SB Nation - Boubacar Cissoko

Michigan preview

BoilerTMill — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 14:59:54 -0000

It has come to this. All of the dreams we have of playing in a bowl this football season come down to winning in Ann Arbor. Doing so would be the first such victory since Griese was at quarterback. I don't mean Brian in the late 90's for the Wolverines either. Our favorite taco-loving announcer was Purdue's quarterback on October 15, 1966 when we won 22-21 in Ann Arbor.

It is a difficult position to be in, but I wouldn't have it any other way. When I was in school, I always tackled the hardest projects first. I knew if I could finish them, everything else would be easy. That is what we face now. Winning at Michigan is the most difficult of our remaining three games. Win, and we have a better chance to win the final two games. Lose, and it is all about building for next year.

Before the season, this was the only loss I had put in sharpie, as the Boiled Sports guys say. I even gave us a chance against Ohio State at home because we play the Buckeyes well and we were at home. Michigan is quite different. In the three victories over Michigan I have personally witnessed (1996, 2000, 2008) we have had to hang on until the final play in each one. Don't even get me started on our visits to Ann Arbor, which have gone as follows:

1969: L 20-31

1972: L 6-9

1974: L 0-51

1975: L 0-28

1978: L 6-24

1980: L 0-26 (This loss cost us the Big Ten title and Rose Bowl that season)

1982: L 21-52

1983: L 10-42

1985: L 0-47

1989: L 27-42

1991: L 0-42

1993: L 10-25

1995: L 0-5

1999: L 12-38 (Our other four losses that season were by a touchdown or less)

2001: L 10-24

2003: L 3-31 (This also cost us the Big Ten title and Rose Bowl)

2007: L 21-48

That is 17 straight losses at the Big House. In six of those games we didn't even score a single point. Kyle Orton, Drew Brees, Mark Herrman, and Jim Everett never even came close to a win. Shoot, Rick Trefzger in 1995 came closer than any of them. This is what we have to look forward to on Saturday. There is good news though: Joey Elliott led a pair of touchdown drives in the last two minutes during our last visit, so he had a better game in half a quarter than most Purdue quarterbacks.

A rare close game by Purdue at the Big House.

2009 Record: 5-4, 1-4 Big Ten

2008 Record: 3-9, 2-6 Big Ten

Bowl Result: none

Blog Representation: MGoBlog, MVictors, Varsity Blue, Michigan Sports Center, iBlog for Cookies, Maize'n'Brew, Maize & Blue Nation

Series with Purdue: Michigan leads 41-13-0

Last Purdue win: 11/1/2008 at Purdue 48-42

Last Michigan win: 10/13/2007 at Michigan 48-21

It is hard to believe that Michigan started 4-0, but their one win since came in a D-1AA exhibition against Delaware State. Even more unbelievably, they got drilled by an awful Illinois team last week. I can't figure this team out right now. They haven't even been competitive the last two weeks against two teams (Penn State and Illinois) they have historically dominated.

Michigan offense:

The key to any victory this time around will be stopping the Wolverines in the first quarter. Michigan has scored 111 points this season it the first quarter of their nine games. By comparison, they have just 28 third quarter points in that time. If we can prevent them from jumping on us early we have a chance. I am also encouraged that they run a similar offensive style to Oregon. Our defense did a good job of stopping the Ducks (remember, 17 of the 38 points given up were because of turnovers) and Oregon has better personnel running it.

We will definitely see two quarterbacks. Tate Forcier (107-193-5) has nine touchdowns and 1,429 yards passing. He is by far the bigger passing threat. Denard Robinson (11-22-4) has two touchdowns and 179 yards passing. With four interceptions in 22 attempts we want him to throw. Make no mistake. This is by far a run first team. Robinson has rushed for 287 yards and five touchdowns while Forcier has 214 and two scores.

Even though we won last year, we couldn't stop an offense that had struggled all year. They have been more successful this season, so we had better hope we have improved in that area. Brandon Minor (332-5) had a field day against us, going for a career high 155 yards and three scores, but he has been battling injuries of late. Carlos Brown (465-4) leads the team in rushing, but Michigan is at its best when it is spreading the ball around in the running game. Vincent Smith (208-1) and Michael Shaw (181-2) have been known to get in on the action too.

While Michigan's passing game isn't highly productive, it is balanced. Martavious Odoms (22-272-1) is the leading receiver, but Greg Mathews (18-204-1), Kevin Koger (15-211-2), Junior Hemingway (13-233-2), and Darryl Stonum (12-189-1) provide balance across the board. Roy Roundtree, yes that Roy Roundtree, has produced 6 catches for 136 yards and a score.

Michigan has had some issues of late with the offensive line. The unit has given up 19 sacks on the season, and has had some trouble opening holes for the running game. This is not a hulking line like Wisconsin's last week. Four of five starters are under 300 pounds, while Stephen Schilling is the biggest guy at 304 pounds. We should have some room to operate and be disruptive with our defensive line this week.

Michigan Defense:

This is where Purdue has struggled historically. They have been unable to generate any points against the Wolverines. In the four games in which Purdue topped 20 points during this streak most of them came after game was well decided. It is not so much that Michigan has had a lights out defense in that time. It has just been that Purdue has been unable to do anything against it.

Our offensive line could have its hands full with Brandon Graham at the end position., Graham has 6.5 sacks on the season, 17.5 tackles for loss, and is generally a disruptive force in the defensive backfield. Defensive tackle Ryan Van Bergen (32 tackles, four sacks) can also cause some problems. Michigan typically goes with a 3-4 set as opposed to the 4-3's we have seen most of the year. That means faster linebackers will be on the field, but there could be more room to run.

Obi Ezeh is the most active of those linebackers, leading the team with 63 tackles. Stevie Brown (55 tackles), Jonas Mouton (53 tackles) and Craig Roh the the remaining linebackers. It is an interesting mix of youth and experience as Ezeh, Mouton, and Brown are seniors while Roh is a true freshman.

Michigan has had some problems in the secondary. Donovan Warren is a solid cornerback with three interceptions, but they are hurting from the loss of Boubacar Cissoko, who was dismissed form the team before last week's game against Illinois. Troy Woolfolk and Michael Williams man the safety positions, but neither has an interception this season.

Michigan should be more vulnerable to the running game than Wisconsin. Illinois went nuts on the ground last week, and they had no discernable running game until two weeks ago. Their pass defense has been suspect as well. If we can limit turnovers and get back to moving the ball we might have a chance.

Michigan Special Teams:

Behold Zoltan, destroyer of worlds! Zoltan Mesko, aside from having the coolest name in the Big Ten, is a pretty good punter averaging almost 45 yards per kick. It's not like we have a punt return game anyway, so we should get ready to field deep kicks.

Jason Olesnavage is a decent kicker, hitting on 8 of 9 field goals with a long of 44. Bryan Wright is actually a kickoff specialist apart from Olesnavage and Mesko. He is holding teams to about 22 yards per return. Michigan's return game itself is pretty dangerous. We all know what Odoms did to us last year. Stonum has a kickoff return for a touchdown. Also of note, Graham has a blocked punt returned for a score, but it was against Delaware State.

Intangibles:

Do I really need to point it out? The Boiled Sports guys and I discussed how a new coaching staff and new players can make a difference. They do not have the history of the 17 game losing streak on them. The truth is that it hasn't mattered. Every team we have taken up there, with different players, coaches, and philosophies, has gotten drilled for the past 43 years. I gave up two years ago when I went to the game and saw us fall behind 48-7 to a team that got worked by a 1-AA squad. This team has reached a rare level for me. I won't believe we can win there until I see it happen. I held the same attitude toward Notre Dame Stadium until 2004, but even then we had a series of close losses leading up to that win. There is no such history here.

Michigan has ownership over us on their home field rarely seen in college football. It is not that they have won 17 straight. They have done it with just two games being remotely close. Yes we have had some bad teams in this streak, but we have had some very good teams (1999, 2001, and 2003 were all in the top 15 at kickoff) get drilled in Ann Arbor. Technically in 2007 we were ranked at game time, so we have taken a ranked team in our last four trips to the Big House and been outscored 141-46. That is even with two meaningless touchdowns late in our last game.

The numbers are just not there to make me believe we can suddenly turn it around. Right now, I feel more confident about winning in any other venue in the Big Ten, maybe even the country, than I do about winning in Ann Arbor.

Keys to the Game for Purdue:

Catch the football
Limit turnovers
Limit special teams mistakes
Play against the run like we did against Oregon
Don't crap ourselves like we always do in Ann Arbor.

Wha Happened? Week Nine

RossWB — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 11:44:48 -0000

Sooo... that was an uneventful day in the Big Ten, right? A blowout here, an unexpectedly tight game there, wins by two of BHGP's favorite embattled coaches, and a flawless day of work by the league's refereeing and replay officials. Yep. Nothing to see here. Just the usual. But if you insist... here's Wha Happened.

Come to think of it: has anyone ever seen Batman and Ron Zook in the same place? HMM.

Illinois 38, Michigan 13
Not a dream, not a hoax, not an imaginary story -- Illinois really did crush a conference rival by 25 points. The same sad-sack Illini outfit that hadn't cracked 17 points in a single game against FBS competition this year scored more than that by the ten minute mark of the third quarter; then tacked on another 17 points because they were feeling frisky. Much-maligned (and deservedly so) Juice Williams had a quiet but efficient day passing the ball (8/11, 123 yards), but he took care of the ball (no turnovers) and he helped key an Illinois rushing attack that churned out 377 yards on 56 carries (Juice had 97 yards and a score on 21 attempts), numbers would that make even the potent Illinois rushing attack of 2007 envious. Jason Ford and Mikel Williams both finished with over 100 yards rushing, including a 70+ yard touchdown run by each man. This was a very nice and much-needed win for the embattled Zooker, which makes the BHGP joke writers (we pay them in collector's edition STANZI 4 HEISMANZI t-shirts) very pleased. But, hell, after the ongoing nightmare that this season has been, a win like this is a nice port in the storm; so sit back, relax, and do the Batusi, Ron -- for one night, you've earned it. Wha Happened? was all prepared to write the official obituary for the 2009 Illinois season as they became the first B10 team to clinch bowl ineligibility, but that will have to wait for at least one week.

Meanwhile, former wunderkind Tate Forcier continued his brutal October; he did go 13/23 for 257 yards, but he fumbled three times (losing two), failed to throw a touchdown pass, and failed to lead Michigan to touchdowns of any kind after the first quarter (and failed to lead them to any points whatsoever in the second half). In fact, Forcier hasn't thrown a touchdown pass since the end of the Michigan State game. Whether it's his ailing shoulder, the increasingly cold and nasty midwestern weather, or just the physical grind of Big Ten football on an undersized true freshman's body, Forcier's play has clearly taken a dip. That 4-0 start looks more and more like a mirage and with a pair of home games (against Purdue and Ohio State) sandwiched around a road game at resurgent Wisconsin, achieving more than a 6-6 record may be difficult for the LOLverines. Good thing it's a short road trip to Detroit for the Pizza! Pizza! Bowl.

