Storyline: Don’t blame punter Blake O’Neill for Michigan’s meltdown in Ann Arbor. Michigan State lined up in the right scheme and Michigan did not. What unfolded was football execution at its best.
Grayson Miller (44) celebrates MSU’s victory (ABC7Chicago.com)
Punter Blake O’Neill is taking heat, death threats included, for bobbling (then fumbling) the snap on the final play of last Saturday’s football game between Michigan and cross-state rival, Michigan State. O’Neill’s gaffe led directly to a MSU TD, which won the game for the Spartans, 27-23.
“Mistakes were made,” said Coach Jim Harbaugh in the post-game presser, adding that O’Neill should have fallen on the ball rather than trying to launch a rugby-style kick.
But after examining video of that game-defining play it’s clear that O’Neill isn’t at blame. Michigan’s Special Teams scheme made it easier for the Spartans to blitz the kicker and cause a fumble. And Michigan State executed the play to perfection.
Watch the play unfold in real time. Then we’ll break down the play using pictures and text.
Courtesy ESPN
First, while nobody is back for Michigan State to receive the kick, two Michigan defenders are flanked on the line of scrimmage–one on each side. That scheme effectively takes those UM players out of the play. Michigan State has only one player aligned that way, which means one Michigan flanker is left unguarded. Finally, the flanked Michigan players run downfield for the purpose of downing the punt. Why is unclear.
That leaves 9 players in the play for Michigan and 10 players in the play for MSU.
Courtesy ESPN
Next, note the line of scrimmage. Michigan is lined up in a 5-man line to block rushing Spartan linemen. The Spartans have the rest of their players–10 in total–on the line, ready to rush the punter. That alignment gives MSU a 2-to-1 advantage at the point of contact.
Michigan now has 4 players remaining in the play. Three UM blocking backs are located 8 yards in front of O’Neill.
Next, we have the snap. MSU quickly overwhelms the Michigan line. The left side of the Michigan line is especially vulnerable–three Spartans rush a single Michigan defender. The Michigan linemen (N=5) engage seven Spartan linemen. But two Spartans on the left side–together with one Spartan on the other side–take a direct line to the Michigan punter.
Courtesy ESPN
After the ball is snapped, O’Neill bobbles it and tries moving to his right. What he finds are seven Spartans running toward him–three Spartans, who were left unguarded, and four Spartans who have fought through Wolverine blocks.
Worse yet, seven UM defenders are effectively out of the play. Three Wolverines are running down the field and four UM linemen are either engaged in blocks or have lost their blocks to charging MSU players.
Courtesy ESPN
That leaves the three blocking backs to protect O’Neill. Because O’Neill is a rugby-style kicker, who kicks running to his right, those blocking backs move to the right with him. But MSU’s strongest rush is coming from the left–from players who were unguarded originally.
That means O’Neill is profoundly vulnerable. Three players, including two MSU legacy players (that is, their fathers played for MSU), converge on O’Neill: Matt Morrissey (10) and Grayson Miller (44). Those two are joined by Andrew Dowell (5).
Courtesy ESPN
At this point, there are eight Spartans within three yards of the punter. Four of those Spartans are closer to the punter than any of the Michigan blockers. At the immediate point of the fumble, O’Neill is overwhelmed by Spartans, without help from his teammates. Unbelievably, five Wolverines are either back around the line of scrimmage or downfield.
The convergence of three Spartans on O’Neill–all hitting him from different angles–enables the fumbled ball to take flight when O’Neill tries to kick it.
The eventual TD-maker, DB Jalen Watts-Jackson (20), eluded the block of UM OL, Ben Braden (71). That made it possible for Watts-Jackson to begin moving quickly downfield after catching the ball in mid-air.
Courtesy ESPN
Because so many MSU players had broken through the line–and so many UM players were out of the play–Watts-Jackson had a literal convoy (five Spartans) as he motored toward the goal line. Only one Wolverine, Wayne Lyons (24), had a shot at making a tackle–and a Spartan blocker was between Lyons and Watts-Jackson.
As it turned out, a Wolverine who had been out of the play, Jake Butt (88, whose not even in the play yet–at left), quickly gained ground from an angle. He eventually made the tackle (see below), but it was too late. Butt and Watts-Jackson tumbled into the end zone.
Courtesy ESPN
While it was a shocking end to a tightly contested game, this wasn’t a miracle ending–as improbable as it was.
MSU had the right scheme. UM did not. UM’s alignment made it easier for MSU to execute the only play that could possibly lead to a touchdown–and victory.
Don’t blame O’Neill.
Why did Michigan call a punt play on that final play? Why did they use that particular Special Teams alignment?
Ask Harbaugh and Special Teams Coach John Baxter.
