GBMWolverine: Coach’s Corner — Ohio State vs. Michigan — Review — Part I

Posted at 6:00am — 11/28/2011

GBMWolverine: Coach’s Corner — Ohio State vs. Michigan — Review — Part I

It was indeed a great day Saturday at the Big House. Good weather, good atmosphere, and a good game were the primary factors. A Michigan win was the ultimate treat.

Ohio State came to play, and as predicted the Buckeyes abandoned the three-play offense featured the last few weeks. Michigan stopped the power blast up the middle and prevented the Boom Herron cutbacks. Michigan did not have to worry much about Herron attacking the right flank, a real mystery to me. Michigan still had to worry about Brandon Miller’s feet and he did indeed hurt the Michigan defense. He hurt the defense but did not provide a fatal blow.

Ohio State, as mentioned last week, was playing with house money and everyone knew big changes were coming. As a result the Buckeyes came out passing and Michigan’s secondary did not respond well making several near critical mistakes. But the pass defense held up in the short and intermediate ranges.

Posey is fast, a Sunday player, but the back four gave him a few big plays. Brown is a star on the rise and will be heard. On one play two defenders went with an out cut and Brown got an easy gimmee touch. Countess got turned around once badly and fortunately the throw was way off. And of course late in the game Floyd got beat big time after biting and again fortunately the throw was off.

The bet here is that Coach Mattison needed safety help to insure the number one goal of the Michigan defense, stopping the Ohio State power game, and as a result the corners were asked to play big boy defense and fend for themselves. But early on it was clear Woolfolk could not keep up the pace.

The Michigan defense came out in a vanilla 4-3 look and applied no pressure to Ohio State as the Buckeyes passed on four plays on the first series, a series that ended with the first touchdown. When Michigan had Ohio State backed up, Mattison dialed up pressure, and it worked well. With the passing game cooling down, Ohio State went to its best weapon, planned runs up the guard slot by Braxton Miller, run from formations designed to provide some room. Jack Mewhort did a great job of springing Miller time after time.

And so the game transformed into a battle of two dangerous sets of feet and two arms that have not produced the intended results. Both quarterbacks came through and led their teams in magnificent fashion. Denard was the most consistent, his poise in the pocket, reading the field and accuracy were as good as ever his entire career. He came through and will have a moment to remember. Denard basically throws two patterns well if he sets and gains good transfer of weight: the first is the out, and several times he hit the out pattern in a nice seam, give credit to the staff and receivers as well; the second is the in route and this yielded big results with points and key completions. Some of the patterns had no vacancy signs up but Denard put them in a perfect spot. The line gave Denard plenty of time to survey and execute. He probably wishes that happened every game this year. Ohio State simply did not blitz the fort much until later in the game. Again this is surprising as the one and only goal was to contain and harass Denard.

The line provided both Denard and Fitz Toussaint good holes and Ohio State’s defensive front seven did not control the game. The unit closest to controlling the game was the Michigan offensive line. Who would have thought on September 1st that Boom Herron would end up with meager yardage against Michigan and Fitz would average over 5 yards per carry. The inside read gave Ohio State problems and frankly Denard made great reads Saturday. He pulled the ball out at the correct time and gave it to Fitz with equal execution. He had the ball many times in Fitz’s belly for an extended time only to set the defense and take off. Molk will be missed next year as we have stated. He held his own or more Saturday. The left side of the line provided good results against very good defenders. Patrick O had a very unfortunate grab at the end of the game, but little else could be said in a negative vain. The line must have been doing a great job as the very knowledgeable and eagle-eyed fans from Ohio spotted holding on every play Michigan ran.

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Written by GBMWolverine Staff

Go Blue — Wear Maize!