Michigan 49 @ Minnesota 24

[Jeff Buchanan]

Just watched a recap of several plays. Hanni's right. This is fundamentally a pro-style, power O that features a lot of misdirection. There's no zone reading that I could see on the dozen or so plays I watched. What makes this pretty basic offense work is some of the best OL play I've seen in a long time......or Minnesota's D line is bad. Favor the former. You still have to make the blocks and turn guys and the OL was doing that. What else they did well was very aggressive zone blocking/getting down field to produce extra yardage for the ball carrier. That was absent last season.

Helps the Gattis O that Milton is a true run threat. But he's not doing it off of zone reads. All Milton's runs looked planned. It was either power carries inside or outside.

Milton also appeared to have a nice feel for executing the read option. On the several plays this was the call, he's looking at the S play side, making that read, he had the option to keep or throw. Minny's Ss played up a lot - a typical defense v. Michigan - creating open space for receivers to run into where the S would have been if he dropped. Its an easy throw to the open guy that Patterson rarely could make. That he wasn't a run threat didn't help to suck the Ss up. Milton is and Minny's D got had becasue he is.

[WingsFan]

Overall a satisfying win considering what we usually see on the road vs ranked teams. Was never really in doubt, Milton looked good and I like the play calling. Not that many penalty's (that first one was on the cheap side with Mason ?) . Couldn't really evaluate like I usually do, watched the game in Plymouth Mi with no DVR till we get back home next week (having house worked on). Like Cody I though they were going to say Dax is badly hurt or something about the pants, Harbugh has coached other games with blue on when cold or rainy. Top 10 I think is high but looks like we might be in.

[Cody_Russell]

More thoughts by position group:

QB - Joe Milton looked as good as anyone could ask for. Milton has the talent/ physical gifts to be special (we knew this coming in). He showed growth in decision making and a little in accuracy. This performance at least shows that Milton deserves to start for the rest of the season. We may see growing pains as a young starter, but it’s 100% worth it with what Milton can develop into. Ceiling is high!

RB - Depth and quality is there. I was talking about M with my Dad yesterday before the game and he claimed M has the best RB group in college football. While it’s hard to say that’s true, still have to really like the RBs we have in 2020. All of the RBs showed they can play at a quality level.
Charbonnet, Haskins, Corum, and Evans.

WR/ TE - Didn’t see anything extraordinary here from the WRs. Ronnie Bell looked like year 3 Ronnie Bell. After Bell, it's a group of FR/SO WRs that are in the same tier... hard to say who will develop into WR2 this season. Roman Wilson, Sainristil, Giles Jackson, and AJ Henning. Didn't hear much about Corn Johnson... that was disappointing.
TE, Erick All might be a good one? All did have the bad drop, but showed the ability to get open. Harbaugh said All could be the best M TE in school history. Schoonmaker had a holding penalty.

OLine - The biggest surprise of the game was how good the OLine looked. Maybe it has to do a little with Minnesota's defensive front rebuilding... the OLine played like they have been together forever. Hayes - Filiaga - Vastardis - Stueber - Mayfield.

DLine - Hutchinson is probably the most improved. I said Hutchinson is a low ceiling, high floor guy prior to the season .... Hutch proved otherwise by showing athleticism I didn't know he had. Paye showed off pass rushing moves at the end of the game. Kemp, Jeter, and Welschof made some plays. Didn't hear much from Hinton, Vilain, or Smith.

LBs - Michael Barrett game MVP. So many impactful plays. McGrone made a couple nice plays. Ross and VanSumeren were in there on many snaps, but didn't standout. Solomon received some snaps too.
Hard to say if this was a good performance by the LBs (and DLine too) because Minnesota pushed M around in the 1st half/ 3rd quarter.

DBs - Gemon Green = standout/ most improved DB. SURPRISED me. Dax Hill looked good, but went out of the game with an injury. Hope his injury is nothing serious. Brad Hawkins and Vincent Gray were fine. Makari Paige picked on a little when filling in for Hill. Overall the DBs were better than expected... with Green being the surprise.

