mesh

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's a good one, as we start talking about the different ways Michigan used motion and alignment to put Purdue defenders in spots where they were going to lose their man-to-man matchups massively. In the process we break down how Mesh works.

If you're in the housing market, Matt's the guy.

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

11/13/2021 – Michigan 21, Penn State 17 – 9-1, 6-1 Big Ten

Sean Clifford sat down on the sideline and let his demeanor crack briefly. Unfortunately for him, this moment was caught by ABC's cameras and broadcast nationwide. He collapsed on the bench and looked like he'd spent several hours in a car wash, without a car. Weary. Bone-deep weary. His jersey looked like he was wearing one of those HOUSE DIVIDED half-and-half monstrosities, this one split equally between Penn State and Grass & Splintered Bone Tech.

GASBTU has a regionally competitive meat judging team [Barron]

He was in the midst of getting sacked seven times and running for his life another couple dozen times. He'd flung passes to receivers who merrily dropped them. He was big parts of the third-and-medium ground game. He'd watched his coach call for a fake field goal on the two yard line. At some point, he knew, he would have to go out there again and pretend for exactly 2.1 seconds that the useless pylons the OL coach insisted were the starting tackles would block the two demons Michigan insisted were college students instead of stygian nightmares conjured up in a foul act of summoning prowess. (Michigan's position: "why not both?")

Sean Clifford sighed a sigh. He sat and calcified on the bench. He sighed again. Eventually got up.

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

Opposing fans are not known for empathy. Anything short of psychotic narcissism generally qualifies you as one of the good ones. But as Penn State lurched into a fourth quarter lead, Michigan Twitter thoughts evolved from "how is he doing this" to "I hope he stops doing this" to "I'm glad he stopped doing that" before finally landing on a sort of elegy.

When your opposition fights like a lion and then has the courtesy to die, you parade him around, lauding his heroism. Appreciating his martial spirit, which was perfectly calibrated: just enough to lose valiantly. Well done. Now we get to feel the exhilaration of a close win. You get to wonder if Clifford's sanity meter is going to overflow against Rutgers.

Michigan fans saw the same thing happen to one of the most physically promising quarterbacks to ever land in Ann Arbor. Devin Gardner looked like a Heisman contender while batting away 300-pound defensive tackles under the lights against Notre Dame; several games later he had the same jersey Clifford does above, except worse.

[Bryan Fuller]

He was no longer the same quarterback. Nobody is when the expectation moves from the possibility of improvisation to the necessity of flight. Clifford isn't, either. Penn State was on their way to a win over Iowa when he got crushed by an unblocked blitzer. When Clifford came back his running ability was put on the shelf, and Penn State went into a tailspin.

Even in this game when PSU turned his legs back on and he started off brilliantly he faded down the stretch, overthrowing open receivers and finally jacking up a hopeless, inaccurate fade as RJ Moten tore at him just like the Iowa defender had a month ago. It's not clear whether Clifford had time to realize that his mesh routes had been obliterated. Watching it again, it feels like Clifford saw Moten charging at him and had an octopus nope moment. Not because he's not tough enough—the preceding 57 minutes are evidence enough—but because he is a human and you can only endure so much blunt force trauma in a short period of time before you are a human who very much does not want to continue having a football attached to his person.

These are the works of Ojabo and Hutchinson. Look on them, ye quarterbacks, and despair.

AWARDS

Known Friends and Trusted Agents Of The Week

"not in the face" [Bryan Fuller]

you're the man now, dog

#1 Aidan Hutchinson/David Ojabo. We're just flipping the Hutchinson/Ojabo pairing and Haskins until further notice. Five sacks between Michigan's twin towers of destruction to go with three fumbles forced and a critical holding call drawn by Hutchinson. Hutchinson was so terrifying that at one point a PSU running back looked straight at Junior Colson charging upfield unmolested, decided that he should block Hutchinson instead, and may have been correct to do so since Hutchinson just went through both guys to share a sack with Colson. Meanwhile Ojabo leads the country in forced fumbles. Full points for both, because you try explaining to them why they don't get full points.

