Michigan 51, UCF 14 – Recap

By Kevin Schroeder
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Updated: September 15, 2016

First thing’s first: a big thanks to @DGDestroys, who makes the every snap videos that make these a lot easier to do.

Michigan won by 37 and the game didn’t feel that close. They scored, then they scored some more, then they scored even more, a couple biffs got UCF on the board, then Michigan scored some more. And thus UCF’s one-game win streak comes to an end. Michigan could have won this game with their backups and I’ll end up going into what happened and why in just a bit, so this week, I’d like to devote this space to Scott Frost.

In 1997, Nebraska QB Scott Frost lobbied to the voters of the polls to vote Nebraska the National Champions, despite Michigan being the best team in the country. This was a horrible way to determine the National Champion in and of itself, but the Bowl Alliance added some additional politicking to this as the Big Ten did not join said alliance. Anyway, Nebraska ended up getting voted #1 in the final Coaches’ Poll, even though Michigan was #1 in that poll prior to bowl season. I do not know why the Coaches Poll is a thing. Don’t try to tell me none of these guys have any agenda whatsoever. It’s pretty clear that coaches in the Bowl Alliance had it out for Michigan and/or (most likely and) the voters were looking to give Tom Osborne a going-away present.

I am mad not at Scott Frost over that. The QB of a team said that he thought his team was the best. He was wrong, of course, but that’s still what he’s supposed to do. Add to that that my only real sports memories from that time (I was born in 1992, I’m only 45 in spirit) were Jordan’s Bulls and 1998’s home run race and I didn’t start following college football much until a few years after that anyway.

(His mother, I’m not thrilled with. I mean, I don’t want to hit her with a shovel, but yeah, real chump move by her to send the letter she sent in 2005 trashing Michigan fans. )

Anyway, any “not being mad at Scott Frost” went out the window after the presser he gave after getting shellacked Saturday.

“It’s hard to say when the score is what it is, but we came in here and outhit those guys today,”

“There was no lull. We outhit them in the first half, I thought we outhit them in the second half. They’ve got a lot of playmakers and they made a bunch of plays. But standing on the sideline, watching the impacts and watching the collisions and watching the line move, I thought we won that battle.”

There’s more at the link. Once a tool, always a tool, I guess.

Someone should maybe show Scott Frost the scoreboard after that game, where he’ll find that even if his perceptions of who outhit who were correct (I don’t think so), UCF didn’t get points for that. Not only did they not win the game, they didn’t cover the over-five-touchdown spread. Have your mom write a letter about that, Scott.

Player Grades

How’d they do?

Ratings are out of 100 and should be read similar to Madden ratings. Overall ratings for the season are in parentheses.

QB: 95 (Season: 87, Change: +2)

Speight had one dangerous bad idea and was otherwise very good. He’s making all the routine throws and his deep passes are well ahead of where Rudock’s where at this point a year ago. Speight’s poise and throws under pressure were particularly impressive.

RB: 82 (Season: 88, Change: -1)

De’Veon Smith had a nice day overall. He missed a couple holes on the ground, which was somewhat discouraging, but he managed a few nice runs and UCF was stacking the box all day, so I’m not going to get too down on him. Plus, he was very good in pass pro. I thought Karan Higdon was pretty encouraging. His vision seems to be solid and he was good in pass pro. Pass pro was where a couple of Evans’s and Isaac’s minuses came. Beyond that, Evans was solid. Bit of a down week for Isaac, though. Again, UCF was selling out to stop the run, so I wouldn’t worry too much yet.

FB/H-B: 88 (Season: 86, Change: +2)

Poggi had a very nice day blocking. Hill was just okay, but did some good things as a receiver and a runner.

WR: 90 (Season: 91, Change: 0)

Darboh and Chesson were both very good. McDooooom showed some wheels on an end-around, but wasn’t targeted. Grant Perry was targeted once on a deep ball he probably could have played better, but sure looked like he was interfered with on. Nate Johnson’s redshirt was burned, which was expected sooner or later.

TE: 89 (Season: 90, Change: -6)

Butt dropped a couple passes and biffed a few blocks, but had his share of nice plays in the passing game. Ian Bunting continued to look encouraging. He looked fine as a blocker, which is, uh, fine, considering I never expected him to become a mauler and he’s a much bigger asset in the passing game. Wheatley and Asiasi both underwhelmed.

