Preview: Notre Dame 2013

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#14 Notre Dame vs. #17 Michigan

Michigan Stadium, Ann Arbor

Kickoff 8:00 pm EST

ESPN

Forecast: Low-70s, 30% chance of rain 

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Last Week
Temple 6 - #14 Notre Dame 28. Notre Dame welcomed the Temple Wet Owls to South Bend last week and won in marginally convincing fashion. Temple left 7 points on the field, missing two field goals and having an extra point blocked. Meanwhile, the Irish put up 14 points in the first five minutes of the game, and were only able to punch it in twice for the rest of the game. Worse still, those first two touchdown drives relied on huge plays (45, 32, 51, 32), of which the team only managed one more (a 66-yard pass for the team's third touchdown). Notre Dame's inability to put together sustained drives could have been anticipated after the loss of starting QB Everett Golson, but against a team like Temple, the offense should still be able to move the ball.

The vaunted Irish defensive line failed to impress as they were expected to; the Owls managed 4.5 YPC on 29 rushes. ND did keep junior QB Connor Reilly to a 50% completion rate and only 5.0 YPA. Then again, this marked Reilly's first game action, so a rough outing was expected.

Offense vs. Notre Dame

John T. Greilick | Detroit News

No matchup will be more important than how Michigan's offensive line manages Notre Dame's defensive front. The names to know are Louis Nix III (aka Irish Chocolate, apparently) and Stephon Tuitt. Nix anchors the defense, acting as a black hole in the middle of the defensive line. At 350+ pounds, Nix presents problems for the inexperienced interior of the offensive line. MGoBlog postures that Michigan introduced the zone stretch into the offense in order to attack Notre Dame's defensive ends rather than trying to push Nix off the line.

Flanking Nix at defensive end will be Tuitt, a havoc-sower for all teams that don't feature Taylor Lewan. Tuitt finished 2012 with a team-leading 12 sacks, and still stands at over 300 pounds, making him difficult to attack in the run game (unlike, say, Frank Clark). Michigan remains uniquely prepared to handle Tuitt with two senior offensive tackles, including the best left tackle in the country. The third lineman in Bob Diaco's 3-4 defense is sophomore Sheldon Day, a nondescript defensive end who should be a non-factor in this game.

Notre Dame's only other defender of note is senior outside linebacker Prince Shembo, who finished the 2012 season with 7.5 sacks, 21 solo tackles, and 27 assists. Shembo is pitch perfect for Diaco's aggressive, blitzing defense, and will challenge Michigan's running backs to block him on blitzes (of which, Fitz Toussaint did poorly in week one).

Concerns about moving the ball against Notre Dame have been tempered following a subpar performance against Temple. But as we've become all too aware, Notre Dame, Michigan State, and Ohio can look awful all season and still drag Michigan through the mud. Non-Gardner runs will be touch and go throughout the game. Nix and Tuitt are going to beat Michigan's offensive line a few times. Dispersing those negative plays across multiple drives and recovering quickly from them will be important if Michigan will produce multiple, sustained drives.

Because Notre Dame's defense relies heavily on blitzes, Gardner's scrambling could pay dividends. His ability to get out of the pocket may slow the Irish front seven, allowing Michigan to run from their base offense more easily.

In the secondary, Notre Dame is unexceptional. If nothing else, the Irish defensive backs have experience, boasting two seniors, a junior, and a sophomore. Most of the turnovers that the secondary produces are a function of Notre Dame's front seven getting pressure. Once again, blitz pickups from Michigan's backs will allow Garnder the space and time to find receivers downfield. As we've already seen this year, getting traffic in Gardner's face can end in turnovers.

The man behind the curtain, as always, is Al Borges. Michigan's offense against Central Michigan was vanilla. During fall camp, we saw plenty of footage of Michigan running the inverted veer and other spread concepts which were largely absent in the opener. I fully expect Michigan's offense to have a little more pizzaz against Notre Dame. What that entails, I'm not sure, but a few more zone reads are likely, as are play action off of those.

Defense vs. Notre Dame

Good news everyone! Tommy Rees is back. In spite of his perpetual derpitude, Rees set his career record for passing yardage against Temple and has been serviceable+ against Michigan in his career. But on the quarterback fear index, Rees ranks just above a half-slurped Go-Gurt. With Everett Golson getting booted from the team, this season was always going to be a reclamation project on offense. But it might be worse than originally thought, in spite of a solid performance against Temple. Rees' long passes last week came on a wide-open post route with no safety help, a bubble screen, a wide-open corner route with no safety help, and a wide-open seam route to a rumbling tight end. He has not developed into junior Chad Henne. This is just Tommy Rees.

Golson wasn't the only loss from last year's offense. Cierre Wood graduated and junior Theo Riddick entered the draft early, stripping Notre Dame of their top two rushers from a season ago. In week one, Notre Dame's running backs were not great. Nominal starter, junior George Atkinson, squeaked out only 34 yards on 8 carries--one of which was a 14-yarder. Junior Amir Carlisle had the highest YPC (68 yards on 8 carries; 9.7 YPC) but that number is bolstered by his 45-yarder that was handed to him after Temple's linebackers blitzed with no regard for running lanes.

