A look into Rutgers' offense & defense

[ivan brunetti]

A Michigan blog breaks down the Scarlet Knights' offense and defense (defense added Friday). Long and very detailed. I hope some of you will enjoy this.

https://mgoblog.com/content/fee-fi-fo-film-rutgers-offense-2021#read-more

https://mgoblog.com/content/fee-fi-fo-film-rutgers-defense-2021#read-more

 

[Knight Shift]

A Michigan blog breaks down the Scarlet Knights' offense. Long and very detailed. I hope some of you will enjoy this.

https://mgoblog.com/content/fee-fi-fo-film-rutgers-offense-2021#read-more

The writer of this blog piece is an arrogant, snarky prick.

 

[RU Golfer]

Interesting read.......The final summation pretty much says it all.

 

[Knight Shift]

Interesting read.......The final summation pretty much says it all.

I did not find it interesting at all. It was grade school level crap.

 

[ivan brunetti]

The writer of this blog piece is an arrogant, snarky prick.

Ha, maybe. Or maybe, you don't care for the news so you are attacking the messenger.

 

[RU Golfer]

The writer of this blog piece is an arrogant, snarky prick.

Agree with your assessment on the tone of the author

I did not find it interesting at all. It was grade school level crap.

Rest of the acritical aside, Michigan slant and attitude I do believe the final summary is on point. Our offensive has not really impressed me this year especially if you take who we played into account. If they are able to step it up and put numbers up this week I will have a difference of opinion.

 

[Knight Shift]

Ha, maybe. Or maybe, you don't care for the news so you are attacking the messenger.

Nope, not the latter. And the comments reinforce that Michigan fans are in the top 3 of snarky, arrogant prick B1G fanbases. Maybe you guys will have a good year. If so, it only took paying Jimmy something in the range of $40-60 million to get there. Money well spent. Has yet to produce an even quasi-elite QB, which is a real mystery for a guy who knows something about QBs. Maybe if he keeps up that move of pounding their shoulder pads and the sides of their helmets, something will sink in.

Has your prick-filled fanbase taken a look in the mirror at their one-dimensional offense? It may not be the Rutgers game, but they will meet failure soon enough with that offense. And basing a big part of the writeup on how horrible Syracuse was last year? How did Michigan do last year.

Wishing you guys another bottom 3 finish in the B1G East.

 

[Knight Shift]

Agree with your assessment on the tone of the author



Rest of the acritical aside, Michigan slant and attitude I do believe the final summary is on point. Our offensive has not really impressed me this year especially if you take who we played into account. If they are able to step it up and put numbers up this week I will have a difference of opinion.

Newsflash, our OL is the weak spot of the team. Everybody knows that.

 

[ivan brunetti]

Nope, not the latter. And the comments reinforce that Michigan fans are in the top 3 of snarky, arrogant prick B1G fanbases. Maybe you guys will have a good year. If so, it only took paying Jimmy something in the range of $40-60 million to get there. Money well spent. Has yet to produce an even quasi-elite QB, which is a real mystery for a guy who knows something about QBs. Maybe if he keeps up that move of pounding their shoulder pads and the sides of their helmets, something will sink in.

Has your prick-filled fanbase taken a look in the mirror at their one-dimensional offense? It may not be the Rutgers game, but they will meet failure soon enough with that offense. And basing a big part of the writeup on how horrible Syracuse was last year? How did Michigan do last year.

Wishing you guys another bottom 3 finish in the B1G East.

Pretty early for someone to already have pissed in your Cheerios.

Our offense has been leaning on the run for two reasons. A) Our QB is still learning the system. B) Our running game is so far leading the nation. And the only team with a really strong defense that we have played (Washington) refused to dedicate 8 in the box to stop our run. If teams are going to attempt to defend us straight up, we will continue to lean toward running the ball. If Rutgers schemes to stop our run (I would), you will see more of our passing game. I think Wisconsin will be a tough test of our developing passing game. We lost our most experienced receiver for the year, but we seem to have three or four targets to fill his yards.

