MICHIGAN PREVIEW: Who Is The Victor?
Look, not my best title work but I'm finishing this at 3:00 AM
INFO AND STATISTICS:
COACH: Jim Harbaugh, 7th season (76-54 at Michigan, 126-83 overall)
2021 RECORD: 5-0 (2-0 Big Ten)
POLL RANKING: #9 AP, #8 Coaches
SP+/F+ OVERALL RATING: 8th/4th (Nebraska: 22nd/24th)
VEGAS SPREAD (as of Thursday, Oct. 7): Michigan -3.5, 50.0 Over/Under
SP+ NEBRASKA WIN PROBABILITY: 42 percent
SP+ SCORE PREDICTION: Michigan 27, Nebraska 24
Harbaugh, the former Michigan quarterback, finished outside the top 10 nationally in SP+ just once in his first five seasons coaching his alma mater (UM finished 13th in 2017) but for some reason was “on the hot seat” by Michigan fans and the national media after a 2020 season where UM finished … 33rd. Course has corrected this year and some people now look very dumb. Even if you don’t like him, he’s far and away the best Wolverines coach since at least the early Lloyd Carr years and possibly the Bo Schembechler ones, too.
PERSONNEL:
BEST PLAYERS:
Aidan Hutchinson, Defensive End, #97: Hutchinson has started since his freshman year and was a decent/good player for two season and injured in his third. But the 6’6, 265-pound senior made a massive leap this offseason and has been maybe the most dominant defensive player in football. He has five sacks and 13 other hurries by Pro Football Focus in five games (Fun fact: The three current highest-rated PFF edge rushers are Buffalo’s Taylor Riggins, Hutchinson and OU’s Nik Bonitto, all of whom Nebraska has played — that stinks for you, NU offensive tackles!)
David Ojabo, Linebacker, #55: This dude is from SCOTLAND and is good at football. Ojabo, a junior, is designated a “linebacker” on the roster but is really just a pass rusher/defensive end in Michigan’s Bear-front defense. He has four sacks, too!
Brad Hawkins, Safety, #2: Hawkins returned for his super senior year as Michigan’s field safety (their typical alignment lines up one safety in the box and one deep in the field). He has been targeted six times this year and hasn’t allowed a catch! Zero catches, pretty good!
Blake Corum, Running Back, #2: Corum, a sophomore, is FAST. He’s also very efficient and tough to bring down, forcing 30 missed tackles this year per PFF. But he really does his damage as a home-run hitter; 42% of his 521 season rushing yards have come on just seven carries. Also a very dangerous kick returner, something I’m sure we’re all excited to read.
Hassan Haskins, Running Back, #25: Haskins is the thunder to Corum’s lightning. An old-hand senior out of St. Louis who’s been in UM’s running back rotation for three seasons, the 220-pound Haskins is less explosive (though he still has 11 runs of 10+ yards this year) than Corum but is more of the chains-mover.
COOLEST NAME ON THE ROSTER:
Ja’Den McBurrows, Cornerback, #1
This one didn’t take long; I opened Michigan’s roster to look for a cool name, and there was jersey number 1, Ja’Den McBurrows.
The true freshman cornerback was one of the more unheralded recruits in Michigan’s last class as a three-star ranked No. 551 nationally by 247Sports, but he’s already been a contributor on special teams and played some snaps in the secondary. Good for you, Ja’Den!
WHEN MICHIGAN’S OFFENSE IS ON THE FIELD:
STATISTICS:
UNIT SP+/F+ RATINGS:
UM OFFENSE: 26th SP+/10th F+
NU DEFENSE: 20th SP+/20th F+
YARDS PER PLAY (national rank in parentheses):
UM OFFENSE: 6.74 yards per play (22nd)
NU DEFENSE: 4.88 yards per play allowed (37th)
POINTS PER DRIVE (national rank in parentheses):
UM OFFENSE: 3.64 points per drive (7th)
NU DEFENSE: 1.28 points per drive allowed (12th)
RUSHING:
UM OFFENSE: 255 rushing yards per game (1st in Big Ten, 7th nationally)
NU DEFENSE: 122 rushing yards allowed per game (8th in Big Ten, 43rd nationally)
PASSING:
UM OFFENSE: 181.8 passing yards per game (9th in Big Ten, 111th nationally)
NU DEFENSE: 199.8 passing yards allowed per game (5th in Big Ten, 43rd nationally)
20+ YARD GAINS PER GAME:
UM OFFENSE: 4.8 20+ yard gains per game (2.2 rush, 2.6 pass)
NU DEFENSE: 3.49 20+ yard gains allowed per game (1.16 rush, 2.33 pass)
HAVOC PLAYS PER GAME (tackles for loss, sacks, passes defensed, interceptions, fumbles forced):
UM OFFENSE: 5.4 Havoc plays allowed per game
NU DEFENSE: 11.5 Havoc plays per game
COORDINATOR:
Josh Gattis, Third Season
A former Wake Forest and NFL receiver, Gattis was attached early in his career to now-Penn State coach James Franklin. Gattis got notoriety for his role as wide receivers coach under offensive coordinator Joe Moorhead, developing guys like DaeSean Hamilton and Chris Godwin. He turned that into a one-year job as co-offensive coordinator/receivers coach at Alabama for the Tua Tagovailoa/Jerry Jeudy/DeVonta Smith breakout team. Harbaugh brought him to Ann Arbor to modernize the offense following a 2018 season, when Michigan started 10-1 and reached No. 4 in the AP poll before their conservative, pro-style attack couldn’t put up points with Ohio State’s spread in a game in which they got pantsed. Things didn’t totally click in Gattis’ first two years, but this season has delivered a nice mix of the spread/RPO concepts Gattis favors with the physicality/power plays Harbaugh likes. Sometimes these things take time to gel!