On the outsides, Notre Dame's wide receivers do not intimidate. Gone are the Michael Floyds and Golden Tates of recent years. TJ Jones returns for his senior year after averaging 13 yards per catch last year. Against Temple, Jones had six receptions for 138 yards. He is your prototypical slot receiver and will be the recipient of many screen passes. He has good speed and will need to be tackled in the open field often; how Courtney Avery and Thomas Gordon handle Jones could go a long way to determining how this game goes. But other than Jones, the Irish receivers do not intimidate.

Michigan's ability to get pressure on passing downs with only four men against Central showed promise for this matchup. Notre Dame is going to spread the field on almost all downs, so to avoid big plays, Michigan will need safety valves for when man coverage invariable goes wrong. If Michigan's front four can generate a pass rush, that will help alleviate a lot of the stress on Michigan's safeties.

Prediction
How does Michigan win? Notre Dame's defense didn't overwhelm Temple, which bodes well for Michigan's chances. Michigan's offensive line looks improved from week one and the team averages 5.5 YPC. Notre Dame's blitzes are occasionally effective, but more often than not, Gardner is able to scramble out of danger and either pass or throw for significant yardage. Defensively, Michigan's front four completely dominates the Notre Dame offensive line and the Irish can never get their running game started. One or two big passing plays from Tommy Rees are all that keep Notre Dame alive, but Michigan dominates the game throughout.

How does Notre Dame win? Nix and Tuitt look more like they did last year than in week one. Michigan's young offensive line struggles to block Notre Dame's pressure and the team averages only 3.8 YPC. The Irish blitzes also disrupt Garder who makes bad decisions and bad throws, tossing multiple interceptions. When Notre Dame has the ball, Michigan's young secondary struggles to contain Brian Kelly's spread attack and Tommy Rees avoids mistakes while throwing three touchdowns. Michigan's front four can't generate a pass rush and has to dedicate linebackers and safeties to the pass rush, opening things up on the back end.

Arbitrary chances that Michigan wins? 78.492%

Final Prediction. Week one matchups are only a single data point, but they can be illuminating. For example, we know that Michigan State's offense is going to be unwatchable this season. Michigan and Notre Dame's respective games leave very little doubt about which team is better right now. Notre Dame's offense struggled against a lowly Temple squad in ways that didn't look to be week one jitters. With an offense that appears to be boom or bust, the Irish are going to struggle to score against a Michigan team that has been stout against the big play for two years now. Rees will complete a 3rd and 18-ish that will infuriate Michigan fans, but Notre Dame's big plays work only toward self preservation. Tuitt winds up being a non-factor in the game, but Nix cuts a number of Michigan drives short by setting up third and long situations. Michigan's run game as a whole doesn't look devastating, but Gardner shakes off the game one interceptions and accounts for 350 yards. Notre Dame 17 - Michigan 27

Was Gallon open? Yes, very

There was some question about yesterday's post on Michigan's naked bootlegs about whether or not Jeremy Gallon was open. My argument was that the OLB and MLB both bit on the play action allowing Gallon to get open in a zone 12 yards downfield. Others...

Te'o barely bites on the play action: maybe a step and a half and he's back trailing Funchess heading into the flat. By the time the ball is released, Spond has taken the flat, and Te'o has headed back towards Gallon, allowing him to make the interception. Look at the relative position of Gallon and Te'o as the camera pans with the pass: Te'o is a couple yards away and closing fast. Good chance he breaks up an accurate pass and takes Gallon's head off with it.

...and...

I disagree a bit. I don't think this was an effective play action at all. While the strong-side OLB does bite significantly, Teo does not, and he's the important one to breaking the coverage. He takes two steps forward. By the time he breaks down to change direction, the fake hand-off hasn't even been completed. When he starts his drop into coverage, Gallon is still a half yard behind him. Gallon is only open on the backside, but the time he gets to the frontside of the play, Teo will be in front of him. When I think of effective play action, I think of Wisconsin when opposing defenses bug out so much their LBs are almost getting blocked by the OL. Teo taking two steps forward is not effective play action in my opinion.

I would think the counter would be have Gallon settle in the zone instead of draging the entire away across the field, but I honestly don't know how fesible that would be, as it would require Denard to snap his head back across the field and make a quick pop pass.

Later in the game, NBC was nice enough to break down all of Denard's massive mistakes, including this interception. Here's a different view (video below).

Just before the pass

As Denard lets go

Video

The Takeaway
Wide fucking open.

Stand in the pocket. Take the hit. Make the throw.

Notre Dame's corner blitzes

Update: The player identified as Gardner below is actually Jerald Robinson as pointed out by Tim Sullivan in the comments. Confirmation bias and etc. The thrust of the post still applies. That receiver needs to block the blitzing corner.

When Michigan played Alabama, the Crimson Tide cornerbacks spent a lot of the game ignoring Michigan's receivers or blitzing off the corner with abandon, so much so that both MGoBlog and myself wrote different posts about the aggressiveness. Alabama is known for blitzing its boundary corners. Notre Dame, to my knowledge, isn't, but did so at least once against Michigan with similar effects.

