Michigan Preview 2012: Special Teams

Can Greiner give Michigan an advanage?

For this portion of your preview, I’m mostly going to focus on the possession game: faceoffs, ride, and clear. Since it’s not really enough for its own section, I’m going to lump in penalties and man-up/man-down at the end. Typical caveats apply for the Michigan previews: they played vastly different competition last year than they will this year.

As was a huge part of their dominance of the MCLA over the past four years, Michigan was an exceptional possession team last year. They were great on faceoffs – .637 on the year – and great on the clear, allowing opponents only a .481 success rate on the season. For reference (again, the level of competition is absolutely not comparable, so take it with a grain of salt), the best faceoff team in the NCAA last year was Yale, at .651. Michigan’ number would have been fifth nationally. The best ride was Yale, and their opponents still successfully cleared .745 of their attempts.

So, yeah. That could mean one of two things: either Michigan is going to be the best possession team in the history of EVER, or they’re in for a rude awakening at the Division-1 level. In case you’re wondering, the latter is far more likely to be true. Last year’s faceoff specialist, Brian Greiner, returns and will get first crack in most games, and freshman Alex Marcus will play a role as well. Some others – including probably LSM Austin Swaney – will get a chance, too.

That said, Michigan’s coaching staff is still saying things like “it’s no secret we’re a 10-man riding team,” so their aggression on the ride will still apply, even if the degree of success doesn’t. They may end up as one of the country’s best-riding teams, but they’re also likely to give up more than their fair share of transition opportunities on broken rides.

In the clearing game, teams will probably play them aggressively on the assumption – and a fair one – that they have worse stick skills than your average D-1 squad. Providence did that to very good effect in the fall scrimmage before the Wolverines settled in during the second half. Was Michigan’s lack of success just first-game jitters or a fundamental inability to clear? Only time will tell, but good riding teams will be able to hurt them in this area of the game.

Penalties

The stats from Michigan’s club season have disappeared down the internet memory hole, so I can only speak in terms of generalities and vague recollections. Either way, the step up in competition is going to render most of it irrelevant, so the items “Michigan was insane on the man-up” and “Michigan was man-up a lot more than they were man-down” only mean so much.

I do think – based on a general weak defense – that the man-down will struggle at times. However, since their issues are more in one-on-one D right now, being forced into a zone during the penalty kill won’t hurt that much compared to their regular defensive schemes.

On the man-up, Judd Lattimore’s offensive acumen leads me to believe that the Wolverines will have some success. He has two or three different man-up plays with series based off of them, and Michigan will be able to use them to score. Having a killer crease man like Travor Yealy certainly doesn’t hurt.

Outlook

This is an epic question mark – and the possession game could be a difference-maker in Michigan’s season, given that one talented player (which Brian Greiner appears to be, albeit against lesser competition to date) can make a team look really good. The aggressive ride can also be a schematic advantage that covers for some lack of ability to score 6v6.

If the clearing game can be just average – certainly not expected, but possible – the possession game seems like it has potential to cover for some of Michigan’s weaknesses in terms of talent and depth. It may have to be for the Wolverines to win more than a couple games this year.