The second and third to show off what went wrong with first half coverage, and hopefully it is being corrected (though I have no idea how one corrects these things). The first clip is of the 55 yard pass on 3rd and 19 that led to Utah's first touchdown. It looks at first blush like Donovan Warren has been beaten on this play, but I don't believe that's what happened. First the clip, then the talk.

It looks like the WR took an inside move on Warren and was gone. But when you look at the route combination at the top of the screen, you can see that the WRs covered by the OLB (Chambers) and by Warren cross. Chambers is chasing and is beaten down the sideline. Warren is forced to pick between the slot receiver going up the sideline or the outside receiver cutting in. It happens off screen, but based on Johnson's read (throwing to the inside) it would appear Warren was leaning to the slot receiver. And that is probably the right thing to do, as the inside throw could have been taken away by Steve Brown. The responsibility there would appear to be Brown's, but he has lost the inside position can  neither discourge that throw nor make the tackle to limit the damage. I suspect that in the film room, Brown will be the guy catching flak for this one.

The touchdown pass at the end of the first half also, to my amateur eyes, appears to be on the safety. It's a really nice throw by Johnson, between the two men dropping and the safety in the endzone, but the gap between the dropping OLB (Chambers) and the deep safety (Stewart) is simply far too large. In a contain and prevent situation, Stewart sitting that far back in the endzone isn't preventing anything except a touchdown celebration. And it's hard to imagine how or why Chambers, really a safety playing LB for passing downs, could be beaten that quickly and by that much.

What does this mean

Some links with comments

Audio links from The Huge Show:
Mike Barwis sounds like he smokes 20 packs a day.
After 8 months of hearing what Rodriguez and Shafer and Barwis et al want to do, nothing they say anymore can hold my interest. Short of "We are going to start by running a counter to Brandon Minor on the 1st play," nothing they can say hasn't been said before. It's time to see the finished product. It is officially game week, after all.

Kansas City Star
This has been posted so many places by so many people that I can't offer the credit to anyone for bringing it to my attention. It seems bizarre that the KC star has a long, thought out article on UM football until you find out it was written by a Michigan alum. It's an excellent article. It does dole out some criticism to the prior regime, but backs it up with quotes from players, not just armchair QBs. Like Brandon Graham saying    "Everybody knew exactly what we were going to do," and expressing some frustration with the arrogance of the game plan.0

MVictors.com
I had never noticed this (shame on me, perhaps) but MVictors.com keeps track of UM memorabilia auctions for your bidding enjoyment, and he found an ongoing auction for a 1931 football jersey. Interesting - when the page loaded, before I read any of the text, I thought it was a Michigan onesie for toddlers.

WLA
I'm behind on this one, too, but Wolverine Liberation Army is some fantastically bizarre stuff.

Greatest Rivals
Another blogger sent me a link to his page, part of a greater site on rivalries. This one may be a check back as OSU nears type of page (you're on notice, Andy: you better have something *big* for the game this year). Looking back at the 2003 highlights, how exactly does a 14 pt win feel like such a blowout? I guess the same way OSU's 2007 11 pt win feels like a blowout: a feeling of inveitability.