About Last Night: Recap Brady Hoke's Former Team

"I'm sorry I left for my dream job in the middle of the night, but I am pointing so it's OKAY!"

The Big House... How you've changed and how you've managed to stay the same, I hadn't been back to A2 for football since, EMU 2009.  During the first half, I was trying to pinpoint why Seven Nation Army became the new ballad of Michigan football. Why wasn't "The Victors" ringing through the air on repeat, what has happened here? It wasn't until San Diego State's 2nd drive of the 3rd quarter that I realized how much the Big House was still the same... "Hey, down in front..."

Michigan had just recovered a San Diego State fumble, the stadium had gone into a commercial break and Pop Evil's atrocious Michigan song was playing. There was no action to be seen on the field. My eyes curled slowly around to peep over my shoulder, trying to mask my disdain, to see two elderly gentleman who glared at me as if I was stepping on their oxygen tank. Pondering what at all they could possibly want to see going down the field, I obliged their request and briefly smiled. This, was the Big House I remembered...

Two years of 4-0 starts that ended abruptly in league play have brought skepticism upon this 2011 team... For all of the things that are different, there are many things the same.

The highway to success this season, same as last, will be paved by Denard Robinson's legs. That's the same. The difference? Michigan's defense has showed itself this year to be, dare I say, reliable? A not great but supposedly good SDSU offense was held for the most part in check.

Offense:
Denard's legs. That will be the key. His passing has continually been inconsistent and shotty the whole season. The 300 yd passing performance against ND is definitely the exception and will never be the norm this season, unless drastic improvement has happens. But, man, oh man, do those legs move. Chalk another point up to Al Borges. He has shown adaptability once again. Was that speed option we saw? Yes, yes it was. If Borges can find a way to keep the running game interesting for opposing defense while Robinson, finds whatever it is he's looking for in the passing game than I really like our chances heading into, B1G play.

The RB situation isn't resolved yet. I still like what Fitz brings to the table as an every down back, But, just like it has taken me a while to come around on Jordan Kovacs being undeniable, one can not simply deny Vincent Smith. The kid plays bigger than he is and is also able to squeeze through holes that no other back could squeeze through. With Denard's legs opening up plays for both backs I am quite okay with having 2 viable options.

The offensive line is really hard to talk about as well, Denard... He runs they look good. They didn't really allow much pressure getting to Robinson and MANball is becoming less and less a part of the offense so that's good.

Any and all WR performances can be extrapolated strictly from the ND game. If they've shown anything this past week it's that, they block and stay engaged in the offense even when the ball isn't coming there way. That's a good thing because from the looks of it all we are going to need them doing as much of that as possible this season.

Defense:
SDSU came into this game averaging 38 ppg and 428 yds a game. Michigan held the Aztecs to just 7 points and jsut 368 yds of offense. The surprisingly good thing about this feat is that the D was able to hold SDSU when many of their possessions started in or near Michigan territory. The D was also able to continue their streak of timely turnovers, forcing 3, all from inside Michigan territory. Michigan defenses of the past 3 seasons would not be able to do such things, considering SDSU has an NFL prospect QB and one of the nations top rushers this is a well recognized feat. Can the defense continue to causing these timely turnovers consistently into league play? No... it won't happen. Yes this is a bummer but there are other things to hang your hat on.

CB depth!? We has it? I won't go that far, but it's better than I can ever recall it being. As soon as Floyd followed Woolfolk to the sideline, I was waiting for the ball to drop and for Ryan Lnidley to have his way with  the secondary. Highly recruited freshman Blake Countess came in and seemingly picked up right where the defense left off.

There are you are D-line, there you are. In my season previews I said, Michigan's best unit on the field defensively would be the D-line. 4 games into the season, I finally look kinda smart for say that. Mike Martin, was blasting into the backfield causing pressure on Lindley all afternoon. If it wasn't Martin, it seemed like it was VanBergen, if it wasn't VanBergen it was definitely Roh, who inched closer to my 12 sack prediction with another one. If William Campbell can continue to improve which, from my opinion is happening, this unit should be able to keep building momentum into B1G play and be a stronghold for the defense this season.

Special Teams:
Any kicker can miss a 40 yarder on any given Saturday. It just sucks that it happened to be Michigan's kicker, again not relieving any stress out of that position. One more miss and I'll be screaming for a switch to Wile or student body tryouts part 2. Jeremy Gallon is the best punt-return option we've had in quite some time and he's proved it. Now obviously with all special teams my emotions are week to week with them. Right now we've got a good thing going lets keep it that way.