Syracuse is ranked 95th best in Sagarin's predictor formula. Which isn't your fault. Just a few years ago they nearly upset Clemson, right? So when the game was scheduled Syracuse was a much tougher opponent. To answer your question Michigan was terrible last year. I would say we have turned things around more than any program this year, but Penn State was also awful in 2020.

 

[PSAL_Hoops]

Newsflash, our OL is the weak spot of the team. Everybody knows that.

Agreed. I actually didn’t find that part to be arrogant and was more put off by the focus on our schedule. It’s not like Michigsn played murders row. Washington lost to an FCS team. As far as I’m concerned, there’s no proof right now they are better than Syracuse. Last year is meaningless now. Also, at least Rutgers played a road game.

 

[ivan brunetti]

Agreed. I actually didn’t find that part to be arrogant and was more put off by the focus on our schedule. It’s not like Michigsn played murders row. Washington lost to an FCS team. As far as I’m concerned, there’s no proof right now they are better than Syracuse. Last year is meaningless now. Also, at least Rutgers played a road game.

Yup. Washington lost to Montana. Montana is about tied with Illinois according to Sagarin. Which means they... are not good. Washington was missing something like their top 5 WR due to Covid for that opening game. And their offensive line was not good enough to grind out long drives. The Huskies defense is solid though. I think they will end the year at a disappointing 6-6.

Western Michigan beat Pitt and has a pretty good offense. They might win the MAC this year. Northern Illinois is not very good even though they beat G Tech this year. Sagarin thinks N Illinois would be a 15 point favorite if they played Delaware at a neutral site.

 

[Knight Shift]

Pretty early for someone to already have pissed in your Cheerios.

Our offense has been leaning on the run for two reasons. A) Our QB is still learning the system. B) Our running game is so far leading the nation. And the only team with a really strong defense that we have played (Washington) refused to dedicate 8 in the box to stop our run. If teams are going to attempt to defend us straight up, we will continue to lean toward running the ball. If Rutgers schemes to stop our run (I would), you will see more of our passing game. I think Wisconsin will be a tough test of our developing passing game. We lost our most experienced receiver for the year, but we seem to have three or four targets to fill his yards.

Syracuse is ranked 95th best in Sagarin's predictor formula. Which isn't your fault. Just a few years ago they nearly upset Clemson, right? So when the game was scheduled Syracuse was a much tougher opponent. To answer your question Michigan was terrible last year. I would say we have turned things around more than any program this year, but Penn State was also awful in 2020.

Awfully defensive, Ivan. We are just discussing facts. I don't eat Cheerios, as it is a midwestern crap product. We eat pork roll for breakfast here in NJ.

Your fanbase is hilarious at how they take cover for "last year," but then you denigrate the opponents of other conference teams because they beat teams that were terrible "last year." You can't have it both ways.

And you guys have turned things around-- based on what? Beating whom? Pump the brakes a little. Let's check back after your game with Wisconsin and Penn State. And look out for little brother in East Lansing. Jimmy loses that one, and he has a losing record against another B1G team.

Unlike UM, none of our fans are punching a bowl ticket based on our first three games.

 

[ivan brunetti]

Awfully defensive, Ivan. We are just discussing facts. I don't eat Cheerios, as it is a midwestern crap product. We eat pork roll for breakfast here in NJ.

Your fanbase is hilarious at how they take cover for "last year," but then you denigrate the opponents of other conference teams because they beat teams that were terrible "last year." You can't have it both ways.

And you guys have turned things around-- based on what? Beating whom? Pump the brakes a little. Let's check back after your game with Wisconsin and Penn State. And look out for little brother in East Lansing. Jimmy loses that one, and he has a losing record against another B1G team.

Unlike UM, none of our fans are punching a bowl ticket based on our first three games.

Pork roll huh? We used to call it Taylor Ham.

We have turned it around from last year when we would have had difficulty defeating anyone in the MAC. We haven't played anyone on the road (in Madison in nine days) or anyone ranked. But Sagarin has our strength of schedule at 23rd toughest. More than respectable.

So you think Syracuse is going bowling this year? I don't see that happening, but maybe.

