Coach’s Corner: Key to Iowa winning

Posted at 8:00am -- 10/13/2009

Coach’s Corner: Key to Iowa winning

In my opinion a key to Iowa winning, besides Michigan’s five turnovers, was the play at the line of scrimmage.

Because of Iowa’s offensive line and overall running game Michigan needed to consistently play with eight and nine men in the box and this set up Iowa’s long touchdown plays to the tight end.

It also allowed Iowa to convert in situations where normally they had not in past games. This allowed Iowa to slow the game down and control the tempo. I was watching Coach Rod and he was consistently screaming at the offense to up the tempo and attempt to change the pace of how the game was being played.

Iowa’s ability to convert third downs with its passing game was a key to controlling the tempo. Having to load the box and play the safeties tight also made a quarterback grade of C- at best for Stanzi, but good enough to win.

I have seen a number of comments about Michigan’s offensive line play and how they outplayed Iowa's defensive line. I have to respectfully disagree and say just the opposite.

Iowa’s front four and two inside linebackers played well enough so that Iowa could sit in the nickel most of the night. They were playing out-manned in the box, six to seven, and still held up and actually had a good number of three and outs, and punts, and batted down a few passes.

Playing 4-2 and 4-1 against the empty. This allowed Iowa to be super sound in the secondary and prevent big plays. It also allowed Iowa to mix up coverage and really confuse the heck out of Forcier.

When teams play the nickel against Michigan and are out-manned in the box, the running game must completely dominate. That is one of the things that make this offense work with the ability to create number advantages and take advantage of them. They did not, and in my opinion this was a real key to Iowa winning.

I am not saying the offensive line played bad, just that in my opinion they did not outplay Iowa’s defensive line and yes I thought the protection was okay, I just wish this unit had done a better job of getting the defensive linemen’s hands down.

Here is the thing, when teams starting running the spread, most teams jumped into nickel packages and the spread teams would absolutely eat their lunch. You have major league problems stopping, or even slowing down, the running game if you are out-manned in the box.

As spread teams and staffs like Michigan’s starting giving clinics, coaches realized Coach Rod’s version of the spread is a running attack out of a passing formations. This philosophy spreads you out, makes you defend every inch of the field, and then finds seams and holes in the running game.

Once this became common info, more and more teams went to playing their bases, 4-3/3-4, whatever, and either manned up or played 1/4s in the secondary. Basically saying you are going to have to beat us passing, we will not just let you kill us handing the ball off.

Against Iowa, when the game began, I screamed “YES,” man I swear I almost popped my zipper I was so excited. My wife came out and asked “are you okay?” She knows that the answer is no, but oh well. I looked at her and said” Michigan is going to win this game. Iowa is playing nickel and Michigan is going to run for 350 yards minimum.”

Of course she walked away shaking her head, but I was delighted. I was so confident that Iowa could not even slow down, let alone stop, our running game while in the nickel. Well, guess what? I was wrong. Yes, Michigan scored three touchdowns rushing and had 195 yards, but against a pure nickel front that is about 150 plus yards short of what they should rush for.

There is no way any team should hold this Michigan team to under 200 yards rushing, any time, and especially in the nickel. Michigan, with Minor, should have gashed Iowa to the point where Coach Parker was forced to put the seventh and even the eighth man in the box, thereby opening up space for some big plays.

This never happened. Now factor in turnovers and in my opinion these were the main reasons for Michigan’s loss. However, Iowa ’s ability to force Michigan into playing eight and nine in the box to set up the Hawkeye’s big plays, while themselves getting away with playing the nickel the entire game, were clearly major factors in my opinion.

Iowa stayed in the nickel the majority of the game regardless of Michigan’s formation.

Tate’s reads were not good against Iowa. It appears he is rushing things instead of just letting plays happen.

I was surprised Michigan did not go to Denard Robinson in the first half. If nothing other than to mix things up and see how Iowa reacted.

Denard Robinson being fresh, and having fresh legs, was a big key. He was obviously quicker than the defenders. There were times the defense seemed to have Denard Robinson stopped and he just out-quicked the defenders.

Coach Robinson’s game plan was right on in my opinion. Michigan had to do what was necessary to stop the run and make Stanzi beat them. The only question I have, and not as much on strategy as with technique, was Michigan allowed the tight ends to release off the line of scrimmage too easily. I was surprised Michigan did not smack the tight ends at the line of scrimmage and try to impede their ability to run patterns. I was also surprised Michigan kept over-pursuing and allowed Stanzi to function on the perimeter. Personally, I would have felt better with him in the pocket.

A negative to the two points cited above are that if you engage tight ends you sometimes have problems getting off the blocks, this could be a problem with Iowa using the stretch play so much. Leaving the defensive ends at home would have negated some of Michigan’s pursuit. The defensive ends did make some nice plays angling from the backside.

Michigan played hard on both sides of ball and gave a very good effort. They definitely showed up.

Written by GBMW Staff

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