I was lucky enough to get to watch most of the Michigan football game while in Kansas over the weekend. On a side note, it is pretty amazing that the entire country gets to watch almost every Michigan game every season. The Wolverines struggled all game in slowing down the Wildcat offense, whether it was Kain Coulter or Trevor Siemian at quarterback. After most people, including myself, wrote off the game as another frustrating loss, a miracle happened and somehow the Wolverines pulled out the game.
I was disappointed with the option defense for the 2nd time this season, and I would be very surprised if Urban Meyer and company do not try to exploit that weakness next week. The Northwestern offensive line is not very good, so their game plan was to get to the edge and make people miss tackles. It worked well all afternoon. Different defenders struggled to keep contain on the edge, and Northwestern was able to continually gouge the Michigan defense. Jake Ryan and Desmond Morgan had one of their worst games of the season, which put a lot of pressure on the secondary to step up and make tackles. This resulted in Kovacs and Gordon leading the team in tackles, which is not a good sign in a Mattison-coached defense. This unit will have to step up the next two weeks to regain its footings as one of the conference’s best.
Devin Gardner was impressive again, outside of the one terrible interception. It looks like Al Borges is a lot more comfortable with Gardner under center, and Michigan actually has a passing attack again. The receivers are having season-best games with Gardner throwing them the ball. If the maize and blue had any type of running attack, this offense would be close to unstoppable right now. I was impressed with the hard counts at the line of scrimmage which have worked 5 times in just two games. Also, Devin’s decision-making seems to be more certain than Denard’s. Gardner does not wait in the pocket too long before scrambling, and so far these scrambles are averaging near 7 yards. It is giving me a lot of hope for next year’s team. We don’t know when Denard will be back in the lineup, but I think we all can agree that hopefully he will be able to see the field for at least one play this weekend on Senior Day. It is pretty unique to have 2 different quarterbacks win the Big Ten player of the week in one season, and I am just glad that I don’t have to make the decision between Devin and Denard once number 16 is fully healthy again.
Looking forward, this team cannot look past Iowa. The Hawkeyes are just plain bad this season, and the Wolverines should be able to rest some starters in the 4th quarter. The problem is that Michigan has lost its past 3 games against the black and gold, which means no senior has beaten these guys. A win on Saturday and Brady Hoke will continue his 2 season-long winning streak in the Big House, something that I don’t remember happening. The defense should be looking for a bounce back game, and Iowa is a perfect team for it. The Hawkeyes don’t have the team speed to really hurt our defense, and they don’t run the option. Hopefully Michigan starts in attack mode and does not let Iowa in the game from the beginning. A word for the fans attending the game, please give the seniors a huge ovation as they are announced, not just Denard. These guys stuck around the program and saw it in its worst state in my lifetime, and now they could be looking at back-to-back BCS games. Who would have thought it was possible January 2011?
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