I agree that on the road vs Wisconsin will be our first major test. We have not done well on the road vs ranked opponents. I hope the Badgers beat ND this weekend in quadruple OT.

 

[Knight Shift]

Pork roll huh? We used to call it Taylor Ham.

We have turned it around from last year when we would have had difficulty defeating anyone in the MAC. We haven't played anyone on the road (in Madison in nine days) or anyone ranked. But Sagarin has our strength of schedule at 23rd toughest. More than respectable.

So you think Syracuse is going bowling this year? I don't see that happening, but maybe.

I agree that on the road vs Wisconsin will be our first major test. We have not done well on the road vs ranked opponents. I hope the Badgers beat ND this weekend in quadruple OT.

Never said Syracuse was going bowling this year. Their OL continues to be a mess. While running over Ohio (not Ohio State) and Albany (yes the state capital of NY) at a clip of nearly 300 rushing yards per game each game is nothing for Syracuse to get giddy about, Rutgers held Syracuse to 50 yards, so we can beat our chests over that stat. Our defense was not exactly stout against Delaware's running game, however, their running stats are a padded by a 71 yard run.

I make no predictions for this game. If RU wins, you can bet we will be busting the balls of UM fans and mocking Harbaugh. If we lose by 14 points or less, some of us will do the same. If we get blown out, the season is not over for us. Most fans here had us winning 4-6 games. Six is still within reach, but we have to see how the next few games play out. We have that 2021 weird, weakling team Ohio State up next week. So tell your team not to hurt too many of our guys, we could do you guys a solid next week. 😉

 

[ivan brunetti]

Never said Syracuse was going bowling this year. Their OL continues to be a mess. While running over Ohio (not Ohio State) and Albany (yes the state capital of NY) at a clip of nearly 300 rushing yards per game each game is nothing for Syracuse to get giddy about, Rutgers held Syracuse to 50 yards, so we can beat our chests over that stat. Our defense was not exactly stout against Delaware's running game, however, their running stats are a padded by a 71 yard run.

I make no predictions for this game. If RU wins, you can bet we will be busting the balls of UM fans and mocking Harbaugh. If we lose by 14 points or less, some of us will do the same. If we get blown out, the season is not over for us. Most fans here had us winning 4-6 games. Six is still within reach, but we have to see how the next few games play out. We have that 2021 weird, weakling team Ohio State up next week. So tell your team not to hurt too many of our guys, we could do you guys a solid next week. 😉

Article singles out Palliant (?) as your best lineman. The down linemen he will mostly face are solid but not anything special. And they like your running back Pacheco. Northern Illinois had one long maybe 75 yard drive in the first quarter that was mostly running plays. Gave me agita.

I can't figure out why Ohio State's defense looks so bad so far. They have 4 and 5 stars at EVERY damned position. I am afraid they will have things sorted out by the time we play at the end of November...

 

[Knight Shift]

Article singles out Palliant (?) as your best lineman. The down linemen he will mostly face are solid but not anything special. And they like your running back Pacheco. Northern Illinois had one long maybe 75 yard drive in the first quarter that was mostly running plays. Gave me agita.

I can't figure out why Ohio State's defense looks so bad so far. They have 4 and 5 stars at EVERY damned position. I am afraid they will have things sorted out by the time we play at the end of November...

Regarding Ohio State- Coombs is the sole DC this year. Co-DC from 2020 Greg Mattison is gone. Don't know how Michigan fans feel/felt about him. But sometimes it is the personnel too. Our DC under HC Kyle Flood, Joe Rossi, is lighting it up this year (so far) at Minnesota. Maybe he's better at rowing boats than chopping (Flood kept the chop). Nobody else in the B1G is sad to see Ohio State flounder, but they sometimes seem to start the year off slow and then get it together.

Others like @koleszar can talk about our linemen. Not sure Palliant is our "best," but maybe he had the best performance at Syracuse, which is not exactly a prize to be excited about. Our TE were horrific at blocking against Syracuse, and that is a fair point of criticism and even mockery.