SCHEME:
Primary Formations: Pistol/Gun
Primary Personnel: 11, 12, 21
Tempo: Occasionally, as a curveball
Motion: Jet motion frequently
Run: Gap scheme
Standard Downs: RPO heavy
Third Down: Condensed formations and bunch formations for outside breakers, empty formations
Gattis and Harbaugh have been able to find a nice middle ground thanks to the run-pass option. Gattis has taken the gap scheme runs Harbaugh is famous for — power, counters, isos, traps — and put them in spread formations with passing elements tagged on the outside, counters for if the defense should try to match the power running game by putting extra bodies in the box.
And believe, Michigan DOES want to have a power run game. They may be embracing some spread concepts, but they’re still doing a lot of them with two tight ends of a fullback/H-back on the field. Below is a midzone/slants RPO from a two tight end set they ran all the time in the games I watched:
When they do get off schedule and have to throw (which isn’t often), they like to condense their wide receivers’ splits or get in bunch formations and throw out-breaking routes, regardless of coverage. They also like to get a little tricky by getting in empty formations in long downs.
From a personnel standpoint, their offensive line isn’t outstanding but functions well as the sum of its parts. Their receivers aren’t particularly good, either — wideout Ronnie Bell, probably their best skill player and a low-ranked recruit Nebraska pursued but let slip out of Kansas City, had his season ended by injury in the first game. Cade McNamara, who has maybe the most “Michigan Quarteback Name” of all time, is a good player but isn’t really a gamebreaker.
But overall, their offense is about punishing defenses physically with the run game, and then taking the space in the passing game when teams load up to stop the run. They aren’t hunting for monster plays (though they’re still getting plenty) and almost never turn the ball over or have a negative play — they have allowed just 11 tackles for loss in five games and haven’t had a starter lose a fumble or throw an interception so far this year.
HOW NEBRASKA CAN DEFEND IT:
This is a toughie. Michigan runs the RPOs really well, and they’re very, very dangerous as both runs and passes. Two really good defenses tried opposite ways of stopping the RPOs and failed pretty miserably: Washington tried to take away all of the passing concepts and extraneous stuff and gave up 343 rushing yards; Wisconsin loaded up to stop the run and died by 1,000 paper-cut passes.
One thing I definitely expect Nebraska will do is run more “base” 3-4 personnel to get another defensive lineman on the field to match UM’s tight-end heavy attack; the 2-5 Nickel is NU’s primary defense at this point against 11 personnel, but they’ve been matching heavier offensive personnels the past few weeks by bringing a third defensive lineman onto the field
Otherwise, I expect their main plan to be: (a) a lot of Cover 1 and praying that your corners and safeties can win one-on-one so that you can keep requisite numbers in the box and (b) a lower blitz rate so that the offense isn’t constantly making your defense “wrong” by directing the ball postsnap wherever you’re not. Matching Michigan’s physicality will also be huge; if you let them push you around on the line, this gets ugly.
