12/2/2023 – Michigan 26, Iowa 0 – 13-0, 9-0 Big Ten, Big Ten Champs Two years ago this game was a coronation, a delight, a confection. Michigan broke out a halfback pass in the first half, and a reverse that went a billion yards, and sort of exuberantly leaned on Iowa until they capitulated in the second half. Michigan's lead at halftime in that game: 11. Michigan's lead at halftime in this game: 10. It wasn't more largely because Colston Loveland dropped a pass at his facemask while a couple yards clear of the coverage, set to run a great distance down the sideline. But things felt different. I believe it was Matt Hinton who said that Michigan fans almost didn't care about getting shredded by the Georgia buzzsaw because everything after Ohio State was gravy. As someone who attended that game and was in largely Georgia section, the "almost" is doing some work in that sentence. But it is largely correct. The disappointment faded quickly, replaced with a
12/2/2023 – Michigan 26, Iowa 0 – 13-0, 9-0 Big Ten, Big Ten Champs Two years ago this game was a coronation, a delight, a confection. Michigan broke out a halfback pass in the first half, and a reverse that went a billion yards, and sort of exuberantly leaned on Iowa until they capitulated in the second half. Michigan's lead at halftime in that game: 11. Michigan's lead at halftime in this game: 10. It wasn't more largely because Colston Loveland dropped a pass at his facemask while a couple yards clear of the coverage, set to run a great distance down the sideline. But things felt different. I believe it was Matt Hinton who said that Michigan fans almost didn't care about getting shredded by the Georgia buzzsaw because everything after Ohio State was gravy. As someone who attended that game and was in largely Georgia section, the "almost" is doing some work in that sentence. But it is largely correct. The disappointment faded quickly, replaced with a
UFR GLOSSARY is here. FORMATION NOTES: Maryland mostly stayed in 11 personnel even when they went to twins formations like the below. I called this defensive front from Michigan "Nk Over!" with the exclamation mark denoting extra wide splits between the DL. Also for those of you who weren't around when I was doing the FFFFs, "TaTa Time" is a Maryland-specific play where Taulia Tagovailoa abandons the pocket and runs around 15 to 40 yards behind the line of scrimmage with various slow linemen in pursuit. Results of TaTa Time vary. SUBSTITUTION NOTES: The big thing was Sainristil playing cornerback I had him for 14 snaps at CB and PFF had him for 10, which I take for a difference of assignment (corner/nickel) vs. alignment (outside/slot), and Ja'den McBurrows coming in for a dozen snaps at nickel. Mike Barrett went out for a quarter and Hausmann got in as much as he did, with Rolder getting half a dozen snaps near the goal line. Jenkins/Graham/Grant and the
UFR GLOSSARY is here. FORMATION NOTES: PSU gets weird so some nomenclature reminders. This is Gun Wk Stack, which they used a lot. This is Pistol Diamond. And a reminder for some of my nomenclature, this is Gun Trips (H) Y-SB: Trips is the receiver alignment and I use parentheticals around the (H) because the slot receiver is covered/an ineligible receiver. A dash means motion, so Y-SB means the tight end motioned to a superback spot. "Empty 2x1" means 2 wide to the field, 1 wide to the boundary, and the rest are tight ends. You should be able to interpret the rest of the weirdness from there. You also won't need it again because PSU fired their OC on Sunday. SUBSTITUTION NOTES: Penn State often used a TE as a slot receiver; M sometimes matched that with regular nickel personnel but often had an extra safety in the slot and moved Sainristil out to cornerback. Snap counts are in the chart now but there was finally a clear delineation between "starters" (Graham,
Scheduling Note: I apologize for the lateness of this. My prime UFR charting/writing time is on Tuesday but I worked an election (which is a 5am to 10pm commitment plus setup the evening before) this week and only had a quarter charted when it was time to go do that. PSU should be on time. UFR GLOSSARY is here. FORMATION NOTES: More even fronts today than usual, which made the OTs' lives hell but did open up some running lanes inside. Also when Michigan went up to 7 guys with their Split! formation I just called it Split 7 instead of identifying gaps where the LBs lined up. Their other pass-rush formation is this Odd front with a 0-tech nose, two 7-tech DEs, and Harrell a stand-up blitzer that they debuted late against Nebraska. Since nobody has a better name for it I'm calling it Crable, because "Ojemudia at Harrison" is too obscure of a reference. SUBSTITUTION NOTES: Michigan spent the whole game in nickel personnel, treating various backup Purdue TEs/2nd RBs etc.