About Last Night: Recap Eastern Michigan

Brady Hoke & Ron English discussing the craziness that is Denard under center...

Do you think Brady Hoke is discussing how dumb he realizes MANball is here, when he has Denard Robinson at his disposal? Probably not here but, if Al Borges and Hoke haven't realized it by now than we are in for 12 games of ridiculously sloppy offensive first quarters. Where upon, by the end of said first quarter a bolt of lightning will strike Borges in the head reminding him we had to run Denard 29 times to beat Eastern. As inadequate as the defense looked on those first few EMU drives, the offense looked like Akron going against the Alabama defense. If you've allowed your mind to remember anything from Notre Dame that isn't the fourth quarter you'll remember all those early game drives that made you do nothing but face palm.

12 plays, 32 yds. Interception, Punt, Punt. Guh... Denard went on the rest of the game being Denard and Michigan won 31-3. Minus the first 2 opponent drives of games, I'm scarily allowing myself to pseudo-like our defense, which my reasoning I will discuss, but they've consistently shown enough this year to make me not hate them...

Offense:
I have to call myself out. When this season started, I didn't predict that the minimal MANball, our offense would run would be a very difficult transition. I was... what's the word? Wrong, that's it, I was wrong. Power-I couldn't be run against Eastern. When Denard isn't tossing up rainbows to Junior Hemingway, he's looked shaky and I haven't done a statistical analysis but the structures of common knowledge would lead me to bet that, YPC is significantly lower than runs out of the gun. Running zone for 3 years straight doesn't translate into  man blocking well and I thought it would. Other than being tall, lengthy, and remotely fast, this is why I didn't play Offensive Line.

After 3 series of this MANball, I-formation stuff not working, Denard got to be Denard. Thus ensued Michigan racking up 376 yds rushing, because the threat of Denard, handing off, running, or throwing is much scarier to a defense than, him sitting in the pocket, frantically panting the ball, or handing it off to a running back going straight up the middle.

I mean you guys have all seen it too right? I can think of Vincent Smith's long run, the Koger TD pass, and the Dileo TD pass all prime examples of why Denard being the focal point of this offense needs to stay true for the next 2 seasons. Sorry MANball but you will have to wait while we have a, dreaded water bug as our QB. Kudos to Borges, because he's saw what was happening, realized how he's going to win games and strayed far, far away from whatever that is, that we try to run from under center from time to time.

Passing the ball has scared me. I feel like Lloyd Carr on 3rd & long every time their is a pass. Denard has taken steps backwards, and I don't know why. It'll be interesting to see if the passing game starts to reflect the running game and digs into the Rich Rodriguez playbook.

Defense:
Why this defense always starts out slow is beyond me. The logical explanation is that Mattison is feeling the opponent out. Well, if that's the case... Stop feeling the opponent. Howeva, if you were to tell me that Michigan would be tied for 5th in the country in turnovers forced I'd have called you a liar. So if cupping a good feel on our opponents will lead to turnovers I'm all for it. The defense gave up 196 yds in first half (147 on first 3 drives) and Eastern only gained 236 on the day.

Let me be sentimental for a moment here. I love a defense that can adjust mid-game. It's like having a crush on the pretty girl and finally getting her. At first you're just infatuated and angry that it's not working out and then something clicks you change your approach and boom. You got the girl. Now, this is probably an exaggeration. Well, not probably, it is, we aren't that good yet. But, allowing that few points and that few amount of yards against anybody after the past 3-4 years was rewarding and the signs of an improving defense are there.

Eastern never really threw it so judging our secondary on the day is difficult. Thomas Gordon is looking better and better and that interception was smooth. Allowing outside runs to break contain is a concern on the DL. I like Jake Ryan to keep improving and hopefully the problems that have plagued him are coachable and he can hold that spot down.Craig Roh finally let the opponent know he was on the field and made some plays. My season prediction of 12 sacks is looking bleak but one can hope. Jibreel Black has also been a positive on the D-line, rotating in for Roh. Also, unless I'm my eyes are blind to what I hope to see, William Campbell has not looked bad when he's seen the field. Let us all hope this continues.