It's first and 10 late in the first quarter and Michigan is in a four-wide, one-back set. Notre Dame comes out in a 4-3 nickel package.

As the ball is snapped, the boundary corner (bottom of the screen; covering Devin Gardner, more about this later) immediately blitzes.

Denard is reading the strongside defensive end (highlighted) and hasn't seen the corner coming on a blitz.

The defensive end stays high, forcing Denard to hand the ball off, right into the blitz. Elliott Mealer is also getting put on skates and rolled into the backfield.

Fitz Toussaint is wrapped up in the backfield by the blitzing corner. Mealer's inability to hold up here probably stops Toussaint from making any moves on the corner in the backfield, but I don't think it would have changed the end result much.

Video

The Takeaway
A lot of what went wrong here is just Al Borges getting beaten on a playcall, but it's distressing that corner blitzes appear to be a surefire way to shut down Michigan's running attack. The other thing that bothers me: Devin Gardner. Watch the rest of the wide receivers. Each one of them heads downfield to block a Notre Dame defender. Just like in the Alabama game, Gardner runs right by his blitzing defensive counterpart. Even worse, the player he eventually identifies to block is 10 yards downfield, not the linebacker that would be waiting for Toussaint if he were able to dodge the blitzing corner. With other wide receivers, you might assume that this blocking assignment might be incredibly difficult or unrealistic, but with someone who is a) new to the position and b) admitted that he doesn't like blocking, this is more evidence of an emerging, disturbing theme. (Also note that teams appear to only be blitzing the cornerbacks that are covering Gardner. I assume this is not coincidence.)

Defenses are not worried about blitzing corners because Michigan never calls audibles/checks at the line, so showing the blitz before the snap is not a concern. More importantly, no one is worried about Gardner as a receiver or Denard as a passer. Corner blitzes against most teams result in good matchups for the offense and easy completions. Against Michigan, you can gamble by putting your safety on a wide receiver because Michigan's wide outs can't get separation.

More importantly, if Gardner is not actually supposed to block the corner here, this offensive scheme is broken, or Borges is incredibly predictable. For example, on this play, which appears to be a traditional zone-read (RB goes one way, the QB goes the other), a corner blitz from the side opposite the RB looks like this:

More commonly this year, michigan has run the inverted veer zone read (below), which leaves the playside DE unblocked. That play is designed to get the running back outside or the QB running vertically. A corner blitz with the same principles (DE staying home on the QB and a corner blitz from the side opposite the RB) produces the same result.

As long as the defensive end is instructed to play the QB on this zone read, the blitzing corner will always have a free shot at a running back in the backfield.

So corner blitzes are bad for the zone read. This doesn't surprise anyone. But I can't see any way that Gardner is not supposed to at least try and block the blitzer. That's his assignment before the play begins and should be his assignment even if the player decides to blitz. If he can't make the block but attempts to, fine. That's just another blown blocking assignment; we've seen plenty of those this year. But his refusal to even try is what's bothersome here.

The real problem is, Borges doesn't seem to have a fix for this and without game-breaking wide receivers or a consistent QB, this is an effective way for teams to force Denard to throw the ball. You can put a fullback in the backfield on Denard's right, but this is twice now that we've seen Gardner completely ignore what should be his blocking assignment because of a blitz.

Naked bootlegs: Not working, but not for the reasons you think

Last year, Michigan ran a lot of naked bootlegs with Denard that didn't work because defenders are way more worried about Denard rolling out than any of Michigan's running backs. Case in point:

Notre Dame was similarly not surprised by the play and Denard did the Denard thing and threw a ball off his back foot that was eventually intercepted. I'm not convinced that this is a bad play call by Borges, however (about which more later).

Michigan comes out in an I-formation with Devin Funchess lined up as an H-back. Notre Dame is in a 4-3 look.

Devin Funchess motions across the formation.

As the ball is snapped, Notre Dame's defensive end Stephon Tuitt and the weakside linebacker are left unblocked. You'll see that neither of them cares about the potential hand off.

Tuitt continues to stare down Denard and isn't flowing down the line to make a tackle on a potential handoff.

Tuitt has seen Denard pull the ball and knows to head straight upfield. However, look at Gallon (highlighted; explanation below).

Tuitt is now bearing down on Denard.

Denard shuffles his feet to make a throw....

...and heaves the ball without stepping into it.

Video

The Takeaway
This play is not as bad as the interwebs will have you believe. The defensive end doesn't bite on the play action, but look at the strongside and middle linebackers in the video: both of them step toward the play action and are taken out of their coverage zones. Jeremy Gallon (the intended receiver) is wide open on this play because the linebackers bite on the play action. Are there better ways to pick up 12 yards with Denard? Probably, but this is Al Borges' offense.

The thing people seem unwilling to talk about: QBs get hit a lot when they're throwing the ball. Stepping into your throws and taking those hits is what great good QBs do. When Denard gets pressure, he goes into self-defense mode instead of standing in the pocket, delivering the ball, and taking the hit. Getting hit sucks, but that's what it takes to be a quarterback.

