More photos » by Tony Ding - AP

Michigan coach Rich Rodriguez shouts words of encouragement to his players . (AP Photo/Tony Ding)

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November is an odd month. Some years it is the most miserable 30 days on the calendar. Others, you think it was June and summer was around the corner. This year seems to be a combination of the two, and Saturday provided us with one of the most beautiful November days I've seen in Ann Arbor since I first set foot on campus in 1994.

Unfortunately, the weather was the only thing I could compliment on Saturday.

Despite a 14 point halftime lead, Michigan allowed 21 unanswered points to Purdue en route to a heartbreaking 38-36 loss. Well, "heartbreaking" probably isn't the proper word. "Maddening" is. Despite throttling the Boilermakers in the first half, the Wolverines allowed poor play and decision making to cost them a game they should've won. There's little more to it than that.

We can go into great detail about the colossal pooch screwing that occurred when Michigan fumbled at its own 19 yard line. Or about the 91 yard drive immediately following Michigan's follow up score. Or the blown onsides kick. Or the inexcusable screw up that allowed a 54 yard touchdown on a play action pass.

GaaaaaaaaaaaH!

(more after the jump)

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More photos » by TONY DING - AP

15 days ago: FILE -- This is a Sept. 19, 2009, file photo showing Michigan quarterback Tate Forcier (5) embracing offensive lineman David Molk (50) after an NCAA college football game against Eastern Michigan, in Ann Arbor, Mich. Michigan coach Rich Rodriguez says center David Molk is out for the season after tearing a ligament in his right knee against Penn State. (AP Photo/Tony Ding, File)

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For all the grinding and gnashing of teeth I've read and heard since Saturday, you'd think the rapture had occurred. It seems as though the rest of the Big Ten was taken in a divine light, leaving only Michigan to contend with the SEC and other evils left on this world.

Not so much. Saturday sucked. But the reality is Saturday's Michigan loss to Penn State was not unlike other games or years we've seen as Michigan fans. Michigan got thumped by a better team. Penn State's defense was far better than we were willing to give it credit for, and their Defensive Tackles and Linebackers ate our average offensive line for lunch. Darryl Clark was a far better passer and game manager against Michigan than I, personally, gave him credit for. Michigan also shot itself in the foot with drops, stupid penalties, drops, a safety inducing bad snap and more drops.

It was ugly. But we've seen just as bad or worse.

If you're looking for a parallel, don't look at 2008. That's not a particularly apt analogy. Look at Game 2 of 2007. Yes. The season we'd all like to forget. The Oregon game. If you're looking for a game where Michigan came out of the tunnel gamely, put seven points on the board, then collapsed like a New Orleans levy against stiff breeze, that's the one. Saturday's Penn State game wasn't even close to that. Oregon dominated every last aspect of that game in a manner that completely eclipsed the loss to Penn State.

Even worse. Look at the Iowa game in 2002, when Michigan lost 34-9. I have no clue how we got 9 points. None. They should've deducted points from Michigan's score. Then there was the 2007 Ohio State game. Or, look back to Donovan McNabb steamrolling the Wolverine defense in 1999. Even a moment's reflection reveals this sort of thing has happened before. It's happened to good teams as well as bad ones. So please, let's not act like Michigan never lost a game in poor fashion before Rodriguez showed up on the sidelines.

The sad reality is that this isn't a very good football team. Sure there are some exciting players. Sure there is talent. But this is the same team that went 3-9 last year, only it's a year older and starting sometimes two freshmen quarterbacks. The same defensive and offensive liabilities still exist. The difference is, this year, we're beating teams we're supposed to beat. We're just not ready to beat teams we shouldn't.

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We're two days away from the Michigan Penn State Game, and dammit, we're excited here at Maize n Brew. In the interest of gaining as much inside information as possible, we tracked down Mike from Black Shoe Diaries at his bunker in northern Siberia and forced him to answer some questions. Well. Not really. Mike tracked me down and roused me from my two week slumber and forced me to talk about Michigan. He also had me sign all sorts of papers, including something in hindsight I'm certain was a power of attorney. I'll deal with that later...

Mike's posted my answers over at Black Shoe Diaries for the Penn State crazies to pick apart. So now's my turn. Here's all you intel on Penn State.

On to the Questioning!!

Maize n Brew Dave: Injuries are going to play a big part in this game. Is Sean Lee actually going to play on Saturday? Who else is banged up for Penn State and who, if anyone, is out for the game?

