Essentials

Overview

COMING OUT OF MY CAGE AND I'VE BEEN DOING PRETTY MEDIOCRE

Hark, a bonafide foot-ball team. The Maryland Terrapins invade Ann Arbor tomorrow bearing a pulse, unlike Michigan's first three opponents. Mike Locksley's crew has beaten Buffalo 31-10, Charlotte 56-21, and SMU 34-27 to reach 3-0. Preseason prognostications that Maryland would have an intimidating offense and flailing defense seem roughly on point so far. Charlotte nearly reached 400 yards and SMU put up 520; meanwhile Taulia Tagovailoa is averaging 10 yards an attempt and completing 77% of his passes.

There is of course a huge set of unknowns for both teams, but Vegas has seen fit to provide a three-score spread in Michigan's favor.

---------------------

Run Offense vs Maryland

Corum did not play last year [Paul Sherman]

It's hard to judge Maryland's rush defense solely by last year's numbers because they suffered so many blowouts. They played two competitive Big Ten games, three-point wins over Illinois and Indiana. They crushed Rutgers. Every other conference game was a three score (or worse)_ loss. Maryland ate a lot of very predictable second half runs. And they did badly even in that context. How badly? Well let's flip over to Football Outsiders' defensive line drilldown stats, which are horrendous:

• Average Line Yards: 2.77, 93rd
• Standard Downs Line Yards: 2.72, 90th.
• Opportunity Rate: 46%, 49th.
• Power Success Rate: 75%, 99th.
• Stuff Rate: 14%, 115th.

The DTs looked much more competent than last year, with Ami Finau showing up on this play to get a piece and then Barham finishes it off:

NT #54

Similar story here, with the DTs getting interior pressure, Austin Fontaine getting off the block, and the 2nd and 3rd level coming down to help gum it up:

The one place where the run defense cracked a bit was when the second team DTs, Henry Chibueze and Tom Akingbesote in particular, were out there.

If Michigan can get to the backup DTs and lock them in profit should ensue.

There are two potentially profitable avenues for Michigan here. One is misdirection. Maryland is a 4-2-5 that plays a 175 pound true freshman spacebacker and a true freshman middle linebacker. Jaishawn Barham is the MLB. He ranked just outside the top 100 as a recruit and Alex has deemed his efforts to date "impressive," but if there's an acid test for a freshman LB it's going from some goofy nonconference opponents to a Jim Harbaugh offense. Tweaks to what Michigan has done in the run game so far are likely to put someone in the wrong gap, and then Corum or Edwards can hit the jets. I would bet on at least one end-around breaking huge.

The other is loading up. Maryland does not have the personnel to match Michigan when they go heavy. Their backup DTs are subpar. Alex despised their linebacker corps last year—one reason a true freshman instantly got a starting job at a veteran-friendly spot—and still does:

The remainder of the true LBs are the same terrible linebackers from last season. Ruben Hyppolite II hasn't been as bad this year as he was a year ago, but he is a game-time decision after sustaining an injury against SMU.

If Ahmad McCullough has to get significant run, that's bad news for the Terps, as he was picked on repeatedly in coverage by the Mustangs and was dreadful a year ago. Gereme Spraggins still has a great name and still is a player Maryland doesn't really want on the field, hence why Barham is the starter. Fa'Najae Gotay rounds out this positional group as mostly a name.

God, those are some names though. Ahmad McCullough is a solid B- and it's the worst of the bunch by a mile. So they've got that going for them.

On Michigan's end this is going to be different. Blake Corum did not play last year, and while Donovan Edwards did big things as a receiver he only got three carries. This was not a Hassan Haskins game where he busted long plays—Maryland held him to a long of 12. This defense is going to get a much more explosive Michigan RB corps to deal with.

KEY MATCHUP: WEISS/HARBAUGH vs I SEE DEAD LINEBACKERS. I'm girding my UFR loins for things to get weird on the ground. So far Michigan has stuck to a bunch of split zone, some counter, some power, and a little frippery hanging off the edges. I expect to find linebackers with cartoon question marks over their heads and busted run fits.

