Observations from the Michigan Game

Here are my observations after rewatching the game on my DVR this afternoon.

• Great protection from the offensive line keeping Michigan from recording a sack – the second straight week the Irish haven’t allowed a sack.  Good job by Clausen avoiding a couple sacks as well.
• Brian Smith looks like the emotional leader of the defense – he came out of the tunnel like fired up and was getting the crowd into it.
• Golden Tate’s touchdown was a very well run route – he ran a slant and go and split the defenders perfectly to get behind the defense.
• Speaking of Tate, his most impressive plays might have been his fielding of kickoffs off crazy bounces.  Michigan couldn’t field a kick to save their lives in the first half, but Tate showed incredible hands on kickoffs for the Irish.
• Please don’t ever refer to Anello as Rudy – he is much, much more than a glorified walkon.  He made several huge plays on special teams this weekend and should continue to do so.  With Bruton on the other side on punts, teams will have to pick their poison when it comes to blocking them.
• On Michigan’s fake punt, John Ryan was held, but also didn’t do much to fight off the block.
• Maurice Crum played a very nice game.  He recognized a lot of the Michigan plays and helped set the tone early.  Looks like he had a great week in the film room.
• Tackling from the front seven was very poor throughout the game.  Sam McGuffie bounced off Notre Dame defenders all game long.  The Irish will need to do MUCH better against Michigan State or Javon Ringer will tear this defense up.
• Tackling from the secondary, however, was very good.  Raeshon McNeil saved a touchdown by recognizing a play and blowing it up before he could get blocked in the second quarter.
• Pat Kuntz looked MUCH more comfortable playing on the inside of the defense line.  He is not a very fast player, but he is quick off the line and might be better suited inside.
• The blitz was pretty effective at times.  It didn’t show up in terms of sacks, but the defense forced Threet to get rid of the ball a lot sooner than he wanted to a number of times.
• Trevor Robinson played most of the second half and more than held his own.
• James Aldridge saw his first action and looked pretty good at times.  He looked quicker than he did a year ago and found the running lanes quicker than the other backs.  It would have been nice to see Charlie let James take it in from a yard out after the pass interference in the end zone though.
• One note on Aldridge though, on the first drive of the second half, Aldrdige had a HUGE run to the outside but was brought down by an arm tackle from Steve Brown – a defensive back.
• Asaph Schwapp blocked pretty well at times.
• On the second and goal pass to the Yeatman off the play action… I don’t like the call because we were running the ball well, but it was open.  Rudolph was wide open, but when he and Yeatman went out for the pass, the weakside DE came off the line completely untouched and was in Clausen’s face as soon as he turned to throw.  If Clausen had time to set and throw, Rudolph would have probably had his first career touchdown.
• Speaking of Yeatman, he is much better blocker than Rudolph at this point and should continue to see a lot of palying time.
• When Bruton went out in the second quarter and was replaced by Ray Herring, there was one pass to Stonum that would have been an EASY pick for Bruton, but Herring took a poor angle and got there late.
• The safety blitz is feast or famine for us so far this year.  When it works, it blows a play up.  When it doesn’t, it’s a huge play for the defense.  Tenuta and Brown will need to work on scheming around the big play when they send Bruton.
• The offensive line really started to get a push this week – much more so than last week as the game wore on.  There are still problems sealing off the edge on outside runs with the line, but overall the line looked much better than I thought they would against the Michigan front.
• Eric Maust did a solid job punting.  He handled the bad snap in the rain very well and aside from one shank and Michigan block, he had a very solid day considering the weather he was punting in.
• Sergio Brown was in position to make a lot of plays but needs to start turning around to look for the ball.  He could have had a couple picks if he just turned around and found the ball.  The good news is that that is correctable with good coaching and I am sure Corwin will be showing Sergio those plays more than once in film review this week.
• Terrail Lambert made a great play on the Kevin Grady fumble.  A Michigan player looked to about have the ball secured and Lambert got his hand in there to knock it loose for Sergio Brown to recover.
• Robert Hughes is, in my opinion, the best back on this team.  Allen could be a big play guy, but Hughes is the workhorse back than is showing he can get us the tough yards in short yardage situations.
• Didn’t like seeing us in the shot gun AT ALL in the rain in the third quarter.  Why put Clausen and Wenger in a position were a bad exchange is much more likely when we have the lead?  Side note, how nice is it to see a center make the shot gun snap in a driving rain so well when we couldn’t handle the shot gun snap in perfect weather last year?
• After not seeing the field much last week, Robbie Parris got in the game quite a bit against Michigan.
• Bruton and McCarthy are quickly becoming our best safety tandem in years.  McCarthy doesn’t have the big play potential Zbikowski had, but he is a sounder tackler and may be better in coverage.  If he could add the big play potential that Zibby gave the Irish defense we will have one heck of a strong safety.