SB Nation - LaTerryal Savoy

When Innocence Becomes Confidence: Michigan Football Tops Notre Dame in Waning Seconds of an Epic Game

Maize n Brew Dave — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 16:54:43 -0000

Photo via David Guralnick The Detroit News.com

It's hard to be a fan and a writer after a game like Saturday's Michigan Notre Dame clash. As a fan there are so many things running through your head that start with "wooooooo!" that it's hard to sort through the chaff to find something meaningful to express other than "wooooo!" As a writer there are just too many story lines to play with. You get half way through one piece and find you're writing about another just as compelling hero, play, or moment in time. Basically your brain just overloads and you slump into a happy, sedate, state of euphoria that lasts three to four days.

It's Tuesday and I still haven't come down from Michigan's 38-34 victory over Notre Dame. I've watched the game a half a dozen times. Thoughts of Forcier splitting the linebackers, Minor gashing Notre Dame's line, Stonum breaking free, and Warren blanketing Tate and Floyd are still bouncing around my skull. Likewise, visions of Clausen picking up 25 yard clumps of turf seemingly at will, our Defensive line being roto-tilled into the turf, Cissoko being torched Trent-style, and nearly 500 total yards by the Irish are still ricocheting off my consciousness as well.

Where do you start? Whom do you start with? You can talk about Tate Forcier's performance all week with running out of material. Then there's Brandon Minor and his incredible, punishing ground game. The Defense's final stand. Weis' play calling at the end of the game.

What it comes down to is that this win was a team win. For every punch landed by Notre Dame, Michigan counter with one more. For every player that left with injury, another stepped in and stepped up. Junior Hemingway missed this game with an injury so Darryl Stonum took his place. Out went David Moosman to injury, in came Perry Dorrestein. Prior to this game would you ever have expected that two of the most crucial catches of the season would be made inside of two minutes of the Fourth Quarter by LaTerryal Savoy? Did anyone have bets that Craig Roh would be this good or play this much? That cornerback Troy Woolfolk would anchor our defense, and anchor it well, at safety? Finally, that Carlos Brown and Brandon Minor would be just as valuable as pass blockers as they were as runners?

There are so many questions that you run out of space to proffer answers. But unlike last year, they are happy questions. Rhetorical ones, that don't require you to slump forward, furrow your brow and sigh as you answer the question. For once, Michigan fans can simply enjoy the ride. We're playing with house money, lots of it, and it feels good. No one expected a game like Saturday's out of this young team. And now we can sit back and enjoy it.

(more after the jump....)

Two games ago this team was an unknown. A fresh face and clean slate. For the faithful, we couldn't help but be cynical. Ever since 2002, we've been trained to expect that if things look too good to be true, then they were. But the same cannot be said for the 2009 Michigan Football Team. Maybe they're too innocent to realize the pressure on them. Most of them are too young to know some of the let downs we've experienced. Either way, they're playing like they expected to be this good.

If you ask them, to a man, they'll tell you they knew it. That Michigan would surprise people with how good they are. But we heard this last year. And the year before. Every football player will tell you at the start of the season that they'll "shock the world." No way. Coming off a three and nine season you know there's work to be done, and that it takes more than an off season to cure last season's ills.

But two games in, this is a good team. A confident team. They're playing as a cohesive unit and playing like kids that care about one another. There are always two separate people there to help someone up. The two quarterbacks, Forcier and Robinson, are the first to greet one another after a big play. The defense, which spent most of the day getting burnt crispy, never gave up and never showed the slightest waver even when things and penalties didn't go their way.

There's a difference between thinking you can be good and knowing you are. There's a difference between the two when you play football, as well. And you can see it in this team. They know they can be good and that confidence has begun the transition to knowing they are good.

There will be speed bumps along the way. There may well be a loss we don't expect. But, today, this is no longer an innocent, fresh faced team. It is a confident team with everything to play for and everyone who doubted them still to prove wrong.

