SBNation.com - Tide Rolls: Defending Champs Rout Wolverines, 41-14, In Dallas

Everyone Hates Denard Robinson

2012-09-04T00:14:56Z

Denard Robinson was really looking forward to the 2012 college football season. Then his Michigan Wolverines opened the season against the Alabama Crimson Tide. The (former?) Heisman hopeful went 11-for-26 with two interceptions on Saturday. His struggles in the 41-14 loss were nothing but pleasure-fuel for cross-town rivals the Michigan St. Spartans.

As Diamond Leung of MLive reported, Spartan players kept up the smack-talk on Twitter all day Saturday, ripping Robinson to shreds. Leung gathered some of the choicest quotes.

"Is this guy really a QB I'll say my mans (walk-on Tommy Vento) is a better QB lol," linebacker Denicos Allen tweeted. "S/O to my boy vento by the way."

It's good that Allen remembered to shout out Vento after using him as a backhanded insult.

"DENARD IS SOOOO BAD!" safety Kyle Artinian tweeted. "And it makes me feel so good."

But how does Artinian feel about bustin'?

"I can play quarterback for the school in blue," linebacker Jamal Lyles tweeted. "(Le'Veon Bell) for heisman > the other guy in the great state of michigan."

The two teams play one another on Oct. 20. Robinson likely won't forget the insults. But hopefully he'll forget that he's a pretty lousy quarterback.

For all news and information regarding the Michigan Wolverines, head on over to Maize n Brew. For more on the Michigan State Spartans, check out The Only Colors. For perspective on both teams, stay tuned to SB Nation Detroit.

Alabama's Defense Has No Respect For Your Gameplan

2012-09-03T12:57:25Z

We all have a different definition of what balance is in college football. For virtually every television announcer, balance is gaining the same number of yards on the ground and through the air. For Washington State head coach Mike Leach, "Balance, whether you run it or throw it, is getting contribution from all the skill positions."

To me, though, it's slightly different. I tend to take the approach to balance that the movie version of Oskar Schindler took to power. "[Balance] is when we have every justification to [run/pass], and we don't." Balance isn't what you do, it's what you can do. It's what a defense, in watching film and game-planning, has to respect.

And when it comes to somehow gaining yards on the Alabama defense, balance is beyond imperative.

Here's what I said about the Michigan offense in my Saturday morning preview:

It is conceivable that Michigan receivers Roy Roundtree or Jeremy Gallon (combined: 16.2 yards per catch last year) could burn Alabama for a big play, or even two. It is also conceivable that Denard Robinson could break off a couple of solid runs. But consistency will be the key for Michigan in this game. You have to do absolutely everything well against a Nick Saban defense; if you are one-dimensional, they will adapt and suffocate you. If the passing game isn't working both short and long, or if the running backs taking the place of suspended junior Fitzgerald Toussaint aren't taking advantage of everything they are given (and then some), the Tide will slowly bear hug Michigan into an unconscious state. […]

Gallon is potentially great, and he could have some fun battles with Alabama corner Dee Milliner, but Robinson will need to find success in the shorter passing, be it to Gallon, a lesser-known receiver (Junior Drew Dileo? Sophomore Jerald Robinson? Part-time quarterback Devin Gardner?), tight ends Brandon Moore and Mike Kwiatkowski, or running backs Thomas Rawls and Vincent Smith. To beat Alabama's defense, you have to make sure you are using every inch of the field and every aspect of your offense. Robinson's legs are fantastic, but if that's all Michigan has going for it, the Wolverines won't be in this game very long.

The Solid Verbal's Dan Rubenstein and Ty Hildenbrandt, making their SB Nation debut Saturday!

It was clear from the start of Saturday night's game that Michigan knew this. From the start, the Wolverines attempted to force Alabama's defense to account for and respect the pass. It probably didn't help the gameplan that starting running back Fitzgerald Toussaint was suspended, but honestly, I don't think that made much of a difference. Michigan's only chance at offensive success was to prove they could pass, Toussaint or no.

In 2011, Michigan ran the ball 74 percent of the time on standard downs (national average: 60 percent), 40 percent on passing downs (national average: 33 percent). Despite pro-style intentions, the Wolverines catered to Denard Robinson's strengths for the most part and kept things run-heavy, especially when Toussaint caught fire late in the year.

Against Alabama on Saturday, though, the gameplan was quite different. In the first quarter, Michigan ran just five times on 11 standard downs (45 percent) and just once in six passing downs (17 percent). These are Air Raid percentages. The problem, of course, was that the passing didn't work.

