Wolverines wear down Wildcats 28-16
The offense should have a chance to flex its muscle by scoring 17-21 points against severly overmatched opponents like Northwestern and Eastern Michigan - unless of course the defense gives them prime field position all game like they did in the Notre Dame game.
The Michigan offense underperformed my very sober analysis of their capabilities in this afternoon’s game. Chad Henne returned to action for the entire second half - apparently Ryan Mallett doesn’t know the parts of the playbook where the Wolverines throw on first down - but the Wolverines still found themselves in a dogfight against a bad Northwestern football team. Four second half Wildcat turnovers that gave the Michigan offense a short field to work with only provided the Wolverines with a narrow 12 point win that was closer than it should have been.
The Wolverines were down 16-14 in the fourth quarter until their defense took control of the game. The Michigan defense forced three fumbles and an interception on the last four Wildcat possessions; two of those turnovers resulted in touchdowns that finally helped U of M knock off Northwestern.
The plan was for Chad Henne to play the first offensive series of the first and third quarters. The rest of the game was supposed to be Ryan Mallett’s. Once again Michigan offensive coordinator Mike DeBord did the true freshman no favors as the Wolverines ran on first down into stacked fronts time and time again which repeatedly put Mallett in 3rd and long. Here is how the first down playcalling looked during the first four drives Mallett had this afternoon.
2nd Drive - 1 yard rush
3rd Drive - 4 yard rush
4th Drive - 4 yard pass [on 1st and 21]
5th Drive - 3 yard rush
Not surprisingly each of those drives was a three and out. The only time Michigan ran more than three plays with Mallett in lineup was when they went into the two-minute offense at the end of the first half. That drive resulted in yet another missed field goal. In three of the first four series Mallett played Michigan had 3rd and 5 or more yards to go for a first down. The playcalling was better in the second half with Michigan throwing 7 times and running 4 times on 1st down during their first three drives to draw the Wolverines to within 2 points before their defense took the game over.
The defense at least redeemed itself after getting toasted early. The first play from scrimmage foretold the comedy of errors that would ensue when Michigan mistackles resulted in a 64 yard passing play for Northwestern that ended up being the key play that put the Wildcats up 3-0 early. Northwestern racked up 427 yards and scored more points in the first quarter than they did the entire game against Ohio State.
At halftime Defensive coordinator Ron English said the team made adjustments and would perform better. He ended up being true to his word as his defense pitched a shutout during the second half and put the game away with turnovers on the last four Northwestern drives. If not for his defense there’s a chance Michigan loses this game 16-14 as the Wolverine offense showed little ability to take advantage of what was statistically one of the worst pass efficiency defenses [114th] in college football.
If the Wolverine offense performed this poorly on the road against a very bad Northwestern team you can only guess how ineffective they will be on the road in games against Illinois, Michigan State and Wisconsin. We’re talking about 14 points against the Wildcats when the team didn’t have the benefit of a short field courtesy of their defense. The lone bright spot is Mike Hart, who racked up another 100 yard rushing day which extends his Michigan football career-leading mark to 24 games where he’s had over 100 yards rushing in a game. Chad Henne took sole possession of the all-time touchdown passing mark at Michigan, besting John Navarre.
The strategy on offense apparently is to keep the defense off the field and limit the number of possessions by both teams. The Wolverines only appear to open things up when they are playing from behind, but even with that being the case they couldn’t get a lead against Northwestern until their defense started forcing turnovers and giving the offense prime field position. That’s obviously not a good sign.
At 2-0 Michigan remains at least superficially in the running for the conference title. But road games against Illinois, Michigan State and Wisconsin, and a season-finale matchup against the dreaded Buckeyes seem like a tall task for this squad right now. The team should be competitive on their home field against EMU, Purdue and Minnesota. Here are my grades for the three main coaches for today’s game.
Ron English: C+. His defense struggled early but made the necessary adjustments to gain control of the game in the second half. Getting the shutout during the second half and forcing four turnovers, the defense did everything short of scoring touchdowns to help Michigan pull out the victory.
Mike DeBord: D+. I’ve detailed most of the problems with his offense during both stints as Michigan’s offensive coordinator. His offense is at its best when teams play his squad straight-up and allow Michigan to have success running the football, which PSU was nice enough to do last weekend. Teams that are intent on taking away the running game can ground his offense to a halt. That has been the case against two of the teams on the schedule thus far: Oregon and Northwestern. The Wildcats aren’t good but they were able to contain Michigan’s run game. The Wolverines need to have their 1997 defense if they are going to be saddled with DeBord’s point a possession offense.
Lloyd Carr: C. The field goal unit is currently hitting on 33% of their attempts, which is worthy of a failing grade. It’s nearly impossible to believe that a program like Michigan, which routinely has top 10-15 rated recruiting classes, can have special teams that are this pathetic. Poor tackling has plagued the program for more than 10 years with only intermittent signs of improvement over the years. The offense is just painful to watch while the defense has at least shown some signs of being able to improve as the season progresses.
Back to back games against Purdue and Illinois will give us an idea of whether this team has any shot at winning the Big Ten title.
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[…] Mahmood Ali wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptThe Michigan offense underperformed my very sober analysis of their capabilities in this afternoon’s game. Chad Henne returned to action for the entire second half - apparently Ryan Mallet doesn’t know the parts of the playbook where … […]