It doesn't help that there's a second defender in Denard's face because Michael Schofield once again gets beaten off the line. I understand the tendency to blame Borges for calling this play, but Denard is a senior quarterback that still hasn't figured out how to throw the ball away or refuses to stand tall in the pocket. Quarterbacks get pressure in their face; many of them make the right decision, but Denard never does. With an offensive line that's clearly not up to par right now, Denard is going to see more pressure as the season wears on. His ability to throw the ball away and recognize when a play is dead--or take the hit--will be crucial to this team winning games against more talented opponents.

Schofield: liability (Notre Dame edition)

After the Alabama game, there was panic everywhere--mostly here--about Michael Schofield at right tackle. After two games against mediocre-to-terrible competition, it seemed like the offensive line was starting to gel a little more, but Schofield still seemed like a liability. Against Notre Dame, that was confirmed.

It's early in the first quarter on third and goal from the 15 yard line. Notre Dame has three down linemen shaded to the strongside of the field and are in a nickel package.

As the ball is snapped, Notre Dame rushes the four players on the line of scrimmage.

A moment later, the offensive line engages the rushers. It is a little hard to see here, but Notre Dame defensive end Stephon Tuitt gets his hands inside of Schofield (highlighted).

Now that Tuitt has leverage on Schofield, he will bull rush him and deposit him in Denard's lap...

....

... and Schofield can't even take a penalty to stop Tuitt from getting the sack, though he tries his best.

Down goes Denard with Schofield running behind his assignment.

Video

The Takeaway
I'm already tired of watching Schofield staring down at Denard after a sack. You can make excuses for the level of competition--Tuitt already has six sacks this season--but Schofield's inability to hold up against top-level competition is a huge problem. On this play, he was matched up one-on-one with a defensive end who simply ran through him. If he doesn't possess the speed to pass protect against speed rushers and gets blown off the line against bull rushes, teams will continue to attack him throughout the season. This is going to be a major point of concern all year.

Denarmageddon

#18 Michigan 6 - #11 Notre Dame 13
Preview

2012 was always going to be about Denard. For the last two years, Michigan has lived and died by his ability to break 86-yard touchdown runs or make the catastrophic mistake. In 2010, Rich Rodriguez redefined Michigan with a 6'0", 4-star "athlete" from Deerfield Beach, Florida, who led arguably the greatest offense Michigan has ever seen. Unfortunately, Rodriguez failed to understand that football was more than just scoring points, and as the defense and recruiting deteriorated, so did the program. Rodriguez was gone but regardless of who came to Michigan, they were going to live and die by the hand--and feet--of Denard.

Last year, while Al Borges fumbled to figure out what to do with Denard, the team stumbled to a surprising 11-2 record, but Borges quickly figured out what everyone else already knew: if Denard was on his game, Michigan had a chance to beat anyone. Unfortunately, as the season wore on, Denard's limitations in the new system became apparent: there weren't enough receivers spreading the field, complicating Denard's reads; he threw panicked jump balls off his back foot that were miraculously reeled in by breakout star Junior Hemingway; and his overall accuracy was still nowhere near elite levels.

Now, Hemingway is gone, Michigan's conference-best offensive line has been Swiss Cheesed by graduation, and Denard, despite being a senior in his second year of the system, has proven that he plateaued--two years ago. Saturday's game against Notre Dame was more frustrating than surprising, but it was a stark reminder of exactly what this team's limitations and weaknesses are. Given the proper system and personnel, Denard Robinson can be a great quarterback, but without that precise set of circumstances, Denard will never be better than the erratic, mechanic-flawed quarterback he was when he first took over under Rodriguez's direction. Denard's ceiling remains one of the highest of any player in the entire country, but the reason he'll never be an elite quarterback is because of how effortlessly he plunges to his basement.

Saturday epitomized everything that is wrong with this iteration of Michigan's team. Notre Dame was able to rush three and four linemen and still get pressure on Denard because the offensive line struggles in pass protection. Denard failed to read the flooded defensive zones and stared down his receivers, allowing the Irish defenders to jump the passing lanes. And the secondary, though it is coping with injures, was shredded by the mediocre passing attack of Tommy Rees (8/11 for 115 yards).

The silver lining: Michigan's defensive line looked improved over its previous performances, and the Big Ten is still so bad that Michigan may be able to challenge for the league title. But Michigan fans have been able to find a silver lining in every loss over the last two years: the defense can only get better or Denard can't throw four interceptions again or if Michigan had a decent kicker, they would have won. Eventually, those "if"s need to turn into wins, but with a team that caters to high variance, it feels like the silver lining will be the real story of 2012.

