BYU Tough Game

[scfanblue]

This is a tough game for Michigan. I watched BYU against UCLA and they are a very good football team. They can beat Utah. We will see just how far Michigan has progressed since the Utah loss. Rudock cannot afford to throw any interceptions in this game. If Michigan wins then it is a huge indicator for us the rest of the season. Northwestern and Michigan State look better each week. Must also admit that Notre Dame is a pretty good football team even in the midst of key injuries. On the other hand, Ohio State needs to realize that last year is over and they are not owed a win by anyone because they are OSU and defending national champions. They remind me of Michigan's entitlement attitude under Brady Hoke right now. They are lucky they have the talent to overcome the uninspired play. Maybe Saturday will wake them up. Michigan's team attitude right now is refreshing when they all speak of getting better and identifying things they need to work on each week. Michigan has long way to go though. We will see how good we are on defense this week against the Cougars who have a balanced attack.

 

[mgoblu]

I think mich defence wins this game, is ucla defence like mich, if the offence can have no turnovers, and let the defence do there thing, we will WIN.

 

[Dunc1]

This is a tough game for Michigan. I watched BYU against UCLA and they are a very good football team. They can beat Utah. We will see just how far Michigan has progressed since the Utah loss. Rudock cannot afford to throw any interceptions in this game. If Michigan wins then it is a huge indicator for us the rest of the season. Northwestern and Michigan State look better each week. Must also admit that Notre Dame is a pretty good football team even in the midst of key injuries. On the other hand, Ohio State needs to realize that last year is over and they are not owed a win by anyone because they are OSU and defending national champions. They remind me of Michigan's entitlement attitude under Brady Hoke right now. They are lucky they have the talent to overcome the uninspired play. Maybe Saturday will wake them up. Michigan's team attitude right now is refreshing when they all speak of getting better and identifying things they need to work on each week. Michigan has long way to go though. We will see how good we are on defense this week against the Cougars who have a balanced attack.

BYU is a very solid team. College football power ranking around 14 or so. This game is a toss up and the Vegas spread is off. This is going to be a close game either way. Vegas has not respected them four games in a row now just because they don't get the public love like a ND for example. I am going to watch this game for sure between Mich and BYU.

 

[michnittlion]

BYU is impressive --- I too watched that game late Saturday night and they showed a lot.

That said, this is a tough spot for them. 4th fairly good opponent in a row, plus the cross-country trip. It's tough to play good foes all the time and not have some game where there is a drop-off in quality of play. Human nature.

What worries me about U-M though: it's inevitable there will be a game where Rudock needs to step up and win the game primarily by himself. Not confident that will happen if U-M gets in such a spot.

The line is 4 and given I have some worries on either side --- I wouldn't bet this game either way.

 

[Dunc1]

BYU is impressive --- I too watched that game late Saturday night and they showed a lot.

That said, this is a tough spot for them. 4th fairly good opponent in a row, plus the cross-country trip. It's tough to play good foes all the time and not have some game where there is a drop-off in quality of play. Human nature.

What worries me about U-M though: it's inevitable there will be a game where Rudock needs to step up and win the game primarily by himself. Not confident that will happen if U-M gets in such a spot.

The line is 4 and given I have some worries on either side --- I wouldn't bet this game either way.

This game is a toss up for sure. Line opened -6+1/2 so early money went BYU. The -16+1/2 line for UCLA last week was ridiculous given how well BYU played in their first two games.

 

[scfanblue]

BYU is impressive --- I too watched that game late Saturday night and they showed a lot.

That said, this is a tough spot for them. 4th fairly good opponent in a row, plus the cross-country trip. It's tough to play good foes all the time and not have some game where there is a drop-off in quality of play. Human nature.

What worries me about U-M though: it's inevitable there will be a game where Rudock needs to step up and win the game primarily by himself. Not confident that will happen if U-M gets in such a spot.

The line is 4 and given I have some worries on either side --- I wouldn't bet this game either way.

The key for a Michigan victory once again in NO interceptions by Rudock in this game. If Michigan is going to have a good season this has to stop anyways. We have Maryland and Northwestern coming up not to mention MSU. BYU first though because they are a good football team.

 

[CinciBlue]

I've watched 2 of BYU's games including Saturday night. They play hard. I think they are a lot like a Harbaugh coached team. They have some talent, but not a ton, and their schemes and willingness to go hard makes them formidable.

I am by no means an expert, however, these are the keys to winning:

1) BYU can be exploited with the run on the edges. This is something that Mich does well this season. They cram up the middle, and bring their backers up. I like those power and fly sweeps to be effective in this game.

2) The middle of the field on short and intermediate routes should be a field day. If Butt and co. don't get stuck blocking I look for a lot of this to be available. Unfortunately, Rudock has not been great when throwing inside the numbers, so that has to get better if this part of the field is open.

