dig routes

[Patrick Barron]
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65

Upon Further Review 2023: Offense vs Nebraska
Brian • October 5, 2023 • 4:43pm

FORMATION NOTES: Though Nebraska was touted as a 3-3-5 coming in, in this game they were highly multiple. I had them in some variety of a 4-3 on a majority of plays, mostly under-shifted with a five man line.

image

Note the unusual depth of the linebackers, generally around five yards instead of three. Nebraska played with light boxes a fair bit and would spin down a safety late. Michigan didn't do anything unusual.

SUBSTITUTION NOTES: Henderson got his first start at LT, kicking Barnhart to RT. When Tuttle Time started Michigan put El-Hadi at LG and Trente Jones at RT, then gradually replaced the rest of the starters. Notably, Andrew Gentry played at LT and Jeff Persi played at RG. This is a shift from earlier in the season when Gentry snaps were at guard, and suggests to me that they've decided he's LT of the future and are going to rep him there the rest of the year.

RB snaps were split down the middle between Corum and Edwards, though Edwards got a half dozen snaps on the Tuttle time drive. Mullings got 8. Non-RB skill position snap counts again favored TEs, but less so than last week:

  • Barner: 36
  • Loveland: 35
  • Johnson: 32
  • Wilson: 26
  • Morris: 25
  • Clemons: 24
  • Moore: 20
  • Bredeson: 20
  • Morgan: 18
  • English: 16
  • Beetham: 16
  • Klein: 14

Clemons got in for a fair number of snaps with McCarthy on the field and got a dig target, which is a good sign for his future.

[After THE JUMP: it expands]

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Not to be confused with the All-Dug offense, coming this fall to an arena near you. [Patrick Barron]
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The Matt & Seth Show: The All-Dig Offense
Seth • October 4, 2023 • 3:00pm

Matt Demorest, Realtor and Lender and I have brought back our (sometimes-)weekly video short. The purpose of these is to show you something on film that you as a fan will be able to pick up on when you see it in the future. This week I went into how Michigan is consistently hitting dig routes, why they're not usually that common in college football, because defenses are getting stretched vertically between the running game and Roman Wilson's speed. If you're in the housing market, Matt's the guy.

There is nothing after the jump because it's video content.

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[Patrick Barron]
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119

Yes, We Have No Fantods Today
Brian • October 2, 2023 • 1:01pm

9/30/2023 – Michigan 45, Nebraska 7 – 5-0, 2-0 Big Ten

This column is about being grateful but first a digression into obscure lexicography, as the readership demands. Despite an Atlantic article that accidentally implies that the noun "fantods" was a neologism sprouted from David Foster Wallace's mother, Merriam Webster asserts that Charles Fredrick Briggs deployed in 1839; indeed, it actually found its way in to Huckleberry Finn:

"They was all nice pictures, I reckon, but I didn't somehow seem to take to them, because … they always give me the fantods."

I think it is probable that DFW's mother is the originator of the phrase "howling fantods," which does feel like a temple erected on top of a previous religion's foundation. Fantods are one thing. When they howl, wow. Buddy. I mean. It's not good.

I was put in this frame of mind in the midst of Michigan's comprehensive dismantling of Nebraska because whilst I was enjoying myself, many other sports fans were not. I was particularly affected by two morose persons in particular. One was Robert Rosenthal, who goes by @alioneye on Twitter and is very likely the world's most dedicated Illinois fan. Illinois is coming off a promising season, and as directed by the laws of Illinois football that means they must immediately descend into the Earth's mantle. Ryan Walters, until recently the Illinois defensive coordinator, provided that via means of a 44-19 hamblasting at the hands of Purdue. Here is a place I have been:

I have been in the Place Of Cheese, except it was more like, you know, alcohol. At some point in the Rodriguez era I responded to news of Troy Woolfolk's injury with a burst of tweets that resulted in this exchange…

…and me hurriedly explaining that yes I was drinking tea but, like Fred Jackson, I was also drinking several other things that may or may not kill me and that I was not entirely certain which outcome I was hoping for. After the JT Was (Probably Not) Short game I poured a double of Lagavulin 16 and wandered around in the wooded area behind my home for 45 minutes before returning to reality. Did it help? Absolutely. Enough? No.