Greg Mattison is a great coordinator. He can, as they say, in the cool defensive circles, "adjust".

Special Teams:
Michigan has made 100% of their field goals. Jeremy Gallon can field punts and do something after catching all the while, I don't need to scream at the television for him to hold on to the ball. This is improvement.

Let's not squib kick at the end of the half ever again okay?

Good Feeling To Take Home With You:
Al Borges isn't going to regulate one of the greatest talents in America. He will play to his talents ie.) Denard. Something else Borges did very well, was setting up plays out of the zone-read. It was really nice on the Dileo touchdown pass to go back watch the game and see how the 3-4 plays ahead of that set that play up. The dude can call plays and at the end of the day if Denard is healthy he will let Denard be Denard to win games.

As Always, Go BLUE.

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 D-Line

This, We'll See Tons of This (Fingers Crossed)

The Low Down:

In 2009, Brandon Graham got held on every single play and last year our undersized d-line only brought three and the defense gave up 4.5yds a rush (insert a knock on the 3-3-5 followed by some rabble, rabble). Craig Roh, who showed promise as a true freshman being a rush end was moved to more of a hybrid-esque linebacker position. Mike Martin at NT and Ryan VanBergen at SDE (Strong Defensive End) were the staples in the line. At DT we had platoon between Greg Banks, Renaldo Sagesse, and Adam Patterson. William Campbell was on the D-Line and then he wasn't, after an uninspiring freshman campaign and a not so awesome start to the season, that saw him basically only see the field in a goal line run package as a blocker. Quinton Washington essentially flopped spots with Campbell mid season, but to my recollection didn't see the field on the D-Line.

The team alone only had 18 sacks coming in for a not so solid 93rd in the country. VanBergen and Martin are our 2 returning sack leaders with 6.5 between the 2 of them. Greg Banks (2) and Adam Patterson (1) were the only other lineman to register a sack. I'm not counting Roh's (0.5) because as far as I'm concerned he was a LB. If you're searching for a moral victory defensively after last season, Michigan did have more TFL's (Tackles For Loss) than little bro last year. Michigan came in 73rd while Sparty came in 86th nationally. Again, outside Roh, VB (8.5) and Martin (6.0) are the only players along the line that returning with stats in this category.  

I've said it once, and I'll say it again, that 3-3-5 thing, whatever it was, wasn't conducive to our defense (any aspect of it) at being good. With the 3 down lineman trying to plow through these big manball offenses in the Big Ten, pressure isn't going to be applied and more often than not your best player (Martin) will be getting double teamed and taken out of the play. This also as mentioned allows the lineman to get to the second level easier making it much more difficult for LB's to step up and make a play. 

1 Year Later:

Brady Hoke and Greg Mattison are both former D-Line coaches, so you know they will coach the group especially hard and expect much from this group. This is evident by the constant coaching and expectations on Martin, who has taken notice and been one of the teams key leaders this off season and early into camp. 

In hindsight I am pleased I couldn't get to this post last week, as my thoughts and opinions would most likely have turned out to be pretty inaccurate. A week or two ago, I say the 2-deep ends up something like this...

WDE	DT	NT	SDE
Roh	Campbell	Martin	Vanbergen
Black	Ash	Q. Washington	Heininger

Now one week later, there's some rumors out there that this might be the case...

WDE	DT	NT	SDE
Roh	Vanbergen	Martin	Brink
Black	Campbell	Q. Washington	Heininger

Damn you internets... Damn you...

No Freshman on the 2-deep quite yet, but keep an eye out for Frank Clark, who basically traded spots with  other freshman Brennan Beyer. Clark has been generating a substantial amount of buzz through fall camp. I would expect to see him in pass rushing situations only as size wise it'll be hard for him to hold the line and play the run effectively.