OL: 81 (Season: 82, Change: -2)

Kalis had another nice day; a couple more weeks of this and I’ll declare the light bulb officially on. Cole did Cole-type things, including shoving a Central Florida lineman to Windsor on Hill’s second TD run. Other guys were less good. Newsome was just okay. Magnuson was effectively a minus guy. The left guards – Braden and Bredeson – oof. Bredeson had a few mental errors, file that under “why we don’t want to play true freshmen offensive linemen.” Braden didn’t seem to be all the way back from whatever kept him out of last week’s game, but even so, that is a bad number.

Something to consider here: UCF was selling out to stop the run. They might as well. If they didn’t, Michigan could kill them through the air and on the ground. If they put eight or nine in the box like they were doing, they’re only going to get really killed through the air. Their only real chance at winning (beyond pretty much every player on Michigan having a bad day) was do whatever’s necessary to stop the run and hope Speight couldn’t make them pay for it. Speight, of course, made them pay for it. Pass pro was quite good, but that doesn’t show up very well in grading.

DE: 91 (Season: 91, Change: +1)

Gary overshot the edge a couple times, but otherwise excellent. He’s a true freshman. Those mistakes are going to happen. Those are the worst mistakes he’s making at this point and they’re very correctable. Ditto for Winovich. Chris Wormley played SDE and was as good as one would expect. Charlton was out for this one. Lawrence Marshall got some snaps and was okay.

DT: 98 (Season: 95, Change: +4)

Hurst had an excellent season debut. Matt Godin had a great day, which was very encouraging since I was somewhat down on him a week ago. Ryan Glasgow had a phenomenal game. DT is a position where a so-so day for a guy on the field as much as he is is +5 or so, even so, his score in this one is just ridiculous. The day couldn’t have gone much better for the DTs and Bryan Mone wasn’t even playing.

LB: 93 (Season: 90, Change: +5)

McCray had a pretty big biff on the long TD run by UCF. Gedeon went to the wrong spot a few times. Other than that, they were very good. All hail Don Brown. Peppers was all over the place. Phenomenal game from him as well.

CB: 94 (Season: 90, Change: +2)

Jourdan Lewis was still out, but Stribling and Clark were more than fine. The level of competition surely played into this, but there wasn’t much room for passes to go even if UCF did have a even competent passer.

S: 80 (Season: 82, Change: -4)

Delano Hill was fine. Dymonte Thomas had a couple biffs.

So let’s talk about the defense a bit, because after the game, people on the Internet were concerned about the defense and the runs they gave up. Much of it was caused by a guy overshooting the edge and losing contain. That’s very correctable. Adjustments were made in a half. Take out the big plays and Michigan made things very difficult and did so without really opening up their playbook and exposing much of what helped Don Brown build a top defense at Boston College. Brown knows how to deal with spread offenses. The mistakes the defense made are correctable. They’ll be fine. Better to work out the kinks against a team you can boatrace without too much effort than to get caught against an Ohio State.

The other big concern was the run game. Again, UCF was stacking the box and selling out to stop the run, at great expense to the pass defense. If Michigan really wanted to, they could have aired it out all day, made UCF adjust, and then run it at them, to probably more success than they had doing what they did. Michigan could have hung 70 on these guys if they really wanted to. Their backups could have beaten UCF by double digits. There wasn’t much of a reason to open up the playbook and put things on film for future opponents to be able to scout. This was not Brady Hoke and Al Borges beating their head against a wall in the ground game. Harbaugh has a plan here.

Helmet Stickers

Up to 3 may be awarded per player. Not necessarily the highest-graded players since different grades mean different things to different players (refer to the primer).

Offense

3: Wilton Speight, Kyle Kalis, Mason Cole

2: Jake Butt, De’Veon Smith, Amara Darboh, Jehu Chesson

1: Ian Bunting, Karan Higdon, Michael Onwenu

Defense

3: Ryan Glasgow, Jabrill Peppers, Chris Wormley

2: Rashan Gary, Chase Winovich, Matt Godin, Maurice Hurst, Ben Gedeon, Jeremy Clark

1: Channing Stribling, Mike McCray

Helmet Sticker Count

Go Blue!

Twitter: @KSchroeder_312

E-mail: schroeder.giig@gmail.com

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Michigan 51, UCF 14 – Recap

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