Bullets of Interest:

Two games into Rich Rodriguez' second season at Michigan, two game removed from a 3-9 season, the Wolverines are 2-0 and ranked in the top 25 again. Pretty cool if you ask me.
I've never been in the building for a game like that. It was the best football game I've ever seen live. The 1997 win over Ohio State ranks up there with this game, not the other way around. This has nothing to do with context. This has only to do with the game itself. I'd be hard pressed to name a better one.
The old boxers' analogy fit perfectly on Saturday. Two fighters went toe to toe. Haymaker after haymaker. In the end Michigan landed one more punch than Notre Dame.
Carlos Brown might not have been particularly effective out of the backfield as a runner on Saturday, he was an excellent receiving option and pass blocker for Forcier. It's nice to see Carlos starting to gain some confidence as well as consistently contribute.
LaTerryal Savoy, your table is waiting. Your two catches got us there.
Perry Dorrestein gets a special mention. He was a walk on. A tackle. A bench warmer. And now he's a fifth year senior. When David Moosman went down, Dorrestein stepped in and stepped up, elevating his play beyond what I'd ever seen out of him previously. For a guy who'd only played tackle, and hadn't really seen the field all that much, he played great.
Jimmy Clausen was really, really good. His only mistake was rushing his final third down throw. Had that been Floyd out there, Michigan's goose was probably cooked. But he rushed the throw and Evans simply wasn't on the same page. Other than that, Clausen is the real deal people.
One thing that might not have gotten press outside of Ann Arbor was that Clausen waited until after the Michigan celebration, on field, to shake Forcier's hand and congratulate him. We've had a lot of fun at Clausen's expense, but he's is a good kid. That was 120% of your daily classiness allotment, when no one would've blamed him or even thought twice about him running down the tunnel when the game was over. Mr. Clausen, my hat is off to you. You proved yourself on the the field and off it on Saturday.
The officiating was terrible. That's all I'll say about that.
Someone please douse Boo Boo with flame retardant chemicals. He's still smoldering in the bushes over there.
I'll wait to see the UFR, but I thought Stevie Brown had an excellent game. The move to Linebacker seems to have rejuvenated him. Finally called upon to use his athletic ability in the right context, Brown is playing great. He's standing up the running backs, shedding blockers, causing fumbles, and has been excellent in pass coverage.
Special hat tip to Jordan Kovacs who stepped in for Mike Williams and played exceptionally at safety. BTW, his dad, Louis, was a defensive back on the U-M football team in the early 1980s (lettered in 1982). I bet Dad's pretty proud today.

One For The Ages, Hail To The Victors!

SCM — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 20:40:56 -0000

More photos » by Bill Fundaro - AP

3 months ago: Michigan slot receiver Martavious Odoms (9) and Notre Dame cornerback Raeshon McNeil (8) watch Michigan quarterback Tate Forcier (5) score a touchdown in the fourth quarter of an NCAA college football game, Saturday, Sept. 12, 2009, in Ann Arbor. Michigan upset No. 18 Notre Dame 38-34. (AP Photo/Bill Fundaro)

Browse more photos »

Ok, so a great number of months ago I wrote a post lamenting the fact that we had signed a long term deal to play Notre Dame. I was short-sighted and wrong. Yesterday was a perfect example of just why we play Notre Dame and why this is one of the great rivalries in the sport. Once again on the national stage (for all the right reasons this time) on a perfect day for football with an absolutely tremendous atmosphere, and the game that played out like that? Wooooo (!!!!) indeed.

Onto the collection of thoughts:

General what-have-you:

- !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

- That was far and away the best Notre Dame team I have seen in a long long time, beyond a shadow of a doubt. I would not hesitate one bit to say that will be the best offense we see this season.

- Notre Dame played a darn solid football game, in fact they played extremely well and got beat. They came back from down 11 not once but twice.

- The crowd was awesome, the 110,278 were thunderous throughout and it sure seemed like there were fewer ND fans there than in prior years, which was a pleasant surprise. Student section was awesome. All the questions about whether or not the structures would make a difference have been answered with a resounding yes.

