2011 Opponent Preview - Game 1: Western Michigan

Note:  This is the first in a series of posts that will preview each opponent of the upcoming football season.  This is simply meant to be an overview of the team Michigan will be playing, not a game preview with predictions and things of the like.  I will do that the week before each game.  The offseason is slow and I thought this might break up the monotony a little bit.

Mascot:  Broncos

Location:  Kalamazoo, MI

Founded:  1903

Enrollment:  25,045

2010 Record:  6-6 (5-3 MAC)

Coach:  Bill Cubit (Delaware '75), 74-51-1 Overall

Returning Starters:  15 (6 Off,  7 Def, 2 ST)


2010 Overview

Team Roster

As stated above, Bill Cubit's team struggled a bit in 2010, reaching the .500 mark overall and finishing third in the MAC West at 5-3.  They did, however, finish the season strong winning three straight over Eastern Michigan, Kent State, and at Bowling Green, outscoring those three by a combined 134-40.    MSU, ND, and Bowling Green were all common opponents between WMU and U-M last season so let's make some basic comparisons using those three games.  Some raw numbers:


Both teams lose to Sparty.  Western traveled to EL while Michigan played that game at home.  Both teams are outgained by almost identical margins, struggle on third down, and lose the turnover battle.  That'll lead to a loss almost every time.  Getting outgained on the ground significantly usually spells disaster as well, even though WMU had quite a bit more yardage through the air than the Spartans did.


Both teams played Notre Dame in South Bend.  This time Michigan wins late (as has been the custom against the Irish of late) but Western is blown out.  Michigan was +3 in turnovers while Western was -3 and the Broncos simply couldn't run the football.  There's your difference.  That and Denard Robinson.


And finally, we see the data from the Bowling Green games.  Both teams play host and both teams win.  Michigan puts up insane numbers on the ground and on 3rd down, but gives up three times as many points as Western does.

Here are the averages for the three common opponents:



Michigan ran the ball much better and did a slightly better job at stopping the run.  Western did a better job through the air on both sides of the ball, especially defensively (good God Michigan's secondary last year was AWFUL).  Michigan converted their third downs at 38.5% and allowed their opponents to convert 34.1% of the time.  Western picked up third down at a 31.4% clip and allowed 27.0% conversions.  That's a +4.4% difference for each team, so call that a wash.  M did slightly better on turnovers.  The biggest difference is the total yardage, where you'll see the Wolverines were about +90 ypg and WMU was about -90 ypg.  More yards + less turnovers = more points and more wins most of the time.

As I said, this is just a comparison through raw data and is far from comprehensive.  I did not watch a single snap of any of Western's games last year, so I can't do much more than look at numbers anyway. 

2010 Film

Since I didn't watch any of Western's games last year, I figured I'd better look at some YouTube clips and include them here.  First up is the season opener at MSU.

Unfortunately, that's an MSU highlight so you don't get to see any of Western's successful plays, just their unsuccessful ones.  That can be useful as well however.  Michigan State ran the ball for nearly 300 yards in this game and in this clip you can see that a lot of those yards came in big chunks.  Stretch, Power, and Zone plays all had success.  There were cutback lanes available (some of them enormous) and WMU does a poor job at tackling and taking proper pursuit angles more than a few times.  All of these things are good to know as a coach.  Obviously you can't gameplan for missed tackles and poor angles, but you can gameplan for tendencies and personnel groups/formations.

Next up is some Notre Dame film.

For whatever reason, this clip is in fast motion and makes me feel like I'm watching a Charlie Chaplain movie, but whatever.  Again, this is a Notre Dame highlight, but again you notice some of the same things.  Poor one on one tackling from the safety on the long Floyd TD.  The defense was undisciplined on the trick play at the 1:08 mark (the ball should have been thrown to the other WR that was all alone).  Careless with the football.  More bad tackling.  More lack of discipline on the Zone Read keeper for the TD.  Poor blitz pickup.  Bad coverage read, pick.  Blown coverage for a TD.  Horrible pursuit angles on the long TD run at the 2:51 mark.  Five more missed tackles on a 15 yard run.  Wide open receiver on a five yard stop route on the goal line for a TD.  QB holds the ball too long, strip sack, turnover.  That was just my stream of consciousness as I watched the above clip.  Obviously this is showing just the ND highlights which will cast a poor light on what Western is doing, but there is a lot bad stuff going on there.  I'm sure they did plenty of other things well in that game, but there is plenty to exploit from what I'm seeing so far.

I didn't find any single game WMU highlights from last year, but I didn't spend too much time looking to be honest.  I did find this video from what appears to be the athletic department highlighting the season in review. 

It appears that there was some offensive success last year, especially through the air as several passing and receiving school records were broken.  That's pretty impressive with a redshirt sophomore quarterback and it was his first year as the starter.  He will be back and I'll get into him in more detail in a bit.  Towards the end of the clip, they recap the five NFL players WMU has in the league.  I'd forgotten that Greg Jennings went there.

Offense

It seems that Western uses multiple offensive sets, but are definitely most effective throwing the ball from a spread look.  The team only ran for a little over 1500 yards and only averaged 3.9 ypc, so running the ball is not their forte.  This may be the reason why they throw so much, but I suspect that they are just more geared toward the pass and don't want to run as much.

WMU returns 6 starters from last year's team including the QB, redshirt junior Alex Carder.  The other returners are WR Jordan White, WR Robert Arnheim, TE Blake Hammond, U-M transfer RT Dann O'Neill, and G/T Anthony Parker.  They also return four backs that started games last year, but I don't really consider any of them the incumbent, so none of them are included as a returning starter.  It appears that the Broncos utilize a RB by committee approach.  I will note that Tevin Drake is the leading rusher that averaged over 10 yards per carry last season on 40 carries.