Finally, a sad farewell to the gloriously-named Boubacar Cissoko, unceremoniously booted from the Michigan team earlier this week for the always-mysterious "violation of team rules" (BHGP theory: swindled Rodriguez out of seed money for City Boyz, Inc. 2.0); between this loss and the impending departure of Zoltan Mesko, Michigan is losing ground in the "totally awesome names" department. At least they still have Martavious Odoms.

Only a quarter as insane as this actual game.

Minnesota 42, Michigan State 34
If Iowa-Indiana wasn't the wildest Big 10 game of the day, then this one almost certainly takes that honor. Over 800 total yards of offense, 76 points, five touchdowns of longer than 30 yards, and, oh yeah, 17 penalties for 157 yards for Minnesota (they tacked on 9 penalties for 73 yards against Sparty; needless to say, the officials had some busy whistles). Absolute lunacy. And words can't even begin to describe how preposterous some of the touchdowns were: Minnesota opened up the scoring with a 62-yard bomb that featured Duane Bennett doing one of the best tightrope walks you'll ever see; Brandon Green followed that up by hauling in an acrobatic 37-yard score. MSU scored their first touchdown on one of the wackiest, most schoolyard-looking scramble-and-chuck-it-downfield plays. MSU then attempted to trump that by having Keshawn Martin rattle off a 93-yard kickoff return touchdown and an 84-yard rushing touchdown within a ten minute span in the third quarter. But the icing on the cake was Minnesota's clinching touchdown: Duane Bennett plucked the ball out of the air after the initial receiver, Nick Tow-Arnett, got cracked by brutal hit and coughed the ball up, then scooted 59 yards. Like I said: pre-fucking-posterous.

Meanwhile, the Iowa-Indiana game wasn't the only one that featured some questionable replay calls; moments before Minnesota's clinching touchdown, the replay booth inexplicably overturned a critical fumble call after a Minnesota receiver appeared to catch the ball, take 1-2 steps, and then get hit and fumble the ball. I have no idea what the replay official saw there to change that call. Regardless, Adam Weber had a career day -- 19/31, 416 yards, 5 TD/1 INT -- and the fact that this happened a week after he lost his safety blanket in Eric Decker seemed somehow appropriate on a thoroughly wild and woolly day of Big Ten action. A week after Ricky Stanzi made the Spartan secondary look good for 58:23, Adam Weber confirmed what we all knew to be true: they kinda suck. As for the rest of Spartans, it's hard not to look at the catastrophic opening of the game and not conclude that there was a hangover effect from the Iowa game a week ago; whether there was or not, they're 4-5 and may need to win out to guarantee themselves a bowl game (which could be tricky since they end the season against Penn State), which is not exactly how you want to follow up a 9-win campaign that finished up in the Capital One Bowl. All five of their losses have been by single digits, but close losses don't do anything but keep you up at night. But what to make of the TRY FIGHT WIN HEAVILY PENALIZED Gophers a week after losing their top offensive weapon (Decker) and nearly getting shut out in back-to-back games by Penn State and Ohio State (only a garbage-time touchdown against OSU's reserves prevented that ignominious fate)? Was this an aberration? A sign that the Gopher offense may not be quite as woeful as we thought? Considering that Weber hadn't thrown for a TD pass since the Wisconsin game 28 days ago and that he nearly doubled his season total for TD passes in one game, we lean towards the former explanation.

The Nittany Lion got moves, yo.

Penn State 34, just Northwestern 13
At halftime, jNWU was actually winning 13-10. After three quarters, the game was still tied, 13-13. Then came ~~STANZITIME~~, er, the fourth quarter and Penn State absolutely blew up, scoring touchdowns on three consecutive drives to take control of the game. Daryll Clark continued to cruise towards 1st-team All-Big Ten honors, going 22/31 for 274 yards and a touchdown; just another fine day at the office for him. Evan Royster tacked on 118 yards and a touchdown on just 15 carries. The bad news from LOLcat land is that starting quarterback and existential warrior Mike Kafka left the game with a hamstring injury, which puts into doubt his availability for the Iowa game this coming weekend. Back-up Dan Persa wasn't bad, per se (14/23, 115 yards; 14 carries, 42 yards; 0 TDs), but he didn't exactly do much, either. Once again, the jNWU running backs were a no-show: their top two leading rushers were Persa and Kafka. Actual running backs ran the ball 14 times for 33 yards. These are not exactly the proud descendants of Darnell Autry, Damian Anderson, and Tyrell Sutton.

Is there anything that muppets don't make better? Of course not.

Wisconsin 37, Purdue 0
Two weeks ago, Purdue was on top of the world after engineering a wildly improbable upset over Ohio State. They followed that up with a tidy win over a reeling Illinois team. It's safe to say the honeymoon is over now. John Clay carried the load on offense (123 yards and three touchdowns on 24 carries), a blocked punt returned for a touchdown late in the first half deflated Purdue, and the Badger defense squeezed the life out of Purdue, holding them to a measly 141 yards on 62 plays, or barely more than two yards a play. This was vintage, Alvarez-era Wisconsin football.

Honestly one of the first three returns on Youtube on a search for "new mexico state"; maybe they were just playing Ohio State in the wrong sport...

Ohio State 45, New Mexico State 0
Even this seemingly innocuous blowout is still further proof of what a thoroughly insane day it was in the Big Ten. When the fuck does Senator Sweatervest (who is now getting actual political advice from someone who knows a thing or two about moving from coach to politician) ever beat someone 45-0? Especially with an offense that, prior to the past few weeks, had been one of the most anemic offenses of the Sweatervest Era? Has Terrelle Pryor truly turned the proverbial corner? Well, let's not get too hasty -- he was just 11/23 for 135 yards and a touchdown, plus 83 yards and a touchdown on nine carries -- and New Mexico State (who, it should be noted, is not the New Mexico school with the "fists of fury" coach) does have one of the worst defenses in the nation. They also have one of the worst offenses in the nation, which is just making it a little too easy for the stout Buckeye defense; that said, anytime you can hold FBS competition to just 62 yards of total offense, well, you're doing something very, very right. Either way, Ohio State did exactly what a good team is supposed to do at home to a horrifically overmatched team: beat the everloving shit out of them.

Agony of Defeat: There Will Certainly Be Better Days

SCM — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 15:53:58 -0000

First and foremost, hats off to Penn State. They came out and executed, played mistake-free football, took advantage of Michigan's numerous errors and put this game away when they got the opportunity to. Again, when someone comes in and does that, you have to acknowledge that. That said, it's still difficult to couch a game like this... yes we were throughly outplayed and yes I was exactly right when I said this:

Looking at our defense, I'm concerned about the secondary, you're concerned about the secondary, hell all of us are downright worried about the secondary (I mean, 3rd and @#$%@# 24!!!!!).

The question was whether JoePa and company would throw rock. They didn't for the most part. They came up with a gameplan that basically put Michigan's linebackers in positions where they were in single coverage mismatches and gave Clark easy throws which to his credit he made look even easier. They saw that our secondary was the straggling wildebeest of the heard and they did what you're supposed to do to straggling wildebeests. Perfect gameplan. Stevie Brown and Obi Ezeh were victimized repeatedly without a single iota of safety help. It got to the point where I and several others near me in the stands were pointing it out a solid 5 seconds before the snap, and yet no adjustments were made. Elsewhere, Donovan Warren was giving approximately a 30 yard cushion when a screen was blatantly obvious. Penn State basically ran three plays yesterday: a counter, a WR screen where God's Gift would split wide and block a corner who was usually giving a 10 yard cushion anyway, and up-the-seem routes against linebackers. They converted on all accounts and that was all she wrote. Was Penn State a vastly better and talented team? Well in terms of their offense vs our back seven, yes. Everywhere else? Eh, not really.

The weather wasn't really cold and bad until we came out after halftime and apparently had learned nothing about what PSU planned to do and they quickly extended the lead to put pressure on the Michigan offense. Suddenly I started to notice the rain a little more at that point... go figure. Quick aside, honestly who designs ponchos with short sleeves? I'm content to be dry everywhere except from the elbow down? Really? Secondly, I would give anything for us to have punched that blocked punt into the endzone, there was still eons of time in the game and the crowd (well, allow me to rephrase, the actual fans that still remained with most of the second half to go) was dying for anything to set them on fire again. Unfortunately it was just not meant to be.

Miscellaneous

- If I was a Penn State fan, I'm certain I would've been saying angry things when my coach decided to punt from the opposing team's 33 YARDLINE, holy bejeezus. It was almost as if JoePa was saying, "Oh yeah? Top that Kirk Ferentz!"

- Boy does Daryll Clark lock on to receivers. When they're wide open against our secondary it works just fine, but the few times we did manage to actually, you know, cover he looked downright mediocre trying to go through a progression. I mean, he's clearly not Anthony Morelli, but if Ohio State manages to lock down in coverage I think it'll be a long day for Mr. Clark.

- So when is it legal to have 76 men on the field on defense? No seriously, how could any official have missed that call? That it happened on Denard's mind-blowingly-bad interception made it even worse. I have no idea where he was throwing that ball and likely neither does he, but uh, Penn State had half their team on the field still when the ball was snapped and somehow did not get flagged for it. This was the only other point in the game where I felt we were running the offense at the pace we needed to by the way.

- Oh and yes, ANOTHER "five men in the backfield" penalty on Michigan. This is insanity. Notre Dame does that on every snap, I'm not joking.

- Alabama needed two blocked FGs to get by Tennessee? Can't wait for Iowa and Alabama to lock horns in what promises to be a 2-0 game with 14 blocked kicks. You know, when everyone gets all over Boise State's case because they "didn't look impressive enough in a win" then you have to do likewise when a BCS school does the same thing. #1 team in the blogpoll? Uh, no.

- Way to go State... you were going to end the Big Ten's nightmare of having an undefeated Iowa and then you go and do that, no really, well done.

- Junior Hemingway's injury was downright ugly, right in front of our seats and though I haven't seen a replay yet, it looked horrible. He has been star-crossed since stepping on campus. Also, was Warren blocked into him or did he trip? Martavious Odoms also looked dinged and wasn't much of a factor after that opening drive. Losing Molk again really killed momentum (and yes, safety snap blur blur blur). Donovan Warren clearly tweaked something though he stayed on the field, and Tate Forcier was holding that right arm pretty gingerly several times walking off the field. Sigh.........

