Michigan Football, Team 139, 2018 Season

[WM Wolverine]

Sam Webb hearing Lavert Hill is leaning towards returning...

The corners will/would help alot as they'll be needed without Gary, Winovich, Bush, etc.. DL will need some reserves to take huge leaps.

[Jeff Buchanan]

The link below is a story on the great performances of former M 2018 season defenders (Gary, Bush, Winovich and D. Long) at the NFL combine. The author, given the performance of these former M standouts in prep for the NFL draft, raises the question of WTF happened to the 2018 defense v. osu with the kinds of athletes Brown had at his disposal to deploy? The author suggests injuries as one factor. I can't disagree but he also states that osu had better talent on offense. Maybe.

I'll contend while both of those could have been factors, Brown fucked up on two counts: (1) He failed to put his best athletes in coverage against osu's best receivers. e.g., where was D. Long on the 75 drag routes day ran with various receivers burning Watson who lacked the speed to cover them adequately? (2) When he tried to implement more zone coverage, Haskins ate it alive. Why? Because Brown didn't practice it enough and execution in zone was notably terrible by several accounts. Instead Brown relied mostly on his DL and LBs to pressure Haskins. The pressure metric wasn't there obviously - the rest is a historically significant loss to the hated buckeyes in a long list of them that has gone on way too long.

You might say if D. Long shifted into short man coverage and let Watson cover deep routes, day and Haskins would have exploited that. Maybe. But, on it's face, the likelihood of a deep throw getting completed is much lower than the quick and easy throws Haskins was able to complete on those short drag routes..... a skill in his wheelhouse for sure.

Anyway, it's water under the bridge and hardly worth complaining about anymore ..... save for the notion that Brown may have misused the prodigious talent he had on defense in his scheme and he ought to think about changing it to adjust for the certain drop off he is going to experience on the DL.

Most importantly though, best of luck bringing down a huge pay day for all the Michigan NFL draft entrants who apparently worked their collective butts off in preparation for it.

https://www.freep.com/story/sports/college/university-michigan/wolverines/2019/03/05/michigan-football-2019/3059779002/

[iam416]

Speaking of combines, Johnnie Dixon ran a 4.41, I think. Terry McClaurin ran 4.38. And Paris Campbell was 4.31. And then you have KJ Hill, who was not at the combine b/c he's returning. He's really fast, too. So, I'm not sure how many David Longs M has -- and Long got beat, too -- but if you're going to play man against that group (I didn't even mention Olave), you're going to have problems. So of your two counts, I definitely see merit in (2). I don't think there was a workable man option for M with the level of speed OSU had WR.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Agree...... and thanks for reminding me and mentioning the names of those fucktards that absolutely pantsed Watson and anybody else who tried to cover them and, yeah, olave.

If I recall, D. Long got beaten on a deep route in zone coverage with a 3 man rush with LBs dropping into short coverage. To haskin's credit, I think he read it perfectly, looked off his primaries and made the deep throw instead.

Ambry Thomas should be a sold replacement for D. Long. I'm not exactly sure how Brown will use Daxton Hill but I can imagine him not playing as a freshman. To Brown's credit, while he was at BC I've read, he was a lot less aggressive with man coverage when his roster called for it. I guess we'll see.

The big ask is whether Gattis is really going to be the OC and if Harbaugh can allow to develop and will practice an offense that can score 40+ points on the regular. At that point, I'll be satisfied with a Brown defense that can hold an opponent under 35, grab some turnovers to keep the team in the + range in that stat and I won't care what he runs.

[iam416]

I assume D. Hill plays, too. And I agree the defense isn't the biggest concern. That said, it should be a concern depending on your aspirations. If you're aiming for the B10 East (and, then the easy CCG win), the defense isn't much of a problem. If you want to win a game in the CFP then it's a problem. I don't think there's an earthly way you can line up and play DB's tough guy straight up man against Clemson or Alabama.

[WM Wolverine]

"I don't think there was a workable man option for M with the level of speed OSU had WR."