Pass No. 1 (First-and-10, Michigan 22, standard down): A play-action slant to Devin Gardner is broken up by Dee Milliner.
Pass No. 2 (Second-and-10, Michigan 22, passing down): Robinson tosses a flare to Vincent Smith, who breaks a tackle and gains nine yards.
Pass No. 3 (First-and-10, Michigan 34, standard down): A play-action slant to Roy Roundtree broken up by Dee Milliner.
Pass No. 4 (Third-and-26, Michigan 18, passing down): This is Robinson's first poor pass of the night. Robinson rolls left, and Roundtree finds a little space near the first-down marker, but the pass is terribly overthrown.
Pass No. 5 (Second-and-10, Michigan 29, passing down): Robinson fires too high for Jeremy Gallon 16 yards downfield. Gallon was well-covered by a closing Robert Lester, but a perfect pass probably could have been completed.
Pass No. 6 (Third-and-5, Michigan 34, passing down): Robinson overthrows Gardner 20-plus yards downfield. Again, Gardner was well-covered by Milliner, but a perfect pass may have had a chance.
Pass No. 7 (First-and-10, Michigan 24, standard down): A quick sideline pass to Jeremy Gallon gains eight yards.
Pass No. 8 (First-and-20, Michigan 25, standard down*): Facing a little bit of pressure, Robinson fires too high for Gardner, who is bracketed by two defenders. The pass was off-target again, but honestly, a better pass probably would have been picked off.

* All first downs are standard downs.
Pass No. 9 (Second-and-20, Michigan 25, passing down): Robinson fires aggressively downfield again. Unfortunately, his targeted receiver, Roy Roundtree, has been shoved out of bounds by Milliner, who easily picks off the pass. He returns the interception 35 yards inside the Michigan 20, absorbing a hard hit from Robinson, who went throwing-shoulder-first into Milliner and came up favoring his arm.
Pass No. 10 (First-and-10, Michigan 26, standard down): Another quick sideline pass to Gallon, who splits two tacklers and gains nine yards. Robinson's delivery is hitched, either because of his shoulder or because of what he saw as he looked at Gallon.
Pass No. 11 (Second-and-1, Michigan 35, standard down): Another unsuccessful play-action slant on a standard down. This one, however, is open but lands too low for Gallon.
Pass No. 12 (Third-and-10, Michigan 38, passing down): Robinson fires a nice pass 24 yards downfield to sophomore Jerald Robinson, but Milliner is once again there to break it up.
Pass No. 13 (Third-and-3, Michigan 12, standard down): Robinson finds Vincent Smith on a screen, but linebacker Trey DePriest snuffs it out for a gain of two.
Pass No. 14 (First-and-10, Michigan 2, standard down): A play-action bomb to Gardner 40 yards downfield falls incomplete. Once again, the pass was great, and once again, Milliner was there to break it up.
Pass No. 15 (Third-and-9, Michigan 3, passing down): Robinson throws over the middle toward Gardner, but he is perfectly bracketed by three defenders. C.J. Mosley picks the pass off and coasts 16 yards into the end zone.

The score at this point: 31-0, Alabama.

Robinson's passing line: 4-for-15 for 28 yards and two interceptions.
On standard downs: 3-for-8 for 19 yards.
On Passing downs: 1-for-7 for nine yards and two interceptions.

Michigan's gameplan was exactly what I expected it to be. Offensive coordinator Al Borges knew that simply trying to hammer away on the ground with Robinson (for the game: nine non-sack carries, 37 yards) and running backs Vincent Smith (13 carries, 33 yards) and Thomas Rawls (six carries, nine yards) wasn't going to keep the Wolverines in the game. Against Alabama you have to prove that you can do everything. Other than the fact that the Wolverines targeted Dee Milliner's man (usually Devin Gardner, the backup quarterback who was playing wideout for the first time at the college level), I can't say I have many complaints about the Michigan gameplan. But two things got in the way:

1. The Alabama defense is still the Alabama defense. Despite losing both starting cornerbacks, the Tide still have 2010 starter Dee Milliner roaming around in the secondary. Despite the loss of Dont'a Hightower and Courtney Upshaw, Alabama still has Trey Depriest around to snuff out well-executed screens for little to no gain. As Kirk Herbstreit said during the broadcast, Alabama does not attack you from every direction; they simply build a fence and force you to figure out a way over it. Herbstreit was talking specifically about the run defense, but the analogy works in regard to the defense as a whole. Perfection in the passing game could have found some exploitable holes, but Denard Robinson's arm is far from perfect.