Offense

- So uh, what happened after that first drive fellas? Anyone? Anyone care to explain to me why we pretty much abandoned what we were doing there? I mean, that was machine-like, the pace was perfect, and Penn State was hopeless to stop it. Then we start going 5-wide and trying to keep our QBs in the pocket to make throws? This made sense in what way? I loved the two back set and quick throws, but apparently the coaching staff didn't. This team is so much better when they go into "jet mode" or whatever you want to call it where they push the pace and make short high percentage passes and zone-read runs.

- End of the first half... You simply cannot spike that ball, you cannot. Tremendous error in coaching. There was more than enough time to get set and run a play, a TD would've really been a boost heading into the locker room. Arg I was furious. The clock stopped for some reason down there several plays before, naturally we were given no explanation, but there should've been about 6 less seconds methinks. I'm sure it had the PSU faithful howling. Even if they had gotten the clock right, we would've had time to run a play into the endzone and still kick a FG if it didn't connect.

- Penn State had 18 first downs... Michigan? 17. I wouldn't have believed that at first either.

- 3rd down conversions? 3 of 15. Definitely believed that one.

- Lots of people like to say TOP doesn't matter... bull@#%, this offense needs as many attempts as possible, and when it holds the ball for all of 10 minutes in the second half, that's not enough.

- I'm going to just estimate that there were six drops that probably would've accounted for at least 80 yards out there... Usually sure handed Kevin Koger really had an off day as did Kelvin Grady. Tate (and actually Denard as well) made some great throws that the receivers just have to bring in, regardless of the rain.

- Between the drops, four* turnovers, and a vintage Jermaine Gonzalez safety we made enough self-inflicted mistakes to overcome. That asterisk is for Denard's interception which should've been a nice automatic first down for the Maize n' Blue by the by. Tate had time in the pocket, though their linebackers made a number of very solid plays on his roll-outs and improvised-hop-around-the-backfield plays. The Penn State D was solid, but they weren't wreacking havoc and disrupting what we were trying to do. Of course, you certainly can't fault a defense for doing what they were supposed to do. They made solid tackles and avoided making mistakes that let Michigan hit a home-run to get back into the game.

- It annoys me how easily we seem to lose track of the running game, Minor and Brown combing for 20 carries just is not enough. Tate having 14 rushes is just way too many. Carlos Brown's fumble was in front of the opposite endzone so I didn't see much of it, but I'm sure it was horrifyingly bad. Regardless, we abandoned the running game FAR too early in this football game... again.

- Backed up on our own goal-line we did the same thing we did at Iowa, which was a non-sensical run wide and two pocket pass attempts... that series of play calls made exactly ZERO sense.

- I'm ok with Denard Robinson getting a designated series, but this is how it should go: "Denard, we have two pass plays for you to run along with the usual compliment of running plays. Both pass plays feature one read, if that guy is not open you take off. Got it? Good, go get em." Seriously, eliminate a side of the field for him, roll him out and have him make short simple throws. That's it, period, done. Don't ask the kid to do more right now.

Defense

via www.morasclass.com

- Our secondary is in shambles. It's not a simple question of trying to cover up one weak position, and we cannot overcome it right now. I don't know what else to say.

- How did we not adjust to that screen against the soft coverage and the seem routes against linebackers?? They didn't exactly disguise either of those plays.

- Boubacar Cissoko saw the field again, and apparently thought it was a good idea to taunt the Penn State bench prior to a big 3rd down... it worked out wonderfully as they connected (AGAIN.... /Valenti) for a TD. Sigh. Not at all what we need right now.

- I continue to be awfully impressed with how well our D-line has played, Van Bergen and Roh in particular have really been tremendous surprises this season. Van Bergen made one of the better plays of the year on a Penn State third down screen that would've gone for acres of yardage if he didn't fight through three blocks to get to the ball carrier. It was a great call by Penn State and just a better play by Van Bergen. Unfortunately there weren't too many other instances of that combination.

- When Penn State's defensive players tackle someone, they don't eventually do it 4 yards after contact... Our tackling has regressed as the year has gone on. We make contact and then get dragged for extra yardage far too often.

Special Teams

- Pretty terrible kick coverage to open the second half...

- We blocked another punt, yay.

Overall

So 5-3 when many predicted a 7-5ish year (or 8-4 if you're yours truly), it's do-able, but considerably more difficult sitting here right now than it was three weeks ago. This team is undoubtedly better than last year in many ways, but they are not immune to the type of mistakes that were commonplace last season. I am concerned though that we've struggled so much in conference play so far. If Tate goes down, we're in enormous trouble.

While the Iowa game in particular was one we let slip away and the Michigan State game was a hard fought loss, this was neither. We got thumped yesterday. This is particularly concerning considering that we're now 1-3 in our last four and that "one" was, well we all know what it was. This team is in a tailspin right now. Yes we're still ridiculously young, we're still so terribly thin on defense, etc, but uh, suddenly that "house money" everyone talked about is gone. There needs to be some coaching done now to get this team where it needs to be. Where is that, you ask? It's 7-3 heading to Wisconsin. There is no excuse to drop a game to Illinois, a win there places us in a bowl and that monkey is thrown off the back. It, quite simply, is a must win. Zook is an appallingly bad coach, there's no excuse there. The Purdue game is looking tougher now than it did at any point in the last several weeks and given our inability to stop a pass, I'm more concerned about it. Frankly though, we need to start beating some teams that are above the level of MAC squads. The ND win was huge, but we haven't replicated that level of play since.

I really, really, really want to see us pound the football. We have far too much talent at running back to let them only see the football 20 times a game. Minor and Brown need to be the plow-horses for this offense right now, and there's nothing wrong with that. Tate is trying to do too much out there on the field as well. I can understand why, he started off on fire, but I think we might be trying to do too much with him. Go back and look at the gameplans from the Western and ND games, I'd simplify the offense back to those core plays and just run with it. Let Tate make the short throws and easy reads rolling out of the pocket that he's so good at and call it a day. Work in the occasional deep shot and that's your passing game. Again, Minor and Brown need to touch the ball about twice as often as they are currently.

Unfortunately I have absolutely no solutions for our defense at this time, how we ever let ourselves get into this position from a recruiting standpoint is a travesty of great magnitude.

This disappointing performance needs to be put in the rearview mirror and this team needs to get ready for the finishing stretch that starts with Illinois next Saturday. I know that there will be better days ahead, but we have some serious work to do right now to get there, and the Illinois game is a no-questions-asked must win.

GO BLUE!

Malicious Internet Interrogation With Maize-n-Brew

BSD — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 20:00:28 -0000

It's Michigan week, so you know what that means. Five days of listening to talk about "streaks" and "WE PWN PENN STATE". As always, we reached out to a Michigan blogger to come sit on the BSD hotseat, and this week our Huckleberry is Dave from Maize-n-Brew. Enjoy, and go check out Maize-n-Brew where I'll answer some questions for Dave later on.

Things started out hot for Rich's boys with that win over Notre Dame. But now they're 1-2 and almost 0-3 in conference play. How has Michigan's season compared to your expectations so far?

Not to toot my own horn too loudly, but the team is exactly where I saw it being. 5-2 heading into the Penn State game. I think the biggest challenge for Michigan fans this season hasn't been getting on the bandwagon, it's been tempering expectations. All of a sudden we've got this score-o-matic offense, and we don't know what to do with ourselves. The offense has been so good we've been willing to say "we'll outscore [the other team]" in every game, totally forgetting that our defense is just as bad as we feared it'd be going into the season. Overall, I think the coaching has been excellent. GERG has fashioned a mediocre defense out of three players (Brandon Graham, Donovan Warren, and Mike Martin), duck tape, and styrofoam. Honestly, I thought the D would be much, much worse than it's performed. Offensively, we're light years ahead of last year, but still in that learning phase. There are still a lot of mistakes on offense and the passing game went backwards the last two games. The offense is better than I thought it'd be, but the team itself is right where I predicted.

Against Iowa, Rodriguez benched Tate Forcier in favor of Denard Robinson and it looked like Forcier wasn't too happy about it. Last week against Delaware State Forcier only played one series. Is there a quarterback controversy brewing?

Mike, when did you start writing for the Detroit Free Press? There is no controversy. Forcier is the starter and got benched at the end of the Iowa game because he was awful. I completely disagree with everyone who bitched and moaned that Forcier should've been back in the game for the last series against Iowa. No. He shouldn't have. Tate was banged up. He was clearly rattled. He had a mild concussion. He was making very, very bad decisions and should've left that game with at least three picks. He needed to be benched at that point. But here's the thing...

He's a freshman. They make mistakes. Look at Tebow, McCoy, Bradford, Henne, Young, or Troy Smith. I'm not comparing Tate to these guys, but I'm naming them to prove a point. As freshmen these uber-quarterbacks made game-costing mistakes. Why? Becuase they're freshmen. Matt Barkley's going to gack one up shortly too. A benching is part of the learning curve and I expect Tate to play much better at home than under the lights at Kinnick. Kinnick does strange things to visiting quarterbacks.. cough... Daryll Clark.... cough.... So, there's really nothing to read into Tate sitting. He needed a week to rest his shoulder. Frankly, Robinson needed the reps because if Tate goes down, Denard's gotta go in. Unless Robinson suddenly, and unexpectedly, becomes a polished passer he's going to be used in a back-up and change of pace role. Tate is the unquestioned starter.

Last year's game between these teams introduced MINOR RAGE into our vocabulary. But Brandon Minor has been banged up off and on this year. Is he healthy for this game? And are there any other injuries of note?

Minor should start this game and is, by all accounts, as healthy as he's been since fall camp started. Sitting the last few games and limited practice has allowed his injured ankle to heal (at least Michigan fans hope so). That's good news for us, bad for you. Against Iowa, Minor had plenty of power and steamrolled several Hawkeye defenders en route to an excellent, yet limited game. As with all ankle injuries, you're fine until you have to make a cut. That was the big difference two weeks ago, he couldn't really do that. Two more weeks to heal? I think he'll be cutting fine and will be one of the keys to the game. Likewise, Carlos Brown should be back in the backfield along side Minor. Brown suffered a concussion in practice two weeks ago and should be fine for Saturday's game. Another huge return will be Center David Molk, who has been ouot since the Indiana game after suffering a broken foot against EMU. Molk is the heart and soul of our offensive line, so if he's able to play, it'll be a huge boost for the team. The downside is he's had a week to practice, so he might not be at 100%. On the defensive side of the ball, Michigan will again be without sophomore cornerback Boubacar Cissoko who has been suspended indefinitely for various violations of team rules (including academics). Rodrgiuez has said that the team is monitoring Cissoko, and it is up to him whether he's going to put in the work to get back on the field.

