What we picked up from watching the film of Michigan’s 45-14 mauling of Notre Dame Saturday.
Starting with the defense, and first off, the narrative that Don Brown “can’t get it done against good teams” … the rain played a factor Saturday night, of course, but that defense played fast and furious from the beginning. Notre Dame quarterback Ian Book was throwing from his back foot in the first quarter, and as our Doug Skene (former Michigan All-Big Ten lineman) has said many times, the best way to set up a quarterback for a bad game is to let him get hit or pressured early.
It was constant. And frankly, Book is a decent quarterback, but not great. The Michigan defense made him look worse than he is. Yes, there were times (as analyst Kirk Herbstreit pointed out) that he had some receivers open and just failed to stay in the pocket or didn’t “lead” them out of their breaks, but it was only a few. The coverages were multi-dimensional and effective, confusing to Book, and as redshirt freshman linebacker Cam McGrone said, there were no surprises. They knew what ND wanted to do and the defense really took the Irish out of their game.
Crazy to think about, but halfway through the fourth quarter or so, the Irish had 93 yards of total offense, and about half of those yards came on two phenomenal catches by receiver Chase Claypoole on the sidelines … NFL type catches in the rain. That’s as elite and effort as you’re going to see by a defense against a capable offense (and yes, ND’s is on most nights). Those down on Brown during his failures against big teams have to give him his due.
Brown continues to adjust, as he always has, and continues to mix in more concepts. They are really playing the underneath routes well by mixing up the coverages. What looks like man, and what quarterbacks are checking into when they think they’ve got a crossing route, often isn’t. That’s been the case the last several games, where a receiver is being passed off to a safety or a linebacker waiting for him short of the sticks. Daxton Hill was the recipient of the first one on a third and nine play and just smoked the tight end.
Another note … frosh Hill continues to see more time and is great in that role when they do go man coverage on the crossing routes. Even against PSU, KJ Hamler caught one that was well covered. This is good, because Hill is one of the few with speed enough to hang with guys on OSU’s receiving corps in that capacity, and he’ll need to be on the field for much of that game (looking ahead).
Other thoughts on the defense:
• Senior nose tackle Carlo Kemp continues to impress. He held his ground on ND’s first play, a running play, and his bull rush was what forced Book to throw off his back foot the first of many times this game. That helped make Book uncomfortable early. Grad senior Mike Danna continues to impress — he really held the edge a few times when ND tried to string plays out, and the linebackers and safeties were running downhill. ND wanted to take the running game outside the tackles — no chance.
They also did a few different things up front than we’ve seen with slants and twists. On an early second and 11, the entire line slants right while the interior linemen (Kemp and redshirt junior Mike Dwumfour) twist and clog the gaps. No gain.
Book’s head was spinning by the end of the third quarter. He panicked again on a second down pass when it appeared he had a pocket, but by that point Claypool had dropped a potential big gainer on the play before when U-M was playing zone. He’d seen bracket coverage, zone, man and several different looks up front with the lines.
And if you want to see something beautiful, watch the blitz Brown dials up on Phil Jurkevic’s second snap at 11 minutes of the fourth quarter. It includes a tackle-end twist and McGrone running downhill at the snap. Didn’t hurt that senior linebacker Josh Uche was in the backfield around the edge almost immediately.
****
On offense, we’re starting to see more and more of what Jim Harbaugh likes to do in the running game (and has done over the years). All the people complaining about Harbaugh “getting involved” in the offense early in the year — well, it’s a good thing he has. The running game has benefited from it, and offensive line coach Ed Warinner has played a big part in it, too.
One thing Doug Skene and a few others noticed on Hassan Haskins’ 25-yard run just before the end of the first quarter … this is a trap we probably haven’t seen since the 2016 season, one they liked to use with the fullbacks. The quick hitter goes for 25 yards through a huge hole opened by center Cesar Ruiz and left guard Ben Bredeson.
One of Haskins’ other big plays came after Notre Dame’s first touchdown. Junior receiver Nico Collins’ grab over the middle was overturned, but on second and 10 Haskins found another huge hole and — tear in the eye here — made a safety miss. Now, it was awful safety play, just like Haskins’ run at Illinois for a score, but it’s becoming a trend. This kid has really nice feet and gets those hard-earned extra yards.
As someone on the board mentioned, it was nice to see him get a bit of separation on that 49-yard run, too.
• Donovan Peoples-Jones played a pretty inspired game, which was great to see. His touchdown catch on a ball that fell short after Patterson had gotten hit was one of the best catches of his career. That made it 24-7, and at that point it pretty much seemed like game over the way the defense was playing.