- Speaking of the structures, the shadow from the Western building covers the entire field by the time the second half rolls around, a few more lights might be called for on these 3:30 starts.

- I know they specifically built those seats in the student section for the band, but they need to move them, you simply cannot hear them if you're anywhere South of the 50 yardline.

- Clausen was more accurate, but he still really rushes throws when he is pressured in any way (which was infrequent at best yesterday) and the majority of the passing game is predicated on chucking it deep, this strategy works entirely because of Tate and Floyd, more on that later.

- The ND kick return guy touched the ball on our "squibb" kick, hence why the clock ran, if I can see it 40 rows up it shouldn't be that hard for people watching in HD to determine it too.

- WOO coaching adjustments, WOO clock managment, WOO play calling, WOOO!

- I'm going to preface this one; I was/am a big Lloyd Carr fan. But you CANNOT tell me that any time over the past 15 years we would've gone for it on 4th and 3 like we did on Forcier's lightning bolt TD. We punt that ball 100 times out of 100 with the old regime.

Offense

- Tate Forcier, I mean what can you say? An epic performance. The play before the winning TD was one of the greatest individual efforts I have ever seen, for him to avoid the sack and get the ball to Savoy in the corner of the endzone was nothing short of ridiculous. The ensuing drop was soul-crushing for approximately 5 seconds, and yes it was tipped.

- Savoy's catches got us into that position in the first place, don't forget that.

- So much for that shutout of Nevada eh? You cannot put into words how much better this offense is, you just can't.

- Brandon Minor averaged 10 YPC on his first 9 touches of the day and ended up with 106 yards on 16 touches and 1 TD. It is an appreciable difference when he is in there in terms of how he hits the hole and accelerates, welcome back sir.

- Did not see Shaw even once yesterday, which surprised me. Carlos looked great on a few screens, although he made a few catches a little more dramatic than they probably needed to be.

- Lost Moosman late in the game, which last year would've been DOOM, and this year we put in Dorrestein and didn't miss a beat... awesome. I thought the offensive line did a GREAT job against a much faster opponent this week.

- 1st and goal on the 1 and no points... ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! That was one of my few criticisms of the play-calling yesterday. I'd rather us stay in the shotgun and keep the D spread out, let Minor see the blocking and pick his spot rather than just barreling into the line from the I-form and let the D put everyone in the box.

- Kevin Koger, Greg Mathews, LaTerryal Savoy, and Darryl Stonum all stepped up big-time. Tate's one poor throw of the day was to Koger when there wasn't a defender within 20 yards of him on our second to last drive... I just can't say enough about how well the offense has done getting our receivers into space thus far.

- Absolutely nothing but praise for the playcalling and clock management on that final drive, awesome job Coach, awesome job.

More after the jump...

Defense

- Wellllllllllllllllll we held on didn't we? Yeegads.

- Hardly any pressure on Clausen at all, this was due to a combination of very quick drops/throws, max protect, relatively little blitzing, a solid ND O-line, and yes, the occasional BLATANT hold on whomever was assigned to block Graham and Roh.

- Not one deep ball given up, yes ND moved through the air very well, but considering how much of an island we put Warren and Cissoko on out there, to not give up the one play drive was really encouraging.

- Warren's coverage of Tate on ND's final possession was PERFECT, Warren ran the route for him and had position the whole time, nevermind Tate hugging him to keep him from picking it off. I've seen loads of whining about this (shock!) from ND fans who can promptly stick it where the sun don't shine for all I care.

- Halftime adjustments! The third quarter performance on D was huge. The perfect screens from the first half were suddenly being snuffed for no gain. We gave up something like 308 yards in the first half and then somewhere around 35 in the 3rd quarter? Phew.

- Would've never guessed we would've let them gash us on the ground like they did... it was hard to tell if we were caught out of position or if there were some poor pursuit angles taken by the safeties coming up in run support, but there were some enormous holes out there. Overall the ND O-line turned in a fantastic performance when they weren't holding the bejeezus out of our defenders.