#2 Hassan Haskins. Michigan's bell cow again with Corum out. Rough start, smooth finish with 31 carries for 156 yards and another 45 yards on 5 receptions. Making Michigan's garbage short yardage package work through sheer will. Ripping through linebackers on the regular. Just a miserable bastard to tackle all around.

#3 DJ Turner. Yeah PSU got him on the TD and the two point conversion but those were throws that were uncontestable, particularly the two point conversion. Turner had in fact done a terrific job to give PSU nothing but a tough ball down and to the outside; Dotson and Clifford executed it. Outside of that Turner got in two PBUs, one on the first snap and one on Dotson in the fourth quarter, while providing at least solid and usually very good coverage the rest of the day.

Honorable mention: Cade McNamara had some hiccups but put up 7.5 YPA against a very good defense. Roman Wilson scored a couple of TDs, one on a skinny post he won decisively on. Colson and Josh Ross put in yeoman work with little support for most of the day and turned in important TFLs. Brad Robbins out-dueled Jordan Stout in the punt-off.

KFaTAotW Standings.

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

42: Aidan Hutchinson (HM WMU, #2 Wash, #1 Rutgers, #1 Wisc, HM Neb, #2 NW, T3 MSU, T2 IU, T1 PSU)
30: Hassan Haskins (HM WMU, T3 Wash, T2 NIU, #2 Neb, T1 NW, #1 IU, #2 PSU)
21: David Ojabo (#2 Wisc, T3 MSU, T2 IU, T1 PSU)
18: The OL (#1 Wash, #1 NIU, HM Neb, HM NW)
17: Blake Corum (#2 WMU, T3 Wash, T2 NIU, HM Neb, T1 NW)
10: Cade McNamara (#1 MSU, HM IU, HM PSU)
8: Ronnie Bell (#1 WMU), Brad Hawkins (#1 Neb),Dax Hill (#3 WMU, HM NIU, HM Rutgers, HM Wisc, HM Neb, HM MSU)
7: Brad Robbins (HM Wash, #3 Rutgers, HM Wisc, HM PSU), Josh Ross (HM Wash, HM NIU, HM Rutgers, HM Neb, HM NW, HM PSU)
6: Nikhai Hill-Green(HM NIU, #2 Rutgers), Jake Moody (HM Wash, HM Wisc, #3 Neb, HM MSU), DJ Turner (#3 NW, #3 PSU)
5: Cornelius Johnson(HM NIU, HM Wisc, #3 IU), Andrel Anthony (#2 MSU)
4: AJ Henning (HM WMU, #3 NIU), Roman Wilson (#3 Wisc, HM PSU)
3: Donovan Edwards(T2 NIU)
2: Erick All (HM NW, HM MSU), Junior Colson (HM IU, HM PSU)
1: Andrew Vastardis (HM WMU),Mike Sainristil (HM WMU), Mazi Smith (HM Wash), Gemon Green(HM NIU), Chris Hinton (HM Rutgers),  Taylor Upshaw (HM IU)

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

Michigan runs the Mother Of All Mesh Routes against cover one to pop Erick All open for the game-winning touchdown:

TD WOLVERINES !

Quelle réponse de Michigan ! Un drive parfait conclu par ce TD sur réception de TE Erick All.

Penn State 17, Michigan 21pic.twitter.com/JFQ1QQp1KL

— TBP College Football (@thebluepennant) November 13, 2021

FYI, this was the biggest swing play of the week in college football, spiking Michigan's win percentage by 24%.

Honorable mention: Macdonald calls the Mother Of All Mesh Beaters on PSU ensuing drive; McNamara drops a dime to Wilson; the other dime to Wilson; any of various Robbins mechapunts; any of various Hutch/Ojabo pass rushes.

​MARCUS HALL EPIC DOUBLE BIRD OF THE WEEK.

