Iowa 30, Michigan 28

Tag: J.T. Floyd

11Oct 2009
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Iowa 30, Michigan 28

Single wing QB Denard Robinson
Well, last night was frustrating. Not only because we lost, but because the loss was self-inflicted. Five turnovers, blown coverages, bad coaching decisions. Michigan clearly seemed to be the more talented team, but luckily for Iowa, talent doesn’t always win.
I would be remiss if I started this post with anything but a discussion of Rich Rodriguez’s decision to go with freshman Denard Robinson on the last drive in the fourth quarter. That was the biggest decision of the night – and the worst, in my opinion – and it might have cost Michigan the game.
Assuming Rodriguez benched starter Tate Forcier because of Forcier’s performance (8/19 for 94 yards and an INT, 8 carries for 26 yards), it was an indefensible decision. Two of Michigan’s victories this season (Notre Dame and Indiana) are the direct result of Forcier’s late-game heroics. Last week’s near-victory against Michigan State came after Michigan was down 20-6 halfway through the fourth quarter and Forcier directed two touchdown drives. Meanwhile, backup Denard Robinson has had a couple electrifying TD runs while failing to pass the ball efficiently in spot duty this season. Prior to last night, Robinson was 4/11 for 57 yards, zero touchdowns, and 2 interceptions.
When Robinson entered the game in the second-to-last series last night, Forcier wasn’t performing well. Michigan needed a spark. I understand that. Robinson completed two short passes on that drive and ended the series with a short TD run. The offense needed a spark? Mission accomplished.
But with 1:30 left and Michigan needing to go 80 yards with no timeouts, Rodriguez shouldn’t have played the running quarterback, no matter how poorly Forcier had played to that point. Robinson is clearly a subpar passer and showed it when he badly overthrew a bracketed Junior Hemingway that resulted in the game-ending interception. Robinson finished the game 3/4 for 30 yards and 1 interception, which raised his passer efficiency rating to 55.39 on the season. By comparison, Forcier’s PER is 133.11. Furthermore, Nick Sheridan’s PER in 2008 was 81.08. That’s right – Robinson is a significantly worse passer than Nick Sheridan. So not only should Forcier have been in the game at the end, but one could make the argument that Sheridan should have been in there instead of Robinson, too.
Now, some theories suggest that Forcier got benched because he and Rodriguez had words on the sideline. I didn’t see evidence of that during the telecast, but it’s possible. If that’s true and Rodriguez was using the benching to teach Forcier a lesson, that might be a good reason. But if it was just based on their play, Forcier should have been on the field.
Otherwise, Michigan turned the ball over too much. The Wolverines fumbled, threw interceptions, muffed punts, etc. They achieved just about every method of turning the ball over. In between playing solid run defense (Iowa averaged 2.4 yards per rush), running the ball well (4.3 yards per carry), and playing decent pass coverage most of the time, Michigan gave the ball away too many times. You will rarely see a team win the game when they’ve turned the ball over four or five times.
Defensively, former starting cornerback Boubacar Cissoko was suspended for the game due to a violation of team rules. In his place, starting strong safety Troy Woolfolk moved over to cornerback. The starting safeties were walk-on Jordan Kovacs and redshirt sophomore Mike Williams. Woolfolk played better than either Cissoko or J.T. Floyd had earlier in the year, but Williams especially blew some coverages at key times. I can’t blame him too much, as he’s been playing close to the line for the past two years as almost a glorified outside linebacker. Michigan fans shouldn’t expect that he’ll be a great center fielder in his first extended playing time at the position, but he does have good speed and he’s a solid tackler. If Woolfolk can solidify the cornerback position, I think Williams and Kovacs might be sufficient at the safety spots.

Offensive game ball goes to…the offensive line. The offensive line got destroyed last week against Michigan State, but center David Moosman (replacing the injured David Molk) made good snaps for the entire game and Michigan got a solid push from their undersized line against a strong Iowa front seven.

Defensive game ball goes to…Donovan Warren. He opened the game with a pick six and played pretty well for the rest of the game. He did get beat on a 47-yard pass on a 3rd-and-24, but that was at least partly because Mike Williams was slow to help from his safety position.

Let’s see less of this guy on offense…Denard Robinson. Please, God, do not allow Rodriguez to put him on the field to pass the ball in key situations. He has a lower PER than Nick Sheridan and he can’t run the full offense. Not only is he unable to pass the ball or even run the famed read option, but he also hasn’t taken a single snap from under center (if I recall correctly) in the I-formation, which is the best way to run Brandon Minor. A large portion of the playbook goes out the window with Robinson in the game, and it’s just QB draw, QB sweep right, QB draw, QB sweep left, QB draw, QB sweep right, onward to infinity.

