Formation Notes: Bowl games tend to get a lot of looks because coaches use the extra time to install more of them. Georgia used a lot of multi-TE sets and varied formations with them to hunt good matchups. I stuck with numeric conventions to make it easier to follow, so for example this is Gun 13 Heavy (shotgun, 1 RB, 3 TEs, heavy formation).

And here’s the next play with the same personnel, which we’ll call “Gun 13 Empty 5w.”

I referred to this defensive setup as “4-4 Zero” because there are no safeties.

The offense is a “Gun 12 Str F Flex’ since it’s a normal 3-wide with the extra guy to the strong side (“Str”) with an "F" (not on the line of scrimmage) TE flexed out.

Finally, this is Bone:

Substitution Notes: TrueBlueinTexas provides. As in the second example above, Michigan tried to have a 5-2 unit that replaced Moore, Ojabo, and the starting DTs with Jeter-Speight-Jenkins-Harrell. It immediately got burned in a matchup problem. They also ran a lot of 4-3 with Barrett at SLB and Dax Hill on the bench.

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I have an Arrested Development meme.

Is it the dead dove one?

Yes.

I do not know what I expected, but there it is.

And yet here we are in the bag, investigating.

It’s what we do. This game got out of hand early, then the offense had a string of turnover drives that took us all the way to garbage time, so Georgia was working with a lot of short fields. They also scored quickly, so that late in the game Kirby Smart was still working through the stuff they’d prepared. Also Georgia has a lot of talent, and Michigan’s 2021 defense was pretty dang good, and sometimes randomness plays with results in ways that aren’t readily apparent unless you check it out. It was reasonable to assume, living in the kind of society that doesn’t often put dead doves in paper bags in fridges, that a granular investigation into this game’s doings would reveal a less objectionable truth than what was written on the label.

And what did we find?

Dead dove, do not eat. Drive chart:

• Touchdown drives of 80, 69, 59, and 59 yards.
• Field goal (one missed) drives of 64, 49, and 28 yards
• Two three-and-outs
• Two end-of-half clock drives.

Georgia scored on its first five possessions, IE every possession in the first half except the half-assed two-minute drill when they were already up 27-3. The second half went a little better: punt, missed field goal, long 3rd down touchdown, punt. Georgia was also starting most of those drives with excellent field position. Except the missed FG drive was mostly self-inflicted wounds. And Georgia was up 27-3 or 34-3 for all of those drives. It was 521 yards on 66 plays: 8 yards per play, 11 yards per Pass and 5.4 yards per rushing attempt, with no turnovers.

The only metrics that look any better than dead dove are the down-to-down ones. Football Outsiders defines success rate as gaining 50% of yards needed on 1st down, 70% on 2nd down, and 100% on 3rd/4th down. Michigan held Georgia to a 44% (23/52) success rate on 1st and 2nd down, which resulted in an average 3rd down distance of 6.1 yards. That’s virtually identical to their Ohio State performance of 45% (22/49) success rate on 1st and 2nd down, and an average 3rd down distance of 6.3.

But you can guess what’s in the paper bag. Ohio State went 5/13, at 4.6 yards per attempt. Georgia went 10/16 on third downs, averaging 9.7 yards per attempt. Third down events in this game included two wheel route TDs that beat Junior Colson, and Mike Morris giving up the edge twice. A receiver one-handing a slant that Turner played perfectly or a left tackle jumping on Aidan Hutchinson’s back with no call are the kinds of things you expect to happen to a good defense. The breakdowns are not.

But they were all the fault of the guys who aren’t here anymore, right?

Uh,

Ross, the old DC—nobody relevant to 2022—right?

You want me to show you a breakdown?

Before March, please.

Dead chart. Do not eat.

I don’t know what I expected.

It’s written very clearly on the paper bag.

We were just overrated because Big Ten offenses and Ohio State being allergic to snow?