Was that where Patterson was trying to go with the ball, or was it just good fortune? Hard to say. Peoples-Jones and Nico Collins ended up in the same spot on the field, which seemed like either faulty design or someone running the wrong route. Had the corner covering Collins been able to peek back, he might have had a play on the ball.
But … it worked out.
• The early second half turned into a field position quandary because Notre Dame was starting to sell out more to stop the run, and the coaches weren’t going to do anything stupid to let ND back in the game. The safeties and linebacker were cheating up. At the same time, Patterson almost made two huge mistakes that could have been game changers, including the lefty throw out of bounds (take a sack there, kid) and a high throw to sophomore Ronnie Bell that should have been picked.
The defense did its job to hold and seemed to give the offense some room to breathe with junior safety Brad Hawkins’ pick — then, the phantom pass interference call. Just awful. A game changer.
Harbaugh said today he’d be all for being able to challenge pass interference calls in college the way they do in the NFL.
• Sainristil’s first big catch in the fourth quarter … we’ve been waiting all year to see a receiver that open and Patterson that much time to throw to find him. And you can see why they love him after the catch. He’s got a bit of Jeremy Gallon in him. The play following, man coverage with Collins alone up top … every time, please.
• Loved seeing Harbaugh go for the jugular up 31-7 with Patterson to Peoples-Jones midway through the fourth on first down. Senior running back Tru Wilson Barry Sandersed a defensive linemen with great footwork at the line of scrimmage to finish it off. Loved, too, that he let Dylan McCaffrey throw and run the offense. He looked good.
And loved seeing Harbaugh's emotion on the sidelines. You could tell he wanted this one.
Finally, some special teams notes —
• Cam McGrone’s roughing the punter penalty early … can’t happen. That’s a play that will lose you a game like Ohio State (and let’s be honest — that’s what the rest of this season is about). Frosh Dax Hill needs better awareness as a gunner. Will Hart put a ball right where he should have, but Hill lost sight of it and it went into the end zone early in the fourth quarter. Hart made one of the underrated plays of the game, though, when he somehow hauled in the high snap in the first quarter near his own end zone and got the ball off.
Thanks to the ND player who Leon Letted it and gave the ball back to the Wolverines. That was a huge swing in momentum and led to U-M’s first three points. Playing from ahead was huge in this game, and that helped.
Peoples-Jones … we’d like to see him catch the balls and prevent the rolls, but given the conditions, if he’s not confident enough to do that, we’d rather have it roll a bit than give the opponent the ball back on Michigan’s side of the field.
Onward.
Starting with the defense, and first off, the narrative that Don Brown “can’t get it done against good teams” … the rain played a factor Saturday night, of course, but that defense played fast and furious from the beginning. Notre Dame quarterback Ian Book was throwing from his back foot in the first quarter, and as our Doug Skene (former Michigan All-Big Ten lineman) has said many times, the best way to set up a quarterback for a bad game is to let him get hit or pressured early.
It was constant. And frankly, Book is a decent quarterback, but not great. The Michigan defense made him look worse than he is. Yes, there were times (as analyst Kirk Herbstreit pointed out) that he had some receivers open and just failed to stay in the pocket or didn’t “lead” them out of their breaks, but it was only a few. The coverages were multi-dimensional and effective, confusing to Book, and as redshirt freshman linebacker Cam McGrone said, there were no surprises. They knew what ND wanted to do and the defense really took the Irish out of their game.
Crazy to think about, but halfway through the fourth quarter or so, the Irish had 93 yards of total offense, and about half of those yards came on two phenomenal catches by receiver Chase Claypoole on the sidelines … NFL type catches in the rain. That’s as elite and effort as you’re going to see by a defense against a capable offense (and yes, ND’s is on most nights). Those down on Brown during his failures against big teams have to give him his due.
Brown continues to adjust, as he always has, and continues to mix in more concepts. They are really playing the underneath routes well by mixing up the coverages. What looks like man, and what quarterbacks are checking into when they think they’ve got a crossing route, often isn’t. That’s been the case the last several games, where a receiver is being passed off to a safety or a linebacker waiting for him short of the sticks. Daxton Hill was the recipient of the first one on a third and nine play and just smoked the tight end.
Another note … frosh Hill continues to see more time and is great in that role when they do go man coverage on the crossing routes. Even against PSU, KJ Hamler caught one that was well covered. This is good, because Hill is one of the few with speed enough to hang with guys on OSU’s receiving corps in that capacity, and he’ll need to be on the field for much of that game (looking ahead).
Other thoughts on the defense:
• Senior nose tackle Carlo Kemp continues to impress. He held his ground on ND’s first play, a running play, and his bull rush was what forced Book to throw off his back foot the first of many times this game. That helped make Book uncomfortable early. Grad senior Mike Danna continues to impress — he really held the edge a few times when ND tried to string plays out, and the linebackers and safeties were running downhill. ND wanted to take the running game outside the tackles — no chance.