Let’s see less of this guy on defense…Boubacar Cissoko and J.T. Floyd. The rest of the defense played well except for the safeties, but there’s no help coming for them. Kovacs and Williams need to improve with more experience and more reps. Meanwhile, while Cissoko didn’t play at all and Floyd played sparingly, Woolfolk held his own at the cornerback position. Hopefully Greg Robinson keeps Woolfolk at corner and is able to coaches up those other safeties.
27Sep 2009
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Donovan Warren is better than Demarlo Belcher

Bill Lynch will throw his gum in 3…2…1…
The interception that essentially ended Michigan’s 36-33 victory over Indiana was strongly disputed. I have to admit that as I watched the play unfold in real time, I assumed Indiana would retain possession. But despite my initial reaction, the on-field call was “interception” and the replays proved to be inconclusive.
On the play, Michigan cornerback Donovan Warren jumped a slant pass from Indiana quarterback Ben Chappell to wide receiver Demarlo Belcher. Warren reached in front of Belcher with both hands while Belcher waited for the ball to come into his body. Without the ball ever touching the ground, both players fell to the turf and had a momentary tug of war. Possession was awarded to Warren.
The rule on simultaneous possession is as follows:
ARTICLE 8. A simultaneous catch or recovery is a catch or recovery in which there is joint possession of a live ball by opposing players inbounds (A.R. 7-3-6-II and III).
This rule is tricky because it doesn’t define “possession.” As you can see in the screencaps from Maize n Brew, it appears that Belcher never really had control of the ball. Even though both players fell together with the ball between them, that doesn’t mean Belcher ever had possession. My interpretation of the word “possession” is controlling the ball with one’s hand(s), and it doesn’t seem that Belcher ever had that. The only visual evidence of possession, by that definition, shows that Warren had better control of the ball than Belcher.
As Indiana fans will argue, it doesn’t matter who wins the tug of war at the bottom of the pile; when the possessor of the ball is down by rule, the play should be over. But if neither player possesses the ball at the time when the players hit the ground, it’s impossible to say who should be awarded the ball. When you see a receiver on the ground who’s bobbling the ball, he’s not given possession until that ball is controlled without hitting the ground (see Mario Manningham’s catch vs. the Cowboys last Sunday). Belcher never controlled the ball and when someone finally did control it, that someone was Warren.
Indiana fans will surely never let this die. As you can see from the Maize n Brew comments, they are bitter. Just like Penn State fans still complain about the :01 left on the clock in 2005 and Michigan fans still complain about MSU’s last-“second” TD pass to T.J. Duckett in 2001, Indiana will probably hold on to Interceptiongate for a while.
But I don’t care. The referees weren’t impressive either way. They missed several holding calls against Indiana, and they called J.T. Floyd for pass interference on a ball that was clearly uncatchable. I don’t think Warren’s interception was necessarily a bad call, but I wouldn’t have been surprised if it had gone the other way, either.
The bottom line is this: If you leave the game up to the referees, that’s your fault. It was a tight game the entire way. Indiana settled for several field goals in the red zone when the Hoosiers offense bogged down. If they had scored a TD on any of those possessions, things might have ended differently.
26Sep 2009
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Michigan 36, Indiana 33

I’ve been busy this week. Between losing power on Thursday evening, not getting home until after midnight last night, and Saturday morning practice, I didn’t have a chance to write a preview for the Indiana game. But these are the games that always scare me the most. Not the Toledo or Eastern Michigan or Appalachian State games, because we win most of those and if we don’t, well, that’s just how the cookie crumbles.

No, what scare me are the games against second-rate Big Ten teams like Indiana, Northwestern, Michigan State, etc. Those games are ones that shouldn’t be huge impediments on the way to playing for a Big Ten title but too often rise up to bite you in the ass or at least make you nervous.

Today’s game was no exception. Indiana made it tough on Michigan before the Wolverines eked one out in the last couple minutes.

Offensively, Michigan frustrated me more today than at any other time this year. They seemed completely out of sync for the majority of the game. Luckily, Carlos Brown scored two early touchdowns and Tate Forcier led two late TD drives in the fourth quarter. Between those points, though, Michigan looked discombobulated.

Replacement center David Moosman had troubles snapping the ball, and both Denard Robinson and Forcier had troubles handling it. Michigan has resurrected the freeze play, where the center snaps the ball when he sees someone jump offsides. It’s supposed to earn Michigan five yards, which it did . . . once. But the freshman quarterbacks clearly aren’t prepared to run it, and neither is Moosman, since he snapped the ball one time when Indiana defensive end Greg Middleton had already got back onside. In total, it lost yards for Michigan and could end up being a turnover if, for example, the snap on the Middleton play had bounced off Forcier’s knee or facemask and ended up in the hands of a Hoosier.