I hate to dog on our guys but there were holes we knew about. James Ross and Vincent Gray aren’t exactly the first day draft picks in the propaganda. A Don Brown roster was being shoehorned into the Ravens 5-2 Amoeba system predicated on whip-smart athletic linebackers, planetary nose tackles, and 1st rounders all over the secondary. Only one cornerback could be left alone on a fly route.

A defense that doesn’t have deficiencies like these is a generational unit. Usually this year the opponent had deficiencies too and Macdonald was able to pick survivable poisons. Georgia was close to Ohio State in raw talent, and Kirby Smart did a much better job than Ryan Day of identifying how to press his advantages. The result was much like what Michigan did to Iowa: avoid the strong points, and press the weak ones early to build an insurmountable lead.

And the weak points were…?

We’ll do the linebackers first. Alarmingly, I thought the starters regressed later in the season, and that culminated in one of their worse performances. It’s also…like…not something that should be too surprising. This close to the draft I’m not going to surprise anyone by saying James Ross sucks at coverage.

That particular throw was wiped out on a hold—Hutchinson and Ojabo did work the few times they were actually given a chance to pass rush—but that’s been open Ross’s whole career for a QB/WR able to take advantage of it. Think all the way back to the first half of WMU. Or all of 2020. Ross gets crossed. He doesn’t get depth. I hope an NFL team coaches it out of him, but I wouldn’t count on it.

The part that regressed was Ross started playing tentative again, turning up some free shots that the defense demands he pay off. That I still put on how difficult it is to play linebacker in this system. I went around and around with various football people trying to figure out who was responsible for this simple split zone:

Before you say it’s ABSOLUTELY one guy or another, I’ve put this play before smart coaches and football writers who think it’s on actually on Ross, most likely on Jenkins, probably on Colson, and definitely on Harrell. As best as I can tell, any three of those guys could have made a play. Jenkins could have stayed in this gap outside RT#70. Harrell could have set that edge further inside. Colson could have scraped over Ross when the TE crossed the formation instead of getting hung up on the blockers.

But the guy who knows this system best pointed at Ross for not playing it aggressively enough. You’ve got this moment where the RG#50 is focused on doubling the DT when Ross can shoot into the backfield. The TE crossing the formation could be a key to activate on that, with an eye on the RB in case it’s a screen:

The window closes however, and then Jenkins and Ross are in the same gap, and Harrell hasn’t closed the next one shut, and it’s a big play.

Here’s my point: I know how Don Brown would have defended this. When the TE came across there would have been a Viper matched with the TE who either crossed the formation to take the outside, or flipped with a safety who would do the same. I can’t tell you how it’s done in “Multiple” because I’ve seen it done several different ways. But one thing I can tell you is that Ross had the opportunity to turn this into a TFL, and that a Macdonald-style defense is meant to create just that kind of opportunistic playmaking. Ross was never that guy.

Colson…well it was more than “he’s a teenager.” There were a couple of those moments—Georgia’s eight-yard first play was on the true freshman going to the wrong gap. But really if I had to put my finger on the thing that Colson struggled with here it’s either getting toasted by James Cook on a wheel route…

Or not even challenging Jakes Cook on a wheel route:

Yep, that’s the one. Now look, man, the guy was a true freshman, linebacking is hard, and the Cook brothers are going to do that to a lot of people. These are both 3rd and short-ish downs when you’re not expecting a deep ball. It’s just—there was that hope that Colson was the guy with enough pure talent that teams wouldn’t attempt the best play in football. Now I guarantee it’ll come out in every game this year. Colson has a long way to go, and that’s to be expected, but it’s hard not to wonder after this game if we also have to downgrade his ceiling.

As for their third middle linebacker, I will now more confidently assert that Hill-Green is marginally their best ILB. His ceiling is not Colson’s or even Adjusted Colson’s. NHG also tends to have more devastating busts. This one I put on him:

This comes from NHG’s tendency to make a quick decision on a gap and fling his body into it. That instinct serves him more than it doesn’t. It’s not a great fit for a front that already has five guys on the line to start because any screwup (or uncalled hold) is going to burst a guy into the secondary and beyon