Offense first:
- OL struggled. Had a tough time, though against an admittedly very strong defensive front. The RT stuck out as getting beaten the most often, but in his defense he was up against Aidan Hutchinson a lot in 1 on 1. I would have liked to see us give him more help with a RB chip more often - but the problem is in passing situations Mich kept sending 5-6 guys so the RB was often needed to help take on an unblocked rusher elsewhere (still feels to me like we struggle with blitz pickup assignments, but Michigan D is pretty good at timing and disguising).
- Hull is what he is - not great agility to make yards where there isn't much space, but when he finds space he has good straight line speed. Without him we had nothing on offense all game. Honestly I would have liked to see more of Andrew Clair - thought his style of power running with better juking would have been best suited to the OL situation - ie lack of push up front and limited holes. Really having Justin Jackson back would have been best - he got extremely familiar with figuring out how to find 2-5 yards from plays that could have been 0 or negative...
- When Stephon Robinson went down we lacked a big playmaker. Malik Washington has definitely improved but that was a tough one. Because then there was no one that the Mich defense "feared" and so they felt free to repeatedly bring zero / single high man looks on blitzes, or some zone blitzes. Hope Stephon is okay and can return soon.
- This is the same thing I said last week, but it was more apparent and much more of a problem against Michigan than the prior couple weeks. Hilinski is a very good QB when he gets time, but under pressure he struggles to make quick reads and then make "off platform" throws. With all the blitzes Mich brought, there were at least 3 situations where I saw guys open downfield (in some cases the commentators called it out) - and Hilinski failed to identify or hit them. If he doesn't do that (and without Stephon as the default first read for him to key on when the other team blitzes), there is nothing to dissuade Michigan (and other teams who will watch this tape and see the game plan) from repeated blitzing.
- The fact of the matter is the offense was overmatched here. If you remove the 75 yard run, we had 158 total yards on 54 plays, which is 2.9 ypp. Even including that play we had 233 yards on 55 plays for 4.2 ypp, with an even 4.2 ypp passing (133/16-32) and 4.3 ypp rushing (100/23). That's no way to get consistent ball movement and resulted in the defense tiring in the 2Q (H1 ToP was 22:55 to 7:05) and then again in the 2H (we ended at 39:19 to 20:41).
Defense:
- Overall I didn't think the defense was too bad. Even though they gave up 33 they started out pretty well, just seemed to tire as the game went on due to being left on an island with no output and many 3 and outs from the offense. Although the reality is the point total could have been worse if Michigan's red zone execution was better, particularly in the first half.
- DL played better - seemed to hold the LoS pretty stoutly early on, but that fell off a bit as the game went on. Michigan ran for 294 yards on 54 carries (5.4 ypc), but a lot of that was after contact, or at the least after when a 2nd or 3rd level player should have gotten contact on him (see next point). I think yards til contact would have been in the ~2 range. The pass rush still was a struggle though - compared to Hilinski felt like their QB had about 2x the amount of time. The only sack came from B Jo.
- Tackling was the most notable issue. I know Corum is a really good RB but jeez we just missed too many clear tackles where we barely even got a finger on him - my count was at 9 by late-Q3 which was when I kind of gave up on it mentally. That was split about 50/50 between the LBs and the safeties, with at least 1 each from all three LBs (28, 32, 40) and at least one each from both safeties (16 and 0). I've grown to expect that from the LBs this year sadly, but honestly B Jo was the most disappointing - he still was flying around and athletic but I counted 3 clear missed tackles from him (I believe all on Corum?) so hope he can clean that up in future games.
- Secondary was strong throughout the game. They took several deep shots in 1-on-1 coverage and we were right there every time. One flag thrown on a 3rd down on a deep ball to the left side looked to me to be a downright bad call, no appreciable contact, that extended the drive and allowed Michigan to solidify their lead which was unfortunate (the second flag thrown on that drive for a grab was correct). But overall they were just 23-32 for 163 yards, only 5.1 ypp (lower than their running average!), and a lot of those completions were swing passes or screens. Tackling on those plays wasn't perfect but mostly decent - I saw more missed tackles on those from LBs than from our DBs.
- After the embarrassment that was the Nebraska game, even though we gave up a fair number of yards here I didn't feel like our players were overmatched. They generally seemed to be in the right places (ie coaching), just too many missed tackles on key plays that prevented us from stopping drives, plus no help from the offense. I think this one was closer to the Rutgers game than the Nebraska game in terms of how the D played but against a much better opponent on both sides of the football.
Good win by Michigan, overall we got thoroughly outplayed on both sides of the ball. I think we have a reasonable chance against Minnesota though - especially if we can get Stephon Robinson and/or Andrew Marty back to give the offense a bit more life.
Go Cats!