Bullets

• People are going to criticize Al Borges' play calling, but they probably shouldn't. Denard ran the ball 26 times and threw it 24. Those back-to-back-to-back-to-back interceptions from Denard were not caused by poor playcalling. With a depleted Notre Dame secondary, throwing the ball is the best option (Denard averaged only 3.5 YPC on 26 totes and Fitz Toussaint averaged 4.5 YPC on 13 carries)
• The concept that "Denard is most dangerous when he stands in the pocket" has to be bunk by this point. The problem with Denard sitting in the pocket (and this may be more a problem with the scheme) is that he's not waiting for a receiver to cut across the field through a hole in the defense. He's waiting for a receiver to run far enough downfield that he feels confident heaving it into single coverage. When's the last time Denard stood in the pocket and threw a pass over the middle to a crossing receiver? Hitting Odoms last year across the middle on fourth down against Nebraska (Ohio State?)?
• Silver lining: Despite turning the ball over 6 times in the game, Michigan's defense only allowed 13 points. That's an impressive turnout for any defense, but especially for one with so many question marks. Will Campbell and Quinton Washington looked great slicing into the backfield on slants but they were always just one step too slow to make a tackle for loss.
• I recently lived in Los Angeles and when Al Borges was announced as the offensive coordinator for Michigan, everyone told me the same thing: He's a really great OC but he often gets too smart for himself. The Vincent Smith interception was Borges getting too smart for himself.
• Play action, naked bootlegs are not working. They didn't work last year. They're not working this year. For the exact same reasons: the backside defenders are not committing to the run, instead playing contain on Denard and disregarding the handoff.
• JT Floyd being unable to jam a tight end split outside on the final drive of the game is a very JT Floyd thing to do. That was... distressing. He struggled all game.
• Raymon Taylor's interception was perfect. That's how you're supposed to play zone defense.
• Fitz Toussaint's pass blocking is terrible.
• This is an aside and I won't go on about it too long because that's not really my thing, but John Bacon's Detroit News article "Some Michigan fans can't appreciate brilliance of Denard Robinson" pissed me off when it was published. It's the kind of condescending article that assumes ignorance from the same people who are supposed to be reading his columns. It's pandering and passive aggressive and I wish Bacon treated his readers with more respect. Sure, Denard is a great talent, but pointing out obvious errors in his play is not some masochistic practice that Michigan fans take part in because they like being upset about things. This Notre Dame game happened and Denard's performance didn't surprise anyone who questioned his abilities as a passer.

Next Week
Michigan gets a bye next week before starting the Big Ten schedule against Purdue. This is as good a time as any to lick your wounds, reevaluate schemes, and get healthy. Posting next week might be slow (grad school beckons and a week off from blogging might allow me to get a jump on work due later in the semester). This week will be painful as I rewatch this game and break down a whole bunch of the game.

Preview: Notre Dame 2012

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#18 Michigan vs. #11 Notre Dame

Notre Dame Stadium

Kickoff 7:30 pm EST

NBC

Forecast: High-50s, 50% chance of rain

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Last week
#20 Notre Dame 20 - #10 Michigan State 3. Last week, Notre Dame proved what I've been telling people since the season began: Michigan State ain't that good. Le'Veon Bell averaged 4.1 YPC on 19 totes, which is actually a pretty good turnout for him (minus the one or two 60-yard runs he's been breaking off against weak competition). And Andrew Maxwell earned himself the Captain Checkdown Of The Week award with 187 yards on 23/45 passing (4.2 YPA). Though, MSU's shoddy offensive line did no Spartans any favors.

Notre Dame, played well, but their greatest achievement was getting everyone who votes in the polls to overrate them again. QB Everett Golson had a fairly lackluster day (14/32, 178 yards, 1TD). Bowling ball Cierre Wood--fresh off his two-game suspension--acquitted himself well with 56 yards on 10 carries. But this game was a defensive struggle: only 537 yards of combined total offense, a combined 6-31 on third down, and 16 punts.

UMass 13 - #17 Michigan 63.

Offense vs. Notre Dame
Fi Fie Fo Film

Denard's career stats versus Notre Dame: 35/64 through the air for 582 yards, 5 TDs, 3 INTs, and 48 carries for 387 yards (3 TDs). Though Michigan fans all have fond memories of Denard taking on the Irish, in a dozen alternate universes, people have a much different sentiment regarding the lace-less one and the Domers. This has not escaped Hoke and the rest of the coaching staff who have mentioned a few times this week that last year's game didn't go as planned until the final quarter of the game.

The name everyone remembers on Notre Dame's defense is linebacker Manti Te'o. His superstar has only been diminished by a fairly lackluster group surrounding him to date. Otherwise, Te'o has lived up to all the hype. Running through the middle of the field against Notre Dame is a harrowing affair with Te'o roaming around. Whether or not he'll be able to make the shoestring tackles that Nebraska's Levonte David did against Denard last year will go a long way to determining how this game plays out.

The other problem running the ball against Notre Dame is its intimidating defensive line, led by nose tackle Louis Nix III. The Fighting Irish have had three games against mediocre-to-good rushing teams (Navy, Purdue, MSU) and still rank 23rd in the NCAA in rushing yards allowed per game.

The weakness in Notre Dame's defense is a secondary that looks like Michigan's in 2010. To date, ND has lost safety Jamorris Slaughter, safety Austin Collinsworth, and starting cornerback Lo Wood to season-ending injuries. Despite these injuries, Notre Dame's passing rank is still high: 38th nationally in passing yards allowed per game and and 26th nationally in pass efficiency defense. However, the Fighting Irish have played Navy (an option team that never throws the ball), Captain Checkdown, and Purdue. They haven't really been tested this season.