That Michigan defense...I dunno, man. They made Jimmy Clausen look like a Heisman contender. And Indiana rushed for almost 200 yards. Is it Greg Robinson and the coaching scheme? Is it an issue of talent level? Is it injuries? What does Michigan have to do to get better?

It's a talent issue. Michigan is simply barren at linebacker and empty in the secondary after Warren. Personally, as stated previously, I think GERG has done an excellent job with this group. Look at the defensive line. I thought we were toast at DT after Mike Martin, and GERG has turned Greg Banks and Renaldo Sagesse into prominent contributors. Look at Stevie Brown, a year removed from being the player most likely to allow a 70 yard touchdown, he's our best linebacker and should at least get consideration for All Big Ten Honorable mention. Michigan's defense plays very hard and is very young, but the youth in the secondary and the constant stream of mistakes out of veterans Obi Ezeh and Jonas Mouton (who really, really should be better than he's playing and I can't figure out why he isn't) at linebacker are consistenly breaking down on third and long. Hence, the issues on D. If you're looking for an achilles, it's linebackers or safeties covering Tight Ends. Iowa smoked us on that. Coverage on the play fake or the TE going into the flats has been terrible, and it's just a reaction thing. The players have to identify that better and simply haven't. Better players over the next few years will fix that, but it's something Michigan fans just have to deal with this season and next.

I'm assuming you've watched a Penn State game or two this year. Where do you think the Wolverines can exploit them?

You know, I'm not really sure on this one. I feel the Penn State secondary isn't quite up to snuff and the DE's are a tad weaker than they've been in recent years. Plus, if Sean Lee's out this week, bonus. In the running game I think Michigan has to attack the edges quickly and someone has to get out on Bowman immediately. Michigan possesses a quick, strong and athletic offensive line, so I think they can attack the edges with the read option. Up the gut? Not so much. I was very impressed by PSU's Defensive Tackles. In the passing game, I see a lot of Tight End Kevin Koger both as a viable pass option and as a decoy. Of the linebacking group, I'm not sure who will be covering him. But with Koger in the pattern or as a decoy/blocker it means one less linebacker at the edge to deal with. I think Koger is probably the #2 or #3 TE in the conference pass catching and blocking, so he'll play a big role. Next, look for Stonum and Hemingway to get deep on Penn State's corners and safeties. That'll open things up in the middle and may, by themselves, be open for some deep bombs.

I'm sure you're wondering why I haven't said "w00t we'llz 0wnz0rz da PSU Offensive Line!" Well, our pass rush hasn't been great outside of Brandon Graham and teams have been running very, very well against us. So, I think that match up is a push.

On the flip side, what scares you to death about this Penn State team?

The Linebackers, the Defensive Tackles and Evan Royster. Really. I've never been a big fan of Daryll Clark's. Mostly because he's shown a propensity for gacking up games against good competition. Interceptions. Fumbles. Bad reads. But Royster scares the shit out of me. On defense, Michigan's running game depends on neutralizing the center of the Defensive front and getting to the backers. I just don't see that happening consistently against Bowman and company. We'll have some great gainers, but I'll be surprised if Michigan can do it consistently.

Care to make a prediction? The Nittany Lions of BSD could use some red meat.

mmmmm..... red meat..... That makes me hungry. Think I'll order a cheese steak from Mr. Spots with chili cheese fries. mmmmmm..... What were we talking about? Oh yeah. Predictions. Back in May I predicted this one to be a Penn State victory. On paper, it should be. But Michigan's glorified scrimage against Delaware State gave the Wolverines an extra week of practice and allowed their starters to get healthy. Something Michigan was not able to do in previous years. I still hate the concept of a D1-AA opponent anywhere on the schedule, but the timing of the "bye" is really beneficial to Michigan this year. I think Michigan wins this in a close game. I could be wrong, probably am, but a year removed from 3-9 and sitting at 5-2, I'm playing with house money.

The Big Ten at the Midpoint (Part 1 of 3)

Bama Hawkeye — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 07:45:50 -0000

We've made it through six weeks of the college football season. For everyone but Illinois (who moved a non-conference game to the end of their schedule), we're halfway home. Here at The Rivalry, Esq., it's a perfect time to step back and assess what we have seen so far. So, in 11 questions, let's analyze what we know about the Big Ten.

The Rivalry, Esq. asks:

What one Big Ten player would you import onto the Michigan Wolverines' roster to give them the best chance of winning the Big Ten next year?

Graham Filler Answers:

A decent safety would instantly change the complexion of the Wolverine defense. Michigan's secondary is injured, inexperienced, and just lost Boubacar Cissoko to suspention. His backup, JT Floyd, was ineffective, forcing Greg Robinson to move safety Troy Woolfolk to cornerback. The Wolverines are giving up the third most passing yards in the Big Ten, having been torched by Jimmy Clausen, Ben Chappell, and most recently Ricky Stanzi. I would remedy this situation by leaving Woolfolk and Donovan Warren at the corners and importing Kurt Coleman from OSU onto the Michigan team. Coleman is a ballhawking, hard hitting strong safety who would give Michigan a veteran presence in the middle of their secondary and stop the big plays that killed them against Iowa.

Here's Part II and Part III of the midpoint assessment.

The Rivalry, Esq. asks:

What team has been the biggest disappointment this season?

Jerdogg1 Answers:

Without question it has to be Illinois. In fact, anybody who would answer this question differently probably deserves a quick kick to the seeds. This very blog predicted that the Illini would be an 8 or 9 win team, and go to play Georgia in the Outback bowl. The fact is this team is not good. The early line is that they are favored over the Hoosiers this weekend by a couple of points, and I would have to question why? The Illini SHOULD have more talent than the Hoosiers, but Indiana has played better than Illinois this season. Ron Zook is a good recruiter, but that might be where his talent stops.

The Rivalry, Esq. Asks:

What team has been the most pleasant surprise this season?

HMLee Answers:

I may get some flak for writing this, since I am the quasi-Wisconsin writer around these parts, but I have to go with the Badgers. Sure, arguments can be made for Iowa and Michigan. But, let's be honest here, while we may not have expected (save for perhaps Bama Hawkeye) Iowa to be 6-0 right now, we all knew they'd be good this year. Michigan, of course, came out of nowhere when most of us expected them to be enjoying the Rotel at the bottom of the conference. Yet, lately it seems as though Forcier has turned back into a freshman pumpkin, and it looks like they'll realistically be a 7-5 team going into bowl season. Wisconsin, on the other hand, realistically could be 10-2, or 11-1 with a well placed upset going into the bowls.

This, to me, qualifies as the most pleasant surprise given the surrounding circumstances. Many a Wisconsin fan had been at least considering calling for Bielema's head after last year, especially if we had another abysmal season. Many of us were questioning the selection of him as successor to Alvarez and wondering if he could win games when relying on his own recruits instead of those he inherited with his head coaching title. Beyond the coaching, there were questions a plenty about a QB who seemed like a career backup and a defense that was comprised largely of freshman and sophomores. Wisconsin is of course a few stupid mistakes away from being that 7-5 team again, but as we are only talking about the first half here, they are my most pleasant surprise of this season.

The Rivalry, Esq. asks:

How does Ohio State's defense, with all those new faces, stack up with some of the wrecking crews that the Buckeyes have had this decade?

Law Buckeye Answers:

While every Ohio State defense since the holy grail unit of 2002 has played smart, and fundamentally solid football under the "bend but not break" banner, not all have possessed the core grit, and swarming intensity of this year's squad. Let's start by considering how the other defenses this decade stack up:

9. 2000

8. 2004

7. 2001

6. 2008

5. 2007

4. 2005

3. 2003

2. 2006

1. 2002

My gut feeling is that there's been two high points this decade (2002-2003 and 2005-2006) with relative re-loading periods in between. I think we're on the cusp of another summit in 2009 and 2010.

Some readers might be surprised that I put the 2007 and 2008 classes as low as I do considering they were populated by household names like James Laurinaitis, Marcus Freeman, and Malcolm Jenkins. While those units had textbook form, I've always felt they lacked the earnestness and aggressiveness of the 2005 Bobby Carpenter/A.J. Hawk squad. For the last two seasons, our defense has played to not get beat, rather than to smother, intimidate, and wreck. This is one of the reasons I think they struggled against spread offenses.

This year feels like a return to 2005. Preseason no-names like Brian Rolle and Adam Spitler are flying all over the field, popping pads, and jumping routes. Arguably the deepest defensive line of the decade is mangling blockers at the line of scrimmage, twisting, contorting, and having its way with centers, guards, and tackles. (If you need any proof of this go back and look at what they did to USC, the "best" offensive line in the country). Unlike the 2007/2008 classes, this year's troops are regularly getting pressure without having to blitz, and are forcing turnovers in key game situations (think early in the Illinois game, and all day against Wisconsin).

This defense just might be the meanest and fastest of the decade, but to compete with the star spangled units of 2006, and 2002 it needs an offense that's proficient enough to keep it off the field, and keep its legs fresh for late game stands.

If that offense materializes by 2010, the unit is primed to end the decade on a high note.

The Rivalry, Esq. Asks:

What was the defining moment of the first half of the 2009 season?

Bama Hawkeye Answers:

With a 10-5 lead over Iowa in the 4th Quarter, Penn State lined up to punt on a 4th and 3 from near midfield. Iowa played it cautious and had a "Punt Safe" coverage in place. There was one player assigned to catch the punt, nine players assigned to play defense against a possible fake, and one player assigned to rush the punter. Luckily for Iowa, Adrian Clayborn was the player assigned to rush. He made an inside move on blocker Nick Sukay, extended his giant, bear-like paws and swatted the punt of Jeremy Boone. Blessed with a perfect carom, Clayborn scooped up the punt and strode 53 yards into the endzone. 11-10 Iowa. Penn State would not lead again.

That play did more than just win the game for the Hawkeyes. It shattered the preconceived notion that the entire Big Ten season could be boiled down to the date in November when Ohio State traveled to Happy Valley to face the Nittany Lions. Suddenly, the league race looked a whole lot more open. This wasn't going to be the two team race that we had las year.

Now, Iowa could lose their next two games and make their Penn State victory moot. But today, at the halfway point, no moment looms larger than the instant in which Adrian Clayborn decided that Iowa would contend for the Big Ten title too.

Preview: Michigan State vs. Michigan

LVS — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 18:35:20 -0000

Rawk music, man. Rawk.

