Michigan was a very bad inside zone team again vs PSU

Submitted by Maizen on

Michigan had much more success with their power and gap plays. They also finally put some guys in motion (still not nearly enough) and that had success as well. Is the IZ a permanent byproduct of hiring Frey, Pep, and Scot Turner or do you think at some point Michigan will realize it's simply not working (sans the IU game) and scrap it all together? As Brian said in his game recap Michigan "is caught between two different approaches on the ground." It just feels like all the clever gadget plays from the first two years and Harbaugh's Stanford teams are gone and there is no identity on offense. I realize some of that is magnified with the OL and QB issues, but there is a difference between having an average offense and the current one which is teetering on total ineptness. 

redwhiteandMGOBLUE

October 25th, 2017 at 9:48 AM ^

You know exactly what I'm referencing but I'll dig through the archives and chronicle to refresh your memory:

Brian posted his UFR on the offense from the Purdue game:

http://mgoblog.com/content/upon-further-review-2017-offense-vs-purdue

The UFR detailed how running inside zone with this line is a bad idea. You then posted a since deleted board topic:

http://mgoblog.com/mgoboard/michigan-running-inside-zone-against-msu-wi…

Several posters pointed out that Brian had just stated this info in the UFR which was still on the front page. These posters also noted that you gave Brian no mention. You fired back with the belief that most people don't take the time to read the UFR:

 

No, I've had these views since Frey was hired. After Brian illuminated the issue in the UFR (which I assume most people don't take the time to read) a post reiterating what he said would be timely. Looks like it has struck a nerve with the lunatic fringe of this community. Lesson learned.

Several posters then noted that UFR's are the best and most well known portion of this blog.

The post quickly went off the rails with people taking shots at you and you rightly firing back.

My post above was merely giving you props for your "Lesson learned.".

bronxblue

October 24th, 2017 at 5:42 PM ^

I mean, this is probably the case, but are there, like, examples of this you'd like to point to?  Sometimes I wonder if posts like these are comments that accidentally get put into the board, because half the time they are just these in media res statements like those spammers posts you see on SBNation that are like "Joanna is right about no good pass blocking.  I work from home and make $843.37 a day.  https://www.xwnsnw.pizza/743nfdl".

Maizen

October 24th, 2017 at 5:51 PM ^

Sure, Eddie McDoom was put in motion several times and each play resulted in something positive. He had 1 carry for 8 yards and 3 catches for 29 yards. Almost every Isaac run was exclusively a power or gap play and he averaged over 6 YPC (6 for 36 and 1 TD). Chris Evans only had 4 carries but on his one power toss he gained 9 yards. Higdon's long run of 11 yards came on a power play but most his early runs were stuffed zone plays. I didn't have time to chart it out like the UFR will but it was fairly obvious to anyone wacthing the game.

bronxblue

October 24th, 2017 at 6:00 PM ^

Okay.  This is useful information that could have been listed earlier.  I am interested to see what the UFR bears out; they ran pretty well out of either against IU, and Isaac seemed most effective out of zone blocking, so I'm a little surprised they'd go against that in this game.  Again, might be small sample size either wayI'm not sure if McDoom on a jet sweep counts either way on that front.  

I am interested in seeing what the UFR shows.  They only ran the ball 25 times with their 3 lead backs, and were down semi-big that entire second half, so it'll be interesting to see where the breakdown is.

In reply to by CLion

Jmer

October 24th, 2017 at 5:57 PM ^

What Beilein needs to do is pull a Mike Zordich and tell us they all suck. We talked about the CB position in the same way we talked about the RT position the last week of fall camp. And now they are the biggest/best suprise of this team.

Jmer

October 24th, 2017 at 5:49 PM ^

Since Brian made light of the fact that we don't have much of an identity in the recap, why didn't you just post this comment in the recap's comment section?

bronxblue

October 24th, 2017 at 6:02 PM ^

To his credit, he responded above to my comment with some analysis.  The fact he had to be prompted for it, then seemingly indiscriminately negs others while up-voting his own comments, shows that you can't reject your natural tendencies more often than not.

Maizen

October 24th, 2017 at 7:05 PM ^

Love that show up in every thread triggered out of your mind. Bet I make you punch the shit out of your little keyboard too. No idea why the mods allow this crap but I must say I'm quite entertained by it. 

ldevon1

October 24th, 2017 at 5:50 PM ^

you are saying, but if the coaches see, or don't see what you are referring to, it really doesn't matter. I think we are all tired of the arm chair coaching and wondering why they don't see what we see. Maybe they do, but other than banging our heads against the wall, this does nothing.

Fezzik

October 24th, 2017 at 10:19 PM ^

Having an opinion and posting football related content on a sports blog is not armchair coaching. I find this interesting considering we are an offense that's still searching. Will we abandon inside zone, improve on it, keep running it?

AZBlue

October 24th, 2017 at 7:07 PM ^

Would be useful. I saw in the “Michigan Monday” thread that while M only gained 85 or so yards on 25 RB carries, NONE of them went for negative yardage — which would represent at least some progress ime.

Blueblood2991

October 24th, 2017 at 6:00 PM ^

I've noticed that too. It brings back PTSD from Doug Nussmeier doing the same thing. He was so used having O-linemen from Bama where he coud run any scheme he wanted. For whatever reason, he insisted on zone blocking at Michigan, results be damned. I'm seeing a lot of the same stubborness this year.

Now before anyone freaks out, no I'm not comparing our staff to Nuss and I trust they'll get it right. And yes, you need to mix in both zone and power running schemes to keep the defense honest. But at some point, you have to realize that you don't have athletic enough linemen to run zone consistently.

StephenRKass

October 24th, 2017 at 6:05 PM ^

Does it need to be either / or? My understanding on this is that this is a "both / and" kind of thing . . . run both power and zone. The idea I picked up from Brian is that they serve as a restraint for the other play. That is to say, if Michigan runs all power, other teams can scheme for that. The ideal mix would be:

  • power
  • short pass
  • zone
  • long pass
  • trick plays

The less that a defense can predict what you are going to do, the better off. Part of the reason PSU did so well is that they had plays no one had seen yet, which they held in reserve until they played Michigan. 

It could go without saying, but the OL has a direct impact on all of these plays. Of course, so does the QB, and pass plays are dependent on the WR's and also the TE's. Still, the OL is critical. And the only way they get better is by repetition and practice and actually using these plays during the game.

Maizen

October 24th, 2017 at 6:12 PM ^

Inside zone teams who are really succesful at it like Bama and Georgia run it almost exclusively. It's something that needs to be repped all spring, summer, and fall year after year after year to get good at. Michigan ran both last year but make no mistake they were a power run team in 2015 and 2016. This year it appears to be an even split and that's the problematic part IMO.

bronxblue

October 24th, 2017 at 6:29 PM ^

You also can't ignore the fact they went from an offensive line with 3 seniors to one with 3 new starters and a 4th changing positions. It's not like either blocking scheme has been all that effective consistently, and that's probably as much due to mismatched personnel and inexperienced as the scheme employed.

Maizen

October 24th, 2017 at 6:37 PM ^

I think it's clear Kugler and JBB have been huge weak links on the OL but I don't think there is any denying they are a much better power and gap blocking team than IZ. Which begs the question why do they continue to run it so much because they did not do this last year. There are always going to be new starters on the OL, very rarely will you bring back most of them because most of the time they are upperclassman. At some point you just have to be better.

tasnyder01

October 24th, 2017 at 11:23 PM ^

Declined each year.

UM rushing innovation declined each year.*

Correlation is not causation, but it ain't nothing either.

*If anyone wants examples, please google "harbaughense". I can explain but like, the posts from a the last few years are a better read. MgoSearch the old BlueInSeoul Picture pages too for a comparison. True me, its worthwhile.