The matchups to watch will be whether or not Te'o can adequately cover Devin Funchess on seam and wheel routes downfield and whether or not anyone in the ND secondary can cover Devin Gardner. The other potential turning point--and Michigan fans are used to watching for things like this already--will be whether or not an inexperienced secondary can maintain proper outside leverage and not let Denard/Fitz Toussaint get to the edge. With Borges utilizing bubble screens this year, testing young safeties in open space may be a way to gain easy yardage throughout the game.

Defense vs. Notre Dame

On paper, Notre Dame's offense is not very intimidating: 67th in rushing offense, 67th in passing offense, 74th at pass efficiency, and 61st in scoring offense. However, they also have Cierre Wood (pictured above). Last year, Wood racked up 134 yards on just 25 carries (5.4 YPC) against Michigan, and that was with NFL talents like Mike Martin and Ryan Van Bergen manning the defensive line. Now? Yeesh. Wood is fast and tough to bring down, and with a suspect defensive line and young/mediocre linebackers, this game will show just how good (or bad, as the case may be) Michigan's defense will be this year.

The passing defense is less harrowing. Sophomore quarterback Everett Golson is completing 58% of his passes this season, and has only 3 touchdown passes (1 INT). Michigan's secondary is equipped to defend whatever Golson can bring. Expect Greg Mattison to send a lot of blitzes his way to try and hurry the young quarterback into bad throws. When plays do break down, Golson has some scrambling ability, but not enough to really scare the Michigan defense. He'll probably pick up a few frustrating first downs on third and long, but if Michigan can limit those conversions, they should be able to make the Irish offense stall out.

The team's leading receiver is senior tight end Tyler Eifert, who will present some problems for Michigan. Guarding him will come down to Jordan Kovacs or various linebackers staying disciplined on play action and adequately covering him downfield. Otherwise, Notre Dame doesn't have many truly threatening wide receivers, the first time in what seems like a decade.

Prediction
How does Michigan win? Defy previous performances. Michigan performances to date are not going to win this game. The defensive line needs to significantly outperform their turnout to date. It's not necessary to get a ton of pass rush from the interior (not going to happen anyway) or tear through the offensive line for tackles for loss, but they need to hold up against Notre Dame's talented offensive line and allow the linebackers adequate time to hit the proper holes and make tackles. Speaking of tackles, the Wolverine defenders need to do a better job of wrapping up the ball carrier.

Offensively, Denard needs to play like 2011 Notre Dame 4th Quarter Denard for the entire game. Luckily Denard probably has the most-complete set of offensive weapons that he's ever had. Funchess and Gardner are players that will need to beat up a bruised Notre Dame secondary. If the offensive line can hold up on running plays, that will open up the passing game for Denard and his receivers.

How does Notre Dame win? If all of this season's evidence is more prescient than Michigan fans hope. Notre Dame should win this game: it's at home, their resume is far superior to Michigan's, and they have more pure talent on both sides of the ball (probably; offense is a toss-up). The Fighting Irish can help themselves by forcing multiple turnovers from Denard, and if they're able to annihilate the Michigan offensive line the way the rest of their opponents have, it's going to be a long day for the Michigan offense.

Arbitrary percentage that Michigan wins: 43.79%

Final prediction. It's a close game, but Michigan's weaknesses in the first three weeks prove to be very real. The defensive line can't stop Wood from averaging over 5 yards per carry and the offensive line gets hammered by Notre Dame's front seven. Fitz Toussaint has another bad day and we all start panicking about the offensive line again as the offense fails to get in the endzone on multiple red zone trips. Denard has a good day through the air but also throws two interceptions. Michigan 23 - Notre Dame 24

Mailbag: Cover-3 and ND's late touchdown

There seems to be a lot of consternation about Greg Mattison's tendency to align all of Michigan's linebackers and safeties on the line of scrimmage in an effort to conceal Michigan's coverage and confuse opposing quarterbacks. Case in point:

Chris,

I liked the breakdown this morning of the zone blitz package and it reminded me of something I've been thinking about since listening to Mattison's press conference yesterday. In talking about ND's last TD, he said they were trying to disguise their 3-deep zone coverage by having everyone at the line. He said the play was not executed properly, which I assume means Marvin Robinson did not get back into his middle third deep zone quickly enough. Mattison also mentioned that this coverage was the same coverage that he called on Kovacs INT. On the Kovacs INT, ND still had a receiver wide open in the seam for a long TD if Rees sees him.

My question - would it be fair to call this defensive coverage "unsound"? I can't figure out how the coverage is supposed to look like without there being a gaping hole somewhere downfield with our pre-snap alignment (with the DBs being close to the line).