McNamara is violently blindsided on third and eleven for a sack strip that eventually sends PSU ahead for the first time.

Honorable mention: Fourth and six fake punt conversion after timeout; third and seventeen conversion earlier on that drive; four different false starts put Michigan behind the eight-ball on offense.

[After THE JUMP: well it's M-PSU so we have to talk about someone deciding something absurd]

If you follow enough baseball you're familiar with the concept of a pitcher's second career. The story's always more complex but in broad strokes the kid who comes out dominating with a 101-mph fastball, and the things having a nuclear fastball lets you get away with, slowly builds up his repertoire as the heat begins to dissipate.

This doesn't even show it but Verlander's fastball rate dropped under 50% in 2020

Michigan's defense under Don Brown used to be that dominant fastball-changeup kid. As offenses adapted he was working in more offspeed stuff that play off the fastball, but didn't change the overall approach. That's not insane. If you're going to use your changeup as your primary pitch, you'd better be Luis Castillo. Or Iowa.

This year however they reached that inflection point. It's a dramatic one not only because Lavert Hill was replaced by a downgrade in Gemon Green, but their blazing heater Ambry Thomas opted out and the rest of the depth chart is so weak a shitty MSU rookie can knock them all over the yard. It looks so disorganized because everyone else is trying to make up for it. The DL is jumping the snap to add pressure. They're running more 3-3-5 and stunts for the same reason.

They're doubly unfortunate because downfield chucks are an underused play in the Big Ten. They're relatively low-risk, the ball gets out too quickly for your pass protection to matter, receivers have more game practice on them because they all caught a lot of fades in high school, and cornerbacks are disadvantaged even when they win the route because OPI is rarely called, and if they get run over by the receiver it's usually a flag. However lizard-brained coaches often think in terms of binary success rates, and eschew "low-percentage" plays with high upside. How many times have you heard a coach essentially apologizing for throwing downfield "just to keep them honest"? Show most coaches, especially underdogs, a flashing "Throw at Me!" sign, however, and they'll start doing the thing they should have been doing more of all along. We're making them more efficient than they want to be!

Mesh

When talking in overall defensive structure there's too much to discuss, so let's pare it down to one play that's in almost every offense, and was a big part of Indiana's gameplan: MESH.

This is the Air Raid's base play. A lot of teams that run it, including Indiana and Ohio State, teach their crossers to high-five as they go by in order to get the right amount of spacing for the pick.

MESH is so loved because it's a play with a high upside and a high floor that isn't hard to teach and works against all defenses. It's been especially popular in the last decade as refs at all levels stopped calling the pick part offensive pass interference as long as the pick man tries to go on with his route. Also because teams have gotten used to running it with a leaky running back like above, which overloads defenses' ability to cover it.

If you catch man-to-man, the crossers create a natural pick route for one another, and give your crossers the leverage to take advantage of any speed differential between themselves and whoever's covering them. For this reason teams run MESH often against man defenses where they have a matchup disparity (e.g. Michigan used to match Zach Gentry against linebackers).

MESH also works against zone, because the crossers will be touring all of the linebacker zones, and can sit down in empty space between them. If you catch a blitz, you have two short reads to get the ball out in spaces that the blitz left open. If defenses start activating safeties against underneath routes you've primed them to get torched by deep ones.

It's also easy to teach your quarterback. You start by reading the MIKE (the playside ILB) to see if he's bailing for the RB. MIKE running outside means you probably have man-to-man, and one of the defenders potentially in between the crossing routes is no longer there. MIKE staying inside means the edge of the defense hasn't compensated for the extra player you sent there…yet. After this sweep from the middle to the edge, the QB knows all he needs to make his reads. If the mesh cleared out underneath, throw it to the RB. If it didn't, check the crosser emerging toward that edge. If that guy's covered, flick your eyes above him to see if the middle of the field was abandoned. And if the defense did shift everybody, you've got one-on-one coverage across all that traffic to the guy coming out the backside.

[After THE JUMP: Three ways to defend it]