K/P - M could have a K problem with Jake Moody going 0-3. .... Punt was blocked on the first possession. After that, I don't know if M punted again.

[AlabamAlum]

You’ve hit your head. Michigan wins by 2 scores.

Well, I was wrong. 4 scores. Harbaugh has finished the Ann Arbor Death Star.

[iam416]

Correct. I will say that I've enjoyed OSU's nice little run, but it's time to mentally prepare for the new world order.

[THE_WIZARD_]

It's a SandbagFest Extraordinaire...Talent and AA...

:::shocking:::

[AlabamAlum]

Michigan-Michigan State will be a bloodbath. The Spartans are not good.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Well, I was wrong. 4 scores. Harbaugh has finished the Ann Arbor Death Star.

Well, yeah and so was I. I picked the Gophers based on, no surprise, trend lines. When it's the first game of a shortened season you go with those. I believe the first game reflects the quality of your coaching staff about as much as any game. Having said that, the offense didn't follow the trends which says a few things about the coaches, notably RBs no turnovers, few penalties, none of them impactful, OL, OC and WRs. QB was steady. Ben McDaniels is the QB coach. I'd have to give him some credit in keeping Milton from free lancing. He appeared to play disciplined football.

The kicking game sucked. Probably Jake Moody had a case of the yips. You can't coach kickers. They are loners and the mistakes they make are on them.

Don Brown followed all his trend lines. A depleted Gopher offense had a run game that made him look bad .... again. There's talent in the front 7 so, I lay this on the scheme that Brown runs and how the coaches coach it.

This is the first game during the Harbaugh era and in my memory of it that the team looked prepared, disciplined and motivated, more on offense than on defense or special teams. I can live with that imbalance - for now. If the defense improves and Brown can deal with the Hoosiers in Bloomington, M could be a contender. Right now, they aren't. Improved, yes, but this isn't anywhere near a complete team.

[lineygoblue]

This is the first game during the Harbaugh era and in my memory of it that the team looked prepared, disciplined and motivated, more on offense than on defense or special teams

Especially agree with this. Some of the most successful, drive-sustaining runs that Milton had, was when he tucked away the ball, got behind the OL who were blocking for him, and ran the freaking ball. Charbonnet's first TD was a result of him running HARD into the hole the play was designed to be run into, and nobody touched him all the way tot he endzone. Plays can work that way when they are run correctly. This was happening over and over, and it showed on the scoreboard. Michigan only punted once, (fail) and every other offensive drive either ended with a TD or a missed FG. (need work). I read after the game that Quinn Nordin was not available due to an injury, but Harbaugh said he should be available next week.

Defensively, there were just way too many times where Ibrahim got the ball, juked inside, then bounced outside, and made big gains. Brown never adjusted to that. Ibrahim did that all game long. Especially on the right side. Our LB's were constantly getting sucked inside to the "juke" move, only to get burned when he bounced outside. He must have did this about a dozen times in the game. Brown's defense can look great when the 'high risk" actually works, but good teams have learned how to take advantage of the over-aggressive component of the defense, and burned us more than we've benefitted. I hope that changes, but I'm not confident. Good teams will still burn this defense badly.

Anyway, its time to destroy MSU. Pedal to the metal all game long. No mercy. As long as there is time on the clock, Michigan should be trying to score points.

[Jeff Buchanan]

This is for Hannibal. This analysis again confirms that the arc zone read was absent. That may have been planned as one of the analyzed plays takes advantage of a defense that might have watched film of the arc zone read play from 2019 and exploited it.

On offense the analysis demonstrates a highly coherent offense made so by the play of Milton in comparison to last year's incoherent offense run by Patterson.

On defense, a mgo diary writer that admits he is "bearish" on Don Brown, suggests Brown has indeed learned something from his 2019 D getting ripped by osu among others. There's more zone and, compared to last season, it looks like the players understand how to run it. The Ross PIC-6 was a zone defense that Tanner wasn't expecting.