Let me butter you up with the good stuff, Mike Martin and Ryan VanBergen return to anchor the line. These two guys, past Brandon Graham, have been the 2 most consistent players on the defense I can recall over the past 3 seasons. Both have added some weight and appear to be primed for great seasons. Martin is set up for another All Big-Ten Caliber season, with a huge chance to improve his draft stock. Rittenberg gives him his #10 spot in his preseason top-25 player rankings. Craig Roh is getting moved back to where he belongs, on the line with his hand in the dirt. Roh also got jacked up over the summer bumping his weight up from 251 to 269. There hasn't been much hype about Roh since the inception of fall camp, let us for now attribute that to the illness rumors floating around Roh. PLZ DON'T BE MONO.

The elephant in the room... Will Campbell...  It was reported shortly after Brady Hoke's hire that Campbell was moving back to defense and that Hoke and Mattison were going to make a point out of developing the 5-star recruit. It appeared early in the fall that Will was on his way to doing what the coaches asked of him to be a major factor in this front 4. He was even praised by Hoke for his commitment to the team by meeting his weight goals.

“Will Campbell left spring at 342 pounds and came in at 316, 319,” he said. “Just watching him move around and do those things, you can see that. That’s a commitment. A commitment is always important - he showed his teammates he’s made a commitment."

Then this gritty, hard working walk-on, named Nathan Brink popped up, and Campbell's consistency has been a cause for concern. At first it seemed like your typical fall camp overachieving all-star like hype, but sounds like kids' got game. Mattison on Brink.

"He has come out every day as tough as he can. He listens to [defensive line coach Jerry Montgomery] on every word. When he tells him to step a certain way, he tries to step a certain way. And he's really, really physical." …

"In the spring it was mentioned a number of times because his toughness stuck out like crazy," Mattison said.

Nothing is set in stone and I am a huge proponent of the best players on the field, but how disappointing would it be to see Big Will not being able to beat out an under-sized walk on for the starting role. I'm still keeping my fingers crossed and that, the coaches are just toying around with different options and the rumors of Will barely hanging out with the 2's are just of the motivational type fluff.

With Terry Talbott off the team with a medical exemption, the depth on the line is thin and it's vital that Will and/or Q. Washington really step up their game. This team desperately needs a player at the DT position to take the pressure off of Mike Martin. If teams are allowed to double team Martin because he gets no help in the middle we could have some serious concerns.

Expectations: What is them?

3 things in my mind are cut and dry. Martin, VanBergen, and Roh. That 4th spot will be a mystery until either Sept 3rd or when Brady Hoke releases the depth chart. If Will Campbell isn't there at the beginning of the season, I will be worried about the production of this unit and more importantly if Campbell will ever amount to a productive member of this team. VanBergen is big enough to move inside but what does that do to the SDE position? Hello Brink or Heininger? Maybe Jibreel Black but most reports have him somewhere in the doghouse.

So with all the uncertainty, I'm gonna go out on a limb here and make a highly and most likely inaccurate and very flimsy prediction. Will Campbell, will take a hint and will be consistent enough by seasons start to secure the starting role at DT. VanBergen, like never leaves the field so, when Will goes off expect VanBergen to move inside bringing Nathan Brink, the defensive line's Jordan Kovacs  on the field at the SDE position.
To take my flimsy uneducated prediction further, VanBergen and Martin will both be All Big-Ten, and Roh will be right on the cusp of All Big-Ten. This unit, as long as someone can step up to take double teams off Martin, should be able to apply more pressure to the backfield than what was seen last year. This as stated before should help the secondary and free up the LB's to read/react and make plays. Improvement, my friends improvement.

Up next: Now instead of talking about how crappy the 3-3-5 kind was, I get to over speculate on if this offense will take a step back under Borges or not. I'll get it out of the way and start with the QB's. As always, Go Blue.