Essentials

WHAT	Michigan vs Alabama
WHERE	Phil Klein Insurance Group Stadium Orlando, FL
WHEN	1 PM New Year's Day
THE LINE	Alabama -7
TELEVISION	ABC
TICKETS	exist
WEATHER	mid-60s, mostly sunny 0% chance of rain

Overview

In the period between the end of Michigan's regular season and the announcement of their bowl matchup, 93% of the fanbase was of the opinion that Michigan did not, in fact, want 'Bama. Michigan got Bama anyway.

Your author is part of that 93%. Bama missed the playoff for the first time ever but still checks in #2 in the SP+ rankings. Their two losses are by five to LSU, which will play for the National Championship on some daft date like the 12th of January, and a flukefest against Auburn in which Alabama outgained the other Tigers by almost 200 yards. Per Bill Connelly's reckoning, Alabama had a 94% win expectancy in that game.

SP+ thinks the spread should be 11, FWIW. Personally, I can't figure how Michigan's going to not get stomped by Najee Harris.

[Hit THE JUMP for five stars]

Run Offense vs Alabama

LIQUID SWORDS

Thanks largely to injury, this is not a vintage Alabama defensive front. Most teams have had functional ground attacks. Every SEC team cracked 100 yards at more than 3 yards a carry. Auburn just put up 5.3. Several of these games were ugly blowouts in which backups probably ate chunks of yards, but there are cracks in the Bama front that aren't often there.

These cracks are largely because both ILBs are freshmen and so is one of the starting ends:

MLB Shane Lee (+2/-4.5, +2/-3 in coverage), who played for Biff Poggi (and came up for the BBQ) last year, is the one with his head above water; WLB Christian Harris (+3/-6.5, +0/-4 coverage), a supposedly athletically gifted player who's not quite ready to be on the field, finally forced me to cyan him before going out with an injury in the 4th quarter.

Alabama will also be missing OLB Terrell Lewis, their top pass rusher by hurries.

That doesn't mean Alabama is bereft. Raekwon Davis is a Wormley-ish DT/DE who's widely projected as a second or third round pick. WDE Anfernee Jennings has 12 TFLs and 7.5 sacks and should go somewhere in the middle rounds. Their other two DL starters are… okay. They are far more mortal in their front seven than at any point in the Saban era, post-blowout.

Michigan might not be particularly well-positioned to take advantage. They enter this game having failed to crack 100 yards in their last three games; midseason hamblastings of Illinois and Notre Dame now feel more like outliers than any sustained improvement after some mind-blowingly ugly outings early in the season, like 2.4 YPC against Army or 2.1 against Wisconsin. Yet again Michigan has had to shift what they do in the middle of the year, and Shea Patterson's rib injury turned him from an infrequently-used but devastatingly effective alternative to a guy who almost refuses to keep the ball.

Maybe the month layoff and prospect of finishing his career with a big win will bring Patterson back to the late 2018 version of himself, which would open things up for Charbonnet and Haskins. But it seems like Michigan focused more on using mesh points to pop guys open downfield, which they did with great success in the first half against Ohio State. That's a valid strategy, but not one that does a ton to boost your YPC.

Michigan best bet might be to get the Harbauffense bits of the offense going again, as they did against Notre Dame. Freshman linebackers, no matter how touted, are relatively easy to put in the wrong gap. Traps and counters to action that looks like pin and pull could result in chunks.

KEY MATCHUP: MICHIGAN INTERIOR OL vs RAEKWON DAVIS. Job one is getting the star DT blocked, and then trying to go from there.

Pass Offense vs Alabama

McKinney is future Dax

This is the one spot where Bama departures might be a problem. As mentioned, one of their top rushers, OLB Terrell Lewis, is sitting this game out. So too is cornerback Trevon Diggs. That's a big loss. PFF:

We labeled Trevon Diggs as a breakout player this season, and he did exactly that. After earning sub-80.0 defense grades in three straight seasons with Alabama, Diggs rocketed to the top of the SEC cornerback grades, finishing the year with an 89.2 overall mark and a 90.3 coverage grade. Opposing quarterbacks maintained a 26.1 passer rating when targeting the cornerback. Diggs also snagged five interceptions and forced an incompletion on 19.3% of targets.

Diggs's absence draws sophomore Josh Jobe, who Michigan recruited heavily, into the lineup. Jobe has gotten big chunks of time in the back half of Bama blowouts and has not drawn much positive mention on Twitter—the occasional grumble from Bama fans, mostly—and does not fare particularly well in our favorite rough CB stat, which is passes defensed(2) versus solo tackles(16). Jobe has a reputation as a special teams hitter so he probably has a few tackles there; he should be more exploitable than Diggs. If Michigan can get off his jams, which are reputed to be the best part of his game, they can make some things happen.