This isn't in the diarists analysis but seeing zone played might explain why Ibrahim had so much run success. There's a trade off with zone that seemed to pay-off. Tanner to Bateman was subdued - the demoralizing big plays didn't happen. Ibrahim churned but Minny's O was much less efficient than M's O even though they almost doubled M's TOP. Zone D can prevent a big play offense from scoring and present an opposing offense the opportunity to score quickly. That looked like Harbaugh's strategy and is a departure from his ball control strategy of the last 5 seasons he's been M's HC. Maybe more correctly, that none of his QBs could either string drives together or make big plays off of fast starts, he was never able to consistently implement an efficient, quick scoring O.

Anywho, fun to talk football. COVID talk is becoming tiresome.

https://mgoblog.com/diaries/schematic-notes-few-gleanings-game-pics

[Mike]

Speaking of trends, Michigan hasn’t lost at Minnesota in over 4 decades. And Harbaugh/Brown are known to skull fuck inferior opponents... especially wounded/shorthanded ones like Minny last night. That had blowout written all over it.

[Niffla]

Overall a satisfying win considering what we usually see on the road vs ranked teams

Not to take anything away from M, that was a very satisfying opener and it made my Saturday night a good one, but to be fair nothing in 2020 is going to resemble a true road game. With stadiums that are 95% empty there are no hostile environments this season. I think we can throw home advantage out the window for the time being.

[lineygoblue]

Not to take anything away from M, that was a very satisfying opener and it made my Saturday night a good one, but to be fair nothing in 2020 is going to resemble a true road game. With stadiums that are 95% empty there are no hostile environments this season. I think we can throw home advantage out the window for the time being.

I think its possible that if the Big Ten allows the season to proceed until the end, by time the OSU game rolls around, they may be allowing upwards of 25% capacity in some stadiums. So, there could still be a sizable crowd in Columbus in December.

Crowd size won't matter in that one anyway, but it could be bigger than this past Saturday.

[Niffla]

I think its possible that if the Big Ten allows the season to proceed until the end, by time the OSU game rolls around, they may be allowing upwards of 25% capacity in some stadiums. So, there could still be a sizable crowd in Columbus in December.

Crowd size won't matter in that one anyway, but it could be bigger than this past Saturday.

I thought I saw somewhere that the Big Ten was firm in only allowing an extremely limited number of close friends and family members of the home teams, and that would be the rule for the remainder of the season.

I could be wrong though.

[Hannibal]

This is for Hannibal. This analysis again confirms that the arc zone read was absent. That may have been planned as one of the analyzed plays takes advantage of a defense that might have watched film of the arc zone read play from 2019 and exploited it.

On offense the analysis demonstrates a highly coherent offense made so by the play of Milton in comparison to last year's incoherent offense run by Patterson.

On defense, a mgo diary writer that admits he is "bearish" on Don Brown, suggests Brown has indeed learned something from his 2019 D getting ripped by osu among others. There's more zone and, compared to last season, it looks like the players understand how to run it. The Ross PIC-6 was a zone defense that Tanner wasn't expecting.

This isn't in the diarists analysis but seeing zone played might explain why Ibrahim had so much run success. There's a trade off with zone that seemed to pay-off. Tanner to Bateman was subdued - the demoralizing big plays didn't happen. Ibrahim churned but Minny's O was much less efficient than M's O even though they almost doubled M's TOP. Zone D can prevent a big play offense from scoring and present an opposing offense the opportunity to score quickly. That looked like Harbaugh's strategy and is a departure from his ball control strategy of the last 5 seasons he's been M's HC. Maybe more correctly, that none of his QBs could either string drives together or make big plays off of fast starts, he was never able to consistently implement an efficient, quick scoring O.

Anywho, fun to talk football. COVID talk is becoming tiresome.

https://mgoblog.com/diaries/schemati...ings-game-pics

Gattis wins MVP of the game for play design and play calling. Beautiful. Let's hope that this means that we have finally turned a corner in that area. Note a single "down set on fire" that I can remember from the entire contest. The playbook looked simple and I suspect that is because we are scheming around some weaknesses that good DCs are going to eventually discover. But still -- when was the last time that our WRs caught so many passes for so many easy yards?