Your MICHIGAN STATE SPARTANS vs. the MICHIGAN WOLVERINES
SPARTAN STADIUM, EAST LANSING, MICHIGAN
NOON, BIG TEN NETWORK
WEATHER: 50 DEGREES, 50% CHANCE OF RAIN

So, I suppose this is where The Great Redemption Tour begins. We were hoping/expecting a better effort at Wisconsin, and that was shot to hell by the second quarter. So, will the team (defense, really) show up this week? I've talked about the "crossroads" idea in this space for the past two weeks; it was important for the Notre Dame game, and it was even more important last week. But, here it is: win tomorrow, and with games against seemingly-awful Illinois and Northwestern looming, we have a great chance to be 3-1 in Big Ten play heading into the Iowa game. Lose, and it's nearly impossible to concoct a scenario where we even make the freakin' Motor City Bowl. That's what's on the line.

But, apart from the long-view considerations, it'd be a lie to deny that this game means more than most. Of course I want our guys to demolish Michigan tomorrow. We haven't had a winning streak against the Wolverines in more than 40 years. How sweet would that be? And it's absolutely a winnable game: Michigan has an explosive offense but quite possibly the worst (non-Montana State) defense we'll face all season. We can outscore them, but we'll have to show a hell of a lot more moxie and resolve than we've shown the past three weeks. But if our guys can't be motivated for this game, under these circumstances, well HEY LOOK BASKETBALL SEASON STARTS SOON!

---

A legitimate argument can be made that Michigan should have lost to Indiana last week. Michigan was outgained, lost the turnover battle, and would have lost had it not been for Indiana repeatedly settling for field goals instead of touchdowns. (Of course, you can give the Wolverine defense some credit for that, as well.) Previously, as we all know, they won a roller coaster game against Notre Dame wherein they also were outgained. So, this is clearly not an invincible Michigan team, although there's certainly a lot to be said for making big plays at the right time (winning late touchdown drives against ND and Indiana, the quasi-interception last week, etc.). It's something we were tremendous at last season and have been failerrific at so far this one.

WHEN MICHIGAN STATE IS ON DEFENSE: While it would have been difficult not to improve on their 2008 horror show, this year's Michigan offense much more closely approximates what Wolverine fans expected to get with Rich Rodriguez: an often-dominating running attack that nonetheless bears no resemblance to the Carr/Moeller/Schembechler/Crisler/Yost power running games of yore. Michigan will take very few snaps (if any) from under center, and once their quarterback receives the ball, speed, misdirection, and variety are key.

If you've recently eaten your lunch, don't watch.

Michigan has 961 rushing yards and 12 rushing touchdowns on the season so far, compared with 1771 and 17 for the entirety of last season; in this case, stats don't lie. This is an excellent rushing team. Brandon Minor and Carlos Brown are Michigan's primary running backs; in a nutshell, Minor is the more punishing runner of the two, while, as you can see above, Brown is, uh, fast. Maize 'n Brew has been particulary impressed by Brown:

Carlos Brown should never, ever, ever leave the field. Ever. He is by far Michigan's best and most effective back right now. He's showing us a cut back ability I never knew he had. He's running with authority, carrying tacklers for an extra five yards. He's breaking away from everyone. He's our best pass catcher out of the backfield. Never take him out. Ever.

As mentioned, Brown has also shown ability as a receiver: 6 catches for 111 yards (a very impressive 18.5 yards per catch, for a running back no less) and a touchdown already this season.

I'm also concerned about the weird shakeups going on with our defensive line. Blake Treadwell (ok) and Dion Sims (what?) are possible new additions to the d-line this week; I understand that given how things have transpired over the first three games, a change is in order. But seriously, this level of shake-up right before a big game against a team with a dominating rushing attack is not. a. good. thing. Our rush defense's performance against Wisconsin was encouraging to the extent that there were no home runs, but quite discouraging in the sense that, seemingly, whenever they needed yards, they got them. Our rush defense is still better than the pass defense, but I fear that this is a mismatch in Michigan's favor.

Pass offense for Michigan is a huge upgrade over last season, if nothing else, as the FORCIER = ACCURACY bit has at least somewhat been proven to be true. Forcier is completing 62% of his passes -- unspectacular but solid -- and has 7 touchdowns against only 2 interceptions. (One of the interceptions against Indiana was particularly bad.) But Michigan fans are relatively impressed, even by his less impressive performances:

Well, if you were expecting a game where Tate truly played like a freshman, this was it. Even so, he played like a senior leading two critical scoring drives in the fourth quarter. You take the bad with the good sometimes, and dammit, the good keeps prevailing. [ . . . ]

The Kid isn't perfect, but he is really, really good. One thing that I especially liked is that he used his safety valve when the home run wasn't available. The biggest thing he's gotta work on is realizing he's not the most athletic guy on the field anymore, and getting rid of the ball rather than running around like a chicken with his head cut off. It'll come with time, but overall, even though the middle of the game was kinda meh, a good start and finish for Forcier.

I'm completely sure that Forcier will be able to execute the quick slants and the outs that Wisconsin was repeatedly able to use to good effect. However, he is a freshman, and one whose first start on the road is against a major rival. He made mistakes against Indiana and he's going to make mistakes against us; the key will be capitalizing on those mistakes. Our secondary has only two interceptions this season: one was on a terrible throw by Dan LeFevour, and the second was an end-of-the-half Hail Mary by Notre Dame. I'm sure that Mike Valenti won't mind if I appropriate his mantra: our guys need to MAKE PLAYS.

Michigan's wide receivers are solid but unexceptional, and range from the speedy-but-slightly-inept (Darryl Stonum) to the shifty slot guys (Kelvin Grady and Martavious Odoms) to the seemingly-underused outside receiver whom I still have nightmares of gashing us with 40 yard fly rountes (Junior Hemingway). Perhaps the guy I'm most concerned about is Kevin Koger--given the way David Garrett carved us up last week, I'll be concerned about tight ends for the rest of the year. But Koger has shown a penchant for catching everything thrown his way. I expect him to have at least one touchdown. (Late edit: mgoblog agrees with me:)

Given the tendency of the MSU linebackers to suck up against the run and the absolute field day UW tight ends had against Michigan State, this might be the game in which Kevin Koger goes nuts

I don't know what to say about our secondary which hasn't already been said. They're not good. Might as well give Johnny Adams a whirl; how much worse can it get? In other news, getting some pressure on Forcier may be possible due to injuries on Michigan's offensive line: they've struggled particularly on the right side of the line and HOORAY that's where Trevor Anderson lines up. Fingers crossed.

Finally, Denard Robinson will obviously play some at quarterback for Michigan. When he's in the game, use everyone necessary to spy him; he's absurd with his feet but will not beat us passing the ball.

WHEN MICHIGAN STATE IS ON OFFENSE: Thankfully, it will be playing against a very poor Michigan defense. Said Brian after the Eastern Michigan game:

The team is basically what we thought it was. If you want to load up against it and grind down the field you'll have success doing it, though I wonder if teams will manage to score a lot of touchdowns with that sort of approach. Michigan's going to bend a lot; hopefully they won't break.

Greg Robinson is busy installing all sorts of different stuff and slants and various games to cover up for the fact that he's got no depth, two seniors, and three walk-ons contributing. I think we're going to see a lot of instances where the games work and Michigan swarms something and a lot of instances where Michigan gets caught and gashed. There are places to attack this defense, and the safeties are going to have to do a lot of cleanup in Big Ten play.

Is there any upside for these guys? Maybe. It is a new system so Michigan is behind mentally and should improve more than veteran units whose failings are more likely to be physical shortcomings than mental errors. Look at Eastern's long touchdown drive: mental error after mental error. If Michigan can fix those things—or, more conservatively, mitigate them—they appear to have the horsepower to be completely mediocre. Again: getting Ezeh and Mouton up to a level where they are decent is the key to the defense's season.

Of course, we haven't proven the ability to grind anyone down thus far. I suppose that if it's going to happen at all, it could happen this week, as Michigan's rush defense is nothing to write home about: 69th in the country at the moment. (But then again, our rush offense is 86th in the country, and that's having played against 3 crappy rush defenses and one mediocre one.) Based on last week's performances, you'd figure that Caper and Winston will pretty much be option 1 and 1A, but they should be strictly be used as a change of pace. (If it rains hard and we can't throw the ball, we're going to lose.)

So, essentially, this is the easiest preview ever. We as MSU fans, should want 2 things from our offense:

Kirk Cousins throwing . . .
. . . to whomever's not being covered by Donovan Warren.

No need to rehash the Cousins/Nichol thing at this point: every Friday night, I say a little prayer that ~~Nichol~~ Cousins will play the whole game; every Saturday, I have a corresponding crisis of faith.

But as to the Donovan Warren thing: yeah, given our depth at wide receiver, we should just write off whomever he's covering and go elsewhere. The major thing being lost in all the discussion of the game-ending-interception-that-maybe-wasn't against Indiana is, why were they throwing at Warren in the first place? Michigan's secondary is otherwise terrible:

Whatever lingering hopes you had that the corner spot opposite Warren could turn into a non-liability should be put in the corner and told to be quiet for a while. JT Floyd did better than I thought he did live but still remains a timid redshirt freshman who transparently lacks the speed to be an elite corner. Michigan is going to have to cover up for him. Kovacs is okay but really slow.

Not mentioned in that blurb is that JT Floyd was only getting playing time because Boubacar Cissoko spent the first three games of the season throwing his name into the "WORST MICHIGAN CORNERBACK EVARRR" discussion. Two of Cunningham, Dell, and White will be matched against inferior defensive players. Throw the ball to them, Kirk.

As far as I can tell, only two things will be able to derail our passing game. 1) The weather. Dammit, the weather. 2) If Michigan is able to get lots of pressure on Cousins/Nichol. And, it's possible: Brandon Graham utterly pwn3d the right side of our line last year, and this year's line is obviously banged up:

Starting left guard Joel Foreman didn't play against the Badgers because of an ankle injury. Tackle J'Michael Deane injured his leg earlier this season and also didn't play. Joel Nitchman, a starting center, moved to guard at Wisconsin, while John Stipek once again played center to help fill a void.

Foreman should return to the starting lineup on Saturday, which should be a big boost for the team. In any event, our pass blocking was generally very good in the first three games of the season, but not so much against Wisconsin. Given Michigan's struggles against the pass, I wouldn't be surprised if they'll abandon trying to contain us in the secondary and instead send the house with regularity in the hopes of shutting down the pass that way. (Of course, if they do that, it would behoove us to try to throw screens to Caper, and get tight ends involved with with quick go routes and so forth)

FINAL PREDICTION: Bleh. I felt good about the last two weeks, and I don't about this one, although I'll admit that even after last year's triumph, I still have a mental block regarding us being successful against Michigan. I do think that the coaching staff's relentless focus on this game will help out; last year, we were clearly prepared to play Michigan, as we did a tremendous job of timing their snaps, taking away their preferred wheel routes, and generally calling a pitch-perfect defensive game. I'd love to believe that we can do that again, but we've seen nothing so far to indicate that we can do it. Furthermore, Michigan runs the type of non-traditional spread offense which we've n ever done well against. The weather forecast doesn't make me feel any better. When I talked to Brian earlier this week, I said 41-38 Michigan; I don't think it'll be quite that high scoring, but I still think the general idea's right. 34-31 Michigan.