Some of our fans have like the performance of our running back Monangai. When Pacheco gets space, he is dangerous. But getting the space has been the challenge. Nobody here things that our OL will be opening up gaping holes for our running backs on Saturday, but maybe, just maybe we can get a one or two runs like Delaware did against us, we can pad our stats.

 

[Barnaby&Neill]

A Michigan blog breaks down the Scarlet Knights' offense. Long and very detailed. I hope some of you will enjoy this.

https://mgoblog.com/content/fee-fi-fo-film-rutgers-offense-2021#read-more

Need to clear up one item:

“That Rutgers thinks they can put out a beef package with a 6'2", 235 QB and run it down the throats of the opposition without any real deception involved is so naive it's almost cute.”

The writer overestimates the competence of college defenses. We won the Purdue game last year by running this play about 20 times in the second half. Picked up 4-6 yards each time, and Purdue couldn’t get their offense on the field. In the same game Langan also connected for a pass that gained a lot of yards (maybe a TD, can’t remember) because Purdue was loading the box.

Langan left / Langan right probably won’t work against Michigan, but it’s proven more effective than the writer believes it to be.

 

[RepeatedCrown6]

I did not find it interesting at all. It was grade school level crap.

What exactly do you disagree with in the article?

 

[RUInsanity]

Pork roll huh? We used to call it Taylor Ham.

Debate for another day and another thread. But a gentle reminder (for those who may not have been in NJ for a while) that Taylor is the brand and Pork Roll is the product.

 

[Knight Shift]

What exactly do you disagree with in the article?

The tone and the writing sucked. Exactly as I said. Was our OL and TE blocking in the Syracuse game terrible? Sure it was. Their perspective also sucked, cherry picking a crappy Syracuse team from "last year." Have said it multiple times going into this season that RU fans will not know what kind of team we have until RU plays Michigan and Ohio State. Even after those two games, if RU gets blown out in one of both games, those games may not define the season because UM and tOSU probably have the highest level of talent of our opponents.

RU's measuring sticks will be the games against Michigan State, Illinois, Maryland and Northwestern. We knew going into this season that our OL was our weakest position group.

 

[Eagleton96]

It's a mean spirited but decent analysis. But the author is too down on our skill players, while simultaneously noting there is no actual blocking happening on offense. The whole offense is predicated on trying to salvage what's left in the playbook that will work without relying on blocking.

 

[gef21]

It is a very good read, with someone who knows what the are talking about BUT the one thing I failed to see an acknowledgement of is why we utilized the short passes against syracuse and what syracuse didnt do to stop it, the Udel tried to do, and our playbook advanced.

Cuse and Udel were giving us 2 over 2 and giving us cushion. When we motioned to two they gave a 3 over 3 look with 1 VERY high and nothing rolling down. Meaning they were giving us the screen and tunnel look.

Against Udel rutgers continued this by getting a 2 over 2 look and the bringing the back or TE our as a blocker and giving us a numerical advantage. Once Udel adjusted to this we attacked vertically for big gaines. Syracuse never adjusted to this look so we rarely had to go vertical.

I do agree our OL is not playing well at all, but his diagnosis of the plays seems only to be an understanding of individual plays, and not the system or continued implementation. He is not seeing the forest for the trees.

 

[RepeatedCrown6]

The tone and the writing sucked. Exactly as I said. Was our OL and TE blocking in the Syracuse game terrible? Sure it was. Their perspective also sucked, cherry picking a crappy Syracuse team from "last year." Have said it multiple times going into this season that RU fans will not know what kind of team we have until RU plays Michigan and Ohio State. Even after those two games, if RU gets blown out in one of both games, those games may not define the season because UM and tOSU probably have the highest level of talent of our opponents.

RU's measuring sticks will be the games against Michigan State, Illinois, Maryland and Northwestern. We knew going into this season that our OL was our weakest position group.

Ok, well I hate to break it to you, but our offense isn't very good, we will likely get beat pretty soundly on Saturday. Maybe our defense can keep us in the game long enough

 

[robjknight]

Noticed no comments about our Special Teams which might be the best in the B1G!

