UFR GLOSSARY is here.

FORMATION NOTES: Minnesota was mostly an under-center or shotgun 3-wide with a WR jetting across.

Their 4th down formation was Unbalanced; the guy at the bottom of the line is a TE/eligible receiver.

And Michigan used a weird formation on 3rd & 7 with 3 DEs on the field and Harrell and a LB stacked behind the nose that I called 3-1 stack.

They also split a DE wide on their 5-2s odd formations that I called 5-2 split—the nose is still over the center.

SUBSTITUTION NOTES: There were 40 snaps before Tuttle Time in this one. Graham led the DTs in snaps, playing DT or nose depending on whom he was with. Grant got 14, Jenkins 25, Goode 14, and Benny 16. The DEs were the same except Cameron Brandt got in a bunch after the four starters, signifying he's moved ahead of Kechaun Bennett, who played on the last drive. LB was Colson until Tuttle Time and a split of Hausmann and Barrett. Keon Sabb cycled in with the safeties and got a few snaps in a 3-safety look with Paige at slot. McBurrows returned as the backup nickel. Wallace came off the field for the 5-2 sets and Sainristil shifted outside. Amorion Walker and DJ Waller were the deep backup time CBs, with a few snaps from Keshaun Harris before that, but none of the other CBs played.

[After THE JUMP: Stretch practice.]

I am concerned about the thing that worked.

Of course you are. I did a Neck Sharpies on it because for the second straight week there was a thing the opponent had working. Takeaways:

• Michigan's plan vs the run is to have their DEs set the edges and have the DTs cover everything between so the linebackers can sit back and play receiving targets.
• Minnesota used multiple motions with WRs and TEs to stretch out those edges.
• It was too much space for the DTs to deal with.
• The linebackers weren't reacting even after the handoff.

A lot of plays got clipped for that. Let's look at one:

Michigan is playing two safeties back and having every player in the front take an offensive player so there's no possibility of giving up an edge. Minnesota runs a wide receiver, a quarterback, and a tight end out the back side of the formation, and this draws the backside end, the nickel, and one of the ILBs, leaving one ILB and two DTs to handle four blockers and an RB. There are two guys doubling Jenkins and two doubling Graham here:

Graham has Colson behind him, but he's not engaging because there's only one of him. How the hell are they supposed to stop it? No joke: Mason Graham doing some heroic shit. He almost does.

This was not an isolated incident. Benny's actually done a good job to throw #65 here out of the scheme, because Colson isn't actually participating in it—he's totally obsessed with the tight end running away from the ball.

At the moment of truth Colson isn't even on screen. Yes, I dinged him for that—by this point he ought to be aware that the RB has the ball and his services are needed inside. But…I get it? With these rollouts it's not easy to see if the QB still has the ball, and if you're being coached to react to the tight end wherever he goes, and he goes outside, where are you supposed to be? The only way this gets defended is if Benny can mirror the RB's cut backside, get back across the OL, and get his hands on the ballcarrier. I know they both wear #26 but that seems like a big ask.

In previous circumstances Michigan was able to get away with this stuff because they constrict the width of the front. By the time the RB picks a gap usually a DT has destroyed a blocker so thoroughly that the RB had to cut into a wall of butts. By spreading out Michigan's front, they created too much space for even Jenkins, Graham, and Grant, let alone Benny and Goode, to cover all by themselves.

Did they counter off of this or just run stretch all game?

Well the problem with trying to counter something your opponent is leaving is they're covering the counters. You could tell Michigan was sitting on the pass by what happened whenever Minnesota ran a play-action pass.

We've got a guy rushing the QB. We've got guys over the top. We've got guys waiting for your rollouts to intercept or force them out of bounds. Minnesota's most successful play-action play all night went for zero yards, and that only because the refs spotted them the difference on a two-yard loss.

The other counters didn't work either. Michigan of today uses Belly—the play where you wash out the line and run straight down the backside—as a counter to dive on short yardage. But stretch teams (remember Rich Rod) love it because it catches the offense trying to slant their tackles to the frontside and get a head start on outside zone. Michigan's babysitting of the backside edge made Belly only minimally successful, and then because Michigan was having four guys shooting out at the three involved in an RPO.

Michigan did finally decide to come up on one of these RPOs and left a guy open; Paige managed to knock it down at the line of scrimmage. I still dinged Colson for this coverage:

#25 the lower LB

But that was an aberration.

Sitting back on the pass wasn't the only issue in Michigan's zone defense, unfortunately. Four out of the five Minnesota linemen actually look pretty good at run-blocking. Last week we went virtually all game without a successful block on Kris Jenkins. In this game it was happening.

