Team 137 by Jim Harbaugh. Football talk and Predictions.

[Pasadena Blue]

Moses is Satan-bound

[WM Wolverine]

Satan needs to retire.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Just got around to reading this mgoblog article titled Free Safety Economics but it is an excellent breakdown of why Durkin's D failed so miserably against osu's speed option.

Fundamentally it says that while scheme played a part, it was more an execution problem on the part of the LB unit. You'll see why the One Hi ( the FS) can be but need not be weak against the speed option if you add some creativity to it. That IU gashed M's D with the speed option should have keyed the coaching staff to better prepare the LBs to play v. osu or make some adjustments to cover for this unit's weaknesses ........ a weakness that arm chair DCs knew about.

The article also opines that moving Peppers to LB, a guy who while he's a little undersized, knows the game better than Morgan or Gedeon did and can make the calls they couldn't make. Rethinking Brown's approach to M's defense and the talent level in it would make you arrive at the conclusion that M isn't going to run a quarters defense. It will probably base off the same one Durkin was running, One Hi, but be much better executed.

[The Oracle]

I don't think M will run any one defense. Will be multiple.

[iam416]

The most insightful thing, for me, from that article was in the comments. I didn't realize M 2-gapped the edge. That'll get you killed against a team with a really good OT or good H-Back...and OSU had both. It may have been that M decided they'd rather protect their shitty LBs than set a hard edge b/c they had guys who effectively play that technique. And they did...until it's Taylor Decker you're two-gapping.

I'm also of the mind, and in the definite minority around these parts, that M's defense was basically really, really good against shit offenses and not so much against good offenses. A lot of the teams they played were atrociously bad on offense, including their bowl game. Now, there's a lot to be said for dominating bad offenses -- it's more than OSU did. But I don't view M as some sort of unstoppable collection of talent that needs a slight scheme upgrade. But, as I said, that's distinctly minority view here.

[WM Wolverine]

Ms schedule was filed with lousy offensive opponents who they matched up well with. M didn't just stop them but those teams very struggled very to get past midfield...

When they faced teams that actually knew how to execute on offense, they were terribly exposed.

[iam416]

Right. It's one of the reasons I have a hard time making sense of M's defense. One the one hand, they performed exceedingly well against bad offenses. On the other hand, they were, at best, inconsistent against good offenses.

I guess what I'm wondering about is talent-level. Everyone is tagging M as B10 favorite and a favorite to make the CFP. How well do they match up with the truly elite teams? Are they going to be able to stop Clemson if they have to deal with them?

[lineygoblue]

I still think its a big leap from this year's 10-3, to a CFP berth. Too many potential traps along the way. Iowa, MSU, OSU, .. all on the road. That's a tough row to hoe.

Then, if they find a way to eke thru that, they have the B1G Championship game, where they could face just about anyone from the West.

I'd love to see a run to a CFP berth, but man, its going to be a lot tougher than we think.

[WM Wolverine]

Beat State, beat Buckeyes, be nice to win B1G (when's last time?) and play in a NY6 bowl.

[froot loops]

It somewhat reminded me of the Rich Rod offensive problems. Really good against bad defenses but fell way short against good defenses. Of course the operative word was somewhat, because I've 2015 defense was still pretty good against most good offenses it just had a few massive breakdowns that hurt them.

[Hannibal]

Our 06 defense was like that too. Stellar against mostly shit, exposed late.

[Jeff Buchanan]

The most insightful thing, for me, from that article was in the comments. I didn't realize M 2-gapped the edge.

This.

As you noticed, playing a soft edge was a bad idea against osu's speed option. We really can't know why Durkin persisted with that essentially throughout the season and yeah it worked great against bad offense but got hammered by osu's and had trouble with any offense running a speed option using a QB who's legs and arm were a reasonable threat. E.g., M essentially played 10 against 11 when opposing offense's could do that.

I really think Morgan and Gedeon couldn't execute a hard edge. Another poster commented that they couldn't was hit on Hoke's capacity to develop players although I think Mattison gets blame here to. So, it's less about scheme than it is about players.

I think your question about what kind of talent M has coming up on D is a good one because it is going to determine how good Brown's D is going to look out of the box in 2016.

Lots of high expectations for him to turn M's D into the kind of ass kicking unit it will need to make a run at the CFB playoffs. We really don't know. Looking at Brown's resume though, he seems to be pretty good at player development. Looking at the 3 stars who are in the 2015 class and how badly developed the LBs under Hokeattsion actually were and who will now be seniors, it's a little hard to believe that M is going to deal effectively with teams like Clemson if it does get to that.

[WM Wolverine]

It's very much is about scheme too, when you're being gashed by the run, you bring both safeties up. Especially against an option based running attack which essentially has an extra gap that needs plugged.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Read the article. They did that ...... and still got gashed.

[WM Wolverine]

It's been a few months since I rewatched it but...

More often Jarrod Wilson was defending cover 1 (which he did nearly the entire game vs Indiana), guarding the deep ball but yes he was brought up some. By that time the defense was gassed and looked to pack it in...

Abysmal LB play turned a lot of potential 2-3 yard gains into 7+ yard gains, they were lost defending the option and even when Bolden, Ross were in position, they couldn't tackle Elliott. Option football is all about assignments, one guy thinking his assignment is something wrong and you can have an easy 10 yard gain.

FWIW Barnett & Elliott were excellent as was OSU's offensive line. They along with Urban Meyer deserve a ton of credit for M's butt whooping in The Game. Barnett should've been their starter all season long. That group was 38-4 the last three seasons and could've won a couple more games if they would've gave the keys to Barnett a little earlier in 2015.