 

[mdk01]

Once you get past the snark it's an interesting analysis.

Time for Langdon to throw a pass

 

[needmorecowbell]

My honest opinion of the he RU offense is that Gleeson is doing what’s needed to win. So far he’s done a great job. This week should look much different but we will see on Saturday. My guess is they will need to open up the playbook, take shots and break out some misdirection to beat a more talented Michigan team. The biggest question is… can the OL hold up, create some running lanes and allow an aggressive passing game to develop. I’m not predicting a win but I do believe the offense looks much different this week.

 

[PSAL_Hoops]

Pork roll huh? We used to call it Taylor Ham.

We have turned it around from last year when we would have had difficulty defeating anyone in the MAC. We haven't played anyone on the road (in Madison in nine days) or anyone ranked. But Sagarin has our strength of schedule at 23rd toughest. More than respectable.

So you think Syracuse is going bowling this year? I don't see that happening, but maybe.

I agree that on the road vs Wisconsin will be our first major test. We have not done well on the road vs ranked opponents. I hope the Badgers beat ND this weekend in quadruple OT.

If Syracuse wins tomorrow, I think they could find 3 wins in the ACC to get to a bowl game. FSU doesn’t look very good. BC isn’t good either without their QB. Temple would’ve given them a game last week if Mathis (their QB) had been available. I also think Cuse could beat WF and/or Pitt at the Dome.

The point raised is that Washington has not looked good either so far, and while perhaps they are a little better than Cuse - our game was at the Dome and the Washington game was played at the Big House. Therefore the most challenging game played to date for these teams at this point should be viewed as pretty comparable. I think Michigan is going to beat Rutgers, but the article implied that Michigan is much more battle tested which just isn’t true.

 

[RUinPAC10land]

The writer definitely did his homework on our offense but I would not call this journalism. He's a definite opinionated Michigan homer.

 

[RUInsanity]

The tone and the writing sucked. Exactly as I said. Was our OL and TE blocking in the Syracuse game terrible? Sure it was. Their perspective also sucked, cherry picking a crappy Syracuse team from "last year." Have said it multiple times going into this season that RU fans will not know what kind of team we have until RU plays Michigan and Ohio State. Even after those two games, if RU gets blown out in one of both games, those games may not define the season because UM and tOSU probably have the highest level of talent of our opponents.

RU's measuring sticks will be the games against Michigan State, Illinois, Maryland and Northwestern. We knew going into this season that our OL was our weakest position group.

What exactly do you disagree with in the article?

I'll add to KS post:.

The analysis was not complete. The writer chose an arbitrary single data point (Syracuse game) to provide examples to back up his (likely) pre-conceived conclusions. He also references last year's results from Syracuse to back up his points - instead of looking at their team based on the 3 games played this year.

While maybe not as difficult than a Syracuse game on the road, the DE and Temple games should have been accounted for in the analysis of RU's offense this year.

Examples:

• "Cruickshank in particular features heavily as a jet sweep option, the one with more speed, speed which once landed him on a real P5 roster (Wisconsin)." .....this is a statement essentially saying RU is not a real P5 Roster. If the writer (Alex Drain) had bothered to check - Sanders emerged as a more significant receiving option for RU in the DE game. Langan is also starting being used as a receiving option in a quasi H back set.
• "They're not really making any effort to push the ball down the field" - while this may have been true in the first 2 games, RU's yards per attempt more than doubled in the DE game with multiple attempts down the field (and even over the deep middle).
• "Pacheco is the bellcow back and on a team with a QB duct-taped to a chair and receivers who are not allowed to go five yards past the line of scrimmage until after they've caught the football",
• Asking a power five (I use that term very loosely) QB to play the way Rutgers wants him to is almost insulting to the QB you're asking, because Vedral is tasked with simply being a conduit by which to move the football from between the center's legs to the perimeter of the line of scrimmage - if the author had bothered to look at the DE game, he would have seen a significant increase in Passing play attempts as well as deployment of the QB Read Option. The point here is not to say RU will be as effective against Michigan as it was against DE....rather to understand the trending of RU's offensive schemes as the season progresses.
• Regarding RU's win over Syracuse........"Rutgers did not win this game; they had this game given to them." Author conveniently forgot that Special Teams, Turnover Margin and Defense all play into a team's ability to win a game.
• Regarding Michigan's prospects in the game on Saturday......."Play your best tackling DB's because coverage is not a concern, but being able to shut off the screens is. Tackle well on the perimeter, stuff the run, and rush Vedral, and this should be a bloodbath. " My sincere hope is that Harbaugh and the Michigan Staff are treating this game with the same view as the author (Alex Drain) of this analysis.

