The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
SportsMonday
October 28, 2019 — 3B
Run game
does what
it’s good at,
sees payoff
Ed Warinner has two kinds of outside
zones built into his run game.
One is, essentially, the base outside
zone you see everywhere. Everyone
shuffles in one direction and takes
the man in front of them. The only
difference is, there’s a fly sweep
attached, to get the defense moving the
other way.
The other, what he calls a man-
scheme outside zone, is what other
coaches call a pin-and-pull. He wants
to create a wall by blocking down, let
the play stretch, then let the runner
explode through with the pullers
creating a hole.
In 2018, as Michigan’s offense clicked
into place throughout the season, these
two runs helped form the basis of what
the Wolverines did. In 2019, as things
sputtered out over the first few weeks,
Michigan seemed to not know what it
wanted from its run game.
Eventually, the Wolverines decided
on something simple: Do what they’re
good at.
“That’s what you try to figure out each
year,” Warinner, Michigan’s offensive
line coach, said last week, before the
Wolverines lost at Penn State. “Every
team’s different. There’s no carry over.
You’ve got carry over players, but you
have to establish who you are and what
you want to do. And then you evaluate.
At some point, you have to say, here’s
what we’re good at.”
If there was any question as to what
Michigan is good at before Saturday,
there isn’t now. This was Warinner’s
run game — outside and inside zones,
pin-and-pulls and the rest — in full
force, and it sprung the Wolverines for
303 yards on the ground and a 45-14
win over Notre Dame. They held a two-
score lead before Shea Patterson even
had a passing yard.
“I feel like when I pulled, it was able
to open a lot of holes,” said junior center
Cesar Ruiz. “Running backs were able
to make some really good reads off of it.
I feel like that’s one thing they weren’t
really expecting and I feel like that was
really an advantage for us, to have them
on the perimeter a little bit.”
“We’re bringing back some stuff that
worked last year,” added senior guard
Mike Onwenu. “Watching previous
games and it’s important to bring that
back and do what worked instead of
trying everything else.”
Michigan
has
talked
about
establishing the run before, but had yet
to do so in this fashion — in the rain,
against a top-10 Notre Dame team that
figured to be a real test. By midway
through the first quarter, when redshirt
freshman
running
back
Hassan
Haskins burst through the hole on an
outside zone and galloped for 20 yards,
hurdling a defender along the way, it
was clear the Irish stood little chance.
Haskins ran for 149 yards, or just
68 off his career total before Saturday.
Alongside him, Zach Charbonnet tied a
school record with his eighth and ninth
rushing touchdowns as a freshman.
There are still four games left in the
regular season. The run game, finally,
seems to be hitting its stride.
“Made some creases and had some
really crisp blocks,” said Michigan
coach Jim Harbaugh. “The backs were
squeezing through them and breaking
tackles. Hit a trap play early, that was
big. Hit another couple inside runs,
hit a couple outside runs. (Offensive
coordinator) Josh (Gattis) did a nice
job with the running game, inside then
outside. RPOs started clicking.”
And in a first-half monsoon, against a
top-10 opponent and a rival, Harbaugh’s
team got out to a decisive lead in the
kind of game the program has long
coveted winning. By the time Tru
Wilson ran 27 yards into the end zone
in the fourth quarter for Michigan’s
third rushing touchdown of the night,
the competitive portion of the game had
long ended.
It all harkened back to Warinner’s
message, one so simple that Gattis and
Michigan seemed to forget it until just a
few weeks ago. Do what you’re good at.
On Saturday, that’s what Michigan
did.
No one on the outside knows quite
what happened at halftime in State
College last weekend, and those on the
inside don’t seem too keen on sharing.
Those are moments that can be blown
out of proportion, anyway.
But the team that walked out of
that locker room, staring down a 21-7
deficit in the fire-breathing cauldron
of Beaver Stadium, is not the same as
the one that entered. That’s plainly
clear.
What
entered
was
an
underwhelming offense and a mistake-
prone defense, a defeatist squad with a
downtrodden mentality, a coach under
a fervent national microscope and a
program unable to escape the pressure
of its own weight. What exited, it
appears, is a whole different football
team — one that came inches from
an historic comeback last week and
dominated No. 8 Notre Dame in every
facet of the game this week, smacking
the Fighting Irish, 45-14.
“I think the second half of the
Penn State game, I thought we found
our stride,” said senior quarterback
Shea Patterson on Saturday. “We
realized after that game, going into
this week, from Monday’s practice
that offensively we’ve got to come out
that way start to finish. We can’t come
out flat and expect to make a heroic
comeback in the end.”
In
those
six
quarters,
the
Wolverines have outgained their two
opponents 667 to 260, out-rushed them
379 to 60 and, most importantly, out-
scored them 66 to 21. After turning the
ball over 13 times in the six-and-a-half
games prior, Michigan hasn’t turned
it over once since — against two of the
most turnover-happy defenses in the
country. Patterson has looked far more
in line with his 2018 self. The defense
has evolved into the suffocating
menace most expected.
To put it flatly: this is a team that
has done what it’s wanted to two top-
10 teams in a way it failed to do to a
Conference USA foe and a Military
Academy mere weeks prior.