Good Feeling To Take Home With You:
Through non-conference play the team is 4-0. I don't care how they got here or what the last 2 seasons say, I'd rather be here with this team than have any losses in our record. There's something about this team that I'm vibing with. The defense isn't perfect, but they are better and every guy is saying the right thing and it just feels like their minds and approach this year are in a better state than the previous undefeated starts. Every starter on this team has seen and undefeated start and they've all seen how badly they've gone. That experience I believe carries this team through this season and the B1G collapse that has plagued this team previous years won't happen again this go-round.

Preview: Notre Dame

Finally...Also, did I just sell out to Adidas? Damnit...

Who, What, When, Where, Weather
Who: Notre Dame: Line ND (-3)
What: FIRST EVER NIGHT GAME AT THE BIG HOUSE!
When: 8:00 p.m. Eastern
Where: Ann Arbor, MI
Weather: Hi 72, 40% chance of Thunderstorms <--- jokes right?

Offense vs. Notre Dame:
So, South Florida's offense last year came in nestled right between Purdue and Ball State in the national rankings at 105th nationally in yds/gm.  This year they came into South Bend minus their leading rusher and leading receiver from a year ago. They also play in the Big East, which ties with the MAC and C-USA in conferences that are good... Well, probably behind the MAC.  They did bring with them a somewhat experienced line and a returning quarterback who came in with a stunning 1685 yds passing from last season. That was the offense ND held last week in a monsoon to 254 total/yds. Forgive me if I am not superdy-duper impressed.

This ND defense is the same defense that got torched last year by Navy and Tulsa and then had a stretch of success toward the end of the season. Well was it really success? 3 points given up to Army. But seriously, is Army (no shots here towards service men) still D-1? ND held USC to only 16 points in another monsoon vs. the Trojan back-up QB, who couldn't compete with Mallett at Arkansas and transfered to USC. Lastly, Miami looked about as interested in playing in the Sun-Bowl, as I am toward watching a 7 year-old girls ballet instead of Michigan football on Saturdays, when they threw up only 17 on the scoreboard in the their bowl game last year. They finished 51st nationally, so that's something... but again... I dunno, call me a homer but, I'm not impressed. Michigan's Defense got torched by everybody because of every reason under the sun, mainly talent and scheme. ND's defense is stacked with 4-5* talent and got torched by Tulsa and Navy. This game, just like for Michigan in all aspects is going to be a huge barometer of where both teams are in all aspects of their team.

I'm not sure if only running 39 plays last week is a good thing or a bad thing. Both? Michigan obviously didn't show much last week, but they also didn't get to run much against somebody who's not themselves. I don't think they would have shown much on offense either way so, damn you rain... damn you. So we'll go off what we know. Last year, this happened and it'll never get old, so yah...

I remember the gentleman sitting in front of me last year at ND, repeating himself stop Denard and you stop them. Well sir you didn't stop Denard. I think ND's coaching staff will maybe take that note to heart to this year.Denard Robinson alone compiled 502 yds of total offense against the Irish defense last year but you already knew that. The team as a whole had 532. ND will be keying on #16. But how?

I don't think Borges will hold anything back this week offensively and you will see a heavy dose of Denard. However other than a play here or there I don't think Denard packages will be deployed early in the game unless we get down quickly. Michigan will hold the element of surprise in this one as Michigan didn't run much, if anything from under center last year against the Irish, save the Hopkins goal line touchdown.

I'd like to think we will see more toward that 70% shotgun distribution we saw last week before the hurricane rolled through. Look for a good dose of Fitz running power out of the gun with quick dump offs to the receivers. ND has experience all over on defense and there's no need to take risky shots early here.

What To Watch For:
ND's experience vs. Al Borges' mind. Pretty much everybody who will be strapping up for the Irish on Saturday was a witness to the Denard Robinson show last year. One would suspect that this will help them in their endeavor this year. However, Michigan has a new mad genius at offense who will be trying to add some new acts to the show this year. I like the idea of Michigan trying to establish the run early and saving Denard for later. Michigan's offense was able to torch this defense last year and I don't see any glaring reason why they shouldn't be able to emulate much of the same success.

If you come at me with, "but, scheme change", stop it. Just... stop it.