I beg you to talk me out of this prediction in the comments.

Matchup of the Week: Michigan State Offense v. Michigan Defense

grahamfiller10 — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 04:52:37 -0000

Surprisingly, 60% of you picked Michigan to beat Michigan State this week. I figured three factors would push many onto the Spartan bandwagon -

Michigan showed it's youth and inexperience last Saturday, almost losing to Indiana at home.
The Spartans, picked to finish third in the conference, are sure to rebound and what better time to do it than at home in the "Super Bowl" for the state of Michigan?
The Wolverine defense is a sieve, one that features low grade secondary and linebacker play. The MSU offense leads the conference in total yards and passing yards per game, thanks to the efforts of Kirk Cousins and some talented wide receivers. You do the math.

So I wanted to highlight what I see as the most important matchup come Saturday: Michigan's various formations against the effective passing attack of Mark Dantonio's Spartans.

My friend threw out a theory of his the other day and it's worth some discussion. He believes that offenses have the potential to improve more throughout the season, while defenses are more "you get what you see." His theory centers around the fact that offenses revolve around timing routes and precise reads, while defenses are simply athletes reacting as quickly as possible to the opposing squads attack. If the offense is bad early in the season, it can improve as the timing becomes more precise. If the defense is bad, that probably means you don't have the athletes or the training. In his mind, game time and practice repetitions help a quarterback more than, let's say, defensive backs who see the same thing each week.

My friend is a Michigan fan and connected this theory to Saturday's game, pessimistically believing that Michigan is somewhat plateaued on the defensive side of the ball, while the Spartans and young Cousins can only improve.

Obviously broad theories hold little weight, but it's worth discussion.

Michigan State's Ace Formation

Michigan State's Basic Shotgun Formation

Really nothing groundbreaking here, except for my exceptionally bad Microsoft Paint work. Cousins (#8) throws effectively from both under center or from the shotgun, but the Spartans throw more from shotgun. The favorite routes are: outs and comebacks to Blair White(#25), sit downs and deep middles to Dell (#2), and crossing routes to Cunnningham (#3) and Keshawn Martin. Cousins, who I named the second best quarterback in the Big Ten, throws a great football but struggles when teams drop linebackers into coverage.

The Spartans are bound to run early to test the shaky Michigan defense, with Caulton Ray, Larry Caper, and Glenn Winston getting the bulk of the carries. During film study this week, the Wolverines will quickly learn these two basic points about the MSU run game:

The Spartans cannot run from the shotgun one back set. They are getting no push from the front 5 and the backs aren't finding holes without a fullback to guide.
Glenn Winston is a pounder. If he gets past the LOS, his size and angry running style gets him extra yards. He's got the same body as O.J. Simpson (6'1'', 215), but a shorter rap sheet. But he won't be in to block on third down and he won't run from shotgun.

Michigan Defensive Formations and Personnel

On the MGo defensive UFR for this week, Brian noted that Michigan ran almost every combination of defense formation possible...3-4, 4-4. 4-3, 3-3-5. Since I don't have the time to draw up each of those, here is what we've learned about the Michigan defense after four weeks of undefeated play.

Michigan has one very good corner, Donovan Warren, and two very bad corners, JT Floyd and Boubacar Cissoko. Cissoko was the guy torched by Jimmy Clausen and Michael Floyd for 540 yards and 12 touchdowns. After getting lit up by Indiana, Booby got benched for Floyd, a hard working but slow freshman. Floyd and Cissoko have been allowing the short 5-8 yard passes all year, which is a bad sign because Michigan State runs these routes extremely well.

The Wolverine D-Line has steadily improved. Teams absolutely must double team DE Brandon Graham, while DT Mike Martin has been solid since the Notre Dame game.

The LB corps has not shown any chutzpah in slowing opposing offenses. Notre Dame and Indiana put up almost 500 yards each against Michigan as the linebackers took bad tackling angles and got blocked out of plays constantly.

Well, What The Hell Is Going To Happen Saturday?

In a perfect world, Michigan would follow the path shown by the Wisconsin D, who pressed the Spartan receivers and dropped linebackers into a deeper zone coverage. This flustered Cousins early and led to interceptions. The only reason the Badgers were able to do this was because they didn't fear the MSU run game. The linebackers could afford to eyeball the running back and then waltz backwards into the secondary.

On a realistic note, Greg Robinson will probably continue his "bend but don't break" defense (H/T MaizeandBrew) to protect Floyd/Cissy from giving up big plays to Dell, Cunningham, and Martin. Also, if the Wolverine LB's are continuously matched up with with crossing wide receivers, bad things will probably befall Robinson and co.

If the run game and the underneath routes are bottled up, it's going to be a happy day in Ann Arbor. If Cousins gets time to hit White and Dell over and over, the Harrison Roadhouse will be rocking. Either way, it'll be a joy to watch the chess match between an excellent sophomore QB and Greg Robinson.

Unit by Unit: Breaking Down Michigan Football's Defense After Its Win Over Indiana

Maize n Brew Dave — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 17:30:16 -0000

Time for the second part of our Michigan Indiana Unit by Unit breakdown. Each week we take a hard look at the players and the coaches for each particular unit on the team, and bring them in for a pat on the back or a wag of the finger. After we've looked at each position, we'll give you a final wrap on the team's play on Offense and Defense (Special Teams too!). If you're looking for more detail, game bullets are here, the wrap up is here, the boxscore is here, the general AP recap is here, and the Unit by Unit Breakdown of the Offense is here. If you're looking to peruse the Michigan Official photos from the game, check out this. There are the links, so now let's take a good hard look at....

The Defense

He really could be yelling anything. Photo via John T. Greilick Detroit News.com

When anyone gives up 467 yards to Indiana, they should be concerned. When it's a young Michigan team who really needs its Defense to step up and keep a team below 30 points a game, it could be cause for alarm. However, with six trips inside the red zone, Indiana came away with 4 field goals and just one touchdown. On one hand, two of those field goals came on drives that totaled 34 yards. On the other, Indiana maintained drives of 80, 67, 52, and 70 yards and produced two touchdowns and a pair of field goals. Oh. And the defense gave up an 85 yard touchdown run. It was an odd, odd day. Michigan actually looked truly competent for most of the day, but made some horrible mistakes that cost them yardage at inopportune times. Deficiencies in the Secondary and at Linebacker continue to be exposed while the Defensive Line continues to grow and gain strength and depth. On second glance, the game wasn't nearly as bad as I thought, but it still wasn't good. Hopefully this will help to answer some of your questions and maybe allow you to throw out the brick you've stashed by the TV before you chuck it through the tube this Saturday by offering some reassurance that things might actually be okay in the long run

The Defensive Line

via John T. Greilick Detroit News.com

Hands down the best unit on the defense against Indiana. It wasn't even close. Despite getting just a single sack, I thought the line had one of it's stronger games. I was impressed to see the diversity of names up at the line. Brandon Graham, Ryan Van Bergen, Mike Martin, and Craig Roh all started, but Greg Banks, Renaldo Sagesse, and Brandon Herron all saw playing time. Where the defensive line depth was a serious cause for concern going into the season, a quarter of the way through, it's turning out to be one of our deepest units. I can't believe I'm typing that either. What Robinson has done with this unit borders on amazing. They're not world beaters yet, but they're not the gaping hole feared we might find. In fact, they're actually pretty good.

Brandon Graham was in Ben Chappell's face all day long. Usually double teamed, Graham would shed one or both of the blockers to either disrupt the play or make the tackle at or behind the line of scrimmage. He planted Chappell a milisecond after the QB released the ball on several occasions and was generally stout in the running game. There were, however, times that Indiana used his over aggressiveness to their advantage, and ran behind him. Even so, it's hard to find fault in his game. Graham racked up 6 tackles on the day and 1.5 of them of loss, a good number for a safety, let alone a lineman. All of that despite being blatantly held in every game so far. Regardless, he's still getting pressure. When his sacks start to come, they're going to come in bunches.

On the interior, it was a quiet day. Mike Martin, Greg Banks and Renaldo Sagesse all played well, with Martin leading the way. Martin was stout all day, and managed to shed the double teams for the occasional penetration into the backfield. But for the most part, with Indiana running to the corners or throwing on three step drops, his presence was largely in support. I was surprised to see Banks play as much as he has and be as effective in the middle as he has. Sagesse was only in for a handful of downs and didn't do anything to make me notice him. I point this out because Indiana spent the majority of their day running directly behind their left tackle and guard. They didn't seem afraid to run directly at Graham, though they did double him when they went his direction. The point is they avoided Martin like the plague.

(more after the Jump.......)

Ryan Van Bergen on the other hand, well, he had an interesting day. He was tipping passes, dropping into coverage, stuffing the run, missing a crucial assignment (or so he says), then singlehandedly destroying an Indiana drive. RVB is really a jack of all trades for Greg Robinson and his staff. They dropped him into coverage on the goal line successfully. They send him after the QB and he gets a sack at two PBUs. They tell him to stack the line, he ends up with six tackles. RVB was active most of the game, but seemed to disappear in terms of results for long stretches. Then he got mad. He got us the ball.

Outside, Craig Roh (mostly) and Brandon Herron (some) had an okay day. Roh continues to use his speed to get into the opposing backfield, but sometimes overruns or over pursues a tad. In my notes I only mention Roh and Herron twice, however, I know that Roh dropped off into coverage relatively well, and Herron made some nice stops in run support.

Overall, it was a good day from the line, but I am concerned about some of the cavernous holes that opened up on the right side of the defensive front. Indiana cleared a couple of pretty big holes for their backs to run through, so I'm sure there's work to be done. Of course, those holes are supposed to be filled by linebackers so...

The Linebackers

via David Guralnick Detroit News.com

Yeah. Where do I go with this one? Let's be honest, anyone not named Stevie Brown has been a little bit (sometimes a lot) of a disappointment. Over the last four weeks the play of the linebackers has broken down into a couple of steady themes. Ezeh and Mouton are not good in pass coverage. Brown is still a little too small for the position. Ezeh doesn't attack the ball carrier and lets the action come to him. Mouton has horrible angles in pursuit and attack. Apply these tenants to any game this season. They'll explain the linebacker play perfectly.

