Maryland @ Michigan, Saturday, October 6th, Noon EDT, ABC National/espn3 video

[Detroit Dan]

Could be one of those rain delay games. Ugh.

[Tslisher]

Hope not - that would suck. But its raining now where I am about 20 miles from Ann Arbor. No lightning though.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Tslisher .... I think we are saying just about the same thing. What you call wearing down the opponent is what I'm calling turteling. Your view tends to be glass half full, mine, glass have empty - or a bit on the negative side.

I sat through the NW game at Ryan Field. It was frustrating.. First because for the most of the early going and into the later Patterson was off and so were his receivers. The UFR - and I saw it with my eyes - Patterson was missing his reads and not firing when the receiver was open. To me, it appeared that the thinking from the staff from then on was ok, let's just pound it and they did. Instead of punishing NW for bringing it's Ss up and for entertaining a full on LB onslaught into the LOS v. the run, the staff chose to just run into that. I agree that it was marginally successful and became more so late.

The hesitation to work the passing game in what was otherwise good weather allowed NW to not worry about it on standard downs. NW tended to drop it's LBs into coverage on obvious passing downs - which became numerous because M found itself with a lot of 3rd and 6+ yards to go situations. The way you punish a defense dropping into zone is to hit Higdon or Collins in the short zones and let Higdon ram his way through defenders and Collins just fall forward when tackled. That will give you 6 most of the time. I don't think I saw that happen but maybe once then it got shelved????

Put the damn opponent down by means that the D is giving you is my thinking, and, to me anyway, NW gave a lot that Harbaughffense wouldn't take advantage of while at the same time being good at what Harbaughffense kept repeating with few variations.

I think more exotic stuff is there and yes, JH may be slow-playing the play book but I tend to think that is wishful thinking on the part of M fans. What coach doesn't want to finish off the opponent early instead of playing the opponent's game who, in NW's case, was just trying to keep it close to steal a win? That doesn't seem to me to be JH's modus operandi. He's satisfied with man-balling it to a win regardless of the score. I think that is a recipe for disaster - turnover, penalty or any number of random things you have no control over will put an approach like that in jeopardy.

[Jeff Buchanan]

The WX ...... forecasters are having a hard time this morning figuring out what the chances for thunderstorms (TRW) developing are. That is because the typical jets - the low level air movement that contributes to instability and advection - that accompany an approaching front are so hard to predict. That is exactly where we are this morning.

A warm front is extending from the SSW to the NNE and is sitting just above the MI - OH boarder. It is being pushed northward by a dome of high pressure centered over GA. How hard that high pressure pushes and how quickly the warm front moves northward into central MI today will determine how unstable the lower atmosphere is in front of and behind the front. It will also determine the timing of rain and TRW in and around AA. Its the instability that portends the development of TRW.

If you are in AA or are going to the game, the best way to see if there are any TRW around is by using a Radar App on your phone or, if you have access to a PC at home, going to the NWS site and finding the radar displays there. TRW will form to the SW and slide to the NE. So, you'll be able to see the development of TRW if you are so inclined.

[Jeff Buchanan]

If you're sitting around just waiting for the game at noon and have a chance to look at this it is instructive with regards to M's weaknesses at the LB position (Gill) and S position Metellus. Observers think that this is a schematic issue as well as an issue with Gill and Metellus, reasonably small skill set issue with Metellus, more with Gill (Ross should be playing more). Teams have been successfully attacking this weakness in M's D over the last two games (SMU and NW).

Exploiting the weakness requires a QB who can make quick reads and that is because Brown tries to mitigate this weakness by routinely pressuring the QB with stunts and blitzes - there's not enough time for a QB who is slow in getting through his reads. Were' talking about less than a 3 count. Thorson is really good at this plus he is very accurate. Therefore, he gets through his reads quickly (or has a hot route - one read) and makes completions for some big plays. Compared to Patterson, Thorson makes the read and throws much more quickly than Patterson did in this game and hence hit some plays that if Patterson were as good at this as Thorson and M's receivers didn't have some critical drops, M would have hit some of those too. The UFR Offense is very good at demonstrating how Patterson missed his window of opportunity to throw the ball or it was a good throw and the intended receiver dropped it. This video shows how Thorson didn't and his receivers didn't drop many either.

I expect Maryland to try to exploit the inherent weakness in Brown's D to the Slant, Pic and Dig routes. I've not studied Kasim Hill, Maryland's QB, sufficiently to say whether he can make the quick reads required to achieve success or not. I have no doubt he'll work on this during the game. If it's successful, Brown will bring the deep safety up more often to combat it which is what he did v. NW. I also think that the DL v. NW started to get more pressure on the QB in the second half so Thorson had somebody in his face really quickly and his completion rate on these plays dropped accordingly in the second half. You can bet Hill is going to get a lot of pressure. Remains to be seen if Maryland's OL, supposedly healed, is going to prevent obstacles to that pressure.

https://mgoblog.com/diaries/film-analysis-ep-52-early-defensive-struggles-vs-northwestern

[Jeff Buchanan]

Game start has been delayed until 1pm among conflicting reports it will be cancelled. So far, looks like KO will go as planed in EL between MSU and NW. Radar looks encouraging for AA as time goes on. However there is a developing rain band moving fairly quickly to the NE now just south of Chicago. Depends on how far the front lifts. The more it lifts north, the more the rain band will shift north of AA.

[Jeff Buchanan]

1:15 KO [er ABC now. Players are warming up on the field.

[Detroit Dan]

18 yards by Higdon on 1st down. Pass to Bench for 15 on 2nd play.

[Detroit Dan]

Good start. Looks like we mean business today.

[Detroit Dan]

spoke too soon. couple of mistakes after the fast start

[Detroit Dan]

great tackle by Winovich

[Detroit Dan]

Nice tackle by Devin Gil!

[Jeff Buchanan]

spoke too soon. couple of mistakes after the fast start

After two consecutive first downs, one of those correctly punishing Maryland for bringing its S up, they run on short yardage. WTF.

[Wellington_beefhouser]

That Bush hit was brutal. Probably could have been ejected for that.

[Detroit Dan]

and Dwumfour sack. Whew!