#94 the DT on the bottom

I hope #75 is a dude because he was regularly successful against Michigan in ways that no offensive lineman we've faced this year has been. They also got really smart play from their center Nathan Boe and good run-locking from their top-150 Notre Dame transfer Quinn Carroll at RT, and good play all around from LT Aireontae Ersery. Their last spot was a mess and the DTs were having their usual at the expense of #71 (Martes Lewis) and #65 (true freshman Greg Johnson). Hopefully this means that Minnesota has some good run blockers, versus meaning Michigan's just been facing spectacularly bad ones until now.

But they fixed it right?

Michigan tried various things with their fronts—though not twists—to help out their DTs without fully helping their DTs. One way was to put the LB in an LB/QB conflict on the backside so the DE could crash, helping out the LB by getting in the TE crosser's way. This might have worked if both DTs can just hold up—note Stewart (#5) flying in from the left side. This didn't really change the math—Stewart gets blocked by the TE—but it should in theory make Colson's job easier because a cutback would go right into Stewart.

You still have Hausmann widening out like a nickel against that wide receiver on the far left, and Sainristil sitting back on the slant behind him.

Later Michigan finally acquiesced and started bringing down a safety, which didn't fix all the issues (there are a couple of obvious ones there) but did allow them to add a linebacker to the front while still keeping one behind the line. This was the old 5-1 gambit they tried two years ago until Kenneth Walker III proved too good to be left with just a linebacker.

They also, one time, but only because Minnesota didn't have a single passing yard in the second half and the game was virtually over, allowed the linebackers to just go play the run. Here's Michigan's stretch defense when not trying like hell

I seem to remember stretch being blown up another way?

Oh right, we also sent in Agent MurderGlasgow.

Sending Mason "OMG" Graham upfield like that cut off the tight end's blitz and halved the surface area Michigan had to cover. Minnesota managed to push him along like you're supposed to on another stretch attempt but it stopped the play's motion and ruined the way the Gophers were taking particular advantage of Michigan's DTs. Another time he did this the center just tackled him, picking up a flag.

That goes back to why Michigan was playing this way; they have a defensive tackle who's on track to be a 1st rounder, and he isn't even the defensive tackle who's the best player on the field.

Is this where you show me some impossible score on like 20 snaps?

You remembered the chart!

I remember there are defensive lineman scores and one or two things that occasionally happened behind them.

That is a reasonable description of The Chart.

OMG.

Yes he is. However many events you remember from Graham in this game—his first back after breaking his hand and still wearing a gigantic club—you are not remembering enough of them. I showed you the destruction of the stretch zones. There was also the time he shoved his blocker at the running back.

#55 the DT under the hash mark

Remember that Graham? That was pretty awesome.

You know what else was awesome? When you were kind of on the end of the line on a stretch, and this guy was trying to block you, and you had a cast on, and you still push-pulled him to the ground and made the tackle like he wasn't even there.

So cool?. Also, do you remember that time you were at tackle and you dodged two blockers, danced around a running back then jumped on the quarterback's back like a rabid squirrel? Remember? That was so cool.

Man THIS guy. So amazing. I can't believe I'm talking to you. Like you're the guy who like accelerated past all of these guys, got a shot from the side that should have made you fall down but you managed to like use that as momentum to fall on the quarterback trying to escape?

I kinda don't know what else to say about +20 on 28 snaps. Like…

He is awesome. PFF has him their #2 DT this year. He should be an All-American. The shield has been deployed.

The other DTs…weren't OMG?

Kris Jenkins is #16 to PFF and Kenneth Grant is #22, but this was a new test for those guys. Jenkins picked up three negatives by getting moved on a couple of early stretch plays then getting scooped on a power run a little later. But that was it for his negatives—he climbed back to positive over the rest of the game, and those early negatives might have been a little bit harsh because he was trying to close down a lot of space. But getting moved is getting moved, and #75 moved him.

#94 the DT on the bottom hash

That counts as surprising this year. We'll see if it was coming up against a good o-lineman or playing really bad ones up until now.

My Grant score was less of a surprise. He's a true sophomore who isn't OMG, and a couple of times he wasn't quite ready for the sideways pounding they were giving him. He more than made up for it by holding up to extended doubles, shedding blockers, hopping over cut-blocks, and generally being disrupting as hell. I actually managed to let him have a +2 without clipping. You've made it sir. Next time you start there's a star on thars as well.

Goode also got an unclipped +2 (it was later in the game, okay?) to go with a positive day of being in the right spot. The one minus he still had the right idea but wasn't quick or lengthy enough to wrangle down the RB as he went by. Valuable player they've got there from a guy who transferred not to play last year and stuck around anyways.

I thought you said Benny was going to be good at stretch, specifically.

This was disappointing. One of the stretches that Michigan actually had a gameplan gained 6 yards because the OL ran Benny several yards downfield. That was his only –2, but he was the most likely DT to not win those 4-on-3 situations they shouldn't have been put in. The scout on Benny was always his feet and length should make him a terror on any team t