- No Vlad Emelien... Beauford brought this up when we talked after the game, the guy who came on when Williams was hurt (whom I can't even find on the roster) played well, but I was under the impression Vlad was contending for a starting spot, anything going on with him? EDIT: The safety who came in was Jordan Kovacs who is #22 on the official roster but I believe was sporting #32 yesterday, and again, nice job sir.

- Floyd is the real deal.

Special teams

- WOOOOOO SHADES OF STEVE BREASTON WOOOOO! What a bolt from above that was.

- Zoltan needs to just settle down, he's misfiring more often than he's hitting moon shots.

- Tate's pooch punt was a thing of beauty and a great call

- Could've done without the missed chipshot FG, but Olesnavage again looked solid on the one at the end of the first half.

- Kick coverage looked less solid this week, the big one we let go right up the gut was particularly frustrating.

The takeaway

- Enormous win for this team and the program, just enormous.

GO BLUE!!!

2009 Michigan Football Season Preview, Part IV: The Receivers

Maize n Brew Dave — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 17:39:47 -0000

Part I: The Offensive Line, can be found here. Part II: The Running Backs, can be found here. Part III: The Quarterback Position, can be found here.

One day till the 2009 Michigan Football season kicks off. If you're not bursting from the seams with excitement you should probably see a doctor. Or a mortician. It's almost kickoff time, baby. We'll get to the Western Michigan preview in good time. But for right now, we need to figure out what we've got on our side of the football. Now if you can't wait until the season starts to know how it's going to turn out, we got you covered there as well. Here are Beauford's, MnB Dave's, and SCM's 2009 Michigan Football season predictions. There's your quick fix if you need a baseline.

But this is the time of year when we break it all down. Position by position. So we're splitting things up in to a couple of separate posts to give you all the information you can handle on what to expect out of Michigan this season. The Depth Chart is out, so we'll break it down. Since we know what to expect out of the Offensive Line, Running Backs (mostly, now that Brandon Minor is out with a plethora of injuries), and Quarterback (Tate Forcier will start), we're left with one group to discuss.

2009 Michigan Football Season Preview, Part IV: The Receivers

via www.michigandaily.com

If you're looking to talk about Michigan's receivers last year, it's going to be hard to find a lot of things to discuss. A year after fielding arguably the best set of receivers on the field Michigan has ever had, the Wolverine's fielded arguably their worst group ever. There was almost no production from the receivers last year. Bad quarterback play, new system, loads of injuries, loads of freshmen, and the drops, oh god, the drops. This was not a good unit by any standard and it got worse when the inadequacy at quarterback became so apparent that if you found a safety deep it was because he'd fallen asleep on the previous play. How Michigan amassed 11 touchdowns through the air is a complete mystery to me. There was the Utah touchdown bomb to Hemingway. Threet's over the middle lob to Koger against Wisconsin. Mathew's circus catch against Illinois, and Minor's "god that was cool but that was in no way a real touchdown grab." There are your highlights.

Negativity aside, it's not like this isn't a talented group. It's an insanely talented group. And it was yooooooung last year. Really young. Time to strike of the meme of the off-season: "It's year two, they're older, more experienced. They're gonna RAWK!" Well, they've certainly got the opportunity this year with a new QB who can throw on the run and a line that'll give said new QB some time to throw. If all goes well, this team should double it's production from last year.

The Line-up

The unquestioned leader, guru, and best receiver at Michigan is Senior Greg Mathews. Mathews isn't a burner. Mathews isn't that tall (but compared to Odoms he's a giant). But he's got hands, hands, hands, brains, and outstanding body control. No one on this offense knows the system better than Mathews does. When I interviewed his roommate, Stevie Brown, he told me that everyone on the offense young and old was calling him on assignments, routes and blocks. Mathews is everything you want in a receiver, with the unfortunate exception of speed. Greg's awesome, he's just not fast. There have been numerous comparisons to Jason Avant. I wish I said I could agree, but I don't. Avant was out of this world talented as a receiver, who could make the circus catch look easy. Just because Mathews isn't that fast doesn't make them apt analogies. I'm still waiting for that big game out of Mathews. The reason he hasn't had it is through no fault of his own, but until I see him change a game the way Avant did, I'm still pegging him as best suited to be a number two-three type guy who is being counted on to be a number one receiver. I think Mathews should hit fifty-five catches this season, doubling his yardage, while reaching four or five touchdowns.