WHEN MICHIGAN’S DEFENSE IS ON THE FIELD:
STATISTICS:
UNIT SP+/F+ RATING:
UM DEFENSE: 8th SP+/9th F+
NU OFFENSE: 34th SP+/28th F+
YARDS PER PLAY (national rank in parentheses):
UM DEFENSE: 4.48 yards per play allowed (18th)
NU OFFENSE: 6.69 yards per play (24th)
POINTS PER DRIVE (national rank in parentheses):
UM DEFENSE: 0.91 points per drive allowed (5th)
NU OFFENSE: 2.47 points per drive (47th)
RUSHING:
UM DEFENSE: 115.20 rushing yards allowed per game (4th in Big Ten, 33rd nationally)
NU OFFENSE: 235 rushing yards per game (2nd in Big Ten, 14th nationally)
PASSING:
UM DEFENSE: 170.6 passing yards allowed per game (1st in Big Ten, 16th nationally)
NU OFFENSE: 266.5 passing yards per game (5th in Big Ten, 40th nationally
HAVOC PLAYS PER GAME (cumulative tackles for loss, sacks, passes defensed, interceptions, fumbles forced):
UM DEFENSE: 12.4 Havoc plays per game
NU OFFENSE: 7.16 Havoc plays allowed per game
20+ YARD GAINS PER GAME:
UM DEFENSE: 2.8 20+ yard gains allowed per game (0.6 rush, 2.2 pass)
NU OFFENSE: 5.82 20+ yard gains per game (1.66 rush, 4.16 pass)
COORDINATOR:
Mike Macdonald, First Season
Macdonald comes to Michigan from the NFL’s Ravens, where he started as an intern and worked his way up for seven seasons into the linebackers coach. John Harbaugh, Baltimore’s longtime head man, reportedly recommended Macdonald to his brother for the job, saying he was likely next in line to be the Ravens’ defensive coordinator at only 34. Before the NFL, Macdonald’s only experience was at his alma mater, the University of Georgia, under Mark Richt. Macdonald didn’t play collegiately, instead coaching at an area a high school while getting his undergrad and working as a student coach while getting his Master’s degree UGA (shoutout student coaches).
Macdonald replaces Don Brown, who delivered consistently excellent defenses for the Wolverines for four seasons before a “bad” year — finishing 36th in defensive SP+ — last year and a hot seat prompted Harbaugh to make a change.
SCHEME:
Base Defense: 5-1 Bear Front
Coverage: Cover 1
Blitz: Every Play
Third Down: Somehow Even More Blitzing
After the firing of Brown, a notoriously aggressive defensive coordinator, most assumed Michigan would go the other way and embrace something a little more conservative or normal. They did the opposite.
Macdonald is maybe even MORE aggressive than Brown, something he brought with him from the Ravens. When spread offenses took over the NFL, most teams embraced lighter, faster, flexible defenses, but the Ravens did a big zig, doubling down on defensive pressure and getting guys in the box. If you follow the NFL or Baltimore, you know it worked.
Michigan (like the Ravens) primarily lines up in a Bear front on standard downs. That’s five players on the line of scrimmage, one in a 0 technique over the center, two in 3s over the guards, and two in 5s over the tackles. They also play with a Mike linebacker standing right behind. This gives you a defender for every run gap. It looks like this:
ASIDE: If you were an EARLY SUBSCRIBER and remember, this is the same front Illinois’ coordinator ran when at Missouri and what caused the odd/even front snafu after the Illini game when he came out in something totally different.
Getting a guy in every gap is good! Most coordinators would like to do that. But this defense isn’t super popular because it comes with a tradeoff: Your corners and safeties are now almost exclusively on islands by themselves, and your coverages are now limited to Cover 1 and Cover 3. The Ravens could get away with that because they had three Pro Bowl corners and Earl Thomas. Michigan’s secondary was a much, much bigger question mark entering Macdonald’s tenure, but so far they’ve obviously held up (though they’ve played some atrocious passing offenses in Washington, NIU, Rutgers and Wisconsin — not exactly the New York Jets):
The other element of this is blitzing. The Ravens led the NFL in blitz percentage last year, bringing the heat on almost 47 percent of their total snaps. They like to go full amoeba when they blitz, bringing it from everywhere: slot corners, safeties, sim pressures; you name it. This is just one of the third down looks they ran against Wisconsin:
I’m scared.
HOW NEBRASKA CAN ATTACK IT:
All due respect to the king and legend Jacquez Yant, I don’t think NU will be able to run the ball at all Saturday on normal running plays. I think their best bet is going to be trying to take advantage of the secondary’s vulnerability, either on hitting quick, outside passes against off-man coverage or by Adrian Martinez doing his magic act when the Wolverines want to get aggressive, either by hurting them with scrambles or using the threat of his legs to get people open. For a more detailed and comprehensive look at ways to attack a Bear front, swing by the Illinois preview.
SCORE PREDICTION:
Michigan 31, Nebraska 21
I think NU is very definitely playing the best ball it has under coach Scott Frost. I think it’s a much-improved team. I think Memorial is going to be absolutely NUTS. But this prediction doesn’t have a ton to do with any of that: I just think Michigan is really, really good. This Wolverines team seems like a nightmare, and I think is going to end up as the second- or third-best team the Huskers have to play this year. I’d love to be wrong, though, and will be rooting like hell that I am. GBR.