Thoughts on Michigan Football spring game
The highlight clips can be found here.
Offensive line: based on the limited number of plays shown I was surprised that they looked pretty good. This was an area of concern given the attrition that’s taken place but when they faced your typical fronts they seemed to provide good protection and some lanes in the run game. Michigan’s defensive line is going to be one of the stronger units on the team so this is a good sign.
When the D brought the blitz they got pressure and collapsed the pocket, which is to be expected. The thing the Wolverines are going to have to do to be able to counter those blitzes is get the short passing game going and that was a mixed bag based on the clips shown.
Quarterbacks: It looked to me like Steve Threet was better at running the offense. My guess is the spread this season is going to look similar to the one Michgan ran against Florida in the bowl game on new year’s day. That will mean lots of shotgun, play action, reverses, and passing, but little in the way of QB runs that were the bread and butter of the WVU offense with Pat White at QB. With that being said the short passing game looked decent while the long game is a…umm…work in progress. A strong arm seems to be David Cone’s biggest strength over the other two QBs but it sounds like he isn’t really in the mix for the starting QB spot right now.
Running back: this is the strongest unit on the offense and the running backs had a number of strong running plays during the clips shown. If the offensive line can hold their own against standard fronts and the short passing game can become effective against blitzes it will really help the Wolverine offense. Between Carlos Brown, Avery Horn, Kevin Grady and Brandon Minor the Wolverines should be able to run the ball. Avery Horn also had a nice gainer on a flare/screen pass which will likely be a big part of the aresnal this upcoming season.
Receivers: the talent is there amongst the receivers but the leading receiver on the team [Greg Matthews] caught 39 passes last season. So this is a unit that is a bit of a mixed bag as it relies on good blocking on the o-line and good QB play to be successful. Other than a nice jailbreak screen to Matthews the receivers really didn’t stand out on any of the plays that were shown so it’s tough to get much of a feel for how the receivers are faring.
Front seven: The d-line and linebackers didn’t look so hot when playing a fairly vanilla scheme. They were better when they brought pressure although they did give up a long running play by Kevin Grady when blitzing. It’s tough to read too much though into a clip that was obviously going to focus on the spread offense. On the plays that weren’t shown they might have completely abused the o-line, so I won’t read too much into their performance.
Secondary: the secondary, like the d-line and running backs, are going to be one of Michigan’s strengths this season. They had a number of interceptions, but that could have been due to the Wolverines having very young and inexperienced signal callers. There weren’t any plays where they really let a receiver get behind them or left a guy all alone wide open and they closed pretty quickly on most of the completed passes. So I liked what I saw from them.
Special teams: the commentary mentioned that all three place kickers made their kicks. It sounds like Michigan might have good special teams units for the first time in probably over 20 years. If that ends up being the case man is that going to be a sight to see.
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