Pass Offense vs Maryland

Bennett is back… hooray? [Paul Sherman]

Michigan has some experience with getting alarmingly ripped by the SMU passing attack, but in Michigan's case they got burned by exactly one guy,—future Raven James Proche—gave up 6.1 yards per attempt, and won 45-20. What SMU QB and likely occultist Tanner Mordecai was able to do against Maryland was quantitatively different, as he went 29/54 for 369 yards, 3 TDs, and 2 interceptions. That's 6.8 YPA but that number does not include a boatload of penalties in the secondary. Meanwhile those two interceptions were pure gifts, not anything Maryland generated. Alex came away slightly maddened by the experience of watching Maryland do coverage:

So what gave the Maryland defense so much trouble? Defending the pass. Coverage. Whatever you want to call it. Too many open guys!!!! …

3rd & 5, Maryland plays Cover 2, all the defenders drop well past the sticks (????) and no one is covered. It's a three man rush dropping eight into coverage and it looks like this:

A throw to any of the four circled players here gets the first down.

Man to man didn't go much better. Maryland stuck senior corner Jakorian Bennett on 6'2" leaper Rashee Rice for much of the game, which led to a series of posterizations where Rice high-pointed balls as Bennett either fell over or committed triple-flag interference penalties. SMU declined multiple penalties in the Maryland secondary because their guy caught the ball anyway. And Bennett was the one guy Maryland thought they could rely on:

Against SMU, four different corners played between 50 and 56 snaps, including Corey Coley, Tarheeb Still, Deonte Banks, and Gavin Gibson. These guys are hard to differentiate between and I would struggle to do so if asked, despite just having watched Maryland's tape. They're all about the same caliber.

Alex did like safety Beau Brade, who was the one Maryland player who seemed capable of consistently breaking on a ball productively. The rest of these guys are target practice.

Maryland pass rush does not project to do a whole lot. They run out two 310+ pound pluggers at DT and a 295-pound anchor type at SDE, all of whom return from last year when Maryland's sack rate was 69th nationally and heavily concentrated in games against weak OL. The one guy who could make this prediction wrong is WDE Durell Nchami, who had four sacks in a part-time Uche role a year ago despite being lost for the season after game six. Nchami showed enough promise that NFL guys are paying attention…

.@TerpsFootball EDGE Durell Nchami (@superdurell)

"He's also shown he can use strong hands at the point of attack. But even more exciting is Nchami's bend capacity."

More breakout players here ??https://t.co/s7ll8500DApic.twitter.com/FoBAmjQCM1

— Pro Football Network (@PFN365) May 25, 2022

…and PFF named him preseason second-team All Big Ten. This has not yet materialized. NChami has zero sacks and three tackles on the season and Alex didn't even mention him.

Also worth mentioning in pass rush discussion is that Alex documented a Maryland predilection I can't remember seeing anywhere else:

Maryland sent less than 4 rushers on 36% of plays and more than 4 rushers on 21% of plays. That's one of the highest shares of 3 man rushes that I have charted in this space, and it wasn't until the end of the game that the Terps realized that they were getting eaten alive sitting back with eight in coverage. On the final series or two they started to ramp up blitzes and those got home at a decent clip, disrupting the SMU passing attack. Why they didn't do that earlier, I do not know.

One thing JJ McCarthy is going to have to do is page through receivers on eight man drops.

The prescription here for McCarthy is to find his big leapers when Maryland goes man to man and then find the ample holes in Maryland zone coverage. His ability to move guys with his eyes is something Maryland safeties have been susceptible to this year and could result in some big plays. SMU got a long touchdown from their tight end when Mordecai got one of their safeties to leave the middle of the field. Also: is Donovan Edwards back, and how funny is that going to be if he is?

KEY MATCHUP: TRENTE JONES AND RYAN HAYES vs NCHAMI. Both for this game and going forward the matchup against a potential NFL DE with a lot of bend is key. Hayes struggled against top end rushers last year and Jones has had an iffy start against mugs. If NChami is running rampant is probably time to start revising expectations down. If he's not, Maryland ain't covering these guys.