3) on defense. It all comes down to the secondary. BYU plays a lot of multiple WR sets in that spread formation. Peppers and Clark have to step up. I am really starting to like Clark. He is long and fast enough to cover the longer WRs. He is gaining confidence, and I think he could be a difference maker the rest of his career.

 

[tarun262]

I picked Michigan to lose this game earlier this summer when BYU still had their QB - I am not sure if you followed them last year but they were destroying teams until their QB broke his leg and it went downhill from there - but they were unstoppable! Most of their players are back and they are a good team and an easy team to overlook for Michigan players. I have now watched 3 of their games and BYU has a big advantage in that they have played 3 Power 5 teams (Nebraska, Boise State, and UCLA) and could have easily been 3-0 with 2 of those games on the road. They are battle tested so coming to Michigan will not intimidate them at all. Having said that, a loss to UCLA pretty much kills any chance of a Playoff bid for them so who knows how hungry their players will be?

My concern with Michigan so far has been their lack of execution...our players are still no where close to being fundamentally sound and lack serious consistency. On one drive they look amazing, and they turn around and lack the fundamentals on the next and you can not use the "young" excuse anymore. Hoke developed a lot of bad habits. We should have beat UNLV by 50 points and quite frankly that does wonders for a team's confidence but instead we beat them by 21 points. I think we whiffed on 18 tackles, our starting RB missed a couple big holes and has no patience, Ruddock should not be allowed to throw beyond 10 yards, and our WRs are really really bad. BYU is a very tough team to run against and we will be lucky if we get around 100 yards on them but they are very vulnerable in their secondary. If I am the BYU coach I crowd the line, play 1-1 coverage with the WRs (bump and run) and dare Ruddock to beat them over the top. If Ruddock plays like he has the past 3 games, we will absolutely lose this game and likely lose by 2 TDs. If Ruddock can even connect on 50% of his long throws, we will be fine. This will be a tough tough game...I am actually more worried about this game then Northwestern or Michigan State primarily because we have no way to exploit BYU's weakness due to lack of skilled WRs.

Go Blue!

 

[michnittlion]

This game is a toss up for sure. Line opened -6+1/2 so early money went BYU. The -16+1/2 line for UCLA last week was ridiculous given how well BYU played in their first two games.

Wow --- it opened at 6.5?

Looking just now, it has actually crept back up to 5.5 in some spots. Must be some sharps expecting a 28-23 U-M victory.

 

[pumpbeef]

This is a tough game for Michigan. I watched BYU against UCLA and they are a very good football team. They can beat Utah. We will see just how far Michigan has progressed since the Utah loss. Rudock cannot afford to throw any interceptions in this game. If Michigan wins then it is a huge indicator for us the rest of the season. Northwestern and Michigan State look better each week. Must also admit that Notre Dame is a pretty good football team even in the midst of key injuries. On the other hand, Ohio State needs to realize that last year is over and they are not owed a win by anyone because they are OSU and defending national champions. They remind me of Michigan's entitlement attitude under Brady Hoke right now. They are lucky they have the talent to overcome the uninspired play. Maybe Saturday will wake them up. Michigan's team attitude right now is refreshing when they all speak of getting better and identifying things they need to work on each week. Michigan has long way to go though. We will see how good we are on defense this week against the Cougars who have a balanced attack.

 

[Dunc1]

The key for a Michigan victory once again in NO interceptions by Rudock in this game. If Michigan is going to have a good season this has to stop anyways. We have Maryland and Northwestern coming up not to mention MSU. BYU first though because they are a good football team.

Northwestern is a heck of a lot better than I thought they would be. That is not a gimme. Maryland is a bad team.

 

[tarun262]

Northwestern is a heck of a lot better than I thought they would be. That is not a gimme. Maryland is a bad team.

We will beat Northwestern - it's a home game (remember we have played them on the road the last 2 seasons). It will be a low scoring game but a game that actually favors Michigan that likes to run the clock, play power football. I hope we beat the snot out of Maryland - their coach is an idiot!

 

[Reality Man]

I really am looking forward to this game because it's the first test since Utah. Let's see if this team can run the ball and Rudock needs to be better in the short/intermediate game.

Harbaugh and staff have their work cut out for them.

By the way...here is a twitter statement from Sam Webb. I am happy Rudock is here but he needs to play better. Last week ain't gong to cut it.

Harbaugh: to be clear... jake rudock is our best quarterback... and not by a small margin

 

[detroitjohn]

Harbaugh: to be clear... jake rudock is our best quarterback... and not by a small margin

What will happen to this season if Rudock is hurt, because I think they're next two best QBs are red-shirting because of a transfer and playing in Indiana's HS system.

 

[Reality Man]

Don't even want to think about it. It will be downhill from there..that is for sure.


In regards to Rudock...the int's bother me but not as much as something else. You say the long ball? No. It's the underneath stuff. If you can't run and can't throw the long ball then what is left? Handing the ball off? No..it's the short stuff. He wasn't very accurate. I can live with the limitations since he is a one year emergency gap player. I can't live with the short stuff being bad...that means UM get's nothing from the qb position.

I think most of us realized Harbaugh is doing his best coming into a qb black hole and has done a great job rectifying this problem going forward. This year...rocky play at QB is to be expected but Rudock can do better with the short stuff.

Hope he had a bad day because in order to win against any good team (BYU)...he better be able to complete the 5 yard passes.

Love what Harbaugh is doing. Rely on ST's and defense to win ugly. He get's it but that shouldn't give a 5th senior qb a free pass to play like garbage because his 1st half was bad. Something tells me Harbaugh will be cracking the whip this week to let Rudock know that isn't going to cut the mustard regardless of who is behind him.

 

[tarun262]

I think JH is holding back a lot of his playbook right now as well. It would not shock me if we have only seen about 1/3 of his plays to date and we should start to see more as the team settles in. Remember, he ran one or the most complex offensive schemes in the NFL - he was able to call about 8-10 different offensive plays with the same offensive formations and he has dumbed it down a lot here in college in his first year. I expect some tricks up his sleeve starting this week now that we get into the meat of our season.

Utah - too soon and I think we just mis-executed so nothing you can do there. The problem I still have is consistency - it's common across every player. It really makes you realize how terrible a coach Hoke was and what kind of lack of discipline the team had...amazing to me really.

BTW, if Ty can figure out how to block that guy will be a beast!!! He's our best RB by a mile!!!

 

[detroitjohn]

I really applaud Harbaugh coming in, recognizing immediately that UM"s QB cupboard was empty, and going out and getting three QBs in a matter of weeks. That's leadership, coaching and foresight and it's why as soon as he has enough time with this team the ship will be sailing well. Meanwhile, let the defensive line, DBs, and stable of RBs carry this team.

 

[Reality Man]

I think Johnson is a good challenge to Isaac. You can tell UM needs a guy who can get outside the tackles and with all due respect to the hard charging, high effort Smith...he just isn't the guy. Green can only run inside at best.

Going forward if Isaac and Johnson keep healthy and develop along with the OL and TE's...then throw in a good qb next year and we can start making a trek upwards.

 

[psute]

It will be a tough game, but remember that they are also 2 hail mary's away from being 0-3...

 

[Bloodhound]

I've watched 2 of BYU's games including Saturday night. They play hard. I think they are a lot like a Harbaugh coached team. They have some talent, but not a ton, and their schemes and willingness to go hard makes them formidable.

I am by no means an expert, however, these are the keys to winning:

1) BYU can be exploited with the run on the edges. This is something that Mich does well this season. They cram up the middle, and bring their backers up. I like those power and fly sweeps to be effective in this game.

2) The middle of the field on short and intermediate routes should be a field day. If Butt and co. don't get stuck blocking I look for a lot of this to be available. Unfortunately, Rudock has not been great when throwing inside the numbers, so that has to get better if this part of the field is open.

3) on defense. It all comes down to the secondary. BYU plays a lot of multiple WR sets in that spread formation. Peppers and Clark have to step up. I am really starting to like Clark. He is long and fast enough to cover the longer WRs. He is gaining confidence, and I think he could be a difference maker the rest of his career.

One reason BYU hasn't played well against the run is the absence of NG Tuiloma. If you watched the BYU/NU game you'd see they couldn't run with him playing NG because it took 2 or more O-linemen to cover him which allowed LBs to fill the holes or cover the outside, depending on the play. He plugged the middle so well the Huskers finally just quit trying to run up the gut, that is until he hurt his knee. Although he didn't record many tackles, when a RB can't get around a big group in the middle they have to go somewhere else, and that leaves the DE's or the defensive backfield to get the stats.
Word is Tuiloma may be ready by tomorrow. If he isn't 100% though I hope you don't see him.
The DBs have been much better in pass protection as well. In the NU game we were missing Nacua and Takitaki who have both played extremely well since. In 2 games Nacua has 4 picks (one pick 6) and we've had at least 3 picks each game since their return.

This game scares me to death though. I'm not sure if any football team in the country has played any tougher teams in their first 3 games this year than BYU has. I'm sure no team will have played as tough of a 4 game schedule as BYU will have played after tomorrow, with 3 of these games on the road. I just hope our players can shake off the wear and tear, plus the travel and play their best.

 

[jake418]

I think mich defence wins this game, is ucla defence like mich, if the offence can have no turnovers, and let the defence do there thing, we will WIN.

I think a couple of intangibles that favor Michigan are a western team traveling east and playing a 12pm eastern game and byu just played an intense emotional game the week before and in college football , that just always seems to make a team a little flat. That being said, they definitely have the talent to win this game, especially if they get their NT back this week. Their secondary is tied for first in the nation with 7 picks through three games. Should be a good game to watch.