“Yeah, I saw it coming,” said
Michigan
coach
Jim
Harbaugh.
“Watching them prepare, watching
them practice, watching the detail and
the meetings. How important it was to
them. Day in, day out work in practice.
The growth, you can see it.”
The success has been rooted in
many of the core tenants from last
season. A coalescing offensive line has
allowed just three sacks in the last two
games, supplementing what’s quickly
blossomed into a potent rushing
attack. In a driving rain, Michigan
racked up 57 rushing attempts,
continuing to pound its running backs,
daring a hapless Notre Dame side to
stop it.
Junior Hassan Haskins tallied 149
rushing yards on 20 carries, plowing
through — and hopping over — the
Fighting Irish defense.
The Wolverines stamped their
way to 5.9 yards per carry, tossing the
elements aside and the game to rest
from the outset. At halftime, they’d
run the ball 28 times and thrown it
just four. The score, 17-0, even belied
the feeling of finality that had already
set in by then. Michigan won this in a
way that left no doubt as to who was
the better side — and as to whether
last week’s second half was any sort of
anomaly.
“We’re
taking
leaps,”
said
sophomore
linebacker
Cameron
McGrone, a burgeoning defensive star.
“And I believe we’ve always had it, it
was just us clicking and, like I said,
at Penn State, I think we really found
what our team can do and that we can
do it whenever we want.”
For all the positive takeaways from
that half, though, they still cannot be
evaluated in a vacuum. The loss to the
Nittany Lions is still a loss, and still
comes with all the season-altering
ramifications. Michigan still has two
Big Ten defeats, and will still likely be
locked out of postseason title chances.
What to make of this team-wide
reinvention perhaps depends on your
own conception of success going
forward. It’s more than fair to quibble
that this is all too-little, too-late.
But whatever this team figured out
in a cagey locker room in Pennsylvania
has made a demonstrable difference.
From here, all it can control is the
game it’s playing.
This win was no statement. No
boisterous journey for revenge. No
atonement for the two losses that
clouded the season thus far.
Just business as always intended —
and maybe a dose of therapy.
“I just thought we needed to come
out, start to finish, and just play,”
Patterson said. “Play the way we know
how to play. I think really that’s kind
of the first time, in all cylinders, we’ve
played our best game. And when we do
that, we’re really hard to beat.”
ETHAN SEARS
Managing Sports Editor
MAX MARCOVITCH
Managing Sports Editor
ALEC COHEN/Daily
Michigan’s offense broke out for 45 points on Saturday night, dominating Notre Dame, 45-14, in a rain-soaked affair at Michigan Stadium.
Defensive
speed stifles
Notre Dame
attack
Cam McGrone raced toward an
emptying student section, flexing his
right arm then his left above his head.
Aidan Hutchinson and Luiji Vilain
stood to either side of McGrone, serving
as bodyguards to his celebration. A few
yards behind Michigan’s jubilant pass-
rushing trio, Notre Dame quarterback
Phil Jurkovec lay face down on the
13-yard line.
It was Jurkovec’s first play of the
game, but as starting quarterback Ian
Book looked on from the sidelines, the
back of a gold helmet emerging from
the turf provided a familiar sight. Book
left the game early in the fourth quarter
after an 8-for-25, 73-yard performance
— his career low as a starter, en route to
a 45-14 Wolverines’ win.
A year ago, when Michigan opened
its season with a road defeat against the
Fighting Irish, McGrone, Hutchinson
and Vilain largely watched from afar,
underclassmen patiently waiting their
turn. Senior safety Josh Metellus was
a starter that day, but he too watched
most of the game from the locker
room after a first-quarter ejection for
targeting.
And for 14 months, since that
night in South Bend, he’s known this
performance was coming.
“The type of offense that they run,
they try to stick to the same script, get
the same guys the ball,” Metellus said.
“They don’t like going outside the frame
in the type of stuff they like to do in
their scheme. We knew coming in they
watched teams previously and see what
worked against us and try to hit there.”
According to McGrone, the area that
Notre Dame tried to exploit was the
edge. It’s a funny thought for anyone
who watched this year’s game, because
“exploit” may well rank last on the list
of verbs that could be used to describe
what the Irish did to Michigan on the
edge.
All evening, though, they tried —
bouncing runs to the outside, throwing
quick passes into the flat, scrambling
toward the chains. And all evening, they
failed, chased down by the Wolverines’
superior speed.
“(Our speed) allows everybody to be
around the ball at all times,” McGrone
said. “I’m pretty sure there’s multiple
pictures of five to eight guys around the
ball, which is kind of unheard of.”
On Saturday, that translated into just
two sacks, but the effects permeated
far further into Notre Dame’s offensive
performance. For the better part of
three quarters, the Irish’s only play
for more than 10 yards came on a
spectacular sideline catch from senior
Chase Claypool. Their longest rush of
the day went for just nine yards on a
scramble.
Despite the lack of sacks, Book
stood at the center of it all, desperately
running from maize and blue jerseys, if
only to find enough reprieve to huck a
pass into the stands.