Run Defense vs Maryland

Smith will have to be less of an observer [Sherman]

As Alex pointed out in FFFF, this is virtually the same team Michigan faced last year. Maryland lost spectacularly-named TE Chigoziem Okonkwo, who went in the fourth round of the draft, and just-a-guy running back Tayon Fleet-Davis. Everyone else is back, including the whole offensive line.

This is perhaps alarming since Michigan lost who they lost and Maryland put up 181 last year at over four yards a clip. Some context is important:

They ran on us.

Again, hard to disagree, though there seemed a very good reason for it: Michigan was extremely married to two-high in this game, choosing to let the front deal with a QB-inclusive running outfit without safety assistance. The tempo drive was annoying because they were cracking holes in the line with a puller and counter action.

That tempo drive got them a field goal after a 17-play march, but he next time Maryland did anything it was 31-3 about halfway through the third quarter and clearly time to keep things in front of you and bleed them to death. Still, that combination saw Michigan give up 4.1 YPC. Not ideal.

Michigan does have some easy fixes at their disposal. Number one is Junior Colson, who checked in with a –12.5 in last year's UFR for running very fast in the wrong direction. Sophomore Colson is getting Seth to say "I'm sorry I ever doubted," and the like. Number two is activating Mazi Smith more; Smith put up a +6.5 against this same OL in about two-thirds of Michigan defensive snaps, and that was with Hutchinson and Ojabo absorbing a total of +32.5. If Jenkins can do more than Hinton(-1) did last year, that will also help—and it shouldn't be that hard.

Maryland may have upgraded at running back. Redshirt freshman Roman Hemby pushed past Colby McDonald to taking over the starting job. Thus far Hemby has proven he has excellent straight line speed…

…but the rest of his game is still largely under wraps. His other long runs he's busted are the same thing: find a gap or get the corner and then go fast. Alex liked him enough to highlight him as the offensive dangerman in FFFF (he did Rakim Jarrett last year, FWIW), but even the clips he assembled are mostly Hemby running very fast in a straight line.

Don't get me wrong: that's a good skill to have, but when the sledding gets tougher you need someone who's going to be able to re-gap in a hurry or drag guys. Hemby's shown a little bit of the latter, and is a solid 200 pounds. This preview asserts that Hemby looks like the kind of guy who is going to average 3 YPC against high level competition unless someone screws up and gives him a lane he can attack. This is still better than Fleet-Davis, who was just there.

As for that OL: I don't know what to make of PFF blocking grades, which frequently don't even come close to what we do here. But for what it's worth the Maryland OL has a couple of solid run blockers at LG and RT but has guys in the 60s rounding out their line. They were able to do some work on Michigan last year.

KEY MATCHUP: JUNIOR COLSON vs LAST YEAR JUNIOR COLSON. I doubt Maryland's going to get away with singling Michigan DTs so it'll be open season for Michigan linebackers to run very fast to where Hemby is, and not screw that up because he will make you pay.

Pass Defense vs Maryland

One of these guys is back [Sherman]

"Everyone is back" doesn't quite cover it here because Maryland suffered their usual buffet of injuries last year. This time the blizzard hit the WR corps; Maryland did not have to find an eighth-grader to play quarterback. Jeshaun Jones tore his ACL against OSU. Dontay Demus suffered something similar against Iowa. By the time Michigan rolled around Maryland was relying on Carlos Carriere and Brian Cobbs, who have since transferred to CMU and Utah State, respectively. Rakim Jarrett was around but Michigan could just stick Dax Hill on him and call it a day. He caught two balls for 20 yards.

Jones and Demus are back, Jarrett is a former five star in a contract year, and Maryland added former top 100 recruit Jacob Copeland from Florida. Even Okonkwo's loss might not be that significant. Tight end Cory Dyches leads Maryland receivers with an 82 PFF grade. Tagovailoa has presumably improved, as quarterbacks tend to do. Meanwhile Michigan's dropback deleters are in the NFL. This will be a different level of challenge than last year's.

