Michigan Football, Team 137, 2016 Season.

[The Oracle]

It wasn't even an aggressive play. He got his hands stuck where they shouldn't be. Not a big deal.

[whodean]

Michigan Football, Team 137, 2016 Season.

I was hoping for a Robert Nkemdiche or Jadeveon Clowney "men amongst boys" vibe, like they had as freshmen


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[The Oracle]

I'd guess Gary got about 1/4 the snaps they did their first game.

[Jeff Buchanan]

I know a lot of you don't have the time to plow through Brian's UFRs. There is so much to learn and absorb in them. Here's my attempt to provide some take always or high points of the Defense UFR.

Brown appears to base out of what we'd call a 4-3 over front. We saw probably a fraction of its variations. Here are three of them:

Nickel 1-hi, Nickel 2-hi, Nickel 2-lo. The numeric refers to the Ss, the alpha to their position relative to the LOS. Peppers played about 75% of his snaps as a S. The rest as a LB. It appears that the LB and Ss are somewhat interchangeable at least, so far, in Peppers case. The intent of these formations is to keep the offense, in particular the QB and C from knowing what Peppers is doing and who's going to step up, drop or blitz.

The net result for spready, read option offenses is that the edge is not as easily reached with some really athletic safeties in Hill and Clark and the freakish speed of Peppers. It's also harder for OL to make the blocks needed to get the inside zone read runs to the second level for the typical chunk yardage the read option offense produces.

You add in McCray and Gideon, both fast in their own right as LBs, and Brown's approach to Defense and it makes it hard for spread teams to dink and dunk unless there is near perfect execution let alone get to the edge or run inside.

Keep in mind, this was a Hawaii. There was a huge difference in talent between their OL and M's front 7 so all this stuff looks like it will work all the time. It gets harder going forward as the talent gap narrows.

[Detroit Dan]

In addition to being about the same size as Barry Sanders, Evans is about the same size as Denard Robinson. I'm not implying anything about their talent levels...

(Also, similar size to Steve Breaston and Reggie Bush. Dennis Norfleet is quite a bit smaller.)

[Detroit Dan]

I guess college football is the sport where coaching makes the biggest difference.

Freshmen rule in basketball, and it's because of the skill the bring in rather than the coaching.

Baseball is a pretty simple sport, although I do see a comparison between Harbaugh and Ausmus. Ausmus goes with the players who have the long term reputation. Harbaugh is more of a hot hand coach. My observation is that the hot hand approach is far superior.

[The Oracle]

Evans is about 3-4in taller than Barry and about the same weight. Barry was way more put together than Evans.

[Detroit Dan]

What does "way more put together mean"? It sounds like you think that shorter is better at 200 pounds. But Reggie Bush and Denard Robinson are taller than Evans.

There seems to be the impression that Evans is Norfleet sized -- a scatback who is not a running back. But his size is similar to that of some of the greatest running backs in Michigan and collegiate football history.

So can we all agree that Evans is the next Barry Sanders?

[Detroit Dan]

Kidding aside, I've noticed that there is a discrepancy regarding Evans' weight. Wikipedia lists him at 200 lb, as does mgoblue. Other sites list him at 186 lb. I believe the 200 lb figure is more up-to-date.

[froot loops]

Barry had legs like tree trunks.

[The Oracle]

What does "way more put together mean"? It sounds like you think that shorter is better at 200 pounds. But Reggie Bush and Denard Robinson are taller than Evans.

There seems to be the impression that Evans is Norfleet sized -- a scatback who is not a running back. But his size is similar to that of some of the greatest running backs in Michigan and collegiate football history.

So can we all agree that Evans is the next Barry Sanders?

Yes, exactlu. People always said people like Barry and mike Hart were small. They weren't. They were short.

[hack]

Yeah. Barry just gave you nothing to tackle. Evans doesn't look huge or compact like that but he sure did look smooth, patient and explosive at the right times.

[Hannibal]

Barry had legs like tree trunks.

Took the words right out of my mouth keyboard.

[hack]

A few summers back Brian posted a series of excepts from a Bill Walsh book. Position by position Walsh described not just the ideal size of a player but shape too. I was really struck by how specific Walsh was -- precisely where a type of player should be at his strongest/thickest/longest. So much more to it than the basic height/weight combo obviously, but the specificity of those excerpts was really something.

[Detroit Dan]

Lots of good responses here to my comments about Evans. While different than Sanders, Evan's height / weight range seems to be common to that of many top running backs, especially in college before wear and tear becomes the overriding factor.

Anyway, it will be fun to watch Evans this year, along with the other new players and those who blossomed last year.