the most part. Unlike other positions, the 2nd and 3rd stringers probably have more of a purpose in the structure of the defense than at other positions. You can easily see Gordon and Hawthorne coming into games on situational downs that better utilize their skillsets. With Mattison's schemes intended to get blitzing linebackers into the backfield, this unit will probably show up frequently in the box score and could be the most disruptive force the team has defensively. With a suspect pass rush from the defensive line, the linebackers are going to need to find openings and land Mattison's blitzes.