Michigan @ Maryland, Saturday, 11/11/17 3:30 EST, BTN/Stream BT2GO

[whodean]

Harbaugh and Brown backed off keeping offensive and defensive plays and/or schemes in the lock box v. Maryland saving them for Wisconsin and osu..

I tuned out for a lot of the second half but what I did see was a bunch of plain Jane D formations.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Folks who are intersted in Don Brown's defense and how he'll play it and to some extent how effective it will be against osu should read Brian's UFR Defense Maryland.

It should not shock anyone that Durkin has patterned his offense at Maryland after ufm's at osu. This Ryan Brand guy at QB, at one time an AF QB, is almost perfect except he is too small to be anything as effective as osu's barrett. Durkin doesn't run a lot of IZ plays and that was probably on purpose v. M. What he did do and with good success is run two big RPO plays, one for a TD, some tunnel screens and a bunch of split zones with a WR coming across in the opposite direction the TE was flowing.

The end result was pulling a box defender out to flow in the direction the TE goes, who is a decoy. Brian reports this has been done to M by multiple teams. One consistently successful thing Maryland did is execute a bunch of borderline WR screens (tunnel or split zone) where the ball was caught at or just past the line of scrimmage. These look like basic passing plays that happen to have a bunch of OPI built into them, but depending on the precise definition of the line of scrimmage they may be legal. They're not getting called in the BT as OPI and they are hard as hell to defend under this circumstance. In this play, it's #14 Metellus getting massively OPI'ed, IMO ..... but I'm not a ref and two of them are staring right at Mettelus. Guess it's legal ..... expect osu, like Maryland did, to run a ton of it v. M. M is weak in defending it.

[ame]https://youtu.be/8MbKj_07-UU[/ame]

Inverted veer, a staple of ufm, is also in Durkin's play book and it went for 26 yards on a blown play by Hurst when QB Brand kept it. The play and it's counter were repeatedly run with moderate success. Watch Mo Hurst (he's hand down at NT in the center of the OL), of all people, get taken out of this play. This rarely happens but you can bet ufm will see this and jtb or Dobbins on the give will run it until M stops it.

[ame]https://youtu.be/5tzb0R3QklM[/ame]

The frustrating part about the TV coverage of this game is that you can't see where the S's are. Brian has done this stuff enough times to know from other stuff he is seeing that Brown was playing a lot of 3-3-5 and 4-2-5 with the back end playing zone with occasional press-man. Disguised blitzes from the Viper, CB and LBs consistent with how Brown solves problems with aggressiveness. IMO, this is how you play osu and I think this is how Brown will play them in two weeks

[iam416]

Boy, I hope M fans don't start complaining about lack of OPI on screens. Or think that they're somehow aggrieved by the unanimous "Fuck OPI on screens" approach by CFB.

Also, Mettulus hand checks the shit out of the WR and rides him into the middle.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Yeah, I agree .... you won't find me bitching about OPI not being called.

The film on this particular play reveals S Kinnel (#23) and CB Watson (#24) not understanding how this play is going to unfold after the snap. Mettelus has it right and if Kinnel and Watson read it well, the completion is made and the receiver is tackled forthwith. Didn't happen and had noting to do with an illegal play or OPI not being called.

The lesson for me here is that these kinds of screens are run by osu and, damn it, the Ss and CBs better be ready for them and make plays. There's no excuse to not do that. This stuff is on film all over the place and that Brown's boys seem to be routinely fucking up coverage on them bothers me.

[iam416]

OSU isn't a big screen team. In that they have maybe run 2 or 3 all year.

[Jeff Buchanan]

....... saving it for the 25th.

Brown and his boys better be ready.