Defense vs. Notre Dame
For all the success that Michigan's offense had last year in this game. ND's offense had 3 more total yds (535). That was last year and this is, this year, which means Notre Dame should put up yards. However, last season the Irish looked much better when led by Dayne Crist and I still place the non Denard Robinson portion of last years victory to Crist's injury. Crist threw for 277 yds on 13-25 passing in limited action for 2 TD's. Nate Montana and tomorrows starter Tommy Rees combined to go 8-19 for 104 yds and 2 INT's.

Rees and Crist had a heated QB battle through spring and fall camp after Rees impressed the second half of last season for ND.That battle ended early in the South Florida game last week with Brian Kelly's head exploding.

Crist was yanked after going 7-15 for 95 yds and 1 INT. Rees came in and promptly went 24-34 for 296 yds 2 TD's and 2 INT's. Rees proved himself last year at the end of the season and I wouldn't look for seeing Crist on the field this year. Brian Kelly will roll with Rees. Flip-Flopping QB's in what many consider a must win isn't ideal. All three interceptions thrown last week were terrible passes. Two of them were late and way behind the receiver and 1 doinked off a recievers head who wasn't looking for the ball. These QB's do have one of the top 3 receivers, in my mind, to throw the ball to in Michael Floyd.

Michigan was getting picked apart by Alex Carder last week until Greg Mattison went blitz happy. Brian Kelly's spread is definitely leaned towards a passing spread and this will be exploited on Saturday truly testing Michigan's revamped defensive scheme. Personal feelings aside, Floyd is a stud and scares the willies right out of me. Michigan's front four will need to apply pressure, something they weren't able to do last week, this will allow the defense to drop more into coverage hopefully, and I do mean hopefully, stopping Rees to Floyd happening on the regular and making Rees turnover prone like he was last week. Avery/Floyd and Woolfolk will have their work cut out for them. I would think with Woolfolk's speed and experience he will be the guy matched up over Floyd mostly.

Notre Dame's rushing offense was 87th last season. Cierre Wood will lead the attack this season.  The season on the ground started out respectable this year with 117 yds on the ground for 4 ypc. The running game did add to the turnover fest that took place with a fumble that resulted in 6 points for the Bulls. Notre Dame hasn't been a smash mouth running team since before the days of Weis (man I miss that guy), so don't expect them to pound the rock when Michigan's secondary is what it is, unless ND can find success on the edge. Here's to hoping that Craig Roh and whomever lines up opposite Roh at DE can keep contain.

What To Watch For:
Pay attention to 2 things. First Michigan's front four applying pressure vs. Tommy Rees. It will only be a good thing if Mike Martin and gang can apply pressure so that Kovacs and the like don't have to come down into the box. This is most likely not going to happen as ND has an experienced line and it didn't get done last week against JuCo transfers against Western. If they can apply pressure look for Rees to make a bad decision or two resulting in a couple takeaways for the defense.

The latter is dependent on if the first happens or not. If the front four can't apply pressure watch to see how Mattison can adjust his gameplan. Figuring out a way to apply pressure without leaving Floyd and the other receivers painstakingly open will be clutch.

Special Teams:
Just hold onto the ball. A field goal or two would be nice.

What to Watch For:
Kickoff coverage vs. big plays. Last week was scary, lets not do that again K? Thnx.

Prediction:
First ever night game at the Big House, around 115k going bonkers...  if the Wolverines have ever had a home field advantage due to the game time atmosphere tomorrow is it. Notre Dame has scared me for the past 2 years and this year is no different and I don't know why. They should've blown USF out but turned the ball over 5 times and didn't. Notre Dame also wasn't able to defeat Michigan for the past 2 years when M was ummm, subpar to say the least.

Denard Robinson, I believe, is going to get his probably not 502 yds of getting his, but will be very effective. You don't tear someone up for 502 come back the next year against the same guys and get shut down. I said it in my preseason prediction that this game was a toss-up to me and it still is. After the last 2 seasons, until ND beats Michigan, I don't think it will happen. Michigan is going to squeak out another thriller. Michigan Wins: 31-27

About Last Night: Recap Western

Why is Hoke  not pointing at the clouds, making them break up?

If I recall correctly, it was around, oh I dunno, 6ish when my mind was super excited that the event that is a Michigan football Saturday would carry right up to or into the Oregon v. LSU game that I cared nothing about. I was outside firing up the grille in Grand Rapids, waiting for the rain to stop. Then something strange happened and it was just like, over, done, no mas. "Wait, what?"

