Thanks for posting. The article includes these two youtube clips intended to show our DTs are not as good as Sweat/Murphy. Here are my thoughts:
Clip 1:
In this clip, Collins acts like he's never seen trap before. He is absolutely lost--standing straight up--when he goes unblocked, and he gets blasted by the puller, setting up the huge gain. I wonder if this is a "result" of having a DE spin down to a NG? He just lacks the reps of knowing what to expect by someone who has played DT/NG their whole life, so he doesn't know to attack the puller when he's left unblocked.
Meanwhile, Gbenda and Hill both overrun the trap, missing the pulling guard and giving the RB a huge hole to run through. The good news is that Michael Taafe takes the RBs head completely off.
Does this give me some concern for gap run schemes this weekend? Yeah, maybe? But this got cleaned up really quickly on Saturday.
Clip 2:
Here is an inside zone run in the third quarter. Vernon Broughton pins his ears back for some odd reason and absolutely creates a gaping hole. Far from "eating blocks to leave the linebackers free," he does the classic--run upfield away from the block. As a result, there's a huge hole for the RB to slice through. The other down linemen and linebackers generally play this run very well.
However, Trey Moore's ballerina act is horrible technique against a better/faster opponent. Here, he's able to use his speed to just stave off the blocker and force the RB to the outside. But Broughton/Moore next to each other might also be some cause for concern in the run game.
Does this give me cause for concern about Michigan's zone scheme? Not really. I imagine we see a lot more Ethan Burke/Baryn Sorrell in this game than we do Trey Moore. I also imagine we see a lot less Broughton and more Norton/Savea/Lole.