This is real. Michigan is sitting alone atop the B1G East Division and at #4 nationally with 2 wins over Top 25 opponents (No. 21 Colorado, and No. 11 Wisconsin). With Rutgers looming, and Illinois after the bye week, Michigan will be undefeated heading into East Lansing at the end of the month before mounting a victory in a "What's your deal" fashion.
Our Defense Is No Joke
Holding Wisconsin to 159 yards of total offense is a very large feat. Having 3 picks is huge, too. The secondary is down a man in senior corner back Jeremy Clark, but hasn't skipped a beat with Lewis & Stribling playing lock down coverage, with help from Delano Hill, Dymonte Thomas, and Jabrill Peppers over the top.
Nobody can run the football on Michigan in any sort of