I'm glad I had the foresight to record the game on my television at home. I was going to need to watch again. After the two delays and the beverages I began to forget all the things I had just watched and began looking for affirmation from my friends that the game was actually over and also trying to collect bits of what all I had just seen. Did Michigan ever have the ball? Denard really didn't take one of his runs a bazillion yards to the house? Our defense ran those blitz things and scored a touchdown?...wait, did you say, TWO touchdowns!?

I went back and watched the game. After just less than 3 full quarters the opener was over. Brady Hoke started his career 1-0. Minimal was seen/learned from the offense. The defense showed some things that were known and some things that were a pleasant surprise. Observations?... Observations.

Offense:
This section is going to look just like the game. Abbreviated. For those of you worried about the move out of the spread, Michigan ran about from the gun, 70% of the time. Al Borges would like you to believe that will not be the ratio that we as fans shall see the remainder of the season.

 “No, no … no. The game had no balance to it with regard to that. If we had played a fourth quarter, we would have been right about where we wanted it.”

I don't buy it. But with only 39 plays to judge off, I'm going to be smart here and hold off on judgement. One thing I can take away from the game, was my ever growing love-fest for Fitz Toussaint. He was just shy of 7 ypc and had that nice 43 yd scamper. He looked like that dude I saw in his High School highlight tape that made me giddy (please stay healthy). Shaw also impressed on his run. Until something shows me we need to worry, we should all feel good about our running-back situation.  

Just like the game, I'm going to hold off on Denard until after the ND game. From what I saw he made one questionable throw but managed the other 38 plays well. Last years opener gave us 80 something plays to go off of.

Defense:

Those first two drives made me nauseous. Just like last year. There were no deep balls, just methodical dumps down the field doing exactly what every lowly team in college football would've done last year. Then something, dare I say aMAIZEing, happened. 1:53 into the video.

Yes, that was the defense about to get scored on, running that thing our defense used to know as a blitz, causing a turnover and completely changing the outlook of a game. I know, I'll give you a second to comprehend that run-on sentence... You good? Alright on with it we go. 

Until Michigan's secondary and linebacking corps are substantially better Michigan is going to have to figure out ways to get pressure on the QB something GERG, as we all know, struggled with. Well, this dude Mattison gets it yo. If it's not working don't keep doing it. Bringing 4 down lineman wasn't working and so Mattison went blitz happy and Alex Carder's back was finding that luscious Michigan field turf regularly.  

The defense went from getting torched on 3 consecutive drives, to shutting down the Bronco attack. Jordan Kovacs isn't a walk on anymore and if anyone should question this. He will personally do this to your face.

If you need to see it at full speed here you go.

This defense is going to be scary and I think it will take a few games until we know exactly who to suspect we'll see on the field that'll be scaring us. JT Floyd was supposed to start but he didn't Frank Clark was supposed to be the freshman on the field most, but correct me if I am wrong, Brennen Beyer was that guy. Also Carvin Johnson got some time back at safety and then Marvin Robinson showed up on the field. That'll be an interesting battle to see play out. Last player note is Big Will Campbell did see the field but did nothing of note. I think until he's not here I am always going to cross my fingers he finds whatever it is to make him the second coming of 2006 Alan Branch.

The most encouraging thing for this unit is, we have a coordinator in place who seems pretty good at making in-game adjustments and isn't just hoping the other team screws up.

Special Teams:
UGHH... It's always something isn't it? One of these times the special teams will win us a game and my head will explode.

Good Feeling To Take Home With You:
Congrats to Brady Hoke. Who, even in the biggest moment of his career followed his team out of the tunnel and made it about the 115 of them and not himself. I wanna give the dude a big hug.

Quickies: The Committee In The Backfield

The Low Down: Did Denard Robinson count as a running back last year? No? Shoot... Unlike the days yore, Michigan's running back situation was more of a running back by committee last season. If you would've asked Fred Jackson he would've said the committee had the same skill set but only better than this committee...
 

Remember these guys?

