ADVERTISEMENT

Stock Report: Defense vs Fresno State

Stats, analytics, and video breakdown of Michigan's defense vs Fresno.
Ann Arbor, we have an EDGE duo.
What happens when you sell out to block the DTs.
Hello, Barham and Hausmann.
CB starters WILL make plays.
Safety is experienced and loaded.
🔗🔽


ICYMI offense

Recruiting 2026 four-star LB Cam Thomas 'felt like a priority' during Michigan visit

“You really can't get any better than Michigan. Biggest stadium in America, playing in front of 110k every week, and a championship culture.”

2026 four-star Lakota West LB Cam Thomas goes in-depth on his gameday visit to Michigan:

  • Like
Reactions: kurtwolbert

Week 1 Analysis

Attended the game last night, just finished rewatching it this morning and wanted to share my thoughts. I don’t want this to come across as if I know better than the Michigan staff, but as a former college player (WR) fresh out of college I think I can provide a unique perspective:

It’s fair to be underwhelmed by the offensive performance, I won’t fault you for that. There’s been a lot of finger pointing at Warren, OL, Donovan, etc.. and on the surface level, also more than fair. What I was least impressed with was, Kirk Campbell. My complaints below:

Kirk gave Iowa a run for their money in terms of calling one of the most uncreative and vanilla games. The lack of creativity to get Tyler Morris and Semaj Morgan involved was shocking. Jet sweeps, touch passes, orbits (where the WR goes behind the QB in motion)… nothing. If you’re gonna go with Warren, you absolutely have to get playmakers in the open field. With all due respect, the most used man in motion was Max Bredeson who is the least of the defenses worry when hes split out… Great player for what he does, but let’s be real, him lining up outside the numbers is a prank. I have zero problems with motioning him from within the tackles for blocking schemes, however.

How have we not figured out how to use Edwards yet? If I have to watch him slam himself inbetween the guards again next week I’m going to lose it. We used him and Mullings as if they were identical backs. No crap Mullings looked better, because all we did was run inside. Donovan needs primarily outside zones, off tackles, sweeps, stretches and schemed routes in the passing game. He’s an elite weapon and this offense NEEDS him. Throw him screens, get him matched up against LB’s, for the love of god it’s not that difficult to do.

Orji’s pass on the run was bad, no other to twist it. I refuse to believe that’s standard for him, but I think it does speak to the “inconsistency” we heard of. In his defense, when the playcalling caters to him running inside zone options, whipping out a random pass on a whim and then not giving him another chance isn’t totally fair to him. I would really like to see him get more passing opportunities before I close the book on him. His running ability is some of the best I’ve seen at the college level. For an offense who is in desperate need of playmakers, a dual threat QB can solve a lot of those problems. I’m interested to see how they use him going forward (I hope it’s more creative).

Long story short, players have to make plays. But our OC needs to put them in positions to be successful in terms of catering to their skills. Don't be stubborn with your philosophy, there’s a happy medium. Curious if anyone else was overly frustrated with the playcalling. For sakes of being optimistic, I’m going to say the staff didn’t want to open it up and ease the guys in / not showing Texas everything we got up our sleeves with all the unique skill traits our guys have.

Really like the 2 minute time outs at the end of the half.

after cutting down the number of plays in each game and thereby reducing the stoppage in play, you knew it was just a matter of time before the advertisers started to complain.

But the creative minds inserted the 2 minute time out, so tv can run an additional 3 1/2 minutes of commercials before halftime and the end of the game. Good planning as if gives the viewers time to get another beer before loading up on food during halftime.

Now if they can just learn to spread the start times of some games out a bit so that you can switch to another game instead of listening to the talking heads "analyze" the first half. Not that most people listed.

The quad screen which YouTube TV makes available is great... you can watch 4 games at once with the sound on 1. When the M game cut to commercial it was great to toggle to the TAM vs ND game with sound until the M game came back live and you could go back to full screen. If the second game was at commercial, you could flip to a third game. Very nice way to keep in touch with multiple games.

I counted 11 simultaneous games being covered by YouTube TV in the Noon slot.

Opinion on the QB situation

Can we stop rotating QB's? There's nothing more frustrating than when the offense gets a first down or a couple, the coaches put the other QB in, and the drive stalls. Rotating QB's disrupts the flow of the offense.
It happened with Cade. The offense with Cade had good drives going, we inserted JJ, and it disrupted the drive.
It happened Saturday. Warren & the offense had a couple of promising drives, Orji came in, and the possession stalled out. I get we can do that with Fresno State but we need those promising drives to end up in touchdowns this week vs Texas. I hope they keep Warren in the game and don't use Orji unless it's ugly or unfortunately...an injury happens to Davis(hopefully not).

BET: Michigan vs Texas Odds & Lines

Betting lines have settled in at -7 on most markets after 88% of the public bets helped move the line from an open of -3.
Here are all the trends and numbers to know ahead of Michigan's matchup against Texas.
🔗🔽

BTN in 60

I forgot to record this game and I don’t see it on the BTN in 60 schedule (though they have a few slots where the game is not yet listed). Maybe BTN doesn’t have an arrangement with NBC? If anyone sees it please post. I didn’t notice in person what is being described as the large numbers of substituting last night and wanted to check out.
  • Like
Reactions: bluestrom
ADVERTISEMENT

Filter

ADVERTISEMENT