The game always looks like it’s going too fast for Denard Robinson. It’s like I looked when I was little and watching my brother play Frogger; then my mom would call him to take the garbage out, I’d grab the joystick, adrenaline myself across the road, and then drown in the river. Robinson runs the ball well and has a limit of one good throw per game. He led one good drive today and made a nice throw on a seam route to Kevin Koger. After that play the coaches should have patted him on the dreadlocked head, said “Nice job,” and handed him a baseball cap (until, of course, he was needed again once Forcier got hurt).

Offensive coordinator Calvin Magee went away from the running game for a while. I have no explanation for this. Carlos Brown started the game with a 61-yard TD on a screen pass, scored a 41-yard rushing TD on the next drive, and then became a bystander for a couple quarters. We can run the ball. Our co-starters at running back, Brown and Brandon Minor, had 23 carries for 123 yards. That’s 5.3 yards per carry. But 23 carries is what ONE of those guys should have, not the combination of the two, especially when Forcier and Robinson combined for 21 rushes. The guys who earned scholarships for running the ball should run it, not the guys who earned scholarships for their throwing arms.

This is partly on Forcier as well. In my opinion, Forcier is horrible at running the read option. Even when the backside defensive end stays home to contain the quarterback, Forcier tries to make things happen on his own. He’s simply not athletic enough to make it work. Hopefully his reads will improve as he gets more and more experience. I guess the coaches have to keep calling the play to keep the defense honest, but Forcier needs to realize that the best thing about that play is the element of surprise when he keeps the ball. If I were an opposing defensive coordinator, I would tell my defensive ends, “If you stay home, this chump is going to keep the ball a couple times when he shouldn’t, and you better make him regret it.”

Defensively, it really hurts to have so little depth and experience in the defensive backfield. I thought the linebackers played better than they did last week and the defensive line did an okay job, but our defensive backfield is in shambles. Donovan Warren made one poor tackle attempt, but the Indiana didn’t want to test him much. Boubacar Cissoko was replaced early by J.T. Floyd, and neither played well. Meanwhile, strong safety Troy Woolfolk is a position-changer from cornerback who missed some tackles, and former walk-on Jordan Kovacs started at free safety and missed several assignments. Indiana took advantage of the inexperience on the back end, and you can bet that other Big Ten teams will, too. I think Michigan State will have an excellent day throwing the ball next week.

Offensive game ball goes to . . . Carlos Brown (2). He had 144 yards from scrimmage (83 rushing, 61 receiving) and two touchdowns. He ran the ball well most of the day, and what he lacks in toughness, he makes up for in home run ability.

Defensive game ball goes to . . . Jonas Mouton (1). Mouton led the team in tackles with 11 and had half a tackle for loss. He reacted slowly a couple times but he stepped up to fill a hole a couple times and made some nice hits. He didn’t have a great game, but nobody really did.

Let’s see less of this guy on offense . . . David Moosman (1). He can play guard. That’s fine. He’s a pretty good guard. In fact, with his main competition at center coming from redshirt freshman Rocko Khoury, he might well be our best center with starter David Molk out (broken foot). But I hope Molk is a quick healer. Moosman had a few bad snaps, and his quarterbacks didn’t do a great job of bailing him out.

Let’s see less of this guy on defense . . . J.T. Floyd (2). I think Cissoko re-injured his shoulder injury, but I have a hard time believing that freshmen Justin Turner and Teric Jones are significantly worse than Floyd. At this point, I have to believe the coaches are trying their best to preserve Turner’s redshirt. Jones’s has already been burned. But Floyd was responsible for at least three big plays today: 1) the missed pass break-up that ended in a big gain, 2) the 85-yard rush TD by Darius Willis in which Floyd made a poor attempt to tackle, and 3) the pass interference on the right sideline – the ball was uncatchable, but Floyd still had a hand full of jersey.
6Sep 2009
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Michigan 31, Western Michigan 7

Wow. That’s the one word that kept coming to mind as I watched the game yesterday. This is such an utterly different team than the 2008 incarnation that it’s difficult to imagine Steve Threet and Nick Sheridan running this type of offense.

It’s clear that Tate Forcier is the driving force behind this offense. Any argument to the contrary would be insanity. He didn’t run the ball particularly well and needs to work on his reads on the zone read option. That being said, except for a couple hitches, Forcier threw the ball very well and directed the offense better than anyone else on the roster can. He looked like a veteran quarterback on the first TD pass when he scrambled and directed Junior Hemingway to head downfield. His second TD pass to Hemingway brought back memories of Henne-to-Manningham. And Forcier’s play action fakes on Rich Rodriguez’s version of the waggle pass were excellent, not to mention his ability to square his shoulders and fling the ball to Koger for a TD and then that one-handed snag seen above.