2. Denard Robinson is still Denard Robinson. It's okay to have flaws. Despite only playing sparingly as a freshman, the senior is still probably going to finish his career with close to 7,000 passing yards and 4,500 rushing yards, and that's just incredible. He is uniquely talented, and few defenses have proven capable of slowing him down (at least when injuries aren't involved). The problem is just that he isn't skilled in the ways it takes to beat Alabama. Almost nobody is. Robinson's legs are a wonderful weapon against all but the country's best defenses, but his arm simply isn't accurate enough in terms of intermediate passing.

Passes Thrown Within 5 Yards Of Line Of Scrimmage: 7-for-8 for 59 yards
Passes Thrown Six to 15 Yards Downfield: 1-for-5 for seven yards and an interception.
Passes Thrown 16 to 30 Yards Downfield: 1-for-6 for 19 yards and an interception.
Passes Thrown More Than 30 Yards Downfield: 2-for-7 for 115 yards and a touchdown.

To Robinson's credit, of course, he kept plugging away. After his initial 15 passes, he completed seven of his final 11 for 172 yards, including a 71-yard bomb to Gallon and a 44-yarder to Gardner. He exposed the fact that Alabama might still be vulnerable to deep passing on occasion, but as we learned in last year's Florida-Alabama game, you can't beat the Tide with only deep passing.

(Arkansas' Tyler Wilson will test that theory significantly in a couple of weeks.)

For Michigan, all is not lost, of course. The Wolverines do have to face solid defenses away from home the rest of the way -- Notre Dame on September 22, Ohio State on November 24, perhaps Nebraska on October 27 -- but those are simply good defenses. As far as we know right now, no future opponent can approximate Alabama's overall speed and discipline; Michigan State probably comes the closest, but the Spartans must visit Ann Arbor and are, thus far, incredibly one-dimensional on offense.

As long as he stays healthy, Robinson should have another strong year, and Michigan should challenge strongly for the Big Ten crown. Saturday night's game at Jerry World simply proved that the Wolverines are still not on the level of the nation's most elite team(s). But most of us already knew that. (Most of us.)

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For more on Tide football, visit Alabama blog Roll Bama Roll, plus SEC blog Team Speed Kills.

For more on Wolverines football, visit Michigan blog Maize 'n' Brew, plus Big Ten blog Off Tackle Empire and SB Nation Detroit.

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Blake Countess Injury: Michigan CB Out For The Season, According To Report

2012-09-03T03:29:51Z

Michigan Wolverines cornerback Blake Countess has been lost for the rest of the 2012 season because of a knee injury, according to a report from Brian Cook of MGoBlog.com. Countess suffered the injury during the Wolverines' 41-14 loss to the Alabama Crimson Tide on Saturday night.

Countess emerged as a valuable part of Michigan's defense during the latter portion of the 2011 season -- he appeared in all 12 games, but started each of the final six. Countess finished the season with 44 tackles and also broke up six passes. He will use 2012 as a redshirt season and return as a redshirt sophomore in 2013.

For more comprehensive coverage, be sure to visit Michigan Wolverines blog Maize n Brew as well as SB Nation Detroit. For more news and notes from around NCAA football, head over to SB Nation's college football hub.

Alabama Vs. Michigan: Crimson Tide Hungry For New Identity

2012-09-02T15:17:18Z

Coming off a season which produced a National Championship, eight selections in the NFL Draft and one of the top-ranked defenses of all time, Alabama faced the challenge of finding an identity independent of the successful teams of the past. How simple it could be for this team to get lost in shadow of the 2011 squad.

But with a 41-14 thrashing of the eighth-ranked Michigan Wolverines on Saturday night, the message that Alabama is still a force to be reckoned with was sent, and the college football world had no choice but to listen.

Eric Prisbell of USA Today writes that Alabama has no intentions of drifting out of the spotlight.

"It shows the nation that this is not the complacent Alabama that people were expecting," fifth-year senior offensive lineman Barrett Jones said. "We're hungry...And we're coming for another championship."

The Crimson Tide got started early, dominating in every facet of the game, eventually leading 31-0 with three minutes remaining in the first half. After the final whistle and the score reading 41-14, head coach Nick Saban was pleased with the performance, but, writes Tom Spousta of the New York Times, he still believes the team has plenty to prove before they can again identify themselves as a dominant college force.

"This team had a challenge of trying to create an identity for themselves in terms of how they competed and how they played. And I think they took a step in that direction," said Saban, who nonetheless was quick with a caveat: "But, that is something that happens over time and happens with consistency and performance."

With Alabama only two weeks away from beginning the gauntlet of the SEC schedule, this season opener may soon serve as nothing more than a footnote for the 2012 season. But for a football team thirsty for recognition, dominating a top-10 team was a good way to grab the nation's attention.

For more on Alabama and Michigan, please be sure to check out our blogs Roll Bama' Roll and Maize n' Brew, respectively, along with our College Football Hub and SB Nation for all the latest news and updates.

Top 25 Rankings Changes: Alabama Could Replace USC At No. 1 After Michigan Demolition

2012-09-02T15:00:12Z

The No. 2 Alabama Crimson Tide had the most impressive victory of the weekend with their dismantling of the eighth-ranked Michigan Wolverines. In the only matchup of top-10 opponents, Alabama clearly proved they were the superior side with their 41-14 victory; Michigan, meanwhile, will probably be taking a tumble down the polls.

Alabama's victory will probably be enough to propel them past the USC Trojans to the top of the polls. USC had a strong win against Hawaii, but the victory by the Trojans lacks the prestige of the titanic Alabama-Michigan contest. It's likely that USC will be looking up at Alabama come the release of the Week 2 polls.

Another potential move in the rankings could be between the fourth and fifth spots in the poll. Oklahoma had an unimpressive 24-7 victory over UTEP, while Oregon obliterated Arkansas State with a 50-point first half and cruised to a 57-34 victory. The incredible early offensive proficiency by the Ducks might be enough to swap them with the Sooners at the fourth spot.

Talk about college football rankings with Alabama fans at Roll Bama Roll, with USC fans at Conquest Chronicles, with Michigan fans at Maize N Brew, with Oregon fans at Addicted to Quack, and with Oklahoma fans at Crimson and Cream Machine.

VIDEO: Michigan Vs. Alabama Highlights Are Really Just Of The Crimson Tide

2012-09-02T13:15:05Z

The Alabama Crimson Tide dominated the Michigan Wolverines from the start, scoring on four straight drives to help get themselves up 31-0 early in the first half. A.J. McCarron managed the game well, throwing two touchdowns early to start the Alabama scoring.

McCarron completed only 11 passes, but did throw for 195 yards for about 9.5 yards per attempt and the first two Crimson Tide scores. McCarron found Kenny Bell for two catches for 26 yards on his first touchdown drive, setting up a short two yard touchdown throw to Michael Williams. McCarron's most highlight-worthy throw was a 51 yard touchdown shot down the right sideline to DeAndrew White to put Alabama up 14-0.

The Alabama run game and defense took over from there. T.J. Yeldon piled up 111 rushing yards on 11 carries and had a fourth quarter touchdown to cap off the scoring. The Crimson Tide defense then forced three turnovers, including two critical interceptions thrown by Michigan's Denard Robinson. One of Robinson's interceptions was thrown right to Alabama's C.J. Mosley for a touchdown return, and the other set up an Eddie Lacey touchdown run.

Robinson threw two touchdowns after that, but it was too little, too late for Michigan. Here are the highlights of the game courtesy of ESPN.

For more on Alabama and Michigan, please be sure to check out our blogs Roll Bama' Roll and Maize n' Brew respectively along with our College Football Hub and SB Nation for all the latest news and updates.

Michigan Vs. Alabama Final Score: Crimson Tide Rolls The Wolverines, 41-14

2012-09-02T03:31:41Z

It was never a contest at Cowboys Stadium on Saturday night, where the Alabama Crimson Tide took apart the Michigan Wolverines 41-14.

Despite a bevy of new starters on defense, Alabama was dominating throughout a game that never lived up to it's hype. The Crimson Tide picked up right where they left off by beating a Big Ten team that many felt could be a dark-horse to make a run at the National Championship.

Nick Saban had to be thrilled with his squad's rushing attack, which totaled 226 yards, 111 of them courtesy of T.J. Yeldon on just 11 carries. Yeldon, a freshman who was thought to simply be a backup to Eddie Lacy, proved very valuable on the evening with a touchdown as well.

A.J. McCarron wasn't overpowering but certainly was successful, amassing 199 yards and two touchdowns through the air.

Things weren't so rosy for Denard Robinson. The Heisman hopeful endured a miserable night completing just 11-of-26 passes for 200 yards, including two interceptions and a touchdown. He also rushed for 27 yards.

Bob Asmussen Regrets Putting Michigan At No. 1 On His AP Poll Ballot

2012-09-02T01:51:26Z

Can I change my ballot now? No. I have to wait until Tuesday.
— Bob Asmussen (@BobAsmussen) September 2, 2012

Bob Asmussen was the only voter to rank Michigan No. 1 in the preseason AP Poll. This tweet was sent when Alabama led 31-0, but it's no less true now that 'Bama's "only" up 31-7 on Michigan at halftime.