Real Kato Blog: College Football Recap: Week 2

A big weekend in college football: Michigan takes on Notre Dame, and the top two teams in the country take on ranked opponents.

Michigan 28, Notre Dame 24. Last year, Michigan won in thrilling fashion on Tate Forcier's heroic efforts. This year, Denard Robinson passed for 244 yards, and ran for 258 yards. A 258-yard rushing effort would be a spectacular day for a running back. For a quarterback, it's mind-blowing (and Big Ten record-setting). Robinson accounted for 502 yards of offense. Michigan's total offense: 532 yards. Whew.

For today's X's and O's breakdown, let's look at a play we talked about last week, the QB off-tackle play. Michigan is in trips left. But unlike UConn, Notre Dame brings their defensive linemen in tight and spreads their outside linebackers wide. This is a more aggressive run-stopping formation against a spread offense, but it has its vulnerabilities: if containment fails on the outside, or if a hole develops to the inside, there's no second-level support to stop the run. So to counter that threat, Notre Dame has a cornerback and a safety also spying into the backfield. In total, there are nine guys ready to crash in to stop the run.

QB Draw 1

After the snap, we begin to see the problems this has created for Michigan. The OL cannot create an inside hole because the DL is taking an inside rush. Schilling has made it to the second level but the middle linebacker has beaten him to the outside lane. The only real option for Robinson is to break the run outside, but the cornerback is coming up to take that away as well. Any cutback opportunities will be covered by the strong safety who is charging hard towards the line.

QB Draw 2

Schilling has a poor angle and whiffs on his block. The corner and safety are now just five yards from the line of scrimmage and have Robinson bracketed.

QB Draw 3

Robinson ends up with just a one-yard gain.

QB Draw 4

The very next play, Michigan tries the same thing, and Notre Dame defends it the same way. Note the cornerback crashing down and the safety selling out to pursue the run.

QB Draw 5

So, spread offense FAIL, right? There's nothing Michigan can do, right? FIRE RODRIGUEZ BOOOOO, right?

Lee Corso: Not so fast, my friend!

Just about every play in the spread offense has multiple options. Rodriguez probably took a few seconds on the sideline to remind Robinson of this, and to point out the glaring weakness in Notre Dame's defensive alignment. After Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly called a truly Zookian play (a flea flicker resulting in an interception... why would you call that when you'd just put in your second-string quarterback, and your offensive scheme had been working smoothly the whole game?), Michigan gets the ball back and trots out with this:

QB Draw Fake 1

Uh, looks familiar, right? But you might have spotted something last time: there's nobody covering the inside slot receiver, and nobody in the deep middle of the field, because the guys who should have those responsibilities are crashing in towards the run. So Robinson pulls up and looks downfield, and hey, whaddaya know?

QB Draw Fake 2

Sorry for the crummy pictures but this was all I could get off the NBC web site. But even in the blurriness, you can see that Roy Roundtree is WIDE open. I mean, no one within seven yards of him, and nothing but green in front of him.

QB Draw Fake 3

Touchdown, Michigan.

QB Draw Fake 4

So again, the spread offense philosophy is this: you can't cover everyone. If you sell out to cover the run, you leave yourself frighteningly open to a wide open pass play. Sometimes it comes down to just guessing the right defense on a particular play: but if you guess wrong, you may well give up a touchdown.

That being said, Notre Dame did make some really good defensive adjustments in the second half. The pre-snap shift seemed to give Michigan a lot of problems... I think Michigan needs to consider changing their snap timing to counter that. But Notre Dame simply could not stop Robinson on Michigan's final game-winning drive (where Robinson accounted for all of the offensive yards). Just a masterful performance.

Grades: Offense B+, Defense B-. The offense stalled a bit in the second half, and the defense had some horrible gaffes (specifically, free safety Cameron Gordon, who was solely responsible for two long touchdowns). But the young cornerbacks had another good day, and Jonas Mouton was pretty solid.

NCSU 28, UCF 21: This game was not televised, so I had to watch it on CBS GameTracker (which is pretty cool; they even have little animations depicting each play). I couldn't get a true sense of what was working and what wasn't, but from the statistics, a few things are clear. One, NCSU's run defense is pretty solid. The pass defense gave up yards at times, but also came up with some interceptions and some sacks; I guess you could call them "opportunistic". The offense was running well in the first half, but slowed down in the second half. Sometimes it feels like Tom O'Brien is holding back quarterback Russell Wilson, who could be a superstar in the right kind of offensive system.

UCF scored one of their touchdowns on a kickoff return, so the game was closer than it should have been. NCSU will need to tighten up their execution this Thursday, when they play a good Cincinnati team in front of a national audience.

Other Notable Games:

Virginia Tech lost to 1-AA James Madison 21-16. That Boise State win over VT doesn't seem as impressive now.

Kansas upset Georgia Tech 28-25. Kansas lost to North Dakota State last week, so this is a big bounce-back win.

Speaking of Dakotas, Minnesota lost to 1-AA South Dakota 41-38. Coach Tim Brewster is in trouble.

Ohio State beat Miami 36-24 in a marquee matchup. This was a bit sloppy, with Miami throwing a bunch of interceptions, but with OSU giving up two kick returns for touchdowns. Who wanted to win less? Miami, I guess.

Alabama clobbered Penn State 24-3. Penn State's freshman quarterback didn't look so good in this game. As the game wound down, Alabama fans were chanting "ESS EEE CEE". SEC fans, get over yourselves, okay? Your top team beat the Big Ten's #4 or #5 team, whose freshman quarterback was starting in his first away game. This isn't a statement about conference strength. After all, look what Oregon did to Tennessee (squashed them 48-13).

South Carolina beat Georgia 17-6. Hmm, if South Carolina beats Alabama, will Alabama fans be quite so happy about SEC conference strength?

West Virginia squeaked by Marshall 24-21.

Michigan State beat Florida Atlantic 30-17 in an "away" game at Ford Field. I saw bits of this game: the players, the crowd, and the commentators seemed to be bored to tears.

USC beat Virginia 17-14. USC definitely looks vulnerable this year. I wonder if the post-season suspension has taken away their motivation.

Permalink 1 Comment

Posted by Ken in: sports

Comments

Comment #1 from Paul G (Guest)
2010 Sep 15 - 7:27 am : #

Thanks for the recap(s) Ken - agree on all points! Congrats to Wolverines- classic game on Saturday. Looking forward to the big non-conference challenge for the Pack tomorrow night.

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