After watching the game both live and a couple replays, here’s how I feel based on our 1 game sample. In general, we saw everything we needed to see to feel really good.
On Wimbush: He stood in there like a warrior, and stepped up in the pocket several times like a he had been doing it his whole life. He was very calm, didn’t panic, even though he had every right to getting pressured like that. He kept his eyes downfield as far as I could tell. He didn’t have runs where I was thinking “why didn’t you pass!”. Every pocket escape seemed timely and the correct read. Will be interesting to see going forward if he’s able to scan the field and make more plays with his arms given that he’ll have more time. Will also be interesting to see how he responds to zone. Man to man plays to his strength, zone not so much. So looking forward to that, because it's a whole new animal.
On the OL: They were pretty good in run blocking actually. I watched one half where I focused on Hainsey on every play, same with Liam. Hainsey and Liam didn’t seem overmatched when running, but in pass pro they’d get beat around the corner quite a bit. That’s expected so no reason to panic. I think they did slightly better than expected, but not great. Again, it’s Michigan and it’s their first game, so no reason for concern. Overall, pleased.
On the RBs: Not sure why Tony Jones didn’t get more carries. He seemed like the better runner to me. I know Jafar had the two TDs, but Jones lowered the pads and got an extra yard or two on every carry by reading the hole and lowering his head. Overall, they are what I expected. Nothing to concern a defense, but solid.
WRs and TEs: Very good game, IMO. Mack needs to make that catch, and block better, but he’s competing. Speaking of blocking, they get after it. Finke is a very underrated blocker. There’s a couple times where he’s manhandling his guy downfield. Once we play a weaker opponent and/or Dexter comes back, we’ll notice those blocks more because they’ll come into picture when we get downfield.
Defense: Just a great effort and fast team. Elliot played his best game ever IMO, Gilman is better than I expected, and the corners played like we expected. The front 7 was active and in the backfield on the regular. Ade had a couple of plays where he pressured/tipped the pass, so it’s good to see they trust him in a big moment and he’s stepping up. The rest of the guys lived up to the billing. I want to see more Daelin Hayes going forward. Flutie was praising him, but I thought he got swallowed up in single blocks too often. He wasn’t bad, but I want to see him become a play maker. Overall, group is fundamentally sound, fast, and plays with passion and pass rush – what more can you want?
Randoms: STs was well below average, but I think that’s something you can fix by changing strategy a bit. This doesn’t have me concerned, but it will if we don’t see changes. Defensive depth is very concerning to me – we lost essentially a starting nickel who is a play maker, as well as our only “really good” backup DT. We cannot continue to drop key players, so we need some injury luck going forward. Would be amazing to have Jay Hayes on the team right now to back up inside
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Lastly, Michigan still sucks, so fvck them.