That was my worry ahead of the game and Brown tried to run man coverage and mixed it up just as it was too late...

Defense lost a ton of talent, there will be a drop off that the offense must make up for.

[THE_WIZARD_]

shaddup

[Jeff Buchanan]

........I don't think there's an earthly way you can line up and play DB's tough guy straight up man against Clemson or Alabama.

Certainly, Harbaugh can't not want to get Michigan football to the CFP. At least I'm pretty sure that was in his mind when he hired on at M and said he was here to win championships. Agreed, though, M's 2018 team, despite it's record, wasn't anywhere near talented enough or coached well enough to win a game at that level. 2019? Without the changes on offense and less aggression on D, the 2019 team won't fare much better. We'll see.

Lavert Hill will play opposite Ambry Tomas at corner and D. Hill will play somewhere. Ideally he's a S but it's been said he can play the CB position well too. I suspect he'll default to the area of greatest need = S.

Yeah, I think Brown got a lesson in getting torched by osu's high quality receivers (slots and WRs although it's better calling them X, Y and Z these days with their interchangeability play to play) trying to play a set piece, "tough guy defense" without understanding (they should have) the mis-matches developing we saw in that game. Unprepared, IMO.

To that point, it's one of the things I've been reading lately about defensive coaches figuring out how to put their best athletes against the opponent's best and less about scheme. So, it's not so much about Zone or Man (although these terms generally can apply), its about match-ups. Nothing particularly new at the nuts and bolts level for coaches probably but fans and TV analysts and color guys haven't caught up yet. Some have and will spot moves of slotty guys outside when a CB show's a weakness that the slotty guy matches up well against or the same kind of switch-up occurs on D.

Worth noting, I can't keep track of all of Harbaugh's analyst hires in the last couple of months. But he did hire former GA TEch's DC, Nate Woody in that role. These guys, it seems to me, are becoming increasingly important in getting done what I mentioned above. He also hired a bunch of offensive analysts this year I think to mostly fill in for departing analysts that got promoted or hired for coaching positions at other programs.

[Jeff Buchanan]

"I don't think there was a workable man option for M with the level of speed OSU had WR.".......

talent will neg me here but D. Long wasn't 100% going into The Game and he did sit out a good number of plays. I think he does a better job covering the drag routes than Watson if he's healthy. I also think Bush, in the Viper role, could have covered these better if he had been put in a position, play to play, to do so. But I think I could substantiate that he was blitzing a lot more than he was dropping into coverage if I looked at all his plays. That's becasue M wasn't getting through at all with a 4-man rush..... and it's not Brown's style. He kept dialing those blitzes up, they didn't work and I'm not sure he made great adjustments either. But, hell, what do I know.

[iam416]

To that point, it's one of the things I've been reading lately about defensive coaches figuring out how to put their best athletes against the opponent's best and less about scheme.

Right. There's nothing new about that. Of recent vintage, Derrell Reavis and Richard Sherman also took other team's best WR. Hell, Schiano usually tried to play his best guy against the other team's best guy. Brown's problem was that he ran out of dudes before Ohio State ran out of dudes, especially in 4 and 5-wide sets. Ohio State wasn't wasting a speed threat for some bullshit 2nd TE or a FB. Heh.

[THE_WIZARD_]

TaintedBan:

hello

[iam416]

You had me at Hi

[THE_WIZARD_]

xoxoxo

[Jeff Buchanan]

Right. ...... Ohio State wasn't wasting a speed threat for some bullshit 2nd TE or a FB. Heh.

EFZ ..... and any M fan with a brain has realized this although it took me a while to abandon my man-crush on JH and that he couldn't possibly be wrong about that kind of football giving the team an edge.

Question is, has Harbaugh realized it? I'd like to think the Gattis hiring and his designation as OC signals he has. But Jimmy can be a weirdo. It wouldn't be the first time he said what he needed to say to the press and behind his back was giving everyone the finger. He did it all the time while he was at SF. Harbaugh will do what he wants to do and NOBODY is going to tell him there might be a better way.

[THE_WIZARD_]