Denard Robinson was adequate. His 43-yard touchdown run was, quite simply, electric. But keep in mind that it came on a broken play where he mishandled the shotgun snap; he was supposed to run the ball left or perhaps pitch it to Martavious Odoms who was coming behind him for a potential end around. If you take away that 43-yard run, Robinson ran the ball 10 times for 31 yards. He completed two short passes; missed badly on another in which he and the receiver weren’t on the same page; and threw a dangerous deep jump ball to Mathews that ended up incomplete. Robinson’s body language and decision making indicated that the game was moving a little too fast for him. Things will slow down for him and he could be a star down the road, but that time isn’t now.

The running game was a bit of a disappointment for me. Forcier made some poor reads, and Rodriguez seemed more interested in getting the ball on the perimeter than taking advantage of his stable of running backs and WMU’s poor defensive line. Some of this may have been due to the fact that starting fullback Mark Moundros was injured on special teams early in the game; without their best lead blocker, perhaps Rodriguez and Magee preferred to keep the ball on the outside. Regardless, the offensive line was a strength and even though starting running back Carlos Brown finished with 5.4 yards per carry, I feel Michigan could be even better at running the ball in the coming weeks.

Defensively, I was impressed with Greg Robinson’s schemes and Michigan’s tackling. There were several plays on Saturday where I thought WMU’s running backs would have broken tackles if they were facing the 2008 defense. But Michigan’s defenders seemed to stick to ballcarriers like glue. Not only were they tackling better, but the defense was hurrying to the football. If the first guy didn’t make the play, usually a second guy was there ready to clean up the mess.

In the second half, WMU quarterback Tim Hiller started getting rid of the ball quicker. He found a rhythm and started hitting underneath passes to his receivers. Greg Robinson might be served well by disguising coverages on the outside, changing the look from cover 2 man to a cover 2 zone. Suddenly, instead of driving the cornerback off with his initial burst, that cornerback is sitting underneath the quick hitch to the outside. A couple well orchestrated disguised coverages might be just enough to make Hiller think twice, which would give Brandon Graham, Mike Martin, and the rest of the defensive line enough time to get to the quarterback.

Offensive game ball goes to . . . Tate Forcier. He finished 13/20 for 179 yards, 3 TDs, and – most importantly – zero interceptions, fumbles, or sacks in his first game at Michigan.

Defensive game ball goes to . . . I was tempted to say Donovan Warren, but I’ll say Steve Brown. He finished third on the team with six tackles, including five solo. His new position at SAM linebacker appeals to his strengths, which are speed and physicality. Warren made several tackles and played very physical, but he picked up two pass interference penalties and a personal foul.

Let’s see less of this guy on offense . . . Denard Robinson. Until he can run the offense more smoothly and completely, he should be behind center less. I felt like the offense got bogged down when he was in the game. His passing was subpar and jittery, and it seemed like WMU’s defense didn’t respect his ability to do anything but run. (Honorable mention: Nick Sheridan and David Cone.)

Let’s see less of this guy on defense . . . J.T. Floyd. Floyd was in there as a backup to Boubacar Cissoko once Cissoko aggravated his shoulder injury. But especially in next week’s game against Notre Dame, with Jimmy Clausen throwing to Golden Tate and Michael Floyd, Michigan can’t afford to put Floyd in there at cornerback. He got burned a couple times – including the 73-yard TD pass, on which Troy Woolfolk was also at fault – and he’s probably just too slow to be playing corner. If Michigan had any depth at the CB position, Floyd would probably be a safety. Hopefully Cissoko gets healthy and freshman Justin Turner steps up his game in the coming week. Otherwise, I’m afraid we should expect a rain of deep balls from Clausen next week.

MGoBlue’s official game information.

5Aug 2009
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2009 Countdown: #51 J.T. Floyd

Name: J.T. Floyd
Height: 6’0″
Weight: 183 lbs.
High School: J.L. Mann High School in Greenville, SC
Position: Cornerback
Class: RS freshman
Jersey Number: #12
Prediction for 2009: Backup cornerback

It was unclear to many fans whether Floyd would play cornerback or safety, but he’s a cornerback now, perhaps partly because of the depth at the position. Floyd redshirted in 2008 and should get limited playing time this year. There are only five scholarship cornerbacks on the roster, so it’s practically guaranteed. But buzz about Floyd has been practically non-existent, so I don’t believe he will make a huge contribution this year.