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Something that doesn't get a lot of discussion -- even when the OL executes its assignments, plays usually don't get much. Or, at least, they don't get nearly enough for a perfectly executed play. The first running play of the game was perfectly executed and it went for 10 yards. There was another play UFRed where Onwenu drove his guy about five yards down the line of scrimmage, Higdon made a lovely cut behind him, and the play only went for 7 yards. That is what happens when you adequately or even perfectly execute against 8 men in the box and the defense still has a safety or two to clean up. We have a shit ton of running plays where it seems like your range of outcomes is somewhere between 7 and -2 yards, and you typically come out in about the middle of that. This is something that I have been complaining about for a few years now. The rushing offense has a low tolerance for mistakes and it doesn't have top end rewards to make up for it.
Edit: The passing game, on the surface, seems well designed to take advantage of defensive overreactions to the running game, but it requres great pass blocking and good downfield accuracy by the QB. We have nothing to punish defenses for rushing us with five or six on every passing play and that is baffling to me.
Last edited by Hannibal; October 3, 2017, 08:10 AM.
Coaches do exactly what Brian/Seth do with UFR; they watch the game tape and evaluate every player on every snap. Most the time UFR tells us what we already know: the offense can't run the ball because the OL is confused and over-matched...
Ulizio is a turnstile, opponents were having free shots on Speight all-season. None of M's numerous tight-ends (Bunting, Wheatley, McKeon, Eubanks, & Gentry) are decent blockers, would love to have Asiasi at TE to help the offensive line...
O'Korn looked good against an opponent who wasn't prepared for him but that opponent was Purdue. Great time for the bye week/ M is 4-0, we've a QB that needed reps, and the OL has a whole lot to work on.
........ I do know that a coordinator that can't get the job done can't stay. It can't happen. And if you're blaming "line calls" you're blaming the coach.
I've never played anything but flag football. I try to tread carefully with comments I might make. When I do make them, I try to understand, to the degree possible for a bystander, what the hell I'm talking about....... "line calls" for example.
Before yesterday, I had no idea what that was all about and I doubt other than a handful of people here do either. So, I looked it up. There's all kinds of information out there and web sites that talk about this mostly pertaining to youth football ..... that's a good level for me to start understanding what line calls are and how they affect OL play. Same thing with pre and post snap reads the offensive linemen need to make to be effective. Line calls and post snap reads are absolutely essential if a play is going to succeed; they can be simple, like they are for players starting out or complex like I suspect they are in Harbaughffense.
So, when you understand this stuff, it makes it pretty clear when Brian comments that he thinks maybe, "the line calls are wrong" why a completely missed block happened.
What we don't know is if this is on the coaching staff or on the player that makes these calls or players that make post snap reads and adjusts to that. I'm reluctant to point the finger at the coaching staff and in particular Drevno and Frey.
If the offensive line was made up of all 5th year seniors, then, maybe. But a good case can be made that offensive linemen take more than 2y in a system to be good at what they are supposed to do. There's one guy, ONE, on M's OL that has that kind of playing experience and that's LT Mason Cole.
The other four guys, all with more or less less than 2y experience actually playing appear to be struggling. Part of this is 6+ years, maybe more, of recruiting and depth issues. That is hard to overcome in 3 seasons. So there is that. What makes Alabama's, Clemson's and osu's OL so dominating is what I'd call the pipeline process and the depth to support it. M simply is not there yet.
So, is it coaching and does someone need to go? At this point, I'm not prepared to conclude that it's coaching.
What we do know, objectively, is that M's OL play is average. Football Outsiders has some excellent methods of ranking OL play. The 2017 numbers don't come out until after game 7 but we know what M's numbers were for 2016. Average is 100, above that is good, below that is bad. M's grade is 102, osu's is 135. In fact, in the BIG, M's OL play ranks in the lower 1/3.
No surprise there. I think it is safe to conclude at this point that there are two potential reasons for M's shitty offensive line play: (1) Skill/experience of the individual players, (2) OL coaching sucks. Choose one if your comfortable doing that.
Mission to CFB's National Championship accomplished. JH chased Saban from Alabama and caused Day, at the point of the OSU AD's gun, to make major changes to his staff just to beat Michigan. Love it. It's Moore!!!! time
Sure, sometimes with the UFR he spots tendencies or patterns that are enlightening. Its worth a read. But in this case it was painfully obvious about the OL, no big eureka moment there.
If teams are slanting, that should be handled by the play calling. I am sure they have a spotter up in the box, where their whole job is to see where the defensive line is lined up. Head up, ouside shoulder, crap like that. If teams are running a lot of slants against you, you have to have plays that run away from strength.
From my limited viewing, they have communication issues on the line, they are not on the same page.
They do, of course, they have full 22 film and know exactly what they expect from each player. That's the hard part of what Brian does.