Back to QB Alex Carder.  The kid had a pretty impressive year last year and they are expecting a lot out of him this season.  He threw the ball 458 times last year, completing 63.1% for 3,334 yards, 30 touchdowns and 12 picks.  He also ran the ball 109 times (most on the team) for 226 yards and 6 rushing touchdowns (also led team).  He's not the best runner in the world, but he does it enough to keep the defense honest and make you defend against it.  His backup is redshirt sophomore Tyler VanTubbergen who threw all of 13 passes last year.

Carder's top receiver, Jordan White, will return for his 6th year of eligibility this fall.  I don't know the specifics of how or why he got a  6th year, but the NCAA rarely awards these so I'm sure it's for a good reason.  White caught 94 balls for 1,378 yards (14.7 avg) and 10 touchdowns a year ago.  That yardage total is a WMU record.  The broncos lose Juan Nunez and his 91 catches, 1,032 yards, and 10 touchdowns to graduation but do have 2009 All-MAC receiver Robert Arnheim back.  For some reason, Arnheim did not enjoy the level of success he had in 2009 last year, but with Nunez gone I'm sure he's looking to return to form.  Arnheim started 10 games in 2010, hauling in 23 balls for 235 yards and a touchdown.  Ansel Ponder will also return and figures to be the number three option.  He has 28 catches for 205 yards and two TD's a year ago.

The Tight End position doesn't get a lot of attention in the Bronco attack with no one registering double digit receptions last year, but they did collectively have five TD receptions.  I'd hazard a guess that they are primarily used as play action targets on the goal line.  Hammond is the most experienced returner with five starts last year and nine receptions for 113 yards and three TD's.

The offensive line will have to replace three starters departing from a year ago.  Most Michigan fans will remember the name Dann O'Neill from his brief time in Ann Arbor.  Dann started 10 games last year and will anchor the RT spot again this fall.  The other returner is Guard Anthony Parker.

With a returning QB, things are always easier for an offense.  Carder showed he can play last season and will no doubt be an improved player with another spring and summer under his belt as well as another fall camp coming up.  The key for the offense is how well the offensive line performs with three new bodies in there.  The offense as a whole would greatly benefit if a number one back emerged and they could run the ball a little bit.  It seems to me that Drake needs to get more carries to see if that 10+ yards per carry is legit or not.  Carder will benefit from having his favorite target back, but if someone doesn't emerge on the opposite side of  White, then he may not have as big a year as he did last year.  I'd expect teams to bracket him until someone else proves they can make a play on the other side.  Arnheim is capable, but I'm not sure what the story is there.

Defense

The base defense for the Broncos is a 4-3.  I haven't seen enough film to know what they like to do on the back end so I'm not going to speculate.  Last year, the defense gave up 2,000 yards on the ground (nearly 170 per game) and 2,655 through the air.  Those passing numbers aren't bad, but they need to do a better job stopping the run.  Allowing 4.3 yards per rush isn't exactly forcing teams to go to air all that much.

The defense returns seven starters off last year's team including all four down lineman.  Tackles Drew Nowak and Travonte Boles and Ends Paul Hazel and Woody Legrier combined for 12 sacks and 24.5 TFLs last year.  Freddie Bishop also started six games a year ago and added four sacks and 6.5 TFLs himself.  This unit figures to be better now that they are year older and should help with bringing down those opponents rushing numbers.

Only one Linebacker returns to start and that is Mitch Zajac.  He started all 12 games, piling up 97 tackles, four TFLs, and a pair of sacks and will be a senior this season.  Chris Prom figures to lock down one of the other two spots as he made a couple of starts at the end of last season.  The last spot appears up for grabs.

The Bronco Secondary returns a couple of starters.  Lewis Toler started all 12 games at CB last year as a freshman.  He is expected to be their number one at CB this season.  Toler made 59 tackles, picked off five balls, and broke up another nine.  Pretty impressive numbers for a freshman.  Senior FS Doug Wiggins is the other hold over from last year.  He registered 55 stops and a couple of PBUs last season.  Senior SS Keith Dixson is expected to man the other starting Safety spot.  He only had 22 stops and one INT last year but reportedly had 14 tackles and two picks in the spring game, so expect him to be there.  The other CB spot looks like a battle between redshirt freshmen Garrett Smith and Jon Henry.

Special Teams

Both specialist return for Bill Cubit's team in the form of senior Kicker John Potter and senior Punter Ben Armer.  Potter hit on all 50 of his PATs last year and was 10-12 on FGs with a long of 42.  Armer punted 57 times for a 41.1 yard average with 14 dropped inside the 20 and 10 50+ yarders.

2011 Spring Game

Western had their annual spring game on April 16th.  You can find the game recap here.  In summary, I'll stick to individual performances because who knows how they scored this thing and it doesn't matter anyway.  Carder was 14-18 for 110 yards, one TD, and two picks.  The other two QBs combined for 15-26 for 100 yards, one TD, and one INT.

Drake led all rushers with 94 yards on 12 carries and a TD.  Sophomore Brian Fields added 13 carries for 50 yards.

Sophomore Antoin Scriven caught six balls for 31 yards and a TD, junior Eric Monette grabbed five passes for 34 yards, and Arnheim caught four for 60 yards and a TD.  Apparently White did not play.

Kicking, Potter was 1-2 on FGs missing from 52 and hitting a 33 yarder.
____________________________________________________________________________________________

You can find much more detailed information on the players and coaches, as well as the 2010 season from the 2011 Post Spring Guide.  I got a lot of info from this extremely detailed pdf and am very thankful for its use.