On the opposite side of the formation will be Junior Hemingway. You remember him as the "OMG! Did he Desmond that catch!1?!1!!" receiver against Utah who promptly injured everything in his body and caught a case of Mono that I hope came from a really hot girl because it cost him the 2008 season. Hey. That's the risk in college. If she's hot, you can say "Yeah, but you would've" to anyone giving you crap. If fugly? Dude. If that's the case, the penalty suits the crime. Anyway... Hemingway's shown flashes of being the sickeningly awesome deep threat that Michigan so desperately needs. He's a decent route runner, but seems to excel getting off the line and into a race with an airborne football. Personally, I'm really excited about this kid. He's got that extra gear the way Manningham did. Use a stop watch? meh. Let him run in pads? Hellz yeah. That said, it's really hard to project how he's going to perform after missing so much time and having seen so little of him. Honestly, if he chips in 400 yards and pulls in five touchdowns, I'd be pretty happy. But he's certainly got the potential to do a lot more.

More on the receiving corps after the jump...

Moving inside we get to ~~midget~~ slot receiver and tight end. Michigan's leading receiver last year was slot receiver, Martavious Odoms, with 49 catches and 443 yards. Unfortunately, Odoms didn't find the endzone until the Purdue game - and that was on a punt return. Odoms performance elicited strong reactions from just about everyone who watched him. He is obviously an extremely talented football player. He just has problems holding onto the ball. A lot of problems holding onto the ball. As a receiver, I was never particularly taken with the offense's use of Odoms as a primary receiver. He's just too small. Linebackers and safeties engulfed him when he caught the football in the middle of the field. But when he had the ball glued to his hands, he was a lot of fun to watch. Odoms' strengths appear to be those specifically suited to a slot guy. He's good in the short passing game. He's too fast for a Linebacker in one-on-one coverage. He can flare out for a screen. But he wasn't particularly good gauging the ball in the air on the deep throw. I'm willing to attribute a lot of that to a total lack of chemistry with either Steven Threet or Nick Sheridan. There are a pile of talented slot receivers behind him, so Odoms should have a great year. He'll have to in order to keep his job.

At Tight End, star of the Wisconsin game, sophomore Kevin Koger will start. At 6'4" 250, Koger another prototypical tight end in a system that's not so tight end friendly. Howeva, Koger has wheels. Really good ones for a big man. As a result Rodriguez is going to find a way to get him the ball more often. As an added bonus, his being above 6 feet tall should help Tate/Denard see him when they get in trouble. Koger only caught 6 passes last year, so it's tough to gauge him as well. But when you consider he was a four star recruit with a good offer sheet, you can expect good things from him, especially when you consider he seems to be putting the work to be a better player. Maybe 20 catches this year a 2 or 3 TDs.

The Back-ups

On the outside, Michigan has sophomore Darryl Stonum and freshman Je'Ron Stokes waiting to be unleashed. Of the two, Stonum is the more polished guy simply because he's got a year on the freshman. Stonum's another guy with that extra gear in pads that makes football nerds all tingly. Both Stevie Brown and Mark Ortmann praised the work Stonum put in over the winter and spring, and indicated that Stonum was starting to come into his own. Unfortunately, Stonum reported had a bout of the dropsies and hasn't quite done enough to hit the field as a starter yet. Like Stonum, Stokes is another high four star receiver who is in need of some polishing. At this point I don't have a lot to go on with Stokes other than his recruiting hype. That said, I have to imagine we'll see more of him as a freshman than we're going to see of LaTerryal Savoy or James Rogers.