And Michigan will have to poke at him a bunch, because the rest of the secondary is loaded with five stars. Patrick Surtain II is a five-star in year two; he was second-team All SEC to PFF largely because of Diggs and LSU instant superstar Derek Stingley, who was the top-graded CB in the country as a true freshman. Safety Xavier McKinney was first team in a loaded SEC.

Bama's pass rush is also not up to Bama vintage. WDE Anfernee Jennings has 7.5 sacks; sit-out Lewis is second with six, ILB Shane Lee has 3.5, and then it's a bunch of guys with 2 or 1. There's no consistent organic rush from three of the four DL. As a team the Tide finished in the middle of the SEC pack in terms of sacks. As Seth notes, part of this is because Bama is content to sit back in their pattern match; they blitz infrequently and almost never with more than five.

Michigan will try to expand on their Gattis gameplan against Ohio State, which featured a bunch of novel RPOs that popped guys wide open. Against a pattern match D with some trigger-happy inside linebackers there should be some instances where Michigan pops out of a mesh point to find a wide open guy. Michigan should be able to move the ball with some consistency between the 20s, at which point their ground game issues might be a problem.

KEY MATCHUP: DON'T THROW IT TO NICO vs THROW IT TO NICO. Apparently he's leaning to a return, so let's say six targets. Let's not get crazy.

Run Defense vs Alabama

welcome to recruiting misses past, the section

It's hard not to see this as a pending slaughter after OSU beat Michigan's ass running tight zone (AKA duo) to the point where Khaleke Hudson abandoned the edge all day in a futile effort to help on the interior. Najee Harris is averaging 5.9 YPC. Seth's evaluation of the Alabama OL:

Michigan has played two teams in this stratosphere as a rush offense and got mauled by Wisconsin (359 yards on 57 carries) and Ohio State (264 yards on 50 carries). They've been able to get away with playing one DT against most of the schedule because their ends have been able to make it up. They will absolutely not be able to get away with it against this front.

Carlo Kemp is a game strongside end trying to play nose tackle who is going up against 340 and 360 pound guards. He will be on skates. Mike Dwumfour, the guy who split snaps with Uche as the seventh member of Michigan's front seven, is out injured. Michigan's options are to ride and die with a 3-3-5 or to insert true freshman Chris Hinton for much of the game. When Kemp and Hinton get tired Michigan's backup DTs are a walk-on converted OL and I guess Mazi Smith, who's barely played this year.

One thing Michigan has going for them is Alabama's near-total lack of QB run game. This was the case even when Tua was playing, because his limbs were made out of baling wire and cheese. Replacement Mac Jones is very much a pocket guy. That hasn't stopped Alabama from racking up nearly 6 yards a carry this year and performing very well even against the top-end defenses on the schedule, but it does mean Michigan can sell out on the RB in the knowledge that if the QB gets 20 yards a couple times they were going to give that up anyway.

Oh yeah, Harris:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OFjxAmSVFY

He's the kind of back that you let get up a head of steam at your peril, and, uh, that's probably going to happen a bunch.

KEY MATCHUP: DON BROWN vs COMING UP WITH SOME WEIRD CRAP THAT DISGUISES THE FACT MICHIGAN HAS ZERO DTs. I don't know how Michigan slows this rush offense down playing it straight.

Pass Defense vs Alabama

Jeudy is the only Bama WR under 10 YPT. Jeez.

Tua Tagovailoa's brutal season-ending injury has pushed Mac Jones into the starting role. Jones is likely to be the least-touted player Michigan sees on the field tomorrow, a bonafide three star ranked just inside the top 400 on the composite. That hasn't stopped Jones from stepping into Tagovailoa's shoes seamlessly. Jones has three starts on the year:

• Arkansas: 18/22, 235 yards, 10.7 YPA, 3 TD, 0 INT
• Western Carolina: 10/12, 275 yards, 22.9 YPA, 3 TD, 0 INT
• Auburn: 26/39, 335 yards, 8.6 YPA, 4 TD, 2 INT

He also had 8.5 YPA in the second half of a rote blowout against Mississippi State after Tua went out.

The only one of these defenses that is not abject is Auburn's #4-ranked SP+ D, which Jones more or less shredded except when throwing two back-breaking pick-sixes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-P0z6j7oSC8

His touchdowns in that game were a combination of Alabama's holy-shit wide receiving corps, particularly Jaylen Waddle, catching man coverage and destroying it, and Jones flinging darts off his back foot.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5O7-dRqo2k

Jones isn't Tua and benefits from Alabama's nuclear receiving corps but has shown quite a bit in his ~100 attempts this season. Seth's correct that he's a return to Bama's previous approach of having a white guy with bangs manage the game instead of drive towards a Heisman, but the surrounding talent on this Alabama team is on another level from previous Alabama teams—even the ones that win titles.

