Panic in A-Squared

I just saw the matchup on the TV screen at halftime of the Tennessee-LSU game:

Michigan vs. 11 Michigan State.

Such a strange sight seeing Michigan unranked, and, quite frankly, infuriating.

Maybe Michigan fans were a bit spoiled after all, taking for granted that Michigan would automatically get 9 or 10 wins every season.

Everybody's been chiming in lately with their theories as to why Michigan has slipped so far this season: the mailman, the old lady who knits during the games in the wine and cheese section, that guy at the office who watches about 10 minutes of football a week.

Since almost everything's been said, I'll offer one of my theories in regards to their offensive problems.

Hint: It's not lack of speed. It's not lack of passion or leadership.

The biggest reason why Michigan's offense sputters so often at the most important times is because of space; or rather lack thereof.

Watch Michigan closely and you will see the fundamental difference between them and most other offenses: almost everything they do occurs in a tightly congested area.

There is little attempt to spread the field, little attempt to clear out space other than the old fashioned way of moving people off the ball with the offensive line or with the play-action pass.

This is not to say the pro-style offense with a fullback and a tight end and two wide receivers is past its prime. If it can work in the pros with all of their speed and advanced schemes, it certainly can work in college football.

Teams around the country are experimenting with spread offenses and option, yet the best offense in the country at USC still runs the good old pro-style offense.

What does USC do that Michigan doesn't (excluding the fact that they obviously have better players, although the difference isn't as far as it looks)?

They move the pocket. They vary the types of passes and passing plays (lobs, short timing routes, slants, different-step drops). They do things to space the field. It's not so much the fact that USC throws more deep passes than Michigan that makes them so great, it's how they use the threat of the deep pass to open up the field.

A deep pass doesn't have to be 40-50 yards, just a large chunk of yardage that has the potential to get behind the defense and go for a big play.

Teams are so worried about being beaten deep that they will leave the center of the field open. USC knows it and sends backs and tight ends out into this space and can pick up easy yards, including yards after the catch.

When was the last time Michigan got good yards after the catch off of a short pass? They don't do it very often, because they don't send enough people deep to clear out space. Instead, they prefer to send their wideouts on short hitch passes, which can be easy to complete but:

A) Don't allow for yards after the catch excepting a great individual play

and

B) Don't scare the opposing secondaries because they know that the majority of the time, those receivers will not be going deep.

So what if they get beat once. What are the odds that it will happen again? Certainly not nearly the same as if they were facing USC or California or Miami.

Look at Notre Dame against Michigan State. They threw deep ball after deep ball, eventually opening up the field for the underneath pass to chew up huge yards when they needed it.

How many times has Michigan gone into a game against a mediocre secondary and been projected to torch that secondary, only to have their passing game contained?

A deep ball or route that doesn't work is not a wasted play, it adds to the threat and puts the defensive backs on their heels. It shakes their confidence, which is the key to playing DB well.

Granted, Michigan needs to complete more deep passes to get people to respect that threat first.

But they had the ultimate deep pass catcher last year in Braylon Edwards and still were shut down in key situations, because of the way Michigan used him.

They sent him on far too many five-yard hitch routes, which is a waste of his talent and diminishes his threat. Those routes are freely available and gain more yards after you establish the deep threat.

Throw in the fact that Michigan rarely moves the pocket with Chad Henne (which they vowed to do now that he knows the playbook), rarely runs more than one type of screen play (the sideline one), and rarely runs outside, and you've got a team that is very easy to defend because almost all of the action is in the center of the field, and there is very little attempt to create space for its playmakers.

And when defenders don't have to honor the deep pass, they're closer to the line, hurting the run game.

It's one thing to get the ball to your playmakers as Terry Malone has often said he wanted to do, but it's another to actually get it to them with the space to do something with it.

When is the last time Steve Breaston got the ball in space? Every time he gets the ball on a short pass, he is immediately tackled. The one time I can remember him getting the ball in space against Oregon, he shook the defender and ran in untouched.

It's not that Michigan's basic schemes don't work, but they can be shut down for long stretches because of a lack of creativity and diversity.

As great as Michigan looked against Texas in the Rose Bowl, that doesn't excuse the Michigan State game last year, when just about everything they tried was stuffed by a mediocre defense.

Or the Minnesota game two years ago, when Michigan was completely shut down through three quarters by another mediocre defense.

Or against Purdue last year, when Michigan couldn't do much against a young, vulnerable, and overrated Boilermaker defense.

College football is a game of mismatches. There are average, flawed players hidden amongst the great ones.

All over the field, there are opportunities to exploit. But you can't exploit them unless you give players the space to do it in.

The Michigan coaches like to use this quote from Rudyard Kipling's poem "The Law of the Wolves" for motivation:

The strength of the pack is the wolf, and the strength of the wolf is the pack.

They know that football, both offensive and defensive, is all about numbers. The most important thing defensive principle is to swarm to the ball.

So why do they insist on running and throwing short passes into a pack of wolves every game, when they could spread them out, keep them on their heels, and attack them one by one?

Why do they make it easy for opposing defenses to gang up on them?