We know this not to be true... So what was the committee?
Presumed starter last year, I guess was, scat-back extrordinaire Vincent Smith. He did lead the team in rushing yards outside of Shoelace. Behind him was Brandon Minor version 2.0, Mike Shaw, who ran with rage right into lingering injuries. The 3rd back in the mix was meaty freshman, Stephen Hopkins. Next up, was high-school highlight tape super-star, Fitz Toussaint. Toussaint has been victim of the nagging injury plague seemingly, since his arrival on campus. He did take his first career carry 61 yds and followed it up with a TD on his next run. The official MGoBlue website lists his position last year as "superback", so that must be good... Lastly, we had Mike Cox who's career stat-line looks like one helluva good game: 19 carries 169 yds 2 TD's... The big problem with Cox, has been his lack of knowledge on the playbook.

If the committee was one, the committee back would've come in 19th in the country with 1297 yds on 264 carries. Not to shabby... The problem in my mind is that's 4 dudes who totaled just a smidgen under 400 yds less than your quarterback. But, then my mind is all like, "Denard though?"... "Denard..." Rich Rodriguez was fighting for his job and he needed to do what he had to do to win. None of the backs stood out more than the others so he stuck with what worked, Denard left, Denard right, Denard pass, Denard left, so on and so forth...

1 Year Later:
MANBALL!!! 1 RUNNING BACK!!! I wanted to stop here, but better judgement said I'd be selling you short.

Since Brady Hoke came in, he has placed an emphasis on this team establishing a power run game with a feature back to take the work load. I would suspect that of the 264 carries all the running backs combined got last year, Hoke and Borges would like to see about all of those go to 1 guy. The rest of the carries that don't go to Denard will be divided up between everybody else.

General consensus back in the spring was probably that you'd see Michael Cox or Stephen Hopkins take charge by the fall as the lead back. Both are bigger, stronger, bruising backs. Cox, who committed to this style of play for Lloyd Carr, was definitely excited to be back to running downhill...

“When I came in, I committed to coach Carr, and I committed to this type of system,” Cox said. “I'm definitely happy to be back in the system that I came here for.”

Much has seemed to change from then till now however. Michigan brought in two pretty highly-regarded recruits in consensus 4* Justice Hayes and under-the-radar 3* Thomas Rawls. Hayes was more fit for the spread and is likely to be a slot-type player for Michigan. He likely won't see the field for Michigan this year as a running back, but fall-camp reports suggest that, he could return punts or kicks. Rawls is like Mark Ingram only better. What say you Fred Jackson?

“Honestly, I did get a chance to watch Mark Ingram a few times,” Jackson said. “Mark is probably one of the best guys ever to come through here. Mark was great, but there’s something about this kid Thomas. If I was to compare them as high school backs, give me Thomas Rawls.”

So there's that... And then there's this..
Fitz Toussaint apparently blew up at the scrimmage last Saturday causing the internetz to go into an uproar and as recent as 8-23 Shaw is the projected default starter due to consistency.Vincent Smith is also pretty much locked into a 3rd down back. He's a great blocker and causes some matchup problems out of the backfield, with his pass catching abilities. There hasn't been much news on Cox or Hopkins, so with those guys we'll see.

I Know I'm Forgetting Something... OHH YAH... Fullback... Guess What? We will use one this year. John McColgan will be it and  I suspect that he will be relieved by Stephen Hopkins (maybe Steve Watson too) from time to time. 

Expectations: What is them?
Umm...

Seriously, I want to sound smart here and say X, Y, & Z are for sure going to happen, but really if you have an idea, maybe you could email me and I'll post it. So, since this is my blog and nobody takes me seriously I am just going to take what I do know and mix it in with my best educated guess.

EDIT: I had this post about ready to go, got busy, and over the weekend Michigan had their scrimmage. Brady Hoke announced Shaw would most likely be the starter, more than likely backed up by Fitz.

So before the presser, I would've said Shaw starts by default, maybe gets backed up Fitz and only that because of practice hype. Thanks for reaffirming my thoughts Brady, I appreciate it.  Yeah, Shaw will start, how long his body can take the pounding of being the man at running-back, is yet to be determined. I like Fitz backing him up and taking over if Shaw goes down, if only for the reason I've had an affinity for Fitz since the first time I saw the gold that was his high-school highlight tape.

How good the offense looks early will be very important for the stat line of the RB's, If the offense struggles early, how long until Denard starts to see more and more designed runs? The offensive line in my opinion, should still be very solid and create many of  those running lanes for the backs. I will make my ridiculous prediction now and say that by the end of the season whomever our starting tailback is will amass over 1,000 yds by the end of the season. If I had to boldly predict who that'll be, I'd say Toussaint. That's my story and I am sticking to it. Next up, the wide receivers. As always, Go Blue!