Michigan Football, Team 139, 2018 Season

[Hannibal]

I know some people don't like Seth's Neck Sharpies posts. I do so, you're gonna get a link so youse football neanderthals posting here can at least try to get an understanding of football to carry on meaningful discussions.

So, this article is about one play run a couple of different ways by Harbaugh. It explicitly demonstrates, according to the author, why Harbaughffense's run game is sophisticated beyond what most think it is or, the notion that the power run game in Harbaughffense is antiquated. It's not and here's why. Mike DeBord did nothing like this when he was running Debordian power where every defense knew exactly what was coming.

When I first saw the play, and before Seth's useful article, I thought it was a standard pin and pull play that worked. So what. In it Evans got loose on the play side for a big gain. But it's not a pin and pull and there is the clever deception. It's a play that pulled on the frontside like power but blocked zone on the backside. The purpose is to give the opponent blocks that he wasn't expecting after the snap so as to create gaps not otherwise anticipated by the D. In one play it works perfectly. Evans is through the gap and gone. On the 2nd play with the same intent on the opposite side of the offensive line but against a defense that had adjusted to it the 1st time it was run, it doesn't work for two reasons: it wasn't executed as well and WMU defended it better.

Now I'm new to some of this detail and someone better than I at football may say, shit, this is the chess match that goes on all the time. Nothing to see here unique or unexpected at all. Fine. You're lying.

https://mgoblog.com/content/neck-sha...power-all-zone

The first play that Seth diagrams makes my point for me. The play gets shut down for a one yard gain if #23 is a decent linebacker, and then a shitty safety biffs an easy tackle five yards down field. On a play that wasn't poorly executed, we needed terrible athletes on the defense to get more than four yards. Which is what I have been saying for three years now. In order to illustrate how ingenius Harbaugh's offense is because it constantly has defenders attacking the wrong gaps, on their heels, and confused, it might help to show an occasional example where this actually happens.

[Hannibal]

I personally don't understand the link to DeBord. If anything what Harbaugh does is the opposite -- too complex. That's what Dantonio was talking about in the post-game last year. 40 different sets, or whatever. A lot of that certainly is complexity to mask simplicity -- we have our bread and butter but we move around before the snap and run it out of different formations to confuse you. But the point of this post is to say that calling him a DeBord is clearly off the mark and I don't know who is saying that.

Running the same play out of lots of different formations is the design of a shitty offensive coordinator. Debord did the exact same thing. An offense that keeps you guessing is one that can run a variety of complementary plays out of the same formation.

[hack]

I don't think Debord did even that.

[Hannibal]

He did.

[hack]

I definitely could be wrong. You may not believe that, but it's true.

[WM Wolverine]

If your offensive line is Jake long and three or four guys who had no NFL potential, that might be a wise call. OL recruiting near the end of Lloyds career really tanked other than Jake long.

[Jeff Buchanan]

The first play that Seth diagrams makes my point for me. The play gets shut down for a one yard gain if #23 is a decent linebacker, and then a shitty safety biffs an easy tackle five yards down field. On a play that wasn't poorly executed, we needed terrible athletes on the defense to get more than four yards. Which is what I have been saying for three years now. In order to illustrate how ingenius Harbaugh's offense is because it constantly has defenders attacking the wrong gaps, on their heels, and confused, it might help to show an occasional example where this actually happens.

Hmmmm ..... I had to think about this. You make a point. Not sure if it's a good one but let's say it is.

Getting your blocking technique on offense down to execute a play is defender independent. Getting your WR and TEs or others, e.g., the C executing a reach block on a LB, is also defender independent. What happens after that is defender dependent. So, I'll give you credit for noting the WMU defense is not good and therefor the play works after getting the technique right.

Three things: (1) Getting the blocking down is something that was so bad last season that, after two games in 2018, one against a presumably good defense, and one not so good, it looks like the OL knows what its supposed to do. Plus-plus. (2) The UFR WMU Offense (just posted) does show an offense that uses complimentary plays to set the example play up. (3) Your argument rises or falls on the presumption that a good defense (good LB and S play) is going to defeat the example play. We can't presume that.

