Big Red Breakdown: Michigan

Good rundown again Michael. The tackling form is just agonizing. I had hopes that when Bill C left and the Pelini era began that this problem was a thing of the past. Not to be obviously. And regarding the diamond---what the heck??? If something is working then build on it--don't just give it up. It's obviously causing problems for the D so don't do their job for them and give up on it. The Michigan line stunts--don't know what to say about that except that a D-coordinator who's obviously not in his first rodeo at Michigan brought some of the NFL mojo to the game and took a rookie O-coordinator & company to the woodshed. The phantom roughing the kicker penalty of course might not even have been in the scheme of things had Bell not coughed up the opening 2nd half kickoff.

I'm going to say something else here too--and that is that I think we are seeing the results of Bo's refusal to identify team captains for the season--either through appointment or team vote or whatever other method you choose. This team has no leadership on its own--players do not appear to be taking ownership of the program. It's all top down. And who should be those leaders, you ask? Well, it seems to me that a hands-down candidate would be #4, 94 or 15 at the start of the year. I'd also suggest that Caputo, being a multi-year starter on the O-line, would be a decent offensive captain along with of course Rex. Special teams, I don't know--but a thought in that regard would be Jim Ebke who seems to have a wild man's type desire on kick coverage. Put these guys forward, coaches--or somebody. Give them responsbility for keeping guys's heads in the game and at practice.

Basically, he said that the reason it's so effective is that teams don't see it much and that it is such a different formation. Given the batting average, you'd like to see them maybe run it five times a game instead of once.

One drawback is that they can't really do a power run game out of the formation because they only have five offensive linemen in the set.