 

[mildone]

Newsflash, our OL is the weak spot of the team. Everybody knows that.

I agree the author was snarky, but didn't see anything particularly arrogant. And I don't mind snark.

And only RUFB fans know our OL being a weak spot. Nobody else across the country either knows or cares in the slightest about our OL or any other aspect of our FB program. Opposing teams figure it out the week before they play us. So a UM blog author putting it in an article the week prior to our game makes perfect sense, right?

I'm not sure our OL is our only weak spot yet either. Because we still haven't played anybody good. We'll learn more Saturday.

 

[mildone]

It is a very good read, with someone who knows what the are talking about BUT the one thing I failed to see an acknowledgement of is why we utilized the short passes against syracuse and what syracuse didnt do to stop it, the Udel tried to do, and our playbook advanced.

Cuse and Udel were giving us 2 over 2 and giving us cushion. When we motioned to two they gave a 3 over 3 look with 1 VERY high and nothing rolling down. Meaning they were giving us the screen and tunnel look.

Against Udel rutgers continued this by getting a 2 over 2 look and the bringing the back or TE our as a blocker and giving us a numerical advantage. Once Udel adjusted to this we attacked vertically for big gaines. Syracuse never adjusted to this look so we rarely had to go vertical.

I do agree our OL is not playing well at all, but his diagnosis of the plays seems only to be an understanding of individual plays, and not the system or continued implementation. He is not seeing the forest for the trees.

Agreed. The author's analysis, while interesting and mostly not "wrong" IMO (there were a couple simply incorrect statements of fact), was somewhat shallow and disjointed. It seemed more oriented towards supporting the common narrative about RUFB (that we're really bad) than oriented towards any kind of deep analysis of what RU is trying to do.

Seemed like the author ignored all or most of the Delaware game. Either due to timing or thinking that how RU played against Delaware wasn't useful to any analysis of RU's strengths and weaknesses. Which I would tend to agree about for the most part, even if the Delaware game did highlight some potential RU strengths that were invisible in the prior two games.

This game will be educational for us fans of RUFB. First quality opponent of the season. I'm excited to see the game.

 

[Rutgers25]

The snarkiness is a little silly when they were extremely lucky to come out of last years game with a win. But whatever, I know they are better this year and our offense is indeed very concerning this year.

 

[Knight Shift]

Noticed no comments about our Special Teams which might be the best in the B1G!

Right. Would be hilarious if Toure got a FG block for the win. Fans can dream.

 

[PSAL_Hoops]

I agree the author was snarky, but didn't see anything particularly arrogant. And I don't mind snark.

And only RUFB fans know our OL being a weak spot. Nobody else across the country either knows or cares in the slightest about our OL or any other aspect of our FB program. Opposing teams figure it out the week before they play us. So a UM blog author putting it in an article the week prior to our game makes perfect sense, right?

I'm not sure our OL is our only weak spot yet either. Because we still haven't played anybody good. We'll learn more Saturday.

Arrogant was perhaps not the right word. The focus on Rutgers schedule wasn’t warranted given that Michigan hasn’t left the Big House or played anyone so great yet either. Yes, we played an easy schedule, but just like Michigan none of the teams we played are so terrible that you can gage nothing from the games on either side of the ball (we didn’t play a Howard or Norfolk type this year). Delaware is a decent FCS.

 

[rutgersguy1]

I think that website often puts out an article on both the offense and defense of upcoming opponents. Might see one about the defense too.

 

[mildone]

I'll add to KS post:.

