FORMATION NOTES: ECU was extremely diverse with their fronts but if they had a base it was the "404 tite" that Seth's detailed on this here site. Like so:

The 404 is a nose tackle over the C (the zero) and two DEs shaded inside the tackles (the fours). When not doing this they cycled through various four-man fronts with a standup "DE", who was an OLB. At all times their safeties were maniacally aggressive:

At no point did any ECU safety line up more than ten yards from the LOS. There was usually one in the box; the guy on the top hash above is a safety, and then the "deep" guy would fire on about 80% of run action.

SUBSTITUTION NOTES: QB was McCarthy, then Warren. RB was Corum/Edwards, then Mullings, then Hall, then Stokes. TE was Loveland, Barner, and Bredeson splitting snaps about evenly with Beetham and Klein getting late cameos. WR was a hodgepodge past Wilson and Johnson with Morgan, English, Clemons, Moore, and Morris all getting around 10-20 snaps. Moore was ahead of the chasing pack, although injury to Morris was supposed to be a factor. It is odd that Morris was healthy enough to block a dozen times but not get starters snaps.

OL went Barnhart/Keegan/Nugent/Zinter/Hinton the whole way until backup time, when it was Henderson/El-Hadi/Crippen/Gentry/Jones. Jones got a ~dozen bonus OL snaps.

CHART NOTE: If there's a star in the TE column that means one of the TEs is a bonus OL. Also "U" means unbalanced, which means an eligible receiver is covered up and cannot go downfield.

[After THE JUMP: man these guys like to fire]

I want it. Give it to me.

Well, here's your chart:

JJ MCCARTHY

(Run +/- is in the other chart; the above is solely a passing/decisions grade.)

Good gravy. Six DOs! Five plus events, which turn a pressure into something good! Michigan had twelve Pass pro minuses in this game and I did not file a single pass as a PR! A 91% downfield success rate! A +20!

McCarthy started last year out with a couple of 100% DSRs but this is the proverbial Next Level. He wasted no time announcing that he was a different dude this year, finding an NFL fifteen yard out to convert Michigan's first third down away from the goal line:

That's good coverage and it doesn't matter. By the third quarter I was openly questioning whether I was allowed to give out this many DOs. I mean, pinpoint between three guys in coverage while getting some pressure counts, right?

I got clips I'm embedding for questionable pass pro that also feature rollout darts that I'm not even bothering to embed here. Dude was on fire.

Okay, but how was this "next level"?

Well, the sheer accuracy for one. When ECU was not flinging guys willy-nilly across the line of scrimmage they covered surprisingly well, so McCarthy was asked questions he was not against Hawaii or UConn last year. See above. Those are events that could happen against a good Big Ten team.

Secondly, McCarthy now seems like he's all the way there, mentally. My favorite two McCarthy things were the plays where he made guys open with the power of his mind. "Third and seven hitch to convert a third down" doesn't sound like much, but when you look at the coverage it's clear that McCarthy made the play with some advanced lookin' at people:

He's got a shot at a corner route on this play—it's the only thing that ECU doesn't have covered—but instead of taking a low percentage downfield shot he has the maturity to draw coverage to Loveland and then find the easy thing. And then the final TD:

If you've got third and long and it's basically goal to go you've got to do something advanced to get a guy open; McCarthy appears to have total command of what the coverage is and how to manipulate it. I noticed him doing this kind of stuff early last year as well; that dropped off as Michigan got into Big Ten play and McCarthy was more Blake Corum's sidekick than a firebreather. Hopefully it continues.

My second favorite McCarthy thing in this game was the third down conversion where ECU sent seven and McCarthy repositioned to give himself enough time:

That's 85-year-old Tom Brady stuff. As Devin Gardner pointed out on WTKA, he saw the zero blitz coming and brought in Loveland as a blocker to give himself the time to give himself the time. It's quarterback Inception out here.

Hooray.

Nothing to do but see if it keeps up the next couple weeks. I have my money on "yes."

Now, in time-honored tradition.

Commence the bitching!

3.9 yards per attempt against ECU?!

Well, I mean, it's fine. For one,the YPC is deceptive since it doesn't include two Edwards touch pass "catches" that went for 11 and 12 yards but does include some goal line goofery that likely won't recur in a game that Michigan is not up 30-0 in and seven runs for a total of 14 yards with the backups in. There was also a McCarthy fumble on fourth and goal. The starters put up 150 yards on 25 carries, six per attempt, once you move things into their proper places.

And then there's the opposition defense to consider:

That is the mesh point on Michigan's first snap. You have eight ECU players committed to the line of scrimmage and a ninth, the safety, at nine yards and moving in. Michigan got the Full Knowles for most of this game.

But shouldn't the most rough and tumble line east of the Pecos river be able to deal with this?

Uh, no?

BLASPHEMY

I don't care who you are, when the opposition is flinging themselves across the line like this creating consistent yards is going to be tough. The decisions you have to make are sped up, the opposition is bringing the momentum instead of you, and they've always got an extra hat when you're not using your QB or running RPOs.

When they jet like this across the line of scrimmage they change the decision point. Here Michigan gets the front blocked and ECU does not set an edge, with the ILB to the top of the screen diving inside of Loveland. Edwards pops outside…

…and gets two yards. Why? Because he had to decide first. Duo is a scary thing for defenses when run well because it puts a DT two yards downfield and you, the linebacker, have to decide which side of him you want to be on before the running back does. Here ECU gets blocked but because the LBs are screaming across the LOS there's no opportunity for Michigan to move the decision point. ECU knows where Edwards is going before he crosses the LOS and can effectively rally.

Also… this might be a good defense at the G5 level. Michigan gives orbit motion here, safety spins down, seems to know exactly what is going to happen—ECU will spill it—and gets in a tackle attempt at the LOS. To do this stuff and not die, you have to be well coached.

How did that get in there? That's the wrong game!

Anyway: ECU brought a ton of different fronts, stunts, and blitzes at Michigan in week one of a new season. They were also absurdly aggressive, leading to the panoply of wide open play action passes I didn't bother to embed when talking about McCarthy. The numbers, they are all right.

And now you will complain about not using JJ's legs.

Not complain, exactly, and the tweet I sent out was a little aggressive, but there were costs to having McCarthy's legs completely out of the equation. This play features Barner trying to reach a DE lined up inside of him; that guy does get reached but just blows Barner back across the formation. Mullings cuts behind this and gets got by a guy who has to check JJ if it's the second half of the Penn State game:

ECU LB dead center

I'd like to see JJ become an option as a runner in two weeks.

Hmm. Seems like it could use a thingy. Boxes and stuff. Informational.

Chart. Yes. Chart.

So. Michigan easily hit our 2:1 ratio desire but things were a bit of a slog. That's because of the defensive approach, which traded RPS +2 events on the ground for RPS +2 events in the air (and occasionally on the ground), a meh day from the running backs, and a very bad day from the receivers.

The receivers? Seriously?

We rarely talk about the wideouts as blockers. I'll occasionally highlight a Martavious Odoms memorial mountain goat event, but most of the time they're just fending off defensive backs in a fashion similar to kickout blocks where the outcome is mutually agreed upon. Not so in this game, where ECU safeties were beyond aggressive.

I feel like this is blogger karma for asserting that Michigan wouldn't miss Ronnie Bell much; this was true in the passing game but not so much on the ground. It's important for your wide receivers to deliver blows against opposition safeties when they're this aggressive, and both Wilson and Johnson came in for –2s on plays that were well blocked otherwise and could have broken b