As for slanting -- I mean, we ran a 50-slant in HS (embarrassingly enough, it was based on Bo's defense). Most defenses when I played ran slants -- we didn't have have DL that could two-gap. DL had 1 gap; LBs had 2. Very simple. Maybe that's changed drastically over the past 25 years, but I can't really fathom an OL not handling basic slant shit.
Usually when you get beat by a slanting DL it's because they're quicker than your OL, get under your pads and leverage the gap. When I watch some of the Purdue plays, it just looks like Purdue's DL is quick and M's OL is really not.
But, again, this is all based on football from two ages ago.
Dan Patrick: What was your reaction to [Urban Meyer being hired]? Brady Hoke: You know.....not....good.
I've been underwhelmed for the past two years by our Oline play but have been willing to wait and see how it looks after the coaches have had time to install, coach up, recruit, etc to fix the issue.
It's now year 3 and excuses are running thin. Yes, there are still lingering recruiting issues from Hoke era, but it's not like this wasn't known 3 years ago. The coaching staff hasn't helped themselves by stocking up on Oline talent to give them more bullets in the chamber, so to speak in order to overcome those past sins. The Grant Newsome injury really hangs over the performance of the Oline this year, but at the same time, the success of a unit can't be completely tied to 1 player after 3 years. We should have some depth, even if it is average quality depth, by now. That's on the coaches.
The reality is that the offense was best in Harbaugh's first year. I'm willing to give a pass for last year, but we should be better than we have been to date in year 3. Any of the excuses we are pointing to could have been corrected for by this staff by now.
I'm willing to see how we look post bye week, but that's about it. If we don't make significant progress through the rest of this year, I'm absolutely expecting some shake up in the assistants.
Well, at least Ekiyor is a guard and not a tackle, right?
I wonder if it's possible for Wheatley to bulk up enough to move to tackle. It was said in the recruiting cycle that he could end up that big, though a lot of things are said during recruiting.
You can access this video a bunch of different ways but it is the second in a series of very well done film analysis of several M v. Purdue plays. The author did this for AF too.
Now, I know, some of you think football isn't very deep. Fine. Go with that.
What this analysis does, somewhat better than Brian's UFRs is to examine what the QB is looking at, what he sees or doesn't see and the impact of route running by receivers (all types).
Just a guess, because unlike the coaching staff, we don't have video on all the offensive plays v. Purdue, but it still remains pretty clear that of the plays we can look at and analyze most of the breakdowns are a result of poor OL blocking ...... but in this analysis, you get a feel for 2 other things on pass plays: (1) how the defense sets and reacts and (2) how the receivers run the routes and are either open or covered from the QB's perspective.
I guess my point is that on any given play it's not the OL's problem alone. I think every presser we see, when asked about this, the wrote response is that a play doesn't work because of one thing; its multiple things.
Check out a full video analysis of Michigan's 2017 pass offense struggles, including multiple sacks and missed opportunities
Mission to CFB's National Championship accomplished. JH chased Saban from Alabama and caused Day, at the point of the OSU AD's gun, to make major changes to his staff just to beat Michigan. Love it. It's Moore!!!! time
I've been underwhelmed for the past two years by our Oline play........ we should be better than we have been to date in year 3. Any of the excuses we are pointing to could have been corrected for by this staff by now.
I'm willing to see how we look post bye week, but that's about it. If we don't make significant progress through the rest of this year, I'm absolutely expecting some shake up in the assistants.
I think this is a fair take.
Right now, the OL and RBs for that matter who are back there to block, aren't playing well enough to allow M's QBs and RBs, when carrying the ball to make plays. Close, but no cigar. Maybe the "improvement week" will help.
I think this sort of thing needs to be accounted for in assessing how well M's offense, with JOK at QB is going to play v. MSU. O'Korn does get happy feet; he does tend to throw into tight windows, under pressure, in the middle - the worst place to try to do that.
A few weeks ago, I took the position that Harbaughffense being power run based, was going to produce a lot of uncomfortable games for M fans. I thought an M offense that could score 21+ points was probably good enough given M's defense. As has been the case in the past, when M starts conference play and faces ever increasing talent levels on both sides of the ball, that position becomes less and less supportable.
C+, needs improvement.
Mission to CFB's National Championship accomplished. JH chased Saban from Alabama and caused Day, at the point of the OSU AD's gun, to make major changes to his staff just to beat Michigan. Love it. It's Moore!!!! time
Frey is new. Maybe he cans Drevno? It's certainly clear to me that in each and every year they've gotten the most out of their defensive talent. Even back when the linebackers were slow/young, there were weaknesses but not crippling ones. But similarly limited players on offense seem to be more of a challenge to mitigate. Bottomline tho we have two coaches specifically for OL and it's the biggest problem. Shouldn't be that way.
Still think there's too many chefs in the kitchen. Don't need 2 different guys coaching oline and don't need 3 guys helping call plays. That's what gameweek planning is for. Develop the concept of the gameplay then, and have Harbs or whoever he chooses call plays on Gameday.
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