If there's a caveat, it's this: Stevie Brown never should've been a safety. He should've been a linebacker from day one. Since the first game of the season I think it's safe to say the Brown has been Michigan's best linebacker. He's excellent in pass coverage (never in a million, billion years did I ever think I'd say that). He's aggressive at the point of attack and drives into the guy he's tackling. He's wrapping up his tackles and driving MFers to the dirt. He's fast sideline to sideline. Finally, he's brought some stability to a unit that otherwise would probably be an unmitigated disaster without him. I'll give Robinson credit, Brown's emergence as our best linebacker is the single most impressive thing he's done with any one player on this defense. I thought Stevie was excellent on Saturday and shed blockers well and got after the QB and running backs as well as any Michigan linebacker since David Harris' departure.

Jonas Mouton's day was a little more difficult to figure out. It seems he alternates great plays with bad ones from time to time, but has stretches of good play that vary as the game goes on. I'm not an authority on schemes and assignments, so I can only comment on what I see from the plays that are made, but more often than not Mouton is in the right place to make a play. Sometimes he does, sometimes he doesn't. Mouton's biggest weakness right now seems to be his angles. Rewatching the game, when Mouton is pursuing at an angle or covering in one, he's usually off target. His pass defense also seems shaky. In zone and man, Mouton didn't look good, which is weird to say about a guy who used to be a safety. Both Mouton and Ezeh had an awful time adjusting to simple crossing routes by Indiana's big n' slow receivers and tight ends. On the other hand, Mouton was fairly solid in run support. When he can run straight line at someone, oh baby. Mouton made several good run support tackles at or behind the line of scrimmage. Looking at his 11 tackles (5 solo, 6 assists), I was surprised he only had .5 tackles for loss. He also looked great applying pressure on the blitz. Still, his angles on the option looks were atrocious and I tagged him for mistakes on both early Indiana touchdowns. Then on one of Indiana's FG drvies in the redzone he makes up for it by reading the play properly and tagging the QB. It was a mixed bag, but this was one of his better games this season. He's not great, or really even good, right not. He's passable with the potential to be good. I'm not going to go so far as to label his season a flop or a regression, or anything like that. I just don't think he was that good last season, and is still playing like a guy that's learning his position. He showed some good things on Saturday. He's getting away from arm tackles and is made some authoritative stops. But he's got to be better in pass coverage and in attack for this defense to get better.

As for Ezeh, he wasn't good against Indiana. The boxscore has him at ten tackles, but I think that's generous. Very generous. As stated above and in previous Unit by Unit wrap ups, Ezeh has a nasty habit of letting contact come to him. As a result, when he makes a solo tackle the RB, QB, TE or WR drags him for another 3 yards. This is not a good thing. Every time I mentioned Ezeh in my notes it was not for a good reason. On one of the redzone touchdowns and the 85 yard run, I noted that Ezeh allowed himself to get sealed off by the linemen without much resistance. In both cases he was late reacting to the play. The place where he's most effective is rushing the passer, something he really wasn't able to do as much because Robinson was sending Jordan Kovacs on safety blitzes most of the day to cover up for his lack of coverage speed. Kind of a no win for Ezeh. As a result of Kovacs at the line, Ezeh was back in pass coverage where he's only moderately effective. It appeared he did have a nice breakup, but I'm crediting Brown with ripping out the ball out of the receivers hands. Ezeh got sucked up on too many play action passes and left the middle of the field open on a couple of occasions. When he needed to make a tackle, he whiffed on an arm tackle or got dragged along. Really, it was a rough day. How he got to 10 tackles is beyond me, and maybe the scorer just gave an assist to him because they saw him on the top of a bunch of gang tackles. But I thought he was the least fundamentally sound of the group.

The Secondary

Donovan Warren = Awesome.

The Rest = Meh

Warren was terrific in coverage and run support all game. His only mistake was one blown tackle. I think he more than made up for that. With regard to the interception, when first saw the play, I was positive they were going to overturn it. When it was upheld, I thought Indiana got hosed. I've since loosened on that conviction. None of the replays are conclusive, and the Big Ten Network explained in detail that possession between receiver and DB isn't a reviewable issue. Also, this photo from UMGoBlog.com made me change my mind on the issue.

Warren's got the ball and possession. Blecher missed it and is reaching back. As an added bonus, there was a referee in centerfield, less than five yards away who saw the whole thing right in front of his eyes. Maybe this couldv'e gone either way, but the ref's location and these photos make me think Warren caught it, and Blecher was trying to rip it out.

Now, other than Warren, it was a shaky day. Boubacar Cissoko got yanked in favor of J.T. Floyd for some horrible coverage and some terrible decisions in goal line defense. Boo Boo inexplicably ran inside on the option TD, freeing up the sideline for Indiana to waltz in. And this was after getting burnt crispy on a "go" route that didn't feature a single move and one that he had a ten yard cushion on at the snap! I think the poor kid's got the "yips" something bad right now after getting torched by Notre Dame and getting a couple of inexplicable flags in the EMU game. He just don't look right out there and it was a good call by the coaching staff to sit him.

In his stead, J.T. Floyd had a rough start but seemed to get better as the game went on. Everyone was yelling about how the ball was uncatchable on his PI call, but face it folks, J.T. had enough jersey in his hands to be a post-game sorority girl. They were calling the obvious hold, which is a hold regardless of where the ball is, whether they called it PI or not. However, after the PI call, I thought he played pretty well. I don't think he's got the wheels to keep up with elite receivers, but after MSU and Regis Benn, there really aren't a lot of top flight receivers on our schedule. He got bowled over on an early tackle, but after that point he just stoned people. The best tackle of the year, so far, was his pile driving of an Indiana receiver short of the first down marker on a third down in the redzone. Floyd should be adequate if Boo Boo continues to struggle and I thought he had a decent game after some early nerves.

At safety, it's clear we need Michael Williams back. Jordan Kovacs was at the line of scrimmage almost the whole day, more to cover up for his lack of speed in coverage than for any other reason. That said, he acquitted himself well in the run game, getting behind the line and making some stops. The one thing he lacks is speed. He's just not that fast and all the Barwis in the world ain't going to change that. He's been great as a walk-on. Honestly, he's been better than our safeties last year. But Michigan's going to have to have speed in the secondary to continue to win and Kovacs doesn't have it.

Frankly, I'm still in shock that Darius Willis outran the entire Michigan secondary for that TD. Yikes. Hopefully it's a bit of a wake up call for the boys in the backfield.

At the other safety position, I thought Troy Woolfolk played fine. He bit on one or two play actions, but otherwise was stout in the passing game. There's not much else I can add to that as he was playing deep the majority of the game to guard against the big play. Something I suspect we'll see from him again this week against Michigan State.

The secondary gave up a lot of yards, but most of them came on underneath routes that the Linebackers have to be better at covering. For the most part, the deep coverage was there and they group forced a number of throw aways by Chappell. It wasn't a great performance by any stretch, but it was enough considering Kovacs was in and Boo Boo seems to be having some problems. Still, the secondary is going to have to play considerably better against MSU for Michigan to have a chance.

The Special Teams

via John T. Greilick Detroit News.com

Surprisingly, the best unit on the field for Michigan was it's kick off return team. Darryl Stonum has been a revelation returning kick-offs and came close to breaking two or three touchdown runs. No matter where he got the ball, he was getting to the 30 or better. Compare that to any point last year. His worst return got to the 26. Two returns went past the 40, six total went to the 30 or better. I mean, damn, son. Give credit where credit is due to the return team. They were excellent.

Punt returns continue to be consistently non-turnoverish. I'll take fair catches any day on bad punts. I'm sure if Mathews thinks he's got something he'll run it back, but right now holding onto the ball and not screwing up are enough for me. It should also be noted that the block team almost got one against Indiana. Michigan's going to get to a punt soon. Mark it.

Speaking of punts, Zoltan Mesko was awesome (per usual). A 48.1 average, two inside the 20 and a 59 yarder? So awesome. His punts were so awesome that only one of seven allowed a return. During the second half his punts pinned IU deep in their own territory and helped shift the field of play in Michigan's favor. All Hail the Space Emperor.

Our coverage teams were fairly good, though Michigan did require a shoestring tackle by Bryan Wright to save a TD on a kickoff. That excluded, everyone was disciplined and played well. Overall a great special teams weekend.

Wha Happened? Week Four

RossWB — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 06:01:56 -0000

There actually were a few other games involving Big Ten teams that took place before The Greatness That Was 21-10, so Wha Happened?

Welcome to the dark side, baby.

Ohio State 30, Illinois 0
There are three things to take away from this game. First, Illinois fucking sucks. Take whatever "dark horse" or "look at all that talent they have" blather you heard before the season began and flush it down the toilet. Their defense was miserable as it's been in both games against legit teams this season (Mizzou and Ohio State) and yesterday the offense decided to join in the misery party. Granted, they had their excuses for both failures - Martez Wilson is out for the year with a neck injury and the weather was miserable - but those excuses ring hollow: Ohio State had to play in the same miserable weather and the Illini had two weeks to gameplan for this game. Second, Ohio State's defense is legit - I don't care if it's against Juice "Mr. Interception" Williams or the mighty Toledo Rockets, pitching back-to-back shutouts is damn impressive.

Third, and perhaps most intriguing, is the ongoing heel turn of Jim Tressel. Two weeks after calling out some Ohio State fans for "being miserable," ol' Sweatervest embraced his inner Belichick and had Pryor throw a three-yard touchdown pass with barely over a minute to go and the Buckeyes sitting on a 23-0 lead against an Illinois offense that had been unable to do much of anything all game. Now that's a Fuck You touchdown. Not that we disapprove or anything -- sticking it to the Zooker and Illinois is always enjoyable and embracing his inner dickhead is certainly making Tressel a bit more interesting. But when he pulls a foreign object out of his pants (um....) and nails Rich Rodriguez with it during the post-game handshake... well, remember who told you to expect that.

Bill Lynch loses his fucking mind

Michigan 36, Indiana 33
The enduring images from this game will be Bill Lynch throwing a shitfit (and his gum) after a seemingly badly blown call went against the Hoosiers (apparently simultaneous possession no longer defaults to the receiver -- who knew?!) and the mega-hyped wunderkind Tate Forcier rifling in the game-winning touchdown pass while his other arm hung limply at his side. Still, as much as Indiana fans can gripe about that call, the bigger problem was their inability to turn red zone opportunities into touchdowns: they made it inside Michigan's 20 five times, but had to settle for a field goal on four of those trips. Their funky pistol offense had little trouble slicing Michigan's defense to shreds outside of the 20 (they amassed 476 total yards of offense), but that doesn't mean much if you can't turn all those yards and red zone trips into touchdowns (particularly when your own defense can't stop a fly). As for Michigan, the GERG-revamped defense again got shredded (the tremendously-named Boubacar Cissoko spent much of the day getting torched, which has become a recurring theme for Michigan this season) and while Forcier again pulled off some late-game heroics, his pinball playing style again exposed him to some big hits and left him battered. The Iowa defensive line is already licking its chops.

