Michigan Football: Week 9 Thoughts

1. 8-1 and still in the hunt.

2. Better than 99% of us expected.

3. Noticing some tendencies attacking UMs defense.

4. #1 is short passes to outside. Especially into the boundary.

5. Indy attacked the flats often and with some success.

6. Key here was it slowed down pass rush. Also kept Indy ahead of the chains.

7. Other issue UM is having is empty formation.

8. Indy and MSU had success with empty.

9. QB draw out of empty was used successfully last two weeks.

10. Upshaw and Colson played their best games IMO.

11. Mazi Smith struggled a bit this week.

12. UM is also having problems with cutback and bounce.

13.I thought it was interesting that at times UM left Colson at Mike and moved Ross to Sam.

14. UM will need to have DTs stay in their lanes vs Penn State.

14a. They have tendency of getting pushed out of phase.

15. Clifford is as dangerous with his legs as with his arm.

16. I expect to see PSU get Dotson ball in flat on screens and such often. And then try to hit something big over the top.

17. Think we found out why Corum was not as impressive last week.Obviously not 100% from the start.

18. You can question JJ’s football sense and experience. Not his arm strength!

19. When Cade delivers ball on time he is effective. Has tendency to still hold ball too long.

20. Interesting that UM used stretch blocking between 20s and switched to gap in red zone.

21. Guessing UM O Line does extra work vs twists and blitzes off stunts.

22. Indy had success with these.

23. Play action off stretch is thing of beauty.

24. Big props to O Line. They did great job selling the run.

25. Blitzes in red zone were especially effective for Indy.

26. One of the things Indy and MSU did was blitz in red zone and takeaway inside release from receivers.

26. Gave UM issues and reason UM adjusted and scored two TD’s to the outside.

27. Cade is usually much better throwing to hash or inside them.

28. Part of the problem is WR’s don’t do a great job of beating DB’s to the inside.

29. Haskins runs the stretch play extremely well.

30. Gains ground while staying square.

31. I was personally happy overall with UM performance.

32. This type of game UM last few seasons has come up completely flat and lost.

33. I know, not the dominant play many wanted, I just don’t think this team has the horses to be that type of dominant.

34. Time for another big win on the road, Until Next week. GO BLUE!