They also did a few different things up front than we’ve seen with slants and twists. On an early second and 11, the entire line slants right while the interior linemen (Kemp and redshirt junior Mike Dwumfour) twist and clog the gaps. No gain.
Book’s head was spinning by the end of the third quarter. He panicked again on a second down pass when it appeared he had a pocket, but by that point Claypool had dropped a potential big gainer on the play before when U-M was playing zone. He’d seen bracket coverage, zone, man and several different looks up front with the lines.
And if you want to see something beautiful, watch the blitz Brown dials up on Phil Jurkevic’s second snap at 11 minutes of the fourth quarter. It includes a tackle-end twist and McGrone running downhill at the snap. Didn’t hurt that senior linebacker Josh Uche was in the backfield around the edge almost immediately.
****
On offense, we’re starting to see more and more of what Jim Harbaugh likes to do in the running game (and has done over the years). All the people complaining about Harbaugh “getting involved” in the offense early in the year — well, it’s a good thing he has. The running game has benefited from it, and offensive line coach Ed Warinner has played a big part in it, too.
One thing Doug Skene and a few others noticed on Hassan Haskins’ 25-yard run just before the end of the first quarter … this is a trap we probably haven’t seen since the 2016 season, one they liked to use with the fullbacks. The quick hitter goes for 25 yards through a huge hole opened by center Cesar Ruiz and left guard Ben Bredeson.
One of Haskins’ other big plays came after Notre Dame’s first touchdown. Junior receiver Nico Collins’ grab over the middle was overturned, but on second and 10 Haskins found another huge hole and — tear in the eye here — made a safety miss. Now, it was awful safety play, just like Haskins’ run at Illinois for a score, but it’s becoming a trend. This kid has really nice feet and gets those hard-earned extra yards.
As someone on the board mentioned, it was nice to see him get a bit of separation on that 49-yard run, too.
• Donovan Peoples-Jones played a pretty inspired game, which was great to see. His touchdown catch on a ball that fell short after Patterson had gotten hit was one of the best catches of his career. That made it 24-7, and at that point it pretty much seemed like game over the way the defense was playing.
Was that where Patterson was trying to go with the ball, or was it just good fortune? Hard to say. Peoples-Jones and Nico Collins ended up in the same spot on the field, which seemed like either faulty design or someone running the wrong route. Had the corner covering Collins been able to peek back, he might have had a play on the ball.
But … it worked out.
• The early second half turned into a field position quandary because Notre Dame was starting to sell out more to stop the run, and the coaches weren’t going to do anything stupid to let ND back in the game. The safeties and linebacker were cheating up. At the same time, Patterson almost made two huge mistakes that could have been game changers, including the lefty throw out of bounds (take a sack there, kid) and a high throw to sophomore Ronnie Bell that should have been picked.
The defense did its job to hold and seemed to give the offense some room to breathe with junior safety Brad Hawkins’ pick — then, the phantom pass interference call. Just awful. A game changer.
Harbaugh said today he’d be all for being able to challenge pass interference calls in college the way they do in the NFL.
• Sainristil’s first big catch in the fourth quarter … we’ve been waiting all year to see a receiver that open and Patterson that much time to throw to find him. And you can see why they love him after the catch. He’s got a bit of Jeremy Gallon in him. The play following, man coverage with Collins alone up top … every time, please.
• Loved seeing Harbaugh go for the jugular up 31-7 with Patterson to Peoples-Jones midway through the fourth on first down. Senior running back Tru Wilson Barry Sandersed a defensive linemen with great footwork at the line of scrimmage to finish it off. Loved, too, that he let Dylan McCaffrey throw and run the offense. He looked good.
And loved seeing Harbaugh's emotion on the sidelines. You could tell he wanted this one.
Finally, some special teams notes —
• Cam McGrone’s roughing the punter penalty early … can’t happen. That’s a play that will lose you a game like Ohio State (and let’s be honest — that’s what the rest of this season is about). Frosh Dax Hill needs better awareness as a gunner. Will Hart put a ball right where he should have, but Hill lost sight of it and it went into the end zone early in the fourth quarter. Hart made one of the underrated plays of the game, though, when he somehow hauled in the high snap in the first quarter near his own end zone and got the ball off.
Thanks to the ND player who Leon Letted it and gave the ball back to the Wolverines. That was a huge swing in momentum and led to U-M’s first three points. Playing from ahead was huge in this game, and that helped.
Peoples-Jones … we’d like to see him catch the balls and prevent the rolls, but given the conditions, if he’s not confident enough to do that, we’d rather have it roll a bit than give the opponent the ball back on Michigan’s side of the field.
Onward.