What to expect? I don't know. We have next to no data on Michigan's pass defense, at least insofar as it applies to throws more than eight yards down the field. Mike Sainristil is going to get thrown to the wolves against Jarrett, who operates out of the slot. Gemon Green is likely to get tested, because both outside guys are contested-ball types. The Draft Network on Demus:

big-bodied receiver … good strength to power through press and immediately get into his route. In off coverage, Demus has the speed to condense a defender’s cushion quickly and can force them to bail out or he can run right past them. With the ball in the air, Demus does a good job attacking the ball at its highest point and securing the pass. … can struggle some with running precise routes. Demus is a high-waisted guy who may struggle to quickly make cuts.

Jones isn't on NFL radars just yet but at 6'2" with ups he's more or less the same guy.

Jarrett is a doomslot type who was a five star committed to LSU before he flipped to Maryland shortly before Signing Day. Guys like that often get deep dives and The Analyst provided one a few months ago:

when comparing Jarrett to some of the more highly regarded 2022 NFL Draft prospects, only two of them (first-rounder Jameson Williams from Alabama and second-rounder Wan’Dale Robinson out of Kentucky) got open at a higher rate than Jarrett did a year ago. … While Jarrett uses his exceptional throttle and hands to get in and out of his breaks effectively, he’s not a player who can hit top speed and flawlessly change directions with lossless acceleration. This makes it a bit more difficult for him to get his head around when working on deep outs and ins. … one-track runner with the ball, showing little willingness or ability to make a man miss in the open field or force missed tackles.

He's not a screen guy, but his athletic package makes it difficult to keep up. Michigan's likely going to bracket him and live with the consequences in outside one-on-one coverage. Michigan's CBs should be able to keep up with Jones and Demus, but can they make that matter with PBUs and INTs?

Meanwhile, Taulia Tagovailoa could still be Taulia Tagovailoa or not. The line on him is that he's a talented guy with excellent accuracy who will lose his damn mind from time to time, particularly when pressured, and then start chucking things everywhere. His 11 interceptions on 474 attempts last year isn't eye-popping, though, and he graded out excellently:

Highest graded seasons by a Maryland player in the PFF era

Taulia Tagovailoa (’21): 90.8
Darnell Savage (’17): 86.6
Darnell Savage (’18): 86.3 pic.twitter.com/Tlm9m5LqWM

— PFF College (@PFF_College) August 20, 2022

The wildness does also show up in the stats, at least as of October last year when he was #5 nationally to PFF in percentage of throws with a negative grade. It was just the Iowa game, where he threw five picks, that set him apart. If he has a weakness for complicated and very good zone drop teams, well, a lot of QBs do.

Michigan will try to do similar things, I'd imagine, as the amoeba their defense more fully in year two of Insert Ravens Coordinator Here. Weird drops, weird blitzes, and a lot of balls chucked because Tagovailoa is a YOLO QB at heart. Should be frightening.

KEY MATCHUP: MICHIGAN PASS RUSH vs REAL OPPONENT. The Colorado State blitzkrieg looks like it's useless for projecting down the road after the Rams gave up seven sacks to Washington State, bringing their three-game total to 23. The other two opponents didn't give Michigan a chance. Maryland will.

SPECIAL TEAMS

Spectacularly-named punter Colton Spangler returns after averaging 45 yards a kick last year. Unfortunately, he split time down the middle with another punter averaging basically the same gross yardage so I he doesn't qualify for leaderboards on the best dang punting stats site I can find. I can't tell you with much certainty whether he was susceptible to returns. Maryland opponents didn't do a whole lot last year (6.2 YPR) but 22 return opportunities is a fairly large number. Spangler booting them 50 yards a pop this year, which is neat but has come with costs since not very good opponents are up to 10.3 YPR. This could be an opportunity for AJ Henning to bust another long one.

