Michigan's Offense vs Mississippi State's Defense
Analyzing Auburn's Offense vs Mississippi State's Defense
Time to move on to the phase of the game I'm dreading, trying to explain how this Michigan defense has any shot in hell of stopping an SEC offense led by a mobile quarterback.
First, we'll talk about Michigan's defense (more like the lack thereof). The 3-3-5 scheme run by Greg Robinson has been horrifyingly painful to watch this season. Rich Rodriguez through his indifference to what happens on defense, has allowed Michigan's defense to drop from mediocre in 2008 to the 108th total defense.
After the jump, we'll go into more detail about Michigan's defensive woes and give some background on the Mississippi State Bulldogs offense.
Overall, as you can see, the Michigan defense was pretty indifferent about stopping opposing ofenses, allowing approximately 34 points a game, which amounts to 4 touchdowns and 2 field goals. Michigan's offense barely managed to outscore the opposing offenses it faced as a whole, which helps explain how Michigan managed to even finish 7-5 on the year.
Michigan's pass defense was one of the worst in the nation, and probably would have even suffered against a Division I-AA schedule. After the departures of Boubacar Cissoko (suspension), Donovan Warren (declared early for draft), J.T. Turner (transfer), Vladimir Emilien (transfer), along with Demar Dorsey's admissions request being declined and Troy Woolfolk's season-long injury, Michigan's secondary was beaten to a pulp, and then kicked while it was down. To pour salt in the wound, because Rich Rodriguez is a defensive genius, he shifted the defense to a 3-3-5 scheme, making it so more tiny, inexperienced freshmen corners/safties could be on the field at once (Brilliant!). It was also Greg Robinson's first year running this scheme (this could only end well obviously!). To top it all off, for the second half of the year, Craig Roh got many snaps as a defensive lineman on a 3-man D-Line, although he's only 250 pounds, and stands no chance at beating a tackle and guard double-team. Craig Roh would be a great DE on a 4-man defensive line in my opinion, but Michigan didn't show that look hardly at all this year, even against power running teams like Iowa and Wisconsin. Mike Martin is a solid tackle and played the best he reasonably could be expected to this year, but would be better as a 4-3 DT. Ryan Van Bergen (RVB) was pretty average, while Greg Banks and Jibreel Black weren't exactly lighting the world on fire either.
The linebackers didn't look much better. Obi Ezeh regressed quite a bit and was a definite hindrance to this defense when he was on the field at MLB. He eventually shifted to OLB in favor of Kenny Demens, and played somewhat better, but still performed poorly in pass defense. He wasn't aggressive in run defense, often waiting for blockers to block him rather than quickly trying to fight through his assigned blocker, and bit on seemingly every playaction fake thrown at him. Mouton and Demens were the only somewhat bright spots of this group, but even they had their downsides. Roh as a linebacker didn't work so hot, again mostly in pass defense (shocker!)
The rushing defense somehow managed to only be 86th worst, but was mostly, that was due to the poor play in the secondary, especially on 3rd down. While the passing defense was 115th in yards allowed, it was also dead last in the country in 3rd down completion percentage, allowing the opposition to complete a staggering 69.8% of their passes for 932 yards on 115 attempts. Michigan was already 99th in completion percent allowed, so this just added insult to injury.
Why does anyone even bother running the ball against us then?
Because we allow teams to rush on 31 of their 32 2nd half plays and still score seemingly every time.
*shakes fist angrily at Wisconsin*
Well, does the defense do anything well?
Nope.
That's depressing, but can they at least pull it together for one game?
Considering the offense most comparable to Mississippi State's that we faced this year was Illinois (we held them to a mere 65 points!), it's doubtful. However, it's possible. Mississippi State's QB is pretty bad (Chris Relf) as a passer, but he also put up his best two passing games in his final two games.
Okay, now it's time to talk more about Relf and the Miss. St. offense he leads:
Mississippi State's offense revolves heavily around their running game ranked 16th in the nation, and the option play, similarly to Illinois'. Neither had a truly dangerous passing threat at QB. Chris Relf really never got a firm grasp as the starting QB for the Bulldogs until the final four weeks of the season. He was injured in their game against Alabama, and played both full games against Arkansas and Ole Miss. In those two games he completed 65% of his passes while rushing for a good chunk of yardage as well. Relf also started and played the majority of their game against Kentucky, which is the game film I'll be using to analyze Mississippi State's offense.
The 6'4", 240 pound Relf is tough to bring down, and often will be as big as or bigger than every LB on the opposition's defense. While he averaged merely 3.7 yards per carry, he still poses a running threat, rushing for 60+ yards in half of his games. He averaged 15 carries a game, and against our poor rushing defense, it's safe to say we can expect the same, as he helps draw attention from their runningback duo.
His partners in the backfield are Vick Ballard (#28), a 5'11", 215 pounder who is better running up the middle, and Ladarius Perkins (#27), the quicker back of the two. Ballard is the starter, but in Perkins' one start in relief of Ballard, he rushed 18 times for 131 yards against UAB. Anchoring Mississippi State's offensive line is Derek Sherrod (#79) at left tackle, likely to be selected in the 1st round of this year's NFL Draft. Mississippi State seemed to run better up the middle and to the left in the game film against Kentucky, which isn't particularly surprising with Sherrod helping on every play. On the bright side for Michigan, Mississippi State's best two receivers in Chad Bumphis and Leon Berry will not be able to play in the Gator Bowl due to injuries.
Other offensive tendencies I noticed:
- Mississippi State operates almost exclusively out of shotgun formations with 3+ WRs as you would expect from a head coach that runs a spread offense specializing in running the ball. They also utilize the option often, similarly to Illinois, which is why I'll be taking a more in-depth look at the Michigan defense's performance against Illinois in a later post.
- Relf is rolled out to his right on a lot of his passes to utilize his athleticism. He seemed to throw fairly well on the run, sometimes better than as a stationary passer. The rollout plays also draw the defense in, leaving Relf often with easier passes to make.
- They let Relf pass deep pretty often even with his poor accuracy. You would think being a poor passer would prevent Relf from getting that opportunity, but head coach Dan Mullen (also known as the offensive coordinator for Tim Tebow at Florida) doesn't seem to reel his passing in. Michigan should constantly have one or two safeties 15-20 yards deep because of this deep threat. Relf isn't the most accurate passer, but our safeties don't have good recovery speed, and he does hit wide receivers more often than not if they're open deep down the field. Michigan will be tempted to pull Kovacs AND Vinopal up to the line to stop a rushing threat, especially since Kovacs is one of our best tacklers, but they should at least leave Vinopal as a deep safety on every play.
- They put a lot of players in motion. It seemed like on at least every other play, one of the following occurred:
- A runningback would start lined up at wide reciever and then would move into the backfield, either to be used a a blocker or to be used in a zone read play, where he could receive the ball or be a decoy.
- A WR would do the same
- A wide receiver would run across the field and take a handoff in a WR sweep or would be used in a playaction play.
- When they do the above, it puts the defense at a severe disadvantage. If the defense is in man-to-man defense or prepared to stop the run, and the offense shifts formation, the defense has to shift assignments or their formation accordingly. An inexperienced defense will struggle a lot against offenses that use motion well because they will miscommunicate and may not follow their new assignments correctly. The WR fakes and handoffs may happen less in the Gator Bowl due to the injuries to their top two receivers, but it's still something to look out for.
Their running game will dominate their offensive approach, but I wouldn't be surprised to see Relf attempt 25+ passes against our poor secondary, especially after his performance in his previous two games.
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