The analysis was not complete. The writer chose an arbitrary single data point (Syracuse game) to provide examples to back up his (likely) pre-conceived conclusions. He also references last year's results from Syracuse to back up his points - instead of looking at their team based on the 3 games played this year.

While maybe not as difficult than a Syracuse game on the road, the DE and Temple games should have been accounted for in the analysis of RU's offense this year.

Examples:

• "Cruickshank in particular features heavily as a jet sweep option, the one with more speed, speed which once landed him on a real P5 roster (Wisconsin)." .....this is a statement essentially saying RU is not a real P5 Roster. If the writer (Alex Drain) had bothered to check - Sanders emerged as a more significant receiving option for RU in the DE game. Langan is also starting being used as a receiving option in a quasi H back set.
• "They're not really making any effort to push the ball down the field" - while this may have been true in the first 2 games, RU's yards per attempt more than doubled in the DE game with multiple attempts down the field (and even over the deep middle).
• "Pacheco is the bellcow back and on a team with a QB duct-taped to a chair and receivers who are not allowed to go five yards past the line of scrimmage until after they've caught the football",
• Asking a power five (I use that term very loosely) QB to play the way Rutgers wants him to is almost insulting to the QB you're asking, because Vedral is tasked with simply being a conduit by which to move the football from between the center's legs to the perimeter of the line of scrimmage - if the author had bothered to look at the DE game, he would have seen a significant increase in Passing play attempts as well as deployment of the QB Read Option. The point here is not to say RU will be as effective against Michigan as it was against DE....rather to understand the trending of RU's offensive schemes as the season progresses.
• Regarding RU's win over Syracuse........"Rutgers did not win this game; they had this game given to them." Author conveniently forgot that Special Teams, Turnover Margin and Defense all play into a team's ability to win a game.
• Regarding Michigan's prospects in the game on Saturday......."Play your best tackling DB's because coverage is not a concern, but being able to shut off the screens is. Tackle well on the perimeter, stuff the run, and rush Vedral, and this should be a bloodbath. " My sincere hope is that Harbaugh and the Michigan Staff are treating this game with the same view as the author (Alex Drain) of this analysis.

Much in the same way the top two and bottom two scores are throw out when arriving at scoring for diving competitions, I tend to throw out the best and worst results for a team when evaluating how well it's doing. I do this for a lot of different things in life, not just sports actually, as a sort of poor man's casual trend curve smoothing.

So for me, the Delaware game, while providing some insights perhaps, is almost entirely discounted from judging where RUFB is at, quality-wise at the moment. Same with Syracuse because it was our "worst" game so far.

It's also why I'm not forming conclusions on where the team's at until I see six games. Last season is just too weird for me to use as a basis for forming any conclusions about this season. Schiano has said similar things about last season.

If we RUFB fans want to feel good about the program, I get wanting to look at the Delaware game as some kind of evidence. But if we're trying to be as unbiased as possible in our analysis, I think it's a game that shouldn't be factored in very much, if at all. I *hope* it turns out to be decently representative in hindsight. But I'm not counting those chickens just yet.

 

[mildone]

Arrogant was perhaps not the right word. The focus on Rutgers schedule wasn’t warranted given that Michigan hasn’t left the Big House or played anyone so great yet either. Yes, we played an easy schedule, but just like Michigan none of the teams we played are so terrible that you can gage nothing from the games on either side of the ball (we didn’t play a Howard or Norfolk type this year). Delaware is a decent FCS.

Agreed.

I think there's a huge perception gap between most lower echelon P5 teams (including RU) and the rest of the CFB fan-bases.

This seems hard for some RU fans to grasp, but most of the rest of the country's CFB fans do not appear to view RUFB in anywhere close to the same way most RUFB fans view it. We think we stopped being laughing stocks during GS's first term here. And we think, now that he's back and recruiting well, that we've stopped being laughing stock's again. But this is not very representative of how much of the rest of the country's fans think of us.

