You Can Be Sure of This
November 15 2006 11:10 PM -- Filed in: Tressel
It's en vogue to do a competitive analysis of your
opponent. Sprinkle in a little hype like, say,
calling this year's game the biggest ever
and an analysis is especially mandatory, right? No,
not for me. I thought about doing one, highlighting
UM's strengths and weaknesses and then showing where
we'll attack and how. The problem with that is you
usually have to parse information, statistics - any
metric or data to come to conclusions. And, I don't
want to parse.
That doesn't mean I don't have an opinion. Oh, I do and in fact, I wouldn't call it an opinion but rather a certifiable truth and it is this: Jim Tressel will have something for Michigan that we haven't seen much of this year, if at all. I'm not talking about a single play or a series of them, I'm talking about the overall gameplan. We've seen a little bit of this strategy already this year. Texas we used an inordinate amount of pre-snap shifts to force the defense to realign. At Iowa, we motioned Pittman and Beanie out of the backfield all night. At Northwestern, we used tackle over and heavy formations quite often.
If we go back to last year in Ann Arbor, it was evident there as well. Early on, it was apparent we were going to have trouble with Alan Branch. The remedy? Enter Andre Tyree, a 300 lb "tight end" that effectively neutralized Branch. Tyree's season minutes up to that point probably could be counted on one hand. Expect another round of strategy Saturday. Who or what will be this year's Tyree?
(Edit: Comments are screwy. For some reason, it transferred old ones to this entry. Just go with it.)
That doesn't mean I don't have an opinion. Oh, I do and in fact, I wouldn't call it an opinion but rather a certifiable truth and it is this: Jim Tressel will have something for Michigan that we haven't seen much of this year, if at all. I'm not talking about a single play or a series of them, I'm talking about the overall gameplan. We've seen a little bit of this strategy already this year. Texas we used an inordinate amount of pre-snap shifts to force the defense to realign. At Iowa, we motioned Pittman and Beanie out of the backfield all night. At Northwestern, we used tackle over and heavy formations quite often.
If we go back to last year in Ann Arbor, it was evident there as well. Early on, it was apparent we were going to have trouble with Alan Branch. The remedy? Enter Andre Tyree, a 300 lb "tight end" that effectively neutralized Branch. Tyree's season minutes up to that point probably could be counted on one hand. Expect another round of strategy Saturday. Who or what will be this year's Tyree?
(Edit: Comments are screwy. For some reason, it transferred old ones to this entry. Just go with it.)