Savoy and Rogers are upperclassmen who simply haven't panned out. Savoy pulled in a sprig practice touchdown, but that probably sums up his career as a Wolverine. Practice game hero. Savoy does have some game experience and has hauled in a few catches, but he's not a viable receiver in this offense, or at least he's never shown himself to be one. Savoy will see some time by virtue of being a senior with more experience in the system, but if he's in the game late, either he's turned into an incredible receiver over night, or we're screwed. For Rogers, replace "Savoy" with "Rogers" in the preceding four sentences.

At slot, Michigan's cup runneth over with small, darty, fast dudes. The first option on that list is currently former Michigan Basketball Point Guard, Kelvin Grady. At 5'10", Grady is easily the tallest of the slot receivers and frankly probably one of the best. Grady killed his football recruting hype by publicly declaring he wanted to play basketball exclusively before his junior year. The football services therein turned off. It's a shame too. Grady had some "dear holy god" type runs for East Grand Rapids as a junior and senior. He generated plenty of practice buzz by making some sick catches and showing everyone that three years away from football, all while playing D1 basketball, has positive effects on the body. Think about it. Three years without getting the crap knocked out of you but still running, cutting, getting banged around some, and drilling your body into peak physical shape without a 317 lbs dude diving at your spine and/or knees. So Grady walks onto the field healthy, with excellent peripheral vision, and faster than he would've been as a freshman. Not bad. I don't think Grady will over take Odoms for the starting slot, but the fact we can discuss it tells you just how talented a football player Grady is after a month of practice. Grady's probably the best story I've heard of, football wise, in a long time. So naturally, I'm really pulling for him to succeed. Why else would I devote more space to him than a couple of the starters?

Immediately after Grady, if not before, is Roy Roundtree. A slot receiver who is curiously between six feet and six-three, and just learning how to see. Apparently, Roundtree's eyesight was horrid and he was somehow making catches without being able to really see the ball clearly. How the hell does that happen? Now he's got contacts and is, according to Stevie Brown, was of the fastest, quickest players on the team. At 6'3" with speed and quickness I've gotta imagine he'll eventually get split out wide, but he's listed at slot so that's where we'll keep him. Behind Roundtree is Terrance Robinson. Robinson was a mid-high recruit whose size limited his recruitment. There's been little buzz about him at camp. He's there, he's had a year in the system, but until he starts catching the ball consistently enough to find his way onto the playing field, I really don't know what to tell you about him.

Finally, at the Tight End position, Martell Webb will back up Kevin Koger. Webb had a good freshman season but didn't see much time last year. Like Koger, Webb was a highly rated recruit who may have had a little too much culture shock from Barwis/Rodriguez arrival. As a result, he saw Koger take the starting job from him. This year, Webb had a fairly good camp and should be able to step in immediately without any drop off in production at the TE position.

The Take Away

Though it might not sound like it from the snarky comments above, I do like this group. I'm just not in love with it. There isn't the presence of a bona-fide No.1 receiver right now. Our lead pass catcher is a slot guy I can fit in my pocket and our best deep threat is a sneeze away from injuring himself again. But there is a lot of speed on the outside. Michigan does have a guaranteed catch in Mathews. And there's actually going to be a quarterback who can throw the ball to them this year.

A lot of the negatives I saw last year can probably be attributed to the horrid play under center, but there is plenty of room for improvement here. Most critically, holding onto the ball. Drops were an issue last year just as much as fumbles were. I think a year of practice will help that, but i also think a year of playing will ease a lot of other maladies as well. No more stopping just short of the first down marker on a pattern. No more juking around and losing six yards instead of falling forward and gaining two. Youth and inexperience are usually cured by the passage time.

Well, it's a year later, so we'll find out shortly. I figure this group should be good for 14-16 touchdowns and just under 2,000 yards receiving. That's a pretty optimistic view. If they crack 1,700 yards and 12-14 touchdowns, I'd still be fairly happy.