Thanks,
Tony

Tony is referencing the Tuesday press conference in which Mattison said this:

Was Notre Dame’s last touchdown due to a breakdown in communication? “No it wasn’t. We didn’t execute it exactly like we wanted to. I’ll be dead honest with you, there’s sometimes calls a guy makes that afterwards you say, God I wish I hadn’t made that call. That was the same call we got the interception on earlier in the game. It looks exactly like the blitz, and we had blitzed right before that, and they knew we were going to blitz the closer they got down there, so I just thought to myself, you know what, maybe we can do the same thing. Show that blitz and come out of there. We didn’t execute it as well as we did the first time, and they hit it. I’ll be the first to tell you, I’m not always 100%, and if it was all over again I probably wouldn’t have called that.”

Is disguising coverage more important in college than in pros? “The thing about disguising is you’ve got to be pretty experienced. A lot of times out there you’re just saying, ‘Guys, make sure you’re in the right place.’ Disguising is the next phase. The first thing we have to make sure is we don’t bust on coverage and make sure we’re in position to make the plays we can make. As they get more seasoned and as they get better, then you can say, ‘Okay, now you got that down, now let’s make it look like this and go to this.’ But we haven’t been able to disguise as much as you’d like to, and we’ll get there.”

While he gives us some hints as to what the playcalls are on the Kovacs interception and Notre Dame's final touchdown, I think the more telling comment is when he says that the team really needs to not bust the coverage because on both of the plays, Michigan blew their coverage pretty badly, directly leading to the touchdown and what could have been another if Tommy Rees wasn't intent on forcing the ball to Michael Floyd. The design of both plays, however, couldn't be more basic: Michigan is running a simple cover-3 with five underneath defenders in zone (the diagram may look cluttered, but the actual execution is simple).

Here's the presnap formation for Kovacs' interception:

Here, Notre Dame is in a 5-wide set. Michigan is showing an aggressive man defense with no safety help over the top.

On the snap, you can see Michigan's three down linemen rush while everyone else drops into coverage. Marvin Robinson (on the hash at the top of the screen), turns his head toward the middle of the field and begins to sprint toward his zone in the deep middle of the field. As we'll see in a bit, this is problematic.

A moment later Robinson is hauling from his presnap position to cover the deep middle of the field. Floyd and Avery are also running downfield to cover their respective deep third.

Now Robinson has identified the Notre Dame receiver running the seam route and is trying to get over in coverage. He still hasn't looked behind him to see what the strongside receivers are doing. For what it's worth, I believe that it's either Kovacs' or Jake Ryan's responsibility here to re-route the seam route to the outside where JT Floyd can pick up deep coverage. When they don't, the Notre Dame receiver has a clear lane to the endzone.

This is how the play fortuitously ends: with Tommy Rees throwing into bracketed coverage on Floyd. Robinson, meanwhile, is on the opposite hash from a Notre Dame receiver streaking down the field and he never once looked to the strongside of the field.

In this instance, Robinson identified the Notre Dame receiver running down the seam and did his best to get into position. Had Ryan or Kovacs pushed the seam route outside, Floyd would be able to show coverage and hinder a throw while Robinson gets into position. In addition, the underneath coverage is terrible. Demens and Hawthorne are falling over one another (this is Hawthorne's fault), leaving gaping holes in the coverage.

Unsound defense or blown coverage?

Yesterday, Brian at MGoBlog analyzed a blitz that Michigan dialed up against Notre Dame as an example of Michigan showing their hand prior to the snap, allowing Notre Dame to check to another play. He also said this,

This defense is unsound. Does Mattison want it to be unsound because it makes Kovacs pop up for turnovers or does he have little choice in the matter because he's starting a walk-on (Heininger—Kovacs has graduated), a couple freshmen, and only 2.5 non-walkon seniors (RVB, Martin—Woolfolk is the half)?

I don't know, but I'm betting it's the latter. I am glad they've got a week to practice not leaving guys wide open all day. They're busting coverages every other play.

While I agree with him on the former--Kelly clearly studied Michigan's defensive tendencies against Western Michigan and instructed his QBs to use a hard count--I think Brian is wrong in calling this defense unsound, mostly because the result of this play was because of a blown coverage rather than a poor defensive playcall.

The play in question is a zone blitz in which Michigan's weakside linebacker (Desmond Morgan) blitzes off the edge as Ryan Van Bergen drops into zone coverage on the other side of the field. Michigan is in a basic cover-3 look with Kovacs, Marvin Robinson, and JT Floyd playing deep thirds. Underneath, Michigan is supposed to be playing quarters zone coverage with Thomas Gordon, Van Bergen, Kenny Demens, and Courtney Avery covering the field. Unfortunately, Demens completely forgets his coverage, opening up an easy slant route for Tommy Rees.

Here's how the play should have looked and what Demens actually did (red)

In the diagram above, you can see that Demens and Van Bergen drop into the same zone, while the play likely called for Demens to slide to the other side of the field. The most telling image from Brian's picture pages is this

Here you can see Demens and Van Bergen essentially stacked on top of one another. Michigan is playing a cover-3 zone over the top, meaning Floyd (off screen), Robinson (off screen), and Kovacs are covering any vertical routes up the field. As such, there's no reason that Demens and Van Bergen should be stacked like this. In addition, you can see both players looking to exactly the same spot, which either means one player is looking the wrong way, or Mattison has called for man coverage from this look and is asking Van Bergen to drop into man coverage from a three-point stance and guard a wide receiver.