I went back and found a video in the UFR ND Offense similar to the one v. WMU. The formation is different but it is the same play (Power blocking look from the playside, a zone blocking look from the back side). v. ND it was 2 wide, one TE and one RB. v. WMU it was 3w (bunched back side), one TE and 2 Bs (Mason - FB, Higdon RB). v. ND the play went for 8y v. a big chunk v. WMU. v. ND, that's a good gain and something I'll take every day. It didn't go for a chunk because ND's Ss are good and don't play up close to the LOS like WMU's do.

The point is, both plays appeared to get the RBs past the LOS and LBs for potentially big gains. One went for a big play (Ss are bad), one didn't (Ss are good) but both plays appear to have succeeded in creating gaps for Higdon that the defenders didn't expect.

TBF, we should watch this play in example one of Seth's piece going forward. It is probably going to be M's B&B play or one of them and set up by complimentary plays that are there but you think aren't (see the WMU UFR Offense).

[hack]

https://michigan.rivals.com/news/michigan-wolverines-football-warinner-says-starting-o-line-remains-fluid

He also says Mayfield is taking 25% of his time with the starters in practice, Hudson more. FWIW. Seems more signalling about Hudson in particular.

[Jeff Buchanan]

I read that the same way ......... Hudson is pushing JBB more than Mayfield is pushing Runyan.

I also found interesting Warriner's statement that assessing the play of each offensive linemen is not based on the opponent. It's based on how well each position player improves in the area of weaknesses they are provided by the coaches after each game and film review. Pre-game, starting assignments are based on how well each position player practices. The guy that practices best by position starts. In-game if a player is having problems, he'll get replaced by the guy in the pecking order behind him ...... Ruiz/Spinalis, Onwenu/Spinalis, JBB/Hudson, Bredeson/Filaga, Runyan/Mayfield or Steuber.

Haven't heard much about Andrew Steuber. Injury? He red-shirted in 2017. He's a very big boy with a prototypical OT's body. 3*, #35 OT nationally so, not hearing about him is a little puzzling

[hack]

I'm not clear that Hudson would only go in for JBB, or Mayfield only for Runyan. I hope it's a five-best-guys-on-the-field, since JBB is at least a good run blocker. But if they feel Hudson is only an RT -- which it seems they think about JBB too -- then we may be further away from a lineup change. It seems to me that Runyan is clearly the weakest of the group.

[froot loops]

I'm not sure why being able to run a similar play out of multiple formations is bad, its preferable as long as you have other plays.

[Jeff Buchanan]

If you follow video play-by-play of the ND game and the WMU game, you can clearly see Harbaugh calls run plays that end up going to the same place or close to it, that play being run from different sets. The sets are not always 11, 21 and 22 formations as there are some run plays out of the gun but not many.

I think your response, Froot, may be from the post somewhere up thread referencing Dantonio's comment post the 2017, or was it the 206 game, where he said Harbaugh has 40 different formation on his offense but runs the same play through them; didn't fool us one bit ..... or words to that effect. I think that was just post win bravado on Dantonio's part.

The salient point is that, yes, Harbaughffense, from what I can tell in 2018, is calling the same kind of running plays from the 2017 play-book with a few tweaks - the thing we've been talking about where a run play starts out looking like power but is actually zone ...... the purpose of that is to confuse the defense's perception of where the gap is going to occur on that run play. I don't think this is particularly new but it wasn't run much in 2017 because the execution of it sucked and probably reflects that the coaching of it wasn't that great either. Maybe Warriner has done a better job coaching it as that play was run at least 4X v. WMU (maybe more but it was UFR'ed 4X and Seth did a Neck Sharpies piece on two of them) with two of them going for big plays (caveat WMU Ss and LBs)

[Rocky Bleier]

Good points from Touch-the-Banner:


If Hudson goes down, teams would be smart to target his backup.Michigan needs help at running back.

[Hannibal]

The running back situation is disturbing too. I wonder if Samuels has either pass blocking or fumbling issues because Tru Wilson looks like the military academy-caliber running back that his offer lists suggests. We haven't seen enough of Samuels to know whether he is just a bust but I did like his one run. Evans is good but clearly not an every down back and they have never figured out how to get him in space consistently. Higdon is decent but he's not a stud.

[iam416]