"Motherfucker hit my penis": truly poetry for our time

Minnesota 35, Northwestern 24
Maybe the LOLcats should have spent more time following the lead of that bold, Gopher-hating yard marker and cracked the Gophers in the junk a few times; lord knows it couldn't have been any less effective than their defense's shoddy attempts at concepts like "tackling" or "covering receivers" or "not being fucking douchebags." A week after allowing Greg Paulus to go buck wild, the LOLcats made Minnesota look like they had an actual competent, balanced offense: 186 yards passing, 166 yards rushing (including 89 yards and three touchdowns on 21 carries by Duane Bennett). Also not helping the LOLcats: a -2 turnover margin, with Mike Kafka contributing a pair of crippling fumbles late in the fourth quarter, and a non-existent running game (64 yards on 29 carries). Meanwhile, Eric Decker continued to stake his claim for Big Ten Offensive Player of the Year with eight catches for 84 yards and two touchdowns.

Three years later, Bucky's boys get their revenge.

Wisconsin 38, Michigan State 30
And now for this week's entry in Overly Deceptive Scorelines... Wisco jumped out to a 21-7 lead at halftime, then expanded it to a 38-17 early in the fourth quarter; Michigan State then tacked on two late touchdowns to make the scoreline look respectable. Turnovers (three interceptions and one lost fumble) were one aspect of Michigan State's demise, but the bigger culprit was a defense that was supposed to be the strength of the team but has instead bled points and yards at an alarming rate. Scott Tolzien didn't become the third straight quarterback to throw for over 300 yards against the Spartan secondary, but he did continue his solid start (19/31, 243 yards, 4 touchdowns, 0 interceptions), while John Clay rebounded from his three fumble effort against Wofford with 142 yards and a touchdown on 32 carries. But the real story is Michigan State: from preseason favorite to finish third in the Big Ten to a team now struggling to salvage its season. They still haven't beaten a non-FCS team this season, their defense has been a massive disappointment, they still appear to have a quarterback controversy (both Kirk Cousins and Keith Nichol played quite a few minutes yesterday), and now they have to entertain a resurgent Michigan team.

Notre Dame: just as douchey as you thought they were.

Notre Dame 24, Purdue 21
This week's lesson in Baffling End-of-Game Decision-Making comes courtesy of Purdue's Danny Hope who bailed out Notre Dame by calling a timeout after Charlie Weis had called a (failed) run play on second and goal (with no timeouts of their own remaining). Instead of letting time tick away while a disorganized Notre Dame offense attempted to get set and spike the ball (leaving them with just one potential shot at a game-winning play), Hope called timeout, allowing Notre Dame to regain their focus and call two plays to win the game (an important move since the game-winning touchdown pass came on 4th down). While there's certainly merit in making sure that the defense is set and ready, the Notre Dame offense was in a bind at that point and Hope gave them a "get out of jail free" card. The rest of the game was fairly evenly matched, but that ending represented a new and painful way for the Boilermakers to lose a game this year.

BETTER KNOW A NON-CONFERENCE OPPONENT CORNER:

More interesting than anything to actually do with Arkansas State.

Troy 30, Arkansas State 27
Arkansas State jumped out to a 10-0 lead, then gave up 23 unanswered points; for the game they gave up 507 total yards of offense, including 373 passing yards. A visit by Arkansas State could be just what the Iowa passing game needs to get on track. Offensively, the Red Wolves mustered only 305 yards of total offense, including 70 rushing yards. Arkansas State's only win this season came over an offensively inept Mississippi Valley State team. Let's be clear: Arkansas State is not a good football team.

Hail To The Victors! Michigan Survives Against Indiana

SCM — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 15:02:39 -0000

So Indiana really took it to Michigan at times yesterday. Though at other times, when it really mattered, IU couldn't capitalize: held to redzone FGs off of freak/poor Michigan turnovers, several three and outs with a chance to build on a lead while Michigan was sputtering, and a missed FG late in the game. IU certainly had their chances, but came up short on the ones that ended up making the difference.

Photo by David Guralnick via multimedia.detnews.com

Miscellaneous

- So if I had told you back in August, "Hey, I'm from the future, Michigan will leave September at 4-0!" What would you have said? I'm so thrilled I can barely express it, so take any criticisms that follow here with that in mind. Yes we've got a lot to work on, but uh, 4-0 people... WOO! We really struggled at times today... and won!!!! I couldn't care less about what opposing fans think, say, or try to extrapolate from these kind of games, we're finding ways to win even when we're struggling.

- The illegal formation penalties called were inexplicably bad, seriously, when has that EVER been called?

- By the way, if I had come back from the future and told you Michigan State would start 1-3..... anyways.

- Congrats to Iowa, we shall continue to ignore your existence for another week, but by ALL means please go ahead and continue with the hyperbole regarding October 10th and our tiny quarterback... no really, please continue on in TREMENDOUS detail.

- Penn State, hey fellas about that O-line... also, there's the classic Penn State coaching staff game-planning I've known through all these years.

- Purdue... the timeout at the end? Why?

- Is anyone going to ask Urban Meyer WHY Tebow was still in the game and throwing the football when he got walloped like that? I mean, it was what, 31-7? Classy.

- Can we put the Miami and FSU hyperbole nonsense away now?

More after the jump....

Offense

This is not pass interference.....

Photo by David Guralnick via multimedia.detnews.com

- Ok, this one goes first because it's the one major question I have about Saturday. WHAT HAPPENED TO CARLOS BROWN? Seriously, he's our best option at running back right now, and we totally got away from him in the second half when we were struggling to get things going. Brown accounted for 2 TDs and 144 yards on 12 touches and was virtually a non-factor after halftime. Seriously, he's as dangerous as anyone out there, what happened? There may be a perfectly legitimate explanation (dinged up, sore, some other problem I'm not thinking of?) but it'd be great to know what it was.

- Extension of above... why did we get away from running the football with our running backs? When the offense seemed mired in the 3rd quarter (odd to say considering we scored 36...) we seemed to out-think ourselves. I have no problem with us running the ball until someone stops it. The stat sheet will show 50 carries... but 21 were from the QBs, which to me, is about 5-10 too many. With the backs we have, they need to touch the football more. The stat sheet will also show 149 yards rushing, but that also includes those huge losses on the bad snaps... The team compiled 222 yards on the ground before you subtract 42 yards in losses from the QBs on those snaps. We ran the ball extremely well today.

- Ok, I know that Dave is likely going to give Moosman a fair amount of attention in his breakdown, so I will focus on the one part that I had a big problem with. Don't get into the habit of trying to quick snap for the offsides, we don't need to do that. I'm going to operate under the optimistic notion that they will do nothing but have him snap the football for the next week.

- Denard Robinson lead a very nice drive down the field, couple of very solid throws as well, 2/3 for 39 yards. He just always looks like he could bust one. I really like this kid, he's going to just continue to get better.

- Tate Forcier, is still a freshman, and he is still eight shades of awesome, but not above some criticism. He had a few more plays today where he really just needs to either get rid of the football or take the sack, he'll continue to learn, but that pick and the intentional grounding were both huge mental mistakes that were costly, and we were fortunate to not give up more points off of them. That nonsense out of the way.... the 4th quarter heroics were incredible, with the game on the line, he came through huge again. The scramble for the TD and then a perfect throw to Martavious Odoms for the game winner. He was dead on the mark and also had a key scramble earlier in the final drive to pick up 3rd and 4. Also, he's clearly dinged up, hopefully not too bad.

- Martavious continues to keep making enormous plays for this team, can't say enough about him.

- Today was one of the first times where I thought Brandon Minor looked to be missing a step, he's not gimpy by any means, but he doesn't have the same explosion through to the second level.

- Kevin Grady with a couple of clutch plays to pick up first downs and enough of a block to get Tate into the endzone on the first TD of the 4th quarter.

- Why are we seeing Martell Webb more than Kevin Koger? Can anyone explain this?

- Can someone please get Junior Hemingway involved in the game again? Please?

Defense

- Ok first the good... no really there is some! Believe it or not, the defense held IU to 3 for 15 on 3rd downs. Also, they managed to force five field goal attempts, several following quick changes where Indiana started with great field position. Also, the Wolverine D gave up 112 yards on 32 carries for 3.5 ypc... UNFORTUNATELY, the Hoosiers had one more carry for, um, 85 yards. IU finished with 197 yards on the ground on 33 carries for an average of almost exactly 6 yards per carry. Not good...

- Indiana's average starting position in the second quarter was the Michigan 42 yardline, and we held them to 3 FGs.

- More worrisome is the 270 yards we gave up through the air... Soft cushions all day let Chappell pick us apart with underneath throws. I'm not reassured given the fact that I typed that last sentence. That said no passing TDs, and JT Floyd looked less lost than he did against Western. I'm starting to think we're not going to see Justin Turner barring mass calamity. I continue to be greatly concerned with how easily we give up the underneath crossing routes, just way too simple for offenses to hit. Also, we need Boubacar Cissoko healthy.

- Big runs against the left side of our defense again... We shifted into the exact D Indiana was hoping for on that big run, then blitzed to the wrong side. Sigh.

- We have really struggled to get any kind of consistent pressure with the front 3 or 4... That said, it's also readily apparent that people like Graham and Roh might as well have leashes on their jerseys because holding is not going to be called, much to my extreme consternation during the game.

- Really nice sack by Ryan Van Bergen, that might get lost in all of the "WOE IS US!" about the defense that we're certain to read this week.

- Only saw a little of Greg Banks and I believe none of Renaldo Sagesse, not sure why.

- Jordan Kovacs took a poor angle on that big run, but other than that I thought the safeties did a nice job being unnoticeable again today.

Special Teams

- ZOLTAN! He's back!!! Yayyyyyyy! 7 punts for an average of 48.1, atta boy.

- Some are forgetting themselves and grumbling about the punt returns... STOP. Are we catching the football and not turning it over? Then don't change a single thing, lest you forget the torture that was our special teams last year.

- Stonum really attacks on kickoffs, clearly has a knack for it and had a couple of them yesterday that he nearly broke free on.

Heading Forward...

- A win is a win is a win is a win is a win is a win is a win.

- First road game of the year against a State team that probably doesn't quite know which direction is up right now. I'm really looking forward to seeing what we come up with for our game-plan this week.