Remember how arrogant the two Arkansas YouTube video-bloggers were prior to our home and home games years ago? They were certain they'd crush us like insects. Then, after we won that first game, their post-game video was truly hilarious as they beat up on themselves mercilessly. But the way they beat up on themselves was even MORE arrogant than their assumption that they'd crush us in the first place. The loss didn't convince them we were any good - it convinced them that they totally sucked.

The point is, it'll take a lot more consistent winning, and against really good teams, before the rest of the country starts regularly taking RUFB very seriously. And until then, lots of people all over the country are gonna sound arrogant to us when talking about RUFB.


Incidentally, before someone posts favorable RUFB comments made by sportscasters or pro sports-writers, I'm not talking about those folks - I'm talking about average CFB fans perception.

 

[blockm2]

I think that website often puts out an article on both the offense and defense of upcoming opponents. Might see one about the defense too.

The FFFF segment of MGoBlog is merely for a Michigan fan to have some understanding of the opponent they are facing in the upcoming game. They pick a single game from the season and watch and chart it in it's entirety to try to see what Michigan might expect to be facing. Early in the season there isn't much to choose from, so for Rutgers they picked the only major conference opponent they have played. As you note there will also be a defensive segment posted at some point.

They try to highlight relative strengths and weaknesses of personnel on the field as well as guess how that team might try to play against Michigan. Later in the year when teams have played a lot more games, they try to pick an opponent's game film against a style of play similar to Michigan, and it might even be different games for the offense and the defense.

I wouldn't try to read too much into it as a Rutgers fan. It's simply one guy watching an entire game and trying to extrapolate how it might look against Michigan in the next game.

 

[BuggsyRU]

Ha, maybe. Or maybe, you don't care for the news so you are attacking the messenger.

Or maybe the messenger is a troll trying to pass off a piece of crap work as journalism in order for us to see the digs this jack off wrote about Rutgers! Maybe you are just as cocky and arrogant as that fifth grade writer.

Got to laugh at these clowns who think Michigan, who beat no one, is BACK, while putting down Rutgers for beating no one. Michigan has been one of the most underperforming teams over the last five years in the entire country.

 

[RUInsanity]

Much in the same way the top two and bottom two scores are throw out when arriving at scoring for diving competitions, I tend to throw out the best and worst results for a team when evaluating how well it's doing. I do this for a lot of different things in life, not just sports actually, as a sort of poor man's casual trend curve smoothing.

So for me, the Delaware game, while providing some insights perhaps, is almost entirely discounted from judging where RUFB is at, quality-wise at the moment. Same with Syracuse because it was our "worst" game so far.

It's also why I'm not forming conclusions on where the team's at until I see six games. Last season is just too weird for me to use as a basis for forming any conclusions about this season. Schiano has said similar things about last season.

If we RUFB fans want to feel good about the program, I get wanting to look at the Delaware game as some kind of evidence. But if we're trying to be as unbiased as possible in our analysis, I think it's a game that shouldn't be factored in very much, if at all. I *hope* it turns out to be decently representative in hindsight. But I'm not counting those chickens just yet.

I'm also not forming any conclusions on the season until I've seen more and certainly not riding a high coming off the DE game. Point of my post was that while some people here are praising this guy's analysis......on closer examination it is really not that great of a read.

While I agree with looking to a median or mean assessment when judging performance, IMO the article (and my comments) was not about that. The author was making an attempt to analyze Rutgers offensive play calling based almost exclusively on the RU-Syracuse gameplay & video and then ascribe a pre-determined outcome for the Michigan game based on RU's near exact offensive blue-print from the Syracuse game. My point was that RU showed different looks and play calling in the DE game that the author chose to ignore in his analysis. This created a situation where he was using falsehoods to back up his opinions. For instance, his conclusion basically stated that Michigan will crush RU as they will not have to worry about covering receivers other than on screens & slants.

While it may be that RU goes back to being uber conservative in it's offense against Michigan - they also may not simply based on data inputs from this season to date. To completely ignore the fact that they have already shown this season an in-game offensive scheme that was much more wide open than he indicated is irresponsible on the part of the author and invalidates much of the analysis. To me the analysis represented much more of a confirmation bias towards the days of RU as the BIG punching bag under Ash.