Loved this article, which (because I’m not football savvy) made a lot of things much clearer to me. But the lingering question, the obvious question, the question that seems to stymie everyone, is the issue you raised at the very end of your article. Probably I’ll never know why they chose to punt instead of lining up in formation and taking a knee. This is the classic “bird in the hand” syndrome. Is it considered unsportsmanlike to “take a knee”? In any event, thanks for a great breakdown, it really was helpful and informative to me. – Edie Clark/Michigan/Happy Spartan
Thanks, Edie, for the kind words. At his press conference yesterday Harbaugh responded to questions about options. One option, he said, would have been to run the ball “to the boundary,” which would have taken most–if not all–time off the clock. My take is that it would have been a better option than punting. Another option would have been for the QB to dance around the backfield. But neither option–just as the punting option–would have worked with a 5-man UM line vs. a 10-man MSU line. MSU’s only chance was to overwhelm the UM line and get to the punter. And that’s exactly what happened. Miraculous? I think “highly improbable” is a better way to describe it. I don’t like to use the word “miracle” in a circumstance where strategy pays off.
Blake Countess now plays for now plays for Auburn not Michigan.
Thanks, Tom. Thought I was looking at ’15 roster, but I wasn’t. I changed the reference to Lyons.
I I think the Great Messiah Rich Hoke-baugh was trying to pin the ball inside the 10 yard line to rub in the pending loss.
Catch the snap punt the ball and game is over. UM did not have a timeout to react to MSU’s coverage a punt return likely has better odds than a punt block return. UM should have let clock run down and taken penalty to regroup for a final play. Even with the scheme and the confusion every possible thing that had to go wrong did. Taking a knee gives MSU a hail mary. Running out the clock could be tough with ten seconds on the clock. A clean punt with no return man is game over
Wow, the lack of football knowledge on this site is amazing. Is this really a sports site. Do you have any knowledge of special team play or football in general. I would challenge anyone to say why not blocking some of the Spartan 10 man line is a good idea. Just to test your knowledge on special teams.
This column reeks of effort by an MSU fan to attribute long-term effects to one, highly unusual play. The author wants to believe that this win is part of continued dominance over Michigan, as opposed to a fluke result primarily caused by a punter dropping the ball and then panicking. If the blame gets pinned on O’Neill, then this is a one-off. If it gets blamed on Harbaugh, then he can claim that MSU retains a coaching advantage that will show up in the future. As a result, we get this tortured reasoning that is rife with holes:
1. Yes, Michigan wasted ONE player as a gunner without an MSU player opposite him. Was this the fault of the coaches or the player not shifting inside when there wasn’t a Spartan across from him? The automatic assumption is that the coaches erred. Maybe they didn’t give him proper instructions, but we don’t know that.
2. Michigan was out of timeouts and only learned that MSU would go sans returner once the teams had lined up. The author assumes perfect pre-play information for UM, but this was really more of a failure to adjust on the fly. Again, is this on the coaches or the players? If Michigan comes out with no gunners and MSU’s plan was to go for a TD return, then what?
3. The author notes that the Michigan players did not block well on the play, but then blames Harbaugh and Baxter at the end anyway, which betrays the underlying motivation to make the play into something with predictive value in the future. Don’t the players blocking deserve some of the blame?
4. The author never addresses the fact that the punter fumbled the snap. He absolves O’Neill of blame in his effort to pin the blame on Harbaugh and Baxter without ever attempting to answer the relevant question: “would the punt have gotten off if fielded cleanly?” I suspect that he doesn’t ask this question because the answer is yes. At best, the author shows that the coaches deserve partial blame, along with the blockers and O’Neill, but that’s not enough for a former MSU professor who wants to criticize Harbaugh. (And yes, the pie chart would also need to give credit to the MSU coaches for having an effective play for the situation. They took advantage of the mistakes by Michigan, but still, their success required mistakes by Michigan in the first place.)
5. What made this play especially fluky (aside from the fact that Michigan lost a game in which it had a 99.8% chance of winning when the play started) was that Michigan was leading the game BECAUSE of its special teams, including its punting unit. MSU had a yardage advantage, but Michigan had a massive field position advantage because of its kicking, punting, and return teams. So even if Harbaugh and Baxter erred on the final play in not having a safety first punt formation, they (along with their players) only did so in the aftermath of crushing MSU on special teams for 59:50.
And yes, I’m a Michigan grad and am not impartial in this discussion. I’m defensive of Harbaugh, but after he turned a 5-7 team that was a seven-point underdog to MSU in the summer into a top 15 team that was a seven-point favorite on Saturday, I think I’m on safe ground. I think that the Michigan-MSU rivalry is going to be great in the coming years because Michigan will be much better and MSU is likely to stay at or near its current level. So there, a bipartisan point at the end of a partisan post.
The only thing that matters is that MSU won. All these narratives about why are meaningless. Scoreboard.
There are multiple objectives associated with an all-out rush on the punter. One is to block the punt. Another is to disrupt the punter. Harbaugh, by choosing to punt rather than run the ball, exposed his punter to both possibilities, and the Spartans succeeded in doing the latter. In the end, although it’s unlikely we’ll ever know why the punter mishandled the snap, it’s reasonable to think he mishandled it because of the onrushing MSU players. Harbaugh had options. He chose one that backfired, and MSU was ready for it. In the end, Harbaugh was outcoached, and the Wolverines were outplayed. The final score is simply a reflection of that.