-------------------------

Depressed sports fan number two was Roger Bennett of Men In Blazers, who is apparently a fan of both Everton and the Chicago Bears. If you responded to this information with a sort of low, keening, sympathetic howl you know more about the EPL and NFL than I do but I saw this from Roger this weekend and thought "I literally wrote this except it was a 600-word column":

I first ran across Bennett during the 2014 World Cup, when Men In Blazers was a sort of late-night World Cup recap show on ESPN, and loved their general exuberance about things. To see Bennett brought so low by the things he loves is a grim reminder that two years ago I was declaring Michigan football the least fun program in the whole of sports. And… I mean… it kind of was.

Now that we are not beset by howling fantods about sports we should take a minute to appreciate that this team is not only good but also very fun. After JJ McCarthy scrambled for a 20-yard touchdown, FOX's mics picked him up saying "thank you so much boys" to his offensive line after demanding pretend corn. After Corum walked in later he pretended to salt the OL's corn. Jim Harbaugh reached unprecedented levels of football dad in the locker room after the game:

The levels of dad Harbaugh is reaching are potentially dangerous, but if there's a fanbase in the country who can adapt and survive it's this one:

I don't know where this season is going to end up but I'm delighted that I get to spend some time with these guys every Saturday.

AWARDS

Known Friends and Trusted Agents Of The Week

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box score shmocks score [Barron]

you're the man now, dog-2535ac8789d1b499[1]

#1 Kris Jenkins. Notched a total of two tackles; don't care. On review of the game he was never successfully blocked. Never. I'm sure Seth will find a couple of counter-examples but Jenkins was a primary reason Nebraska's somewhat vaunted ground game went exactly nowhere.

#2 Braiden McGregor. Very hard to pick out another defensive player for the usual reasons—no snaps, everyone does like one thing—but McGregor did three things in this game: he forced the interception with a batted pass that went sky-high, he shoved a tight end into Haarberg on Nebraska's failed fourth and one, and he (like many others) showed Tyler Corcoran his own intestines en route to a sack.

#3 Roman Wilson. You make that catch, you get to be a Known Friend and Trusted Agent.

Honorable mention: JJ McCarthy averaged nearly ten yards an attempt, scored a scramble TD, ate imaginary corn, thanked his linemen to a national television audience, and kissed his girl with twenty minutes left in the game. Only sixteen attempts, though? AJ Barner and Max Bredeson continue to mash faces. Derrick Moore had a strip-sack, a batted pass, and another hurry. Blake Corum weaved through dudes.

KFaTAotW Standings.

(points: #1: 8, #2: 5, #3: 3, HMs one each. Ties result in somewhat arbitrary assignments.)

22: JJ McCarthy (#1 ECU, #1 UNLV, #2 Rutgers, HM Nebraska), Kris Jenkins (HM ECU, T2 UNLV, #1 BGSU, HM Rutgers, #1 Nebraska)
11: Mike Sainristil (T3 ECU, HM BGSU, #1 Rutgers)
9: Roman Wilson (T2 ECU, HM UNLV, HM BGSU, #3 Nebraska), Blake Corum (HM ECU, HM UNLV, #2 BGSU, HM Rutgers, HM Neb)
7: Braiden McGregor(T3 UNLV, #2 Nebraska)
6: Kenneth Grant (T3 ECU, T2 UNLV), Cornelius Johnson (T2 ECU, HM UNLV, HM BGSU)
5: Mason Graham (HM ECU, T2 UNLV), Junior Colson (#3 BGSU, T3 Rutgers)
4: Ernest Hausmann (T3 ECU, T3 Rutgers)
3: Mike Barrett (HM UNLV, T3 Rutgers)
2:  Josh Wallace (T3 ECU), Derrick Moore (T3 UNLV), Jaylen Harrell (HM UNLV, HM BGSU), AJ Barner (HM BGSU, HM Neb), Max Bredeson (HM Rutgers, HM Neb)
1: Tommy Doman (HM ECU), Donovan Edwards (HM ECU), Tyler Morris (HM UNLV), Semaj Morgan (HM Rutgers), Colston Loveland (HM Rutgers), Quinten Johnson (HM Rutgers), Derrick Moore (HM Neb)

Who's Got It Better Than Us(?) Of The Week

Roman Wilson provides his version of the Prothro.

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[Barron]

Honorable mention: Kenneth Grant intercepts Nebraska's second play from scrimmage thanks to a McGregor bat; McCarthy rolls away from pressure and fires in a thirty-yard laser for another Wilson TD; Michigan coaches succumb to the clamoring of the internet and agree to call a flea flicker every game.

imageMARCUS HALL EPIC DOUBLE BIRD OF THE WEEK.

Uh… Tyler Morris muffed a punt, which he then returned for 30 yards?

Honorable mention: A couple of long completions on slants are irritating.

[After THE JUMP: this is fine]
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