Those nuclear wide receivers are apparently all playing. They are terrifying. Just look at these yards per target numbers:

Slot Jerry Jeudy (959 yards, 71 catches and 9 TDs on 100 targets) is the five-tool superstar, WR DeVonta Smith (14 YPT, 1200 yards, 13 TDs) is the Olave-like deep threat who adds (+6/-2) great downfield and crack blocking to the running game, and WR Henry Ruggs III (14 YPT, 719 yards, 7 TDs) is the slippery weasel who'll turn any underneath catch into a long touchdown. They'll also throw in sophomore slot jitterbug Jaylen Waddle (84% catch rate, 553 yards, 15 YPT, 6 TDs on 38 targets), who's also the most dangerous punt returner in the country.

The only guy under 14(!) yards per target is Jerry freakin' Jeudy. Michigan may be able to match up on the outside with Lavert Hill and Ambry Thomas, but even Michigan's very good starting corners are likely a step or two slower than Alabama's WR corps, and that goes double when Michigan's safeties get invovled. Dax Hill can match up, probably. Hawkins and Metellus, probably not.

If Michigan could generate consistent pass rush that would go a long way towards winning this battle; unfortunately both of Alabama's tackles are first-round picks and the way Auburn got to Jones was through NFL first round DT Derrick Brown targeting the relative weak spots on the interior. Michigan may be able to stunt its way through, though: Seth pointed out that their grad-transfer center may have been at fault for five different false starts in the Iron Bowl .

KEY MATCHUP: MICHIGAN STUNTS vs ALABAMA IDENTIFICATION. Michigan will have to have some new stuff since Bama's had a month to go over Michigan's most common pass-rush gambits, all of which rely on swapping gaps to cover for a lack of standout individual rushers outside of Uche.

SPECIAL TEAMS

Alabama's rarely-used specialists are a major problem, or would be if the rest of the team was not bionic super-mutants. Bama ranks 126th in punt efficiency and 114th in FG efficiency. Bama's split duties at both spots. Joseph Bulovas (8/11 on FGs, mostly short, two missed XPs) and Will Reichard (4/7 FGs, another missed XP) have taken turns dorfing stuff at kicker. Reichard, Skyler DeLong, and Ty Perine have combined for a 39 yard average and have given up 10 yards a return despite that.

On the other hand, Michigan's punt approach is probably going to bite them in this game. Jaylen Waddle is averaging 25 yards a return with just one TD on 19 attempts, and if Michigan sails him a punt with one or two guys in his zip code on the catch they're playing with fire. Unlikely they can make a change at this late date. Waddle also has a kick  return TD, though Henry Ruggs has handled most of those duties.

KEY MATCHUP:  AHHHH YOU PUT ANYWHERE BUT WADDLE'S FACE

INTANGIBLES

CHEAP THRILLS

Worry if…

• Alabama's first drive is 12 runs and a TD.
• That is also their second drive.
• Waddle has five yards of space on a punt.

Cackle with knowing glee if…

• Gattis's gameplan is popping guys open.
• Harbauffense is putting the freshman ILBs in the wrong gaps.
• Alabama has to do a lot of kicking?

Fear/Paranoia Level: 9 (Baseline: 5; +1 for This Is Pretty Much Regular Alabama, +1 for Built To Exploit Michigan's Weakness, +1 for Terrifying WR Corps, +1 for They're Mostly Playing Even, +1 for SP+ Numbers Think Vegas Is Excessively Conservative, –1 for I Dunno Maybe They Don't Care Because Not Playoff)

Desperate need to win level: 7 (Baseline: 5; +1 for Marginally Less Annoying Offseason, +1 for It's Bama, +1 for I Dunno I Just Think It Would Be Nice, –1 for Bowl Games Aren't What They Used To Be)

Loss will cause me to… memory-hole this game immediately. You could ask me about it on January 2 and I would think you're referring to the Tom Brady game.

Win will cause me to… laugh grimly?

The strictures and conventions of sportswriting compel me to predict: 

I am reminded of another Citrus Bowl: 2002. A 10-2 Tennessee program that was about to put three guys in the first round of the draft and narrowly missed out on a national championship game appearance by virtue of a SEC championship game loss dropped all the way to the Citrus.

There they met a standard-issue meh 8-3 Michigan team. This was the Clockgate year; the year when Michigan beat Wisconsin largely because a punt hit a Wisconsin's player's leg; the year Michigan blew an OSU game in which they led by nine deep into the fourth quarter.

Final score: 45-17, because one team was national title caliber and one was Citrus Bowl caliber.

Finally, three opportunities for me to look stupid Sunday:

• Josh Uche makes himself some money.
• Najee Harris does bad things to Michigan's front.
• Alabama, 41-19