To Tommy Rees' right are two receivers running quick slants into a completely vacated zone. Avery came in for some criticism on MGoBlog for not jamming Floyd here and staying with his man when in reality, Rees throws the ball directly through the zone that Demens should be covering.

A few days ago, Chris Brown of Smart Football showed up on Grantland to discuss Cam Newton's first NFL TD pass, where the Arizona Cardinals called a similar play:

Although the Cardinals used an aggressive tactic in the cornerback blitz, they were not actually playing an aggressive defense; a common bait-and-switch in the NFL, particularly against young quarterbacks. Instead, the corner blitz was part of a zone blitz scheme: the blitzing cornerback was one of only four defensive players rushing (and the Panthers did an excellent job in picking up these rushers, particularly RB Jonathan Stewart), while the other seven pass defenders played zone.

While obviously not identical to the blitz that Michigan called, the principles are the same. Michigan was showing an aggressive blitz but dropping players into the underneath zones to confuse Rees. Notre Dame's play was successful because Demens got crossed up in coverage and completely disregarded his zone.

The good news is that Mattison isn't an idiot. Were the play actually designed as it was executed, it would be a completely incoherent defense. Michigan would be stacking zone receivers and vacating large sections of the field. In my opinion, the NFL blitzing genius who captained one of the best NFL defenses of the last five years is not wont to make calls this egregiously bad.

The bad news is that there are still growing pains with this defense, but that's to be expected. Demens had a few blown coverages last year that he quickly learned from and corrected. Having only two games under this new system, these sorts of mental errors are to be expected. And with two games against cupcake(-ish) opponents approaching, this will be a chance for the defense to solidify these types of playcalls and avoid blown coverages like the one above when Big Ten play begins.

Zone reading Manti Te'o pt. 2

As shown earlier, against Notre Dame, Al Borges was able to get quality carries for Denard by optioning off of Irish linebacker Manti Te'o rather than a defensive end. Because of this unorthodox zone read, Te'o was never able to recognize the play in time and Denard ran for 65 yards on the three zone read carries. While two of those instances featured two tight-end sets, Borges also used essentially the same play and blocking scheme from a three-wide set with an H-back in the backfield.

Whereas before Notre Dame was in a 4-3 defensive front, here they're lined up in a 3-4 package. Te'o is the inside linebacker shaded over Michigan's left guard.

As the ball is snapped, the offensive line zone blocks to the right. The difference from the play we saw earlier today is Kevin Koger, who is lined up as an H-back rather than a tight end. Previously, Koger was the strongside tight end and blocked Notre Dame's playside linebacker. Here, he will pull across the formation to engaged the same linebacker while Denard once again reads Te'o.

At the mesh point, you can see Te'o crashing down on the handoff. He shows discipline by staying above the offensive and defensive lines. You can see Koger continuing to pull across the formation.

Zone reading Manti Te'o

By my count, Michigan ran the zone read against Notre Dame three different times and miraculously, despite being forced to hand the ball off for the majority of last year, Denard was able to make the proper read and pull the ball himself. Al Borges accomplished this by reading the Notre Dame linebackers, specifically, Manti Te'o who is, by most accounts, Notre Dame's best defender. Even more impressively, Borges was able to attack Te'o on the zone read from an entirely different formation throughout the game. The second instance, shown here, was the most effective, netting 39 yards, but the shortest of the other option plays went for 13 yards.

Michigan comes out in a two tight end set with Mike Shaw in the backfield and Roundtree and Hemingway to Denard's left. Notre Dame is in a standard 4-3 alignment with the strongside linebacker, Prince Shembo, shaded over Roundtree in the slot.

As the ball is snapped, you can see the offensive line beginning to zone block to the right. Te'o, who Denard will read, is four yards beyond the line of scrimmage and directly above left guard Ricky Barnum.

As the mesh starts, Barnum is sliding right to double the nose tackle and Te'o steps up to attack the strongside B gap that was vacated by Barnum. Denard will read whether or not Te'o attacks that hole or if he stays home.

Denard and Shaw are still engaged at the mesh point right now, and Te'o is committing to the handoff.

By the time Te'o realizes that Shaw doesn't have the ball, he's already been sucked into the offensive line. Koger was lined up as the strongside tight end and has leaked out to kick block Notre Dame's strongside linebacker. Roundtree is releasing from his slot receiver position to head upfield and block the Notre Dame safety at the top of the screen.

Video:


This play would go for 39 yards and stand as Denard's longest run of the day. Fundamentally, there's nothing spectacular about this play; it's a simple zone read. What Borges did here, however, was isolate Notre Dame's best defender and force him to make a decision and, more importantly, take himself out of the play.

What's brilliant about this play is that a linebacker won't be able to recognize whether or not he's being "blocked", so he will naturally attack what his eyes see. In this instance, he saw an offensive line that was zone blocking right, no unblocked defensive ends, and a mesh point between Denard and Shaw. This looked like a simple sweep play, but it was actually an option. This baited Te'o into committing to the Shaw handoff and left the weakside of the play wide open.