Michigan Football, Team 137, 2016 Season.

[UMStan White]

One of Harbaugh's quotes on Newsome:

"Watching him out there, he’s tough as a two-dollar steak. It’s unbelievable."

[hack]

At a position that's so thin. I thought JBB probably did somewhat fine with the flags, considering he came in cold, but I wonder if they don't consider a shakeup.

[WM Wolverine]

Possible career for Newsome, !@#$.

[Detroit Dan]

)-:

From mlive.com

Moving forward, Harbaugh said Bushell-Beatty would be "plan A" at left tackle for Michigan, though the staff will look at every option this week.

Harbaugh said left guard Ben Braden could move out to left tackle and center Mason Cole could also move back out to left tackle -- the spot he started at during his first two years on campus.

If Cole kicks out, Patrick Kugler would be Michigan's center. If Braden moves out, freshman Ben Bredeson would presumably be the new left guard.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Hate it for Newsome but this isn't a killer.

What will be difficult is getting the new OL into synch. M ran the ball against Wisky not well, but (1) it's Wisconsin who notably is in the top 5 rush D's in the nation and (2) the OL was starting to gel with Newsome at LT. JBB is going to have to work in a bit.

Yeah, I know - red zone stuff v. Wisconsin. We'll see but I think a lot of that was the combo of play calling and Speight with both JH and Speight not wanting a turn over. Where JH got fucked on that strategy was on field goals that should have been made. Anyway .....

The scrimmage at Rutgers this weekend followed by a bye is going to be perfect for the test of whether or not the OL has repaired itself post Newsome and advanced to support a run game in EL v. MSU on 10/29. I like Drevno's capability to make things work on the OL. It's not ideal but it is what it is. That's football.

[hack]

So David Dawson is guess is nowhere on the depth chart?

[WM Wolverine]

Behind true freshman, Ben Bredeson for sure.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Looking at M's Offense v. Wisconsin (Brian's UFR) some of the key points .....

(1) Brian had an interesting if not dubious way of looking at M's run game. He backed out a number of run plays after Speight's INT where he says, the offense "closed up shop." What he means by this is that the offense had a rhythm going by running jet sweeps to widen the interior of the Wisconsin defense, going 4 Wide and throwing the ball to alternatively do the same thing, then running inside zone effectively. This produced 6.1ypp for Smith, Evans and Isaac (who by far had the best day). After the INT they pretty much stopped doing this. OK.

The eyeball test did tell me that the run game looked decent at times. This kinda explains why it also didn't look decent at times. But it wasn't Kalis ......

(2) Kyle Kalis have a very good day. I had unfairly judged him on one play and then concluded he played badly all day. Wrong ..... although he did biff on the play, as I stated earlier, where he makes his block and Smith scores off a big chunk play, he otherwise was the star of the OL according to Brian.

JBB did not do well. Brian opines Cole will move to LT, Kugler to C but says that isn't a slam dunk. As JH said in his Monday presser, "we're looking at all the options and JBB is plan A." That might just have been an effort not to cast doubt on the job JBB did in relief of Newsome. He actually was OK but made a couple of serious errors causing him to grade out negatively. The rest of the OL did very well.

(3) Speight is not going to beat osu the way he played v. Wisconsin. "Hope for a Ruddock like improvement the rest of the season."

There is wide variance in Speight's assessment by those commenting objectively on his performance (e.g. PFF was pretty nice to him). Brian pretty much nails it by isolating on some of the very bad passes he threw that were overshadowed by a couple of spectacular throws. We tend to remember those and forget the others. Brain reminds us. Ughh.

None of this means anything for Rutgers. If you want to see some cool stuff about what Rutgers does on offense with the Run-Pass-Option (RPO) plays that osu/ufm thrive on, there's a good piece by Seth on "What is the RPO" at mgoblog.

How M's D defends this v. Rutgers (and how Durkin did not v. osu last season) is going to tell us something about how they might go about defending osu in 2016. Ash is clearly trying to make Rutger's offense like ufm has made osu's. He just doesn't have the dudes to do it and isn't likely to get them as long as HARBAUGH!!! keeps stealing NJ dudes as Coach Ash is fond of complaining about.

[iam416]

LOL at Rutgers having a "Pass option"....they were 3 for 16 against OSU. 3. For 33 yards. And, heh, to pull a Brian...if you excised the first play because...hmmmm....OSU was still getting into the flow of the game!....then they were 2 for 15 for 12 yards.

Rutgers. Is. Awful. AWFUL.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Well, yes, true. Maybe they don't have the pass option part of the RPO thing down.

The point is, they will try to run it and in doing so, we might see a little bit of how DB might approach that chess match. We'll also see how M's LBs do in 1 v 1 match-ups against worse Rutgers dudes running slants, etc. (or whatever Ash calls them) routes than they are.

I still think M is vulnerable to being RPO'ed. They were against the Buffs when Liufau was in. I want to see how Brown moves Peppers around in a base set v a likely single RPO play and what he does with his Ss when he's faced with 4 wides. V. osu, Durkin played a 2-hi zone thing and then had his corners play press man. He left his WLB exposed to the conflict that sets up the RPO ...... ufm ate that up and kept running it with Durkin doing NOTHING (like shifting to 1-hi, putting Peppers over the slot, stepping the WLB back inside). Frustrating.

It's possible that Brown won't do anything other than play a 2-hi zone, press man, nickel look v. Rutgers. because M's DL is going to crush Rutgers OL. That kinda eliminates choosing to run it for anything like a reasonable gain. Maybe I'm just dreaming that Rutgers is going to somehow put up a fight...... which is to your point, I guess.

[The Oracle]

Sounds like all is good so far on Newsome. Rehab willing, should be good to go.

[hack]

As in, next year? Or maybe he'll need a redshirt year?

[hack]

Back by spring, possibly? Well, that's great next. Good for him, too.

[The Oracle]

Don't know about spring, I'd imagine he'll sit that out, but as long as no setbacks they expect by fall camp.

[Paul L]

Good news; feel terrible for him for this year, though