Kicker Chad Ryland transferred from EMU this offseason. Last year he finished 33rd in FEI's field goal efficiency; the year before he was 11/13. He's 3/3 so far. He's got 50+ yard range. I'd expect anything reasonable to go through the uprights. Ryland also handles kickoffs and has racked up 18 touchbacks on 22 opportunities. Kick returns are off.

Starting corner Tarheeb Still is the main punt returner. 92 of his 158 return yards last year came on what may be the least impressive 90 yard punt return TD in history in the bowl game against Virginia Tech; he averaged 3 yards a pop on his other 20 returns. He's unlikely to break the Brad Robbins streak of 92 punts without a 10+-yard return.

Kick returns are not relevant.

KEY MATCHUP:  AHHHH YOU CONTINUE DOING EVERYTHING THE BEST

TANGIBLES!

Hey so we can't get out of here without mentioning that Maryland takes a butt-ton of penalties. 15 last week and 31 total, which is not quite dead last nationally. What the…

The presentation then moved into a montage of the written and spoken commentary about the lack of discipline the team has, including various tweets.

The words “thug mentality” were mentioned in one particular tweet shown, according to Locksley.

“Those are hurtful words and I played the video and let them see what people thought of our program,” Locksley said.

…

Uh. Well, hopefully that helps?

INTANGIBLES

CHEAP THRILLS

Worry if…

• Tackles are giving up pass rush.
• Hemby gets to run in a straight line.
• Donovan Edwards does not return with his tactical Maryland nuke.

Cackle with knowing glee if…

• I'm leaving this here until I can't: "JJ McCarthy just doesn't miss" continues being literal.
• This is the Mazi Eats The World breakout game.
• Tagovailoa throws so many interceptions he retires from football and I can stop copying and pasting "Tagovailoa" after getting my red squiggle.

Fear/Paranoia Level: 3 (Baseline: 5; +1 for Oh God A Real Team, –1 for Oh Right Last Year, +1 for That's A Lot of Receivers, +1 for The Spread Is Not Literally Seven Touchdowns, –1 for It Is 17.5 Though, –1 For Seent A JJ Murder Incoming, –1 for They Think Dropping Eight 40% Of The Time Is A Good Idea, –1 for They're Gonna Take 100 Yards Of Penalties)

Desperate need to win level: 9 (Baseline: 5; +1 for Do It For Josh Gattis's Honor, –1 for Oh Right Nevermind, +1 for Losing To Bad Teams Is Bad, +1 for 11-0 Into Columbus Still On Table, +1 for Who Enjoys Being Ranked In The Top Five I Do, +1 for Maryland Is Not A Big Ten Team And Losing To Them Weakens This Argument)

Loss will cause me to… hatch a conspiracy theory that Josh Gattis spent all season preparing gameplans for the Maryland game and this is why he had inexplicable games where Michigan ran exactly one play the whole time.

Win will cause me to… check the "defense" box on Michigan Wins The Big Ten bingo.

The strictures and conventions of sportswriting compel me to predict:

One side of the ball is pretty easy to project. Given what we saw against SMU, Michigan should go up and down the field on this defense. My best "well what if this happens" bet was to ask about the weakside end who made no impact in three cupcake games, one of which featured 54 pass attempts. They'll try to test Michigan with eight-man zone drops, but if that's your answer on D you're asking the wrong questions.

The other side of the ball features a passing game that is truly intimidating if Maryland can pass block. We'll learn a lot about Michigan's D in this game, which is one way of saying "I dunno." I don't think their ground game is going to do a whole lot outside of one or two plays, so it'll come down to whether Michigan can cover Jarrett, how contested catches go, and if Michigan can get to Taulia.

Finally, three opportunities for me to look stupid on Saturday:

• JJ McCarthy does something wrong, but also has his first 300 yard game.
• Andrel Anthony bursts out of nowhere to Moss these defensive backs.
• The defense gives up an alarming number of yards but forces a number of field goals as the field constricts and Maryland's running game doesn't do anything.
• Michigan 44, Maryland 25