“Defensively,
it
was
a
great
performance,” said Michigan coach Jim
Harbaugh. “We’re just so fast, we’re
just running so good and the knockback
in the defensive line was outstanding,
really good coverage, linebackers were
running.”
The result was a defensive showing
that finally allowed the Wolverines to
match complete performances on both
sides of the ball. The fact that it only
comes after two losses isn’t lost on these
players — they know what that means
for their Big Ten title hopes.
But for more than six quarters now,
dating back to a near-comeback against
Penn State last weekend, they’ve been
the dominant team that was promised
before the season. And at the crux of that
is a defense that’s allowed first downs
on just six of its last 22 possessions.
It’s why defensive coordinator Don
Brown’s message at the end of it all was
one of pride in a unit that McGrone said,
“played how we know that we can play.”
It’s also why his message included a
follow up, as McGrone relayed after the
game:
“We still believe that our best
football’s ahead.”
After Saturday, that’s a scary thought.
THEO MACKIE
Daily Sports Editor
rain and hail
Six quarters that lifted Michigan’s season
Hassan Haskins broke free, found
his gap and exploited it. He’d done
this before, but this time, there was an
encore. Haskins jumped into the air and
over his defender, picking up a few extra
yards in the process.
That run provided 20 of the Michigan
football team’s 303 rushing yards of the
night, 149 of which came courtesy of
Haskins. But the reality was it didn’t
really matter who got the handoff. The
Wolverines’ offensive line mauled Notre
Dame’s front seven, opening up gaping
holes for Michigan to run through. On
a night so rainy the cheerleaders played
slip and slide in the end zone, a potent
running game was vital.
Last year against the Irish, that run
game was conspicuously absent. The
Wolverines rushed for just 58 yards
on 33 attempts en route to a 24-17 loss
in South Bend, Ind. After promises
of offensive line improvement under
then-new coach Ed Warinner, that unit
struggled, with any potential running
holes sufficiently plugged before they
opened. The pass protection was even
worse, allowing three sacks and six
quarterback hurries.
On Saturday, after Michigan got a
shot at revenge, the situation was like
night and day. Haskins praised his
offensive line for opening up the gaps
he ran through. The line’s stout play
showed in the success of the running
game, with 303 rushing yards the most
the Wolverines have had this season.
The pass protection was markedly
better, allowing two sacks and no
quarterback hurries.
“We expected to run the ball a lot,”
said senior guard Michael Onwenu.
“But a lot of holes were open, more
so than we thought. The backs were
shifting, a lot of motion and whatnot, so
we expected that, but it was attacking
the holes faster than we thought, so we
adjusted.”
Even backup center Steven Spanellis
got in on the action, continuing to block
his man after both went out of bounds
in the fourth quarter. It was a play so
memorable that it got a shoutout from
Charles Woodson on Twitter.
If last year’s matchup with the Irish
was a re-affirmation of the narratives
that have surrounded Harbaugh during
his tenure — inability to beat rivals,
starting slow, underperformance in big
moments — Saturday’s 45-14 blowout
win took those narratives and flipped
them on their head.
“It’s a feeling that I know I’ll
remember for — and I’m sure everybody
in the locker room will,” said senior
quarterback Shea Patterson. “I was just
so happy to be a part of that and I feel
like as a group we’re just doing great
especially since last year left a bit of a
sour taste. Just very proud of ourselves.”
Michigan beat the eighth-ranked
team in the country handily. The
offensive line played like one that
returned four All-Big Ten starters. And
this time, the Wolverines weren’t the
ones that started slow.
Last year, Michigan went down 21-3
early and spent the whole game playing
from behind. The Wolverines scored
two more touchdowns after that and
made it a close game. But it’s hard to win
like that, especially against a rival, and
even more so against an opponent with
Playoff aspirations of its own.
On Saturday, the Wolverines were
the ones that went up early — leading
17-0 at halftime. The offense did its
part while the defense clamped down
and dampened the Irish’s hopes of a
comeback.
“Our problem, especially as a team —
not just as a defense — is that we start
slow,” said senior safety Josh Metellus.
“We start slow and once we pick it up,
it’s hard to stop us. Offensively, it’s hard
to stop us, hard to put a cap on it. But
once we started fast in that first quarter
and we didn’t give up a first-quarter
touchdown or any first-quarter points,
I knew that we’d be able to hold on
through the rest of the game.”
And in thoroughly flipping the script
on last year’s frustrating loss, Michigan
also gave itself a blueprint. This is how
it can start to change those narratives.
This is how it can beat rivals and top
teams. This is what it’s capable of doing.
Though it’s a little too late for those
Playoff hopes, or even a conference
championship, the Wolverines still have
two rivalry games left on the schedule
— against two opponents that have left
particularly bad tastes in their mouths
the past five years.
With its statement against Notre
Dame, Michigan got more than just a
marquee win. If it can follow the path
it forged on Saturday, it could start to
reverse the narratives it’s struggled so
much to escape.
Against the Irish, Wolverines flip narrative
ARIA GERSON
Daily Sports Editor
(Our speed)
allows
everybody to be
around the ball.
I feel like when
I pulled, it was
able to open a
lot of holes.