Wha Happened?

The one thing that I feel like I keep writing about in all of my game previews is turnovers. It hasn't gone well. You can blame "fluck" if you so choose, or freshmen quarterbacks or the defense's inability to jump on the football when it's rolling around on the ground. But it doesn't matter who you blame, really, because Michigan has been turning the ball over with regularity in the last few games--some of which (Iowa and MSU) the team likely would've won had it not been for said turnovers.

Last year, the team had the same problem, though more specifically they had Threetidan under center and non-Matthews players trying to return punts. It did not go well. A diary post at MGoBlog outlines it, concluding:

Turnovers are NOT a result of the RR "system". Turnovers were very high in RR's first year at WVU but came down after that. So far TO Lost has been unusually high for M in the RR era and TO Gained has been unusually low.

That's basically what we all came to assume. It's interesting, however, just to take a look at all of the turnover margins for Michigan, this year and last, and see how the team fared in the games:

2008		2009
Utah	0	WMU	+2
Miami (OH)	+1	ND	0
ND	-4	EMU	0
Wisc	-1	IU	-1
Ill	-2	MSU	+1
Toledo	-3	Iowa	-4
PSU	0	DSU	-1 (!!!)
MSU	-1	PSU	-4
Purdue	0	Ill	-3
Minn	0
NU	0
OSU	-1
Totals	-11		-10

There are a few that really stick out here. 2008: Notre Dame, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Purdue, and OSU. 2009: Iowa, Notre Dame, and MSU. Many of 2008's debacles came on punt returns. I can't remember exactly how many Michigan coughed up on special teams last year, but it was quite a few (I think three, at least, in the Notre Dame game alone). They've been mostly good on returns this year, save Hemingway against Illinois and Matthews' one flub. With respect to the defense's turnover recovery numbers, Michigan's ineptitude in this region is actually outpacing 2008's. And I would venture to say that Defense 2008 is similarly awful to Defense 2009. This is not going well.

The real concern are the interceptions. Sure, Denard has thrown 4 INTs on only 22 passes, but the team (with one by Sheridan for good measure) has thrown 10 INTs this year against 12 INTs last year. So unless Forcier/Robinson throw less than two INTs in the next three games, we're looking at, again, some ugly numbers. True freshmen and whatnot, taken into account.

Threetidan had a .0355 INT/attempt ratio (I don't have national numbers anywhere, but I assume that's bad). RobinForce has a .0416 INT/attempt ratio. Those numbers are a little skewed by Robinson (.1818 INT/attempt vs. Forcier's .0259 INT/attempt) but nonetheless, the quarterbacking has been subpar in terms of taking care of the ball. FWIW, Threet was .035 INT/attempt and Sheridan was .036 INT/attempt last year. Worse still are the interceptions that didn't happen. Forcier has thrown two intercecptions this season (one against Penn State and one against Iowa) that were inexplicably dropped. They were so bad, in fact, that I had even planned a post about the one he "threw" against Penn State but ended up scrapping the idea. If both of these had been caught, Forcier would be staring down worse numbers than Threet and Sheridan, even if only marginally: .0362 INT/attempt.

As a bit of perspective, in Chad Henne's 2006 season--the last before he was seriously injured--he had a ratio of .0243 INT/attempt (8 INTs on 328 attempts).

So, um, Wha Happened? In terms of Denard, he might not be able to throw a football. As far as Forcier--true freshmenness aside--it's interesting to look at his rushing numbers. His best game came against Notre Dame where he averaged 5.4 yards on 13 carries (though if you take out his 31-yard scamper, he averaged only 3.25 YPC), while he also had a decent game against WMU with 3.4 YPC on 11 carries. From there, he's had 5 games of 2.1 YPC or less (three games of less than 1 YPC). Part of this might be poor decision making and pulling the ball when he shouldn't or trying to do too much. But I think much of it comes from teams gameplanning for Forcier's shiftiness. MGoBlog has been harping on the lack of new packages, and I think these numbers are particularly damning on that issue. But as Forcier's running numbers drop because of opponent gameplanning, you can assume his passing numbers would falter similarly.

This all stands to reason, however, that if Michigan can simply take care of the football, they probably come away with another win or two, this season and last. And that maybe Forcier as Messiah is more far off than we had imagined.

As an addendum, it should be noted that excluding teams that couldn't prepare for Forcier (WMU, ND) and one's that had no business being on the field against Michigan (Eastern, DSU), Forcier's INT/attempt ratio is .032, which appears to be exceedingly average.