SB Nation - Kevin Koger

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.

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.

Agony of Defeat: Michigan Beats Michigan, Iowa Named Beneficiaries

SCM — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 15:58:08 -0000

Arg. Arg, arg, arg, arg, arg. Deep breath (remember man, we're so young), another deep breath... arg that was infuriating. How do we couch this? Well for one thing Michigan outplayed Iowa on Saturday night. An offensive line that was a glorified strainer last week turned their highly-touted D-line into a non-factor, we pounded the ball on the ground against a team that just doesn't give up rushing TDs to the tune of three of em and 200 yards on the ground (and that was without a lightning bolt big play in there too), we completely shut down Iowa's running game: 2.4 yards per carry, and the defensive line controlled the line of scrimmage throughout most of the night and came up with several huge stops, including a goal-line stand. And yet there's the 800 lb turnover beast that is sitting in the corner over there... five of those bad-boys, four completely unforced turnovers and one kinda-forced fumble proved to be just enough to hold Michigan back from knocking off the #12 team in the country on the road. Iowa did what you are supposed to do with gifts, they cashed them in, and it proved to be barely enough for Michigan to overcome. Two of the factors that Michigan fans, us included, worried about prior to the season reared their ugly head on Saturday night: play of the safeties, and freshman mistakes at QB. Mike Williams unfortunately showed up in the replays of many key plays last night in the entirely wrong way... I mean really, 3rd and @#%@#%@#@#% 24? 3rd and 24? Fans like to throw around "inexcusable" in all kinds of ways, but uh, giving up 3rd and 24 is inexcusable. To get beat once on a nicely timed throw to the TE was acceptable, to let it happen again was not. Anyways, more on that later too. The team's youth and lack of depth in certain spots showed up at the worst times last night, and we couldn't overcome it. Freshman mistakes? You betcha.

Miscellaneous

- There was some good old fashioned slobber-knocking in this football game, the crown jewel of which was the hit on Daryll Stonum's kickoff return... goodness gracious me, that was a lick.

- Um, when the ball was snapped over Ricky Stanzi's head in (I believe) the first half, and their running back simply tackled Jonas Mouton while he broke through the line... how's that not called a hold? It carries no consequence as I understand that we would've declined it as it put them in a 3rd and long anyways, but is there something I'm missing there, that has to be a flag right? If not, someone please educate me.

- Alright, a coaching quibble from me: why the onside kick? Three minutes and change was enough time, even with one timeout, to kick it deep and rely on your defense to come up with a stop and not forfeit 20-30 yards of field position. I didn't understand the call there.

- I was stunned, literally stunned, that Ferentz went for it on 4th and goal.

- This team isn't quite good enough to get away with playing poorly and winning, but hotdamn they're close.

Offense

- I guarantee some Iowa fan will wax poetic about how their defense caused the benching of Tate Forcier... which is patently wrong. Forcier's unforced errors last night that lead to him getting the hook. An unrushed throw into double coverage for the pick, a fumble in which he wasn't touched, tripping over a yardline on 2nd and 4 to kill a drive, happy feet in the pocket with good protection, and throws into areas that just simply did not make sense were the story of Tate's night. What ultimately lead to the benching was the series where we came out after a kickoff, promptly got a delay of game (AFTER A KICKOFF... BREAKING THINGS HERE), and he just started chucking the ball for no real apparent reason: he wasn't running the offense, and that earned him a spot on the bench. Iowa's D had nothing to do with the majority of these mistakes.

- Brings me to my next question... Tate is so good throwing on the run, why wasn't he rolling out more in this game?

- Hats off to the O-line, even sans Molk they turned in a great performance. After watching what happened last week, I was awfully worried about going up against Iowa's D-line, but the guys up front did a fantastic job giving our QBs time and creating holes.

- All night long the offense just couldn't quite get up to the pace we wanted to run at. It will come with more experience, but when we did approach that kind of speed, we moved the football.

- Oh yeah, about Denard Robinson getting the nod on that final drive... I can say at the time I didn't really question it, he had just driven us right down the field for a touchdown and looked quite good in doing so. Now then, the end result doesn't sit all that well with everyone who watched Forcier do nothing but look eight shades of awesome at the end of practically every game thus far this season. If I were wearing the headset, I probably would've tapped Tate's shoulder, looked him in the eye and said "Get it done" and sent him out there all while thanking Denard up and down for kick-starting the offense again. Even despite that, I am reluctant to second guess the call because based on what had happened in the game to that point, sending Denard back out there made all kinds of sense, he had made several good crisp throws on the previous drive and moved the ball down the field for a score, hard to argue with that. Let's recall that Denard got put into the game in an incredibly difficult position, down two scores late in the 4th and he too is a true freshman.

- Robinson made the one mistake you just can't make in that situation... I'm not sure what prompted the throw, particularly when he could've taken off (there was TONS of time) or hit Odoms for an easy first down, but ugh... That's all that needs to be said about it, just ugh.

- Brandon Minor finally looked like a healthy Brandon Minor out there, some really tough running from him in big spots, and he was pretty much responsible for an entire touchdown drive... BUT he also had that HORRIFYING fumble, which by the by was the ONLY forced turnover on the night. Maybe we're still spoiled by Mike Hart's excellence but uh, you can't fumble the football on a 3 yard gain in which you're going nowhere, just protect the thing... that just killed a big drive at the end of the first half.

- I liked the new pitch wrinkle we threw into the rushing game last night, and I have a feeling I will like it more when Carlos Brown is healthy and back on the field.

- Someone please tell me why we're not taking two to three deep shots a game, anyone? Anyone? Junior Hemingway and Daryll Stonum are essentially non-factors in our offense right now, and that should not be the case. Kevin Koger and Martavious Odoms again came up big with drive sustaining catches throughout the night, they are by far the most consistent aspects of this offense right now.

- 3 for 11 on 3rd down wasn't and isn't good enough.

Defense

- This defense is either on or off, there is no in-between it appears.

- Donovan Warren was incredible last night, and that's even with him dropping another pick inside Iowa's 25. Huge game from him, just huge.

- Fool me once, shame on you... Great call for Iowa's first TD to Moeaki, Mike Williams bit HARD on the fake-block and the middle of the field was beyond vacant. Fool me twice, shame on me: that it happened again was ludicrous.

- The safety play was appalling, no other word for it, appalling. The lack of ability of this defense to get off the freakin' field on 3rd and long has already shortened the lifespan of the majority of this fanbase, I guarantee it. I know we're tissue paper-thin, I know that, but there were mistakes made that even tissue-paper thin defenses can't make out there.

- Brandon Graham did whatever he wanted with whomever was lined up across from him, he was a beast last night. Mike Martin also played a very solid football game.

- Stevie Brown made a great read on that 3rd and goal stop, just a tremendous play. And actually, I thought the LBs as a group played well, Mouton and Ezeh seemed to be in position more often than not, and both made key plays during the game.

- We brought a lot more pressure last night, I liked that we brought guys up to the line of scrimmage and got into the backfield, it's just too bad the coverage wasn't up to par in key spots. In line with that, we saw much less of the soft coverage stuff giving up the sticks, which yay, but too many missed assignments particularly from the safeties.

- Troy Woolfolk stepped into the corner spot and made a number of big plays, you can count me as pleasantly surprised, that certainly was an area of concern heading towards kickoff and he played well.

Special Teams

- So if Iowa's punter is a "weapon" according to Brent Musberger, what's Zoltan Mesko? 53.8 yards per punt? Zounds!

- Why the dropped punt... just why? If you have to go to your knees to catch the punt, isn't it better to just let the stupid thing go? Iowa was going to get the ball anyway due to the "roughing" the kicker penalty, but good GOD, that was terrible.

- Our kick and punt coverage was decidedly "meh" last night, part of that was because Zoltan was hitting bombs and outkicking the coverage, but how many times did the first two guys not even touch their returner?

Overall

- After getting flat outplayed for the majority of the Michigan State game, this team responded in the areas that were truly lacking in East Lansing, and made gaffs that you just can't overcome against a solid team at home. Minus 4 in the turnover margin was the death knell for Michigan on Saturday night.

- So goes the Penn State game so goes the rest of the season, period. We need to destroy Delaware State and get ready for the Nittany Lions to come to Ann Arbor.

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.

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

Maize n Brew Dave — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 17:21:17 -0000

Hey! Lookit this, we're not running hopelessly behind, so it's time to get started with the Michigan Indiana Unit by Unit breakdown. We'll 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, and the general AP recap 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 Offense

David Guralnick via Detroit News.com

It's funny to think that when our offense puts up 36 points we're sitting here, at least initially, thinking it was a rough day. But the numbers bear this out. Michigan was outgained by Indiana 467 to 372. Forcier looked like he was pressured the whole day and the offense stagnated for large stretches of time. In hindsight however, I am nowhere near as concerned about the offense's performance after rewatching the game. The offensive line did a more than passable job. The receivers had three drops but were dependable and picked up crucial yardage when we needed it. The run game was nearly unstoppable, even when Tate or Denard took off. A handful of bad snaps killed some drives and two turnovers (one just a horrid horrid play by Forcier, the other a fluke hit on Robinson) did the rest. Despite those issues, Michigan had the lead in the fourth and still rallied to win even after the Defense gave up it's first truly big mistake of the season. You can have some gripes about personnel, play calling, execution; but they're all minor after a second glance. All in all, the offense performed pretty well when it didn't shoot itself in the foot with bad snaps. Take away the bad snaps and Michigan is easily over 400 yards for the game and they're still averaging over 35 points a game.

The Offensive Line

David Guralnick via Detroit News.com

My initial reaction to the game was that the O-Line had it's worst performance of the year. After review, I actually think they had a decent game. Quite a turn around, eh? How's that happen? The answer is in the blocking. Despite David Moosman's issues with snapping the ball in the second half, the line did an excellent job opening up running lanes for Carlos Brown, Brandon Minor, and Denard Robinson. A lot of the penetration I saw was on blitzes by the outside LB's that the Tight Ends probably should've picked up. The biggest issue the line faced all day was that there was a new center. There were numerous instances where two to three guys moved early. One play in the second both Ortmann and Schilling left early when Michigan was trying to pooch punt. These types of procedure penalties didn't happen with Molk in, and I'm guessing there's still a little communication problem on assignments and snap counts that Moosman will need to resolve as the Center going forward.

Regarding the illegal formation penalty, the first one was legit, IMO. The second is a 50/50 call, but could've been made. Michigan's formations were arcing badly as they tried to ward off Jamie Kirlew and Indiana's outside pass rushers. And don't sleep on Indiana's pass rush. There were two instances where Michigan tried to block Kirlew with Koger or Brown, one ended in disaster (Forcier INT) the other almost did (Forcier's last second pitch to Brown on the last drive).

(more after the jump......)

Indiana got pressure with it's blitz or when Michigan tried to get cute with one of the Conference's best pass rushers. Otherwise, the Line generally got a good push and opened up some mammoth holes. Had Minor been at 100%, some of those TFLs never would've happened. Better communication and better snaps will eliminate most of the issues the line had on Saturday. And if you look past the bad snaps and procedure penalties, the Line actually had a decent day. Michigan's linemen were consisently clearing space and getting to the second level on run plays and were standing their ground on passing downs. Perry Dorrestein was more than passable at left Tackle. Michigan spent most of the day running left behind Mark Ortmann and Steve Schilling, successfully. Mark Huyge had a great block second level block on Minor's TD run.

You can't give it more than a C grade because of the mistakes, but there are a lot of positives to take away.

The Running Backs

David Guralnick via Detroit News.com

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. If I'm right, and I think I am, after Brown's second touchdown (in just the second series of the game) he didn't get another carry for the next NINE SERIES with his next carry coming a couple of plays into the tenth series after his second touchdown! That's insane. He's the hottest player on the team. You have to feed him the ball, and that's a big mistake by the coaching staff. Maybe they want to protect him, but in a close game getting away from him almost cost us. 146 yards on just 12 total touches. Seriously. Give him the ball. I'm begging you.

Whew. I needed to get that off my chest.

Outside of Brown, I thought Brandon Minor had a good game though it's clear he's still not 100%. Minor had some very good straight ahead runs, but I can count only one play where he was forced to make a cut (or the play called for it) where he was able to move laterally as quickly as we're used to. Straight ahead though, man, he was awesome. He plowed Indiana like a cornfield, picking up 51 yards on 12 carries. Honestly, if he was 100% I think he'd probably have been in the 70-80 yard range. The ankle's healing, he was great in pass protect, but I think he still needs another week to two weeks to be totally healthy and the Brandon Minor we all expect to see.

A special shout out to Kevin Grady who is becoming one of my favorite role players on the team. Kevin was huge in run blocking and showed great hands, shiftiness, and determination picking up two first downs on two catches. I think we're going to start to see more of him in this offense as a Tatenard safety valve. Also, give Grady massive props for his blocking on Tate's dive to the endzone touchdown. I really want to see Grady score a TD this year after all he's been through. One more note, Michael Shaw saw some limited action but largely watched this game, getting only two touches.

When the running backs got the ball, I thought they were great. I'll get into why they didn't get as many touches when I talk about the Quarterbacks. Overall, the Running Backs turned in an outstanding game in all aspects.

The Receivers

Couldn't be any other photo, courtesy David Guralnick via Detroit News.com

Martavious Odoms is the man. I wasn't sold on him going into the year, but now I'm a believer. He just keeps getting better and better. It's not just the great route running and TD catch, it's the little things. His blocking on Carlos Brown's TD run, was the reason Brown went in clean. On the two point conversion, he saw Tate sprint for the endzone and closed off the safety. Sure he had a drop of a poorly thrown ball, but the kid truly is something special. Like Odoms, Kelvin Grady had a busy day. He did have drop on a questionable screen pass by Forcier, but still managed three catches including a crucial 19 yard pickup on Michigan's final drive. Watching him, I get the feeling he's still getting his bearings on the field, but the fact that he's contributing in such a meaningful way so quickly is amazing to me.

The rest of the receiver corps had an okay, not great, day. It's hard to stand out when you throw the ball 24 times, 3-4 are throw aways, 3-4 are drops, 3-4 are bad passes, and the ball spread around to 8 different receivers. Greg Mathews deserves some praise for his run blocking and drawing a flag for PI that got (even though it shouldn't have) picked up. But overall, like Junior Hemingway, Michigan's bigger receivers were largely shut out of the boxscore (one catch between them). Regardless, Hemingway had a great game run blocking and helped clear the way for a lot of yards on the ground, including Brown's first TD and Forcier's 10 yard scramble on Michigan's second to last scoring drive. Roy Roundtree made and appearance and notched a 35 yard catch at the end of the first half, but nothing more.

The Tight Ends had a decent day. The highlight was Kevin Koger's outstanding 36 yard grab that set up Minor's TD run, which Koger also added a good block on. Martell Webb's day was a little rougher, in that the only ball thrown his way was dropped and he didn't see a lot of playing time.

Overall, the receivers were great in run support, good in passing game, and came through when it mattered.

The Quarterbacks

David Guralnick via Detroit News.com

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. Prior to the fourth quarter, Tate was not having a good day. Early in the game he was gunning everything at 100 mph. His first throw was rifled to Tacopants, and his second throw to Brown required the back to make a much harder than necessary catch before sprinting to the endzone. Tate was victimized by some drops, but only one throw was material (Webb's drop). The drops by Odoms and Grady weren't good throws or good decisions. Tate chucked one ball over junior Heminway's head that should've been picked, then scrambled around like a fool before throwing a "I'm getting tackled THROW IT!" pick that he should've just eaten. He also picked up an intentional grounding penalty and could've been called for another that ended up just being a sack. In the run game, I think he's got the Notre Dame game stuck in his head. Six legit rushes (sacks and bad snaps excluded): three scrambles and three really bad decisions on the zone read. He misread the DE on some, didn't see the late blitzer on another. He needs to keep handing that off for the time being, especially when the runningbacks are picking up 5 a carry on the opposition.

Now all that criticism aside, damn, what a fourth quarter. Forcier was on target whereas earlier he hadn't been. He showed some great athleticism scrambling for some first downs, and his pass to Odoms and TD runs were things of beauty. 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.

While Forcier took a minor step sideways, Denard Robinson took a HUGE step forward on Saturday. The kid is just electric on the ground. I know he fumbled before the half, but the fumble was a helmet on football occurrence. There's not a lot you can do when that happens. Robinson's rushing numbers are distorted by two bad snaps and a couple of dropped snaps, but when he actually got the ball off the hike, he was dangerous and picked up some tough yards. Where he impressed me the most was in the passing game. His pass the Koger was absolutely beautiful and perfectly thrown. He had one bad pass to Grady that was behind Kelvin, but he's showing he can handle the full offense and make the team vertical in the air. Right now he's light years ahead of anyone under center last season and a solid number two quarterback. While he's clearly the number two guy, he played like 1A when called in on Saturday. Great game from Denard.

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.

Michigan: by the numbers and key contributors.

John M (The Crimson Quarry) — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 15:00:19 -0000

More photos » by TONY DING - AP

Tate Forcier has excelled as a true freshman.

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The Michigan Wolverines, like the Hoosiers, are 3-0, thanks to home blowouts against two MAC schools, including common opponent Western Michigan, and a close home win against Notre Dame, by far the highest quality opponent either team has played this season. Yesterday, I linked to IU's NCAA "executive summary page, and here is Michigan's. Thanks in part to an absurdly run-dominated offense against Eastern Michigan last week, Michigan is sporting a Navy-like average of 276 yards per game. Most impressively, Michigan's leading rusher, Carlos Brown, averages only 79 yards per game. Already, four Wolverines have exceeded the 100 yard mark for the season, including quarterbacks Tate Forcier and Denard Robinson. Michigan ranks only 97th in production from the passing game at 168 yards per game, but that is a function of the lopsided nature of two of Michigan's first three games. In Michigan's only competitive game, the 38-34 win over Notre Dame, Forcier was 23-33 passing for 240 yards with two touchdowns and an interception. Forcier's quarterback rating is #32 in Division I-A. Michigan has posted top 30 numbers in total offense and scoring offense. On defense, the Wolverines have allowed 358 yards per game, but only 19 points per game. Against Western Michigan, nearly all of WMU's positive yardage came after the Wolverines had jumped out to a big lead. On the other hand, Eastern Michigan moved the ball reasonably well against Michigan, and the Notre Dame game was a shootout. Michigan protects the quarterback reasonably well, probably in no small part because Forcier and Robinson both run well, so IU's pass rush game will be strength against strength.

Who are the key individuals?

Tate Forcier, QB. Forcier became a household name in week 2 of the season with his impressive play (described above) in Michigan's upset of Notre Dame. He has played very well as a passer (again, see above) and running the ball (30/112 and a touchdown).

Denard Robinson, QB. Robinson is only 2-8 passing, but has run for 155 yards and 3 touchdowns on only 18 carries.

Carlos Brown, RB. Michigan has spread the ball around, but Brown is Michigan's leading rusher with 238 yards and is averaging 8.8 yards per carry.

Brandon Minor, RB. Minor has been bothers by injuries, but ran for 106 yards and a touchdown against Notre Dame on only 16 carries.

Darryl Stonum returned a kickoff for a touchdown against Notre Dame.

Michigan's receiving yards are even more widely dispersed than its rushing yards. Michigan has 7 receivers who have caught 5 or more passes but no receiver has caught more than 7. Junior Hemingway leads the Wolverines with 110 receiving yards and over 18 yards per catch, plus two touchdowns. Kevin Koger also has caught two touchdown passes.

None of Michigan's defenders stand out statistically yet. Linebackers Obi Ezeh and Stevie Brown are Michigan's leading tacklers, and Brown has 3.5 tackles for loss. Michigan has sacked the opposing quarterback only three times this year, and Ben Chappell has been sacked only once, so the IU offensive line will have a chance to show that its improved protection is for real.

I'm taking a bit of heat in the comments for my realistic/pessimistic take on the game in the Mgopodcast. Don't let that fool you. I am surprisingly optimistic about this game, but that is based on hunch, not on any objective evidence. All of the objective evidence points toward a Michigan win, hence my 40-21 prediction on the podcast. Still, this is the first time since 1967 that IU has been undefeated when playing Michigan. In 1967, IU won 27-20 (IU's most recent win in Ann Arbor) and ultimately won the Big Ten and played in the Rose Bowl. That would be a wildly optimistic prediction for this IU team. On the other hand, in 1967, IU was 9 years removed from its last winning season and hadn't won more than 3 games in a season in 8 years. That's what's fun about being undefeated. It's easy to hope for the best.

Big Ten Football Is Here!!... Mostly!!

SCM — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 17:34:12 -0000


via blog.pennlive.com

So, for the most part, Big Ten football the 2009 edition is upon us! Huzzah! Three yards and a cloud of dust, power football, conservative gameplans, DEFENSE! AHH! The way football was meant to be played right? Or was I simply describing the Nebraska/VT and Florida/Tennessee games from over the weekend? You be the judge. Forgive my tangent, anyways after months and months (and more months for us Michigan fans) we finally have some on-field product to evaluate! The leaves here in the Midwest are starting to hint that October is indeed right around the corner, and with it a new chapter of the football season awaits. Sure it's still early, but at least there are plays and results and trends that can at least be noticed at this early juncture of our season.

So with conference play mere days away (except of course for you Purdue), why not take a quick look at this week's matchups and where the teams find themselves at this juncture?

Iowa @ #4/5 Penn State - This being, by far, the most intriguing match-up in the conference this week, I'm going to delve a little deeper into this one than the others. For further reading please refer to the excellent leading blogs for both teams: Black Shoe Diaries and Black Heart Gold Pants. Alright, so I think it's fairly safe to say, without upsetting the constituents of either program, that neither team can feel entirely comfortable that they "know what they've got" so far this year. Penn State has looked comfortable in all of its matchups thus far, but no single performance has been the dominating one that many likely expected when glancing at the non-conference schedule. Iowa managed to survive one of the single oddest sequences I can remember in college football against Northern Iowa and has since managed to take care of business against ISU and Arizona. Let's look at the matchup shall we? Respecitve national rankings:

	Penn State	Iowa
Rushing D	4th	68th
Passing D	28th	53rd
Scoring D	2nd	15th
Total D	7th	36th

Penn State's defense has done exactly what it was supposed to do against it's opponents thus far, of course this is what one would hope for when playing the 106th, 100th, and 74th total offenses in the country respectively. Meanwhile Iowa has come up against the 5th best offense in FCS, as well as FBS' 55th and 39th total offenses respectively. I don't think I'd be stretching it too much to say that Iowa has been tested a little more than Penn State, but I have a real hard time faulting any team that's given up less than a TD a game thus far. Of course, Happy Valley's mood likely will also swing on the statuses of Bowman and Lee.

Offenses? Offenses...

	Penn State	Iowa
Rushing O	75th	70th
Passing O	25th	55th
Scoring O	48th	70th
Total O	46th	68th

Penn State has faced the 54th, 89th, and 73rd ranked total defenses thus far in their schedule. Iowa has come up against *20th (FCS), 84th, and 14th ranked total defenses thus far.

So yes, lies, damn lies, and statistics I know. It's being kind to say that Penn State has played effectively nobody while Iowa has played... well they've played Arizona. The key questions that jump out from that analysis? If the Penn State D is in fact that good (and if their LBs are healthy) will Iowa be able to move the football? On the other side of the coin, how is that Nittany Lion O-line going to perform? Will Penn State be able to move the ball on the ground or is Daryll Clark going to be forced to make plays to move his team down the field? A few intangibles to add in here: Penn State and their homogeneously attired crowd will be ready to go Saturday night after watching their MNC chances fade into the darkness last year in Iowa City, they also have a nice 24 for the last 24 streak going for them at home against unranked opponents. Curiously, since Iowa upset Penn State last November, they themselves are undefeated @ 7-0. Iowa also has created their own amount of Michigan voodoo against JoePa, winning 6 of the last 7 meetings. The visiting team has 13 of the 21 meetings and Kirk Ferentz is 6-2 against PSU in his career... Including an EPIC 6-4 eye-gouger back in 2004. Penn State finds themselves a double digit favorite at this juncture (-11), but I'd be curious to see if the general mood of the fanbases matches that line. From this standpoint, I don't see a double-digit victory in the mix, but hey, I've been wrong before.

#22/23 Michigan vs Indiana - IU blog Crimson Quarry has their breakdown of the match-up posted as well. Let me just get this out of the way to start: fair warning to everyone... this game is on ESPN2 which means, yes you guessed it, Pam Ward. Sigh. But, BUT! No Andre Ware!!! So it's a trade off you see? I really wish I could somehow stream the Beckmann/Brandstatter broadcast in-sync with the TV. This will be the 60th time the Hoosiers and Wolverines have clashed, with Michigan holding a slight edge in the series at 50-9... and is 30 for the last 31 (last dropping one to the Hoosiers in 1987). Interestingly the Michigan game notes are incorrect in stating that Michigan has won its last 23 home conference openers, seeing as how we lost our first conference home game to Minnesota in 2005. Perhaps they're really having fun with stats and mean true conference openers... at home? Who knows. Last pointless historical anecdote of this writeup (maybe): anyone care to guess the last time Michigan played in front of crowd smaller than 100,000 at home? October 25th, 1975 against Indiana, the Wolverines prevailed 55-7 in front of a meager 93,857.

Anyways, on to the matchup: Defenses:

	Michigan	Indiana
Rushing D	54th	15th
Passing D	111th	101st
Scoring D	43rd	33rd
Total D	74th	40th

Also of note, Indiana is 17th in the nation in sacks thus far this year. Who have they faced? Michigan has gone up against the 94th, 14th, and 109th total offenses in the country thus far this year (yowza). IU has clashed with the *42nd (FCS), 94th (woo common opponent woo!), and 106th total offenses this year. Michigan's pass defense comes in at a HOLY GOD 111th which, well, there's just no sugar coating that one. Both teams faced Western, with Michigan giving up 7 points in the opener and IU surrendering 19 points the following week. Overall this will be as stout of a Hoosier defense as we have faced in a long time. Their defensive ends, Jammie Kirlew and Greg Middleton are seriously solid players, Kirlew's honors list especially stands out (Ted Hendricks DE of the year watch list, Bednarik watch list, Lombardi watch list, Sporting News 1st team All-Big Ten, Athlon Sports 1st team All-Big Ten). With Michigan having to replace starting center David Molk, the offensive line is going to have its job cut out for it Saturday.

What about the offenses?

	Michigan	Indiana
Rushing O	3rd	65th
Passing O	97th	53rd
Scoring O	23rd	68th
Total O	28th	60th

Michigan has gone up against the 100th, 96th, and 79th total defenses in the country and has played pretty much accordingly. Indiana has faced the *43rd (FCS), 100th, and 54th total defenses. In the common opponent category, IU put up 23 points against Western while Michigan put up 31 against the Broncos (albeit all of them in the first half). Of note, Michigan's lack of a need to actually throw the football against Eastern last week dropped the passing attack from 61st in the country to that 97th ranking you see now.

Michigan finds themselves a 3 touchdown favorite heading into this game. The main concerns I have are dealing with Indiana's excellent defensive ends, who between them own 40 career sacks. I actually got to watch IU's opening win against Eastern Kentucky as it was FAR more entertaining than the South Carolina vs North Carolina State snoozefest that was going on at the same time. Chappell is not the most mobile of QBs out of this new pistol attack, but he does have a couple of decent outside receivers in Tandon Doss and Damarlo Belcher. I would imagine that Donovan Warren will line up on Doss and Boubacar Cissoko on Belcher, although as Belcher is 6'5'' I am curious to see how the Michigan secondary handles the coverage... and by curious I really mean, somewhat nervous, we haven't really given our corners a ton of safety support thus far in the season. IU will easily be the second best team, from a talent standpoint, that we have faced this year, and with road trips looming to East Lansing and Iowa City the next two weeks, it's unbelievably important that the Wolverines not get caught looking ahead here.

A quick check of the pulse of the Michigan fan base reveals a near universal raised eyebrow regarding the defense. Two positions have featured prominent play from walk-ons, the depth is razor thin in many spots, and a number of guys thought to be big-time contributors in the preseason have not quite stepped up to expected form yet. That's not to say there haven't been pleasant surprises (Roh), but I think it would go a long ways to see the Michigan D return to the opening game form in terms of fundamental execution. Tackling guys on first contact, filling gaps, not over-pursuing, etc. I have little concern regarding the passing attack despite what the national media has been saying this week, Michigan's offensive skill players are going to present mismatches across the field, and I would love to see us continue to work the ball to Kevin Koger as much as possible. Another key matchup will be to watch the field position battle as Indiana has one of the worst net-punting rankings in the nation (95th).

Again, I think the primary concern here is that I would like to see the Michigan defense put in 60 minutes against an opponent. Our second halves have been, for the most part, very solid defensive efforts, but it would be awfully reassuring to see a complete game out of this unit heading into the conference slate.

Photo by John T. Greilick via multimedia.detnews.com

#11/13 Ohio State vs Illinois - Which Juice Williams shows up? Does he show up at all or does Eddie McGee step in? Without Arrelious Benn does it even matter? Which Terrelle Pryor shows up? Will Tressel continue to assuage Buckeye fans by letting his uber-recruit QB run the football? Ohio State favored by 15 and I see no reason to doubt that one, Buckeyes roll.

Purdue vs Notre Dame - I wish I foresaw this one going better for the Boilers, but I don't. Even without Michael Floyd I think ND is going to march up and down the field on Purdue, who's defense hasn't exactly been stout thus far this year (100th overall, 101st in scoring). ND's O-line will max protect all day and give Clausen time to do his best Kurt Kittner impression, lob the ball towards the sidelines time and time again. It will be interesting to see if Purdue's offense can get Bolden on track and make an attempt to control the clock, but this is one where I don't quite understand the spread only being 7 for ND. Yes, yes 3 points for home field and all, but again, I think there are a LOT of matchup problems here for the Boilermakers.

Minnesota @ Northwestern - Minnesota hung tough against Cal until a late pick sealed their fate, and you have to love Decker. Northwestern appears to have been walking a tightrope all season. Without delving deep into anything at all I'll take the Gophers in this one.

Michigan State @ Wisconsin - My only point here is that I'll be very, read VERY interested to see how Sparty responds after the last two weeks. For the chic preseason conference pick by many, a 1-3 start would have to rank up there with one of the bigger surprises of the year, plus it would put Dantonio that much closer to the ledge heading into the Michigan game in two weeks. I won't even comment on Wisconsin playing Wofford, and yes, I know we have Delaware State on the schedule (single tear down cheek here).

So there you have it, the Big 10 season officially underway on Saturday!!! Go Blue!

One For The Ages, Hail To The Victors!

SCM — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 20:40:56 -0000

More photos » by Bill Fundaro - AP

3 months ago: Michigan slot receiver Martavious Odoms (9) and Notre Dame cornerback Raeshon McNeil (8) watch Michigan quarterback Tate Forcier (5) score a touchdown in the fourth quarter of an NCAA college football game, Saturday, Sept. 12, 2009, in Ann Arbor. Michigan upset No. 18 Notre Dame 38-34. (AP Photo/Bill Fundaro)

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Ok, so a great number of months ago I wrote a post lamenting the fact that we had signed a long term deal to play Notre Dame. I was short-sighted and wrong. Yesterday was a perfect example of just why we play Notre Dame and why this is one of the great rivalries in the sport. Once again on the national stage (for all the right reasons this time) on a perfect day for football with an absolutely tremendous atmosphere, and the game that played out like that? Wooooo (!!!!) indeed.

Onto the collection of thoughts:

General what-have-you:

- !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

- That was far and away the best Notre Dame team I have seen in a long long time, beyond a shadow of a doubt. I would not hesitate one bit to say that will be the best offense we see this season.

- Notre Dame played a darn solid football game, in fact they played extremely well and got beat. They came back from down 11 not once but twice.

- The crowd was awesome, the 110,278 were thunderous throughout and it sure seemed like there were fewer ND fans there than in prior years, which was a pleasant surprise. Student section was awesome. All the questions about whether or not the structures would make a difference have been answered with a resounding yes.

- Speaking of the structures, the shadow from the Western building covers the entire field by the time the second half rolls around, a few more lights might be called for on these 3:30 starts.

- I know they specifically built those seats in the student section for the band, but they need to move them, you simply cannot hear them if you're anywhere South of the 50 yardline.

- Clausen was more accurate, but he still really rushes throws when he is pressured in any way (which was infrequent at best yesterday) and the majority of the passing game is predicated on chucking it deep, this strategy works entirely because of Tate and Floyd, more on that later.

- The ND kick return guy touched the ball on our "squibb" kick, hence why the clock ran, if I can see it 40 rows up it shouldn't be that hard for people watching in HD to determine it too.

- WOO coaching adjustments, WOO clock managment, WOO play calling, WOOO!

- I'm going to preface this one; I was/am a big Lloyd Carr fan. But you CANNOT tell me that any time over the past 15 years we would've gone for it on 4th and 3 like we did on Forcier's lightning bolt TD. We punt that ball 100 times out of 100 with the old regime.

Offense

- Tate Forcier, I mean what can you say? An epic performance. The play before the winning TD was one of the greatest individual efforts I have ever seen, for him to avoid the sack and get the ball to Savoy in the corner of the endzone was nothing short of ridiculous. The ensuing drop was soul-crushing for approximately 5 seconds, and yes it was tipped.

- Savoy's catches got us into that position in the first place, don't forget that.

- So much for that shutout of Nevada eh? You cannot put into words how much better this offense is, you just can't.

- Brandon Minor averaged 10 YPC on his first 9 touches of the day and ended up with 106 yards on 16 touches and 1 TD. It is an appreciable difference when he is in there in terms of how he hits the hole and accelerates, welcome back sir.

- Did not see Shaw even once yesterday, which surprised me. Carlos looked great on a few screens, although he made a few catches a little more dramatic than they probably needed to be.

- Lost Moosman late in the game, which last year would've been DOOM, and this year we put in Dorrestein and didn't miss a beat... awesome. I thought the offensive line did a GREAT job against a much faster opponent this week.

- 1st and goal on the 1 and no points... ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! That was one of my few criticisms of the play-calling yesterday. I'd rather us stay in the shotgun and keep the D spread out, let Minor see the blocking and pick his spot rather than just barreling into the line from the I-form and let the D put everyone in the box.

- Kevin Koger, Greg Mathews, LaTerryal Savoy, and Darryl Stonum all stepped up big-time. Tate's one poor throw of the day was to Koger when there wasn't a defender within 20 yards of him on our second to last drive... I just can't say enough about how well the offense has done getting our receivers into space thus far.

- Absolutely nothing but praise for the playcalling and clock management on that final drive, awesome job Coach, awesome job.

More after the jump...

Defense

- Wellllllllllllllllll we held on didn't we? Yeegads.

- Hardly any pressure on Clausen at all, this was due to a combination of very quick drops/throws, max protect, relatively little blitzing, a solid ND O-line, and yes, the occasional BLATANT hold on whomever was assigned to block Graham and Roh.

- Not one deep ball given up, yes ND moved through the air very well, but considering how much of an island we put Warren and Cissoko on out there, to not give up the one play drive was really encouraging.

- Warren's coverage of Tate on ND's final possession was PERFECT, Warren ran the route for him and had position the whole time, nevermind Tate hugging him to keep him from picking it off. I've seen loads of whining about this (shock!) from ND fans who can promptly stick it where the sun don't shine for all I care.

- Halftime adjustments! The third quarter performance on D was huge. The perfect screens from the first half were suddenly being snuffed for no gain. We gave up something like 308 yards in the first half and then somewhere around 35 in the 3rd quarter? Phew.

- Would've never guessed we would've let them gash us on the ground like they did... it was hard to tell if we were caught out of position or if there were some poor pursuit angles taken by the safeties coming up in run support, but there were some enormous holes out there. Overall the ND O-line turned in a fantastic performance when they weren't holding the bejeezus out of our defenders.

- No Vlad Emelien... Beauford brought this up when we talked after the game, the guy who came on when Williams was hurt (whom I can't even find on the roster) played well, but I was under the impression Vlad was contending for a starting spot, anything going on with him? EDIT: The safety who came in was Jordan Kovacs who is #22 on the official roster but I believe was sporting #32 yesterday, and again, nice job sir.

- Floyd is the real deal.

Special teams

- WOOOOOO SHADES OF STEVE BREASTON WOOOOO! What a bolt from above that was.

- Zoltan needs to just settle down, he's misfiring more often than he's hitting moon shots.

- Tate's pooch punt was a thing of beauty and a great call

- Could've done without the missed chipshot FG, but Olesnavage again looked solid on the one at the end of the first half.

- Kick coverage looked less solid this week, the big one we let go right up the gut was particularly frustrating.

The takeaway

- Enormous win for this team and the program, just enormous.

GO BLUE!!!