- OL struggled. Had a tough time, though against an admittedly very strong defensive front. The RT stuck out as getting beaten the most often, but in his defense he was up against Aidan Hutchinson a lot in 1 on 1. I would have liked to see us give him more help with a RB chip more often - but the problem is in passing situations Mich kept sending 5-6 guys so the RB was often needed to help take on an unblocked rusher elsewhere (still feels to me like we struggle with blitz pickup assignments, but Michigan D is pretty good at timing and disguising).
- Hull is what he is - not great agility to make yards where there isn't much space, but when he finds space he has good straight line speed. Without him we had nothing on offense all game. Honestly I would have liked to see more of Andrew Clair - thought his style of power running with better juking would have been best suited to the OL situation - ie lack of push up front and limited holes. Really having Justin Jackson back would have been best - he got extremely familiar with figuring out how to find 2-5 yards from plays that could have been 0 or negative...
- When Stephon Robinson went down we lacked a big playmaker. Malik Washington has definitely improved but that was a tough one. Because then there was no one that the Mich defense "feared" and so they felt free to repeatedly bring zero / single high man looks on blitzes, or some zone blitzes. Hope Stephon is okay and can return soon.
- This is the same thing I said last week, but it was more apparent and much more of a problem against Michigan than the prior couple weeks. Hilinski is a very good QB when he gets time, but under pressure he struggles to make quick reads and then make "off platform" throws. With all the blitzes Mich brought, there were at least 3 situations where I saw guys open downfield (in some cases the commentators called it out) - and Hilinski failed to identify or hit them. If he doesn't do that (and without Stephon as the default first read for him to key on when the other team blitzes), there is nothing to dissuade Michigan (and other teams who will watch this tape and see the game plan) from repeated blitzing.
- The fact of the matter is the offense was overmatched here. If you remove the 75 yard run, we had 158 total yards on 54 plays, which is 2.9 ypp. Even including that play we had 233 yards on 55 plays for 4.2 ypp, with an even 4.2 ypp passing (133/16-32) and 4.3 ypp rushing (100/23). That's no way to get consistent ball movement and resulted in the defense tiring in the 2Q (H1 ToP was 22:55 to 7:05) and then again in the 2H (we ended at 39:19 to 20:41).
Defense:
- Overall I didn't think the defense was too bad. Even though they gave up 33 they started out pretty well, just seemed to tire as the game went on due to being left on an island with no output and many 3 and outs from the offense. Although the reality is the point total could have been worse if Michigan's red zone execution was better, particularly in the first half.
- DL played better - seemed to hold the LoS pretty stoutly early on, but that fell off a bit as the game went on. Michigan ran for 294 yards on 54 carries (5.4 ypc), but a lot of that was after contact, or at the least after when a 2nd or 3rd level player should have gotten contact on him (see next point). I think yards til contact would have been in the ~2 range. The pass rush still was a struggle though - compared to Hilinski felt like their QB had about 2x the amount of time. The only sack came from B Jo.
- Tackling was the most notable issue. I know Corum is a really good RB but jeez we just missed too many clear tackles where we barely even got a finger on him - my count was at 9 by late-Q3 which was when I kind of gave up on it mentally. That was split about 50/50 between the LBs and the safeties, with at least 1 each from all three LBs (28, 32, 40) and at least one each from both safeties (16 and 0). I've grown to expect that from the LBs this year sadly, but honestly B Jo was the most disappointing - he still was flying around and athletic but I counted 3 clear missed tackles from him (I believe all on Corum?) so hope he can clean that up in future games.
- Secondary was strong throughout the game. They took several deep shots in 1-on-1 coverage and we were right there every time. One flag thrown on a 3rd down on a deep ball to the left side looked to me to be a downright bad call, no appreciable contact, that extended the drive and allowed Michigan to solidify their lead which was unfortunate (the second flag thrown on that drive for a grab was correct). But overall they were just 23-32 for 163 yards, only 5.1 ypp (lower than their running average!), and a lot of those completions were swing passes or screens. Tackling on those plays wasn't perfect but mostly decent - I saw more missed tackles on those from LBs than from our DBs.
- After the embarrassment that was the Nebraska game, even though we gave up a fair number of yards here I didn't feel like our players were overmatched. They generally seemed to be in the right places (ie coaching), just too many missed tackles on key plays that prevented us from stopping drives, plus no help from the offense. I think this one was closer to the Rutgers game than the Nebraska game in terms of how the D played but against a much better opponent on both sides of the football.
Good win by Michigan, overall we got thoroughly outplayed on both sides of the ball. I think we have a reasonable chance against Minnesota though - especially if we can get Stephon Robinson and/or Andrew Marty back to give the offense a bit more life.
Go Cats!
Last edited:
