Football
Michigan Monday
By Tony Gerdeman

Forgive me if I find it a little difficult to focus on what Michigan did last week (a 45-24 loss to Wisconsin) with The Game just a few days away.

Besides, if you’ve read any of the last four Michigan Mondays, or any from last year, there’s really nothing new to tell you. The Wolverines had a lead for a bit, then they collapsed like a house of cards built upon a tower of toothpicks standing on a six-foot tall game of Jenga being played by two jittery spastics.

Like I said, nothing new.

In Michigan’s current four-game losing streak, they have led at some point in each game. In fact, they have led in EVERY game this season, except for the Michigan State loss, and that game was tied at the end of regulation.

And yet here Michigan sits at 5-6 needing a victory over the Buckeyes in order to get to a bowl game.

How did it come to this after a 4-0 start? The easy answers are that the offense isn’t good enough and the defense is simply terrible. Justifiably so, the defense is getting the bulk of the blame because they are allowing an amazing 35 points per game to conference opponents.

The offense, however, isn’t innocent in all of this. In Big Ten games they are averaging just 23.9 points per game, and if you take away two defensive scores, the average drops to 21.9 points per game. Last year, Michigan’s once-in-a-lifetime-bad offense averaged 21.3 points per game through their first seven conference games, so you can clearly see the improvement on hand this year.

It seems the more opponents see of this offense, the easier it becomes to stop. You can see it just in the second half of their games this season. Michigan has scored just 19 points in the second half of their last four games--and they were completely shut out against Penn State and Illinois. In those four games, the Wolverines have been outscored 99-19 in the second half.

You can even look at this most recent Wisconsin game. The Michigan offense had the ball for 10:38 in the first quarter. The rest of the game they had it for 13:33. Did they suddenly forget how to play football, or did the Badger defense finally catch on?

At least the Wolverine defense doesn’t discriminate which half the offense solves them.

I’ve said repeatedly that there is no quick fix in switching schemes, but the more pertinent question may soon become, “Is there even a ‘long fix’?”

When Michigan Was On Offense

I mentioned last week that when running back Brandon Minor isn’t healthy enough to shoulder a load, Michigan’s offense is almost helpless without him. Against Wisconsin, it was no different. Still working out the kinks of a dinged shoulder, Minor could only manage seven carries for 26 yards. His inability to carry the ball led to the Wolverines rushing for just 71 yards on 32 carries.

Denard Robinson actually led the team in rushing, carrying the ball five times for 36 yards in garbage time, or “Shoelace Time”, if you will.

Freshman running back Vincent Smith had a very contributory day with Minor and Carlos Brown both nursing the usuals. He only rushed for 28 yards on eight carries, but his real contribution came in the passing game where he had seven receptions for 54 yards, including a 21-yard touchdown pass. He was most effective catching the ball in the flats, and then racing wide trying to get upfield. This is exactly how his touchdown went. The passing to Smith was something we haven’t seen too much of, but we should probably expect to see more of it next week.

One of the more inexcusable aspects of the running game continues to be the called third down runs of quarterback Tate Forcier, which usually end up getting nothing. The Wolverines had a third and goal from the one-yard line in the first quarter and they went with a Forcier run, which lost a yard. The ensuing field goal was blocked and Michigan walked away with nothing. The game was tied 7-7 at that point and with a defense that gives up points like wives handing out “advice”, the offense cannot afford to come away empty-handed from inside the ten-yard line.

Forcier threw the ball fairly well, finishing 20-26 for 188 yards with two touchdowns and an interception. The offense focused on short and wide passes, which definitely helped the completion percentage, but there wasn’t much available downfield. In fact, one of the few times Forcier did go downfield, he threw his only interception.

Slot receiver Roy Roundtree was Forcier’s top target again this week, finishing with seven receptions for 56 yards and a touchdown. However, he was fairly well-contained on the short passes and didn’t shake too many tackles. The Wolverines probably won’t be able to rely on making the Buckeyes miss next week, so they will need to be consistent and catch everything thrown to them.

The Wolverine offensive line is going to run into the best defense they’ve seen all year on Saturday, and they are going to have to play their best game yet. When center David Molk was injured earlier in the season, it sent the right side of the offensive line into a tailspin that it has yet to come out of. Constant rotation and movement while looking for the right combination hasn’t allowed the offensive line to gel. But then it’s hard to gel when you’re constantly getting broken to pieces. Michigan needs something special from their offensive line on Saturday that they haven’t yet seen this season. The Buckeyes have a bit of a habit of underestimating the opposing offensive line, and this could give the Wolverines a tremendous opportunity to set a tone. But can they?

There isn’t much else to say about the offense that hasn’t already been said. Basically, they struggle the longer they are out there, but there are still real flashes of explosion here and there. The problem is getting a consistent flash for four or five drives per game, instead of just four or five moments per game.

When Michigan Was On Defense

For as much as the offense gets politely applauded for showing flashes, the defense should as well. But it’s just so few and far between, and solely contained to the front four, that it’s hard to applaud a defense that is busy chasing somebody down the field even before you can finish up clapping from the play before.

The players say that it’s just one breakdown here or there, but it’s funny how the opposing offense knows exactly which player is going to break down and when. Maybe Michigan should switch up the breakdown rotation much in the way you would change up a snap count.

“Okay Obi, this time you DON’T screw up and instead will have Kovacs do it! They‘ll never see it coming.”

But even as opposing fans watch this defense and dismiss it for all of its grasping and flailing, you have to recognize that the front four is really pretty good. Obviously the difference-maker is defensive end Brandon Graham. He is the most disruptive force--offensively or defensively--in the conference. If Graham wasn’t on this defense, they’d be giving up over 40 points per game to conference opponents.

Against Wisconsin, Graham had 11 tackles, 2 sacks and 4 tackles for loss. He forced a fumble on one of his sacks and tackle Ryan Van Bergen scooped it up at the Wisconsin 14-yard line and scored a touchdown, giving Michigan the 17-14 lead with just under four minutes to play in the first half. I have no doubts the Buckeyes are going to have their hands full with Graham all game long on Saturday and if he doesn’t force at least one fumble on Terrelle Pryor, I will be shocked.

Nose tackle Mike Martin has also stepped up his game over the last few weeks, even though the defense continues to get scorched. But the front four can only do so much for a defense and if there’s no help behind them, you can’t really put that on the defensive line.

Because the Wolverines were playing a running team this week, they scrapped linebackers Kevin Leach and J.B. Fitzgerald--both of whom played well enough to earn more time last week, in favor of the old stand-bys of Obi Ezeh and Jonas Mouton. And again, they were terrible.

It’s unbelievable to me that Fitzgerald and Leach couldn’t even get on the field on Saturday. If Leach doesn’t start, he only sees the field on special teams. When Leach does start, it’s because the staff prefers his athleticism over Ezeh’s. And ironically, Wisconsin attacked Ezeh’s lack of athleticism by coming out of the gate throwing the ball over the linebackers. And they didn’t stop until about the third quarter. The only issues the Badger passing game had was giving quarterback Scott Tolzien enough time to throw the ball. But when they protected him, he carved Michigan’s defense like a prison tat.

Maybe I’m missing something, but I didn’t realize that Obi Ezeh was so good in the running game that he can’t even be pulled off the field in order to get a breather. (Of course, the Michigan defense isn’t usually on the field long enough to get tired, so…)

It almost makes you wonder how folks can claim Michigan doesn’t have any depth on defense, yet they’ve got enough depth to have two completely different inside linebacking units against running teams and spread teams. Of course, that’s a bit of bunk because they’re simply trying to field defenders who will harm them less. And I’m still not sure how counting on Obi Ezeh to be your middle linebacker against a Badger running game is going to be less harmful than Kevin Leach. Or Robin Leach. Or even an ACTUAL leech.

One area where Michigan did make a change, however, was at safety. They started redshirt freshman Brandon Smith, choosing to play him at the line of scrimmage against the Badger running attack. He wasn’t very effective, but at least the coaches weren’t so terrified that they dare not even play him.

This whole fear of somebody making a mistake permeates the entire back seven. And the only way to make it stop is to find more options. Right now, Michigan’s options are limited, so you would think that Rich Rodriguez would go out of his way to find himself as many options as possible. But that isn’t what has been happening.

Looking at Rodriguez’s recruits since he was named Michigan’s head coach, a pretty disturbing pattern emerges. Granted, he has only had one full recruiting class, but if you look at his commitments (including current verbal commitments) since he was hired, 18 of them have been wide receivers or running backs and only 21 have been defensive players. And that’s not even including Justin Feagin and Denard Robinson, who he had hoped would be able to play quarterback but now knows it will never happen. In fact, if you just want to go ahead and group the quarterbacks in with the receivers and running backs, the numbers come to 21 a piece.

I understand this is a new system and all, but there’s no way those two numbers should ever be the same. Rich Rodriguez is using a scattershot approach to finding playmakers, but that’s completely the wrong approach to take at the University of Michigan. There have always been running backs and wide receivers at Michigan, and if anybody can play in his system like he loves to say they can, then why is he busy competing with Rice and Central Florida for random slot receivers. He may have been able to chase off his misses at West Virginia, but it may prove a bit tougher in Ann Arbor.

Until Rodriguez takes an increased and focused recruiting approach to the defense like he does smurfdom, it’s going to be impossible to turn Michigan into a national title contender. And given that he hasn’t seemed too intent upon focusing on defense in his first three classes, why are we to assume that this will change in the future?

It’s apparent that he believed when he accepted this job his offense would be able to overcome any defensive shortcomings. Now that he sees that his defensive shortcomings are negating any offensive advantages, his solution appears to be “go and get more offense”. It’s like being on a sinking boat and having to bail water, but instead of plugging the leak you go and grab a bigger bucket.

The Special Teams

There isn’t much to say about the special teams. Wisconsin only punted once, so Michigan never really had a legitimate shot to muff anything. As was mentioned earlier, place-kicker Jason Olesnavage did have a chip-shot blocked, and considering his recent struggles, he may have some issues against the Buckeyes as well.

The largest area of concern for the Buckeyes next week regarding the Wolverine special teams will be Darryl Stonum returning kickoffs. After seeing what happened against Iowa, I’m guessing Stonum is looking forward to getting a shot against the Buckeye kick coverage.

What Does It All Mean?

It means with a win over the Buckeyes on Saturday, all of the badness goes away. The doubt, the dismay, the anger and the apathy. A win shows Michigan fans that their coach knows what he’s doing and there’s no reason not to invest in this program.

But a loss means the season is over and the Wolverines came dangerously close to going winless in conference play.

That’s quite the extreme. And it’s also a lot to play for.

But none of that matters this week because Ohio State vs Michigan is all that needs to be said. When asked what this game means to the players, the only response should be “It’s Ohio State vs Michigan”--and everybody will understand completely.

Of course, just because that’s all that the players SHOULD be saying, doesn’t mean that’s all that WILL be said. Case in point, the Buckeyes now have some bulletin board material thanks to Tate Forcier guaranteeing a win this weekend.

But this rivalry is rife with players making similar claims, so at least Forcier is fitting right in. Though it probably shouldn’t be freshmen making the guarantees.

At least not until they’re sophomores, anyway.

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