First of all let me preface this by saying that I'm not trying to provide excuses for the last two weeks. While the outcome today may prove to be reasonable, the manner of today's loss and last week's loss are troubling. I understand the frustration and anger.
That being said, here are a few facts about this team and this season:
I'll also add this opinion - Milton has the "it" factor. He's going to have to learn together with the young receivers, but he's making throws I haven't seen a QB make in a Michigan uniform since Chad Henne. Give it time, let him work through the mistakes this year. Think about what he would've done today if he hadn't missed Bell on the wide open pass or thrown a bad ball on that interception. He's getting there....
That being said, here are a few facts about this team and this season:
- On offense we are basically starting from scratch. We replaced 4/5ths of the OL, and today we played a game with guys who I believe had a combined 6 starts (the last two weeks) coming into this game. We have a starting QB who played his first meaningful snap this year. We replaced our starting TE and 2 of starting 3 wide receivers. In short, we're playing a LOT of guys on offense who have never played before. And it shows. If we are being honest, the only guys we have "returning" in a full time role are Mayfield and Ronnie Bell. That's a lot of new faces trying to get acclimated on where they need to be going and what they need to be doing.
- On defense, things aren't much better. By the end of the first quarter today we had the following guys who had meaningful experience from last year on the field: Dax Hill, Brad Hawkins, Carlo Kemp, Cam McGrone and Kwity Paye. And the last two aren't at 100%. Obviously the loss of Ambry Thomas has been a HUGE one, especially early in the year. The difference between having one lockdown corner and having none is significant. Between him on defense and Nico on offense, we lost probably our two best returning players.
- Don Brown's defense is predicated on having good DL pressure and corners who can cover. We have very little of either right now. Part of that is bad luck, part of it is circumstance (Ambry opting out) and part of it is poor/unlucky recruiting (Aubrey Solomon). I'm not sure who to blame that on, but it is a fact about our roster right now.
- Bottom line - if we were being honest before the season, we should've realized there would be growing pains. Maybe not losing to MSU and Indiana growing pains, but still growing pains. And not having any early season non-conference games to work that out has been challenging.
- This season was a disaster before it started. We're playing only 8 games, we didn't get any chances to really work out the kinks with pushover games early on, and we don't even know if we have a game next Saturday or not. Its absurd. I'm glad they are playing, but we can't overlook the circumstances of these games. We are going to take our lumps this year while we learn together, but it might be the perfect year for that. I'd rather go 4-4 in a season that has all the extra BS that this one does than wasting a 12 game season with growing pains.
I'll also add this opinion - Milton has the "it" factor. He's going to have to learn together with the young receivers, but he's making throws I haven't seen a QB make in a Michigan uniform since Chad Henne. Give it time, let him work through the mistakes this year. Think about what he would've done today if he hadn't missed Bell on the wide open pass or thrown a bad ball on that interception. He's getting there....