MnB Dave: How good a feel do you have for this year's Nittany Lion Squad? We all knew there'd be turnover this year, but I've seen so many different things out of PSU (good and bad) that I really don't know how to gauge them. At 6-1, Penn State has only one marquee game on the resume and that was a loss at home. Minnesota and Temple are arguably your best wins (both at 4-2). Are you satisfied that you know what to expect game in, game out from this squad?

MnB Dave: I have to do this. Why do Penn State fans call one win a "streak"?

(more questioning after the jump....)

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More photos » by Charlie Neibergall - AP

about 1 month ago: Iowa's Tony Moeaki (81) runs for a 34-yard touchdown reception in the first quarter of this NCAA college football game against Michigan, Saturday, Oct. 10, 2009, in Iowa City, Iowa. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)

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When I saw a clearly distraught Denard Robinson collapse onto David Moosman following Michigan's fifth and final turnover Saturday night, my frustration and anger disappeared. I simply couldn't be angry or disappointed anymore.  After years of watching Michigan, sometimes emotionlessly, drop close games, I've been programmed to go into a deep funk lasting several days. I'd watch Henne, Brady, Navarre, Henson, or whomever else slowly walk off the field  unbuckling their chinstraps with their heads down or stare onto the field in a vacant trace with mouth wide open search for something to say. It was business. It was over. Onward to the next game, meeting, scrimmage, etc. It's over. Move forward.

This was something new to me. I saw a small glimpse of it last week when Tate Forcier threw what in hindsight was not a bad pass to a covered Marataveous Odoms. On the pattern, Odoms shirt was grabbed just as the ball left Forcier's hand, pulling him back and giving MSU's safety a slingshot towards the ball Odoms would normally have caught. When it was over and MSU hand come down with the ball, Tate lied there on the field turf, obviously upset with himself and distraught, until a hand from one of his linemen lifted him up. As if to say "Come on kid, we're with you."

But this week it truly set in. When Denard's final pass ended up in the wrong hands, though his eyes were obscured by the mask he wears everyday in practice and games, I knew they were filled with tears of regret and disappointment. Turning to his left, Robinson looked as though he was looking for a place to bury his head, to find a place for his own misery in that moment. This was new to me. This was not the vacant stare I remembered and the internalization of pain that I so often saw from Michigan's quarterbacks. Robinson was visibly crushed by his mistake. And as the freshman turned to either collapse or stumble off to the sideline, David Moosman was there to hold him up.

In that moment of disappointment, this Michigan team became something more than wins and losses.

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In a world devoid of news, we make our own. After much deliberation and tireless research, Hawkeye State of Black Heart gold Pants and I have decided to launch yet another interwebz podcast. We'll talk Michigan Iowa, the Big Ten Slate, and mock each other's cultural heritage. Should be a good time. We're on TalkShoe tonight at 7:30PM CST. Call in's are welcome, so if you've got praise for me or something nasty to say about Iowa, by all means call in.

Here's the link:

http://www.talkshoe.com/talkshoe/web/talkCast.jsp?masterId=66148&cmd=tc

Phone Number: (724) 444-7444
Call ID: 66148

We have no idea how badly this little trainwreck is going to turn out, so that means nothing but fun for you. Everyone likes watching a trainwreck. So join us at 7:30 for an hour of your life you'll never get back, talking Big Ten football.

More photos » by Carlos Osorio - AP

about 1 month ago: Michigan running back Carlos Brown (23) outruns Indiana cornerback Donnell Jones (10) and safety Austin Thomas (20) for a touchdown during the first quarter of an NCAA college football game in Ann Arbor, Mich., Saturday, Sept. 26, 2009. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio)

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After a series of ongoing reports of Carlos Brown being limited in practice this week, MGoBlog is calling the likelihood of Carlos seeing the field this week "very doubtful."

According to MGo:

A reliable source says [Brown] was concussed in a full-contact drill and he is very doubtful for this weekend.

No word in the papers or the official team site as to whether Brown is actually out or not, but all signs point to no. Ann Arbor.com had this to say about Brown's condition:

Running back Carlos Brown did not practice Wednesday because of an undisclosed injury. He missed part of the Indiana game with what was originally termed "sore knees" and later described as an ankle injury.

So, nothing to verify the concussion possibility yet, but I'm taking Brian at his word on this. I don't think we're going to see Mr. Brown on the field in Iowa City. On the other hand, that does mean a bigger dose of Brandon Minor and Michael Shaw. Rodriguez said that Minor is as close as to 100 percent health as he’s been all season (according to AAdotCom). 

"The past few weeks he’s been limited during the weeks," Rodriguez said. "Tuesday practices are our most physical practice and (this week) he went through the whole practice on Tuesday. It’s probably, and again talking to him, it’s the best he’s felt in several weeks."

A healthy Minor should off set the loss of Brown to some degree, though I seriously doubt Brandon is going to be able to make the cuts he could make at the season's start on his gimpy ankle. In Brown's stead, especially in the two back set, Iowa's going to see a lot of speedster Michael Shaw, who's ability seems to mirror Brown's. Including, unfortunately, his penchant for getting injured.

More photos » by Al Goldis - AP

about 1 month ago: Michigan quarterback Tate Forcier (5) is tackled by Michigan State's Marcus Hyde (11) during overtime of an NCAA college football game, Saturday, Oct. 3, 2009, in East Lansing, Mich. Michigan State won 26-20 in overtime. (AP Photo/Al Goldis)

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He's only a freshman.

Funny. We've said that so many times over the last month in so many different intonations that it seems to have twenty different meanings. Tate Forcier is something of a revelation for Michigan fans a year removed from the purgatory of a 3-8 season, but he's only a freshman. He's only a freshman starting behind an offensive line that lost its best starter to a foot injury; a defense that seems to regard yardage against as a Christmas present to the opposition; and a squad teeming with inexperience. He's only a freshman starting his first college away game.

There's no such thing as a good loss. For some programs there are, but not at Michigan. A loss is a loss regardless of how well or how badly you lost. There are, however, losses that tell you something about the state of your team. This was one of them. First and foremost, Saturday's game showed how resilient this year's squad is. Despite being down 14 points with less than 5 minutes to go in the game, this team fought back to tie it in the game's dying seconds. In fact, 160 of Michigan 251 total yards on the afternoon came after the 4:47 mark of the fourth quarter. This team is explosive, mentally tough, and will never quit on a game or each other. That is something to be commended.

We can also take some solace in the fact that Brandon Graham and his defense limited the Spartan's offensive output in regulation to just 20 points, despite receiving no help from its offense. There are many people who say that time of possession is an over hyped and unimportant statistic. I disagree. When your opponent possesses the ball at a 2 to 1 margin, it's going to wear your defense out. Michigan State had the ball for a mind boggling 39 minutes, 46 seconds in regulation. That's 40 minutes of running full out on defense. If you're looking for a partial explanation for our tackling problems late in the contest and overtime, it could simply be exhaustion from being run ragged by MSU's 20 first downs and 417 yards of total offense. Still, like the offense, the defense is resilient. Their bend but don't break policy limited the Spartans to two field goals and two touchdowns on an afternoon where the score probably should've been worse. I can live with that.

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

The Defense

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

The Defensive Line

via John T. Greilick Detroit News.com

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

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

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

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

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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

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......)

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When the pass left Tate's hands I didn't think it had a prayer. After of day of misfires and mistakes, watching the ball spiral toward a receiver well out of the camera's view filled me with an awful trepidation. It looked under thrown. Tate was hurt. He was walking around the field turf gingerly holding his right arm so as not to make any unnecessary movements. Yet, despite the obvious pain in his throwing shoulder, there he was throwing deep on third down. Balls out. Going for it all.

Nine months earlier against Indiana a similar story unfolded. Missed chances. An inexplicably inept offense that looked like a world beater not two weeks earlier. A porous defense that couldn't stop the conference's worst offense from scoring at will. Michigan was clinging to the ropes in a game that, on paper, shouldn't have been close. And as the clock quickly ticked toward nothingness, another iceberg cold shooter lifted up for one more triple in an attempt to tie the game. When I saw Laval Lucas-Perry launch it, I was certain it would be yet another brick in the bunker Michigan had been building all night. But, dammit all, if Michigan was going down, they were going down firing.

And the ball hung up there. Seemingly forever. Gliding down on its arc toward its destination. It going to be short. No. Maybe its got a chance. It's almost there. Oh god.....

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Just like that the fortunes of an afternoon seemed to shift. Michigan was back on top or tied. They could win this one. Then it hit you. The defense had to make a stop. The same defense that had been gashed on the corners, up the middle, on basic screen plays, for long bombs. The defense would have to be the difference after a day it would rather forget. But then, 25 seconds later, a 15 footer bounced harmlessly off the rim and Donovan Warren broke on the ball a step quicker than Damarlo Belcher and Michigan had escaped with a win it really shouldn't have wrested away.

(more after the Jump....)

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