The Michigan coaching staff met with the media this week to discuss the football game this weekend. Head coach Brady Hoke discussed the challenges ahead for his football team, while offensive coordinator Al Borges discussed the evolution of Denard Robinson and the work the offense still needs to do. And as it happened last year, defensive coordinator Greg Mattison was asked to look back on his eight years in South Bend, while also talking about the challenges that come from facing Everett Golson, Tyler Eifert, Cierre Wood and company.
Let’s cut down to the nitty gritty and find some interesting tidbits.
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After throwing 15 interceptions last season in his first year in Borges’ system, many wondered if Denard Robinson was a square peg being shoved into a round hole when shifting to Borges’ West Coast offense.
Robinson’s completion percentage plummeted during 2011, dropping to 55 percent after he completed 62.5 percent of his throws for 18 touchdowns and 11 interceptions in his first season starting for Rich Rodriguez. While Robinson’s commitment to the classroom and learning the Michigan offense has been commendable, the fruits of his labor aren’t yet apparent. Through three games, Robinson has completed just 54.7 percent of his throws, with four interceptions in three games to go along with six touchdown passes.
Still, Borges sees a more comfortable quarterback playing this season, and one that’s focused on the fundamentals.
“Without question. Without question,” Borges said."How many balls have you seen him throw off his back foot in three games where he’s lunging backwards, tossing the ball in the middle of the secondary? He didn’t do that all the time last year but he did it some, and they were usually catastrophic, but he doesn’t do that near as much. I’m knocking on wood. I never assume anything, but his footwork is like night and day. He’s pulling balls down now and working up underneath the pocket and taking off and buying beats. He had a play during the game and it was a zero blitz where he got underneath the rush, gave Vince a chance to chip off a blitzing linebacker and threw the ball to Devin for a touchdown. A year ago he would have run backwards, and they’d have chased him for about an hour, and he’d probably end up throwing it out of bounds.
“It’s a different kid, and I think you’ll see more and more of that as you go.”
Of course, Irish fans saw more than a few of those lunging backward heaves into the secondary. Unfortunately for Notre Dame, they ended up being the plays that got Michigan back into the game in 2011.
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Defensive coordinator Greg Mattison is tasked with a new challenge: shut down an Irish offense that now relies on mobile quarterback Everett Golson. He’s hoping the ability to work against a pretty elusive guy every day in practice helps with that.
“Well I hope a lot. I hope a lot,” Mattison said about containing a mobile quarterback.
“Although if you’ve seen the first three games, we haven’t looked great if the quarterback has scrambled. But I know the speed at which we have to play against Denard puts pressure on you every day. I would think that would help us when you get into a game like this.”
Even with a quarterback like Golson taking over for Tommy Rees, Mattison is confident that Notre Dame won’t alter their offensive identity.
“They’ve changed a little bit but they’re still Notre Dame,” Mattison said. “They want to run the football and they want you to make mistakes so they can hopefully get a shot on you and try to test your coverage with their speed and take shots down field. So I think it’s a lot alike. ”
While they didn’t necessarily hit on their shots down the field, you can consider it a good sign that Mattison and company know what’s likely coming, especially with vertical threats and mismatches with guys like Tyler Eifert and potentially Troy Niklas. (John Goodman scoring on the deep ball last Saturday, and Davaris Daniels’ yards-per-catch have to help stretch the Wolverines’ defense out as well.)
Michigan hasn’t been good stopping the run, and they’re a bit undersized in their front seven after having to replace three of their top four up front from 2011. So if the Irish can get decent blocking from Ben Koyack after a disappointing start to the season, then there are some personnel matchups that Notre Dame can take advantage of, letting Eifert split wide.
You get the feeling that Eifert’s lack of production was because he’s the best in-line blocker Notre Dame has at tight end and Koyack and Niklas weren’t ready to handle that duty against a front seven like the Spartans.
Lastly, Mattison talked about just how important this rivalry is to him.
“This is as big as it gets to me,” he said. “I’ve always believed that forever. It’s just when you think of college football, you think of Michigan and you think of Notre Dame. This is really football. That’s what makes it exciting, and that’s what makes you excited that you’re at Michigan. That you’re here and you get a chance to go in there and see what you guys can do.”
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For his part, Hoke didn’t offer much bulletin board material, instead paying compliment to Notre Dame and their 3-0 start, and relishing the ability to play another good opponent and evaluating the progress his team has made after getting dominated up front by Alabama’s front seven.
“Seeing how far we’ve come from game one to game four is exciting,” Hoke said. “There’s no question this is going to be a test. They’ve been very productive as a football team, as a defensive team. We’re going to have to block the line of scrimmage. We need to do a great job with protection.”