Michigan 20, Northwestern, 17

[Jeff Buchanan]

Are you talking Zone v. Man on the back-end? I think Zone is more read and react and Brown has increased the use of this in 2018 to a certain extent. v. spready teams like neb is, he deployed a 40/60 zone v. man defense on the back end. That was up from 2017's 20/80 split.

[WM Wolverine]

Man with cover 1 is and has been Brown's base defense, with some man with some cover 2 in 2nd/3rd and long situations.

[WingsFan]

Watched the game last night without emotion, ( I was wound up pretty damn tight game time) not as bad I thought. Where would we be without Chase? NW started double teaming him in the 2nd opening up for other guys.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Man with cover 1 is and has been Brown's base defense, with some man with some cover 2 in 2nd/3rd and long situations.

Yeah, Brian at mgo thinks the C2 indicates zone and C1 man. If you watch live from stands when they drop 2 Ss (2 hi) the CBs play just slightly looser but not that 10y back BS. As a pass play unfolds, the LBs drop and some kind of handoff goes on between those guys, the CBs and the Ss. It's hard to figure out from our typical viewpoints and video is scarce.

[Jeff Buchanan]

For Rocky's concerns about D. Brown's aggressive D. From Brian's post at mgo:

Michigan is first in yards per pass attempt allowed. That is sack-inclusive and not directly attributable to the defensive backs; it also does not ding Michigan for what has to be a significantly larger than average number of PI-and-related flags. But it's still clearly an approach that works even if they're giving up a couple first downs per game because they get too aggressive.

I like M's defensive approach; some don't and suggest less aggression. The numbers suggest this strategy is a good one.

[Jeff Buchanan]

On the flip side, I'm not enamored with Harbaughffense even though I think the concept is sound. It seems to me that it could be implemented better. Again from Brian:

I try not to be That Guy, but here's a That Guy section. At crucial junctures in this game Michigan's playcalling was abject. Two different two-play sequences stand out:

• Michigan has a third and two nearing field goal range. On third down Patterson throws a WR screen to Nico Collins that gets one yard because Northwestern's CBs are five yards off. On fourth down Michigan runs a slow-developing power play featuring Mike Onwenu pulling into Paddy Fisher, the #1 run-stuff guy in the country last year. Fisher blows Onwenu up in the backfield, turnover on downs.
• With second and goal from the three Michigan runs split zone from the gun; a Northwestern DE dives underneath the split block and Higdon gets stuffed two yards in the backfield. On third and goal Michigan runs a fade to Grant Perry, who is not 6'8", or 6'6", or 6'5".

?

I think the issue of who's calling the plays on offense is settled. It's Harbaugh. But the Franklin call on 4th and 5 does tend to raise the question of by whom and how is Harbaugh informed of in-game data that might inform the play selection? He has a play sheet but that is pre-game data. In game data is important and I can't believe he's not getting it from the press box. We can probably assume Franklin got the data before he made his call and called the play from his gut, not informed by data. That's not always a bad thing - it turned out bad for Franklin.

When you look at Brian's critique of the the plays in question it's like WTF??? Is it no time to get the data and make a well informed decision or is it that the data has reached the head-set of JH and he's doing what Franklin did - a call from the gut. Stop!

[Jeff Buchanan]

Oh, we're sorry ...... it was a bad call (the penalty on Higdon erasing Patterson's well executed RO sprint for 28 yards).

What will happen? Nothing of substance. Guy who made the call will get extra study time in the rule book and will show up at the MSU, PSU, Wisconsin or osu game to deliver payback to Harbaugh for telling on him.

https://articles.mlive.com/wolverines/index.ssf/2018/10/jim_harbaugh_big_ten_admitted_1.amp

[WM Wolverine]

The WR screen failed not because of Nico but because of a whiff of a block (DPJ I think). WRs missed blocks on critical third downs in the ND game too.

Some of those runs where you're trying to get your RB to the edge requires good blocks by a receiver that Ms receivers haven't made this season.

[Rocky Bleier]

Are you talking Zone v. Man on the back-end? I think Zone is more read and react and Brown has increased the use of this in 2018 to a certain extent. v. spready teams like neb is, he deployed a 40/60 zone v. man defense on the back end. That was up from 2017's 20/80 split.

Urban Meyer owns Don Brown. Dave Warner owns Don Brown. Brian Kelly owns Don Brown. Until that changes, nothing else matters. And Harbaugh's offense is not dynamic enough to play those teams from behind.

[Jeff Buchanan]

NW UFR Defense was up last night. There were a couple decent points made:

Ross is you're starting WLB or should be. Gill was a disaster and Brian credited him with two NW scores in the first quarter for screwing up coverage on slants. Kinnel had his share of derps on those plays too. Now, let's here what Brown had to say about this which he admits he's touchy about criticism of M's D to cover these well:



I think this is instructive for armchair fans. We tend to focus in on the trees and forget to see the forest when that's what we ought to be seeing. Brown goes on:



Slants and Screens? Sure, I don't think M's D is well suited to shut these down for several reasons: (1) a weakness in player technique and fundamentals that Brown rightly takes responsibility for. He'll work on teaching those instead of harping on the players for not making plays. IOW it's his fault they aren't. Cool. (2) This kind of play is a weakness of Brown's D as he deploys it. It shouldn't be. Press-Man coverage dissuades a QB from throwing to the flat or a quick slant ...... that's if the scheme isn't doing some kind of hand off to LBs and it appears that it is. IOW, the CBs appear to drop rather than follow their man when a slant is developing thus handing coverage off to LBs. Not only is that a coverage mis-match but the hand off consumes the second or two that a QB like Thorson has to throw the ball to the slanting receiver. Brian points out that got changed in the second half and it was Hill or Long that were in coverage on two back to back incompletions on those type of plays ...... adjustments. NW stopped using them.

But Brown's point in his interview yesterday (he did not mention the defensive tactic of getting Hill and Long back inot covering the slants) is that he'll take the weakness and the occasional busted plays (e.g., poor tackling on one slant that went for 36y) that produces a defensive outcome that holds an opponent to 17 points and around 200 yards and an offensive outcome producing enough points to win (the forest thing).

In other mentions: Winovich, Hudson and Bush were dominant. Duwmfor got blown away, most notably on NW second TD from inside the 5. Dwumfor is not a good run stopper - he's Mo Hurst in his Sophomore year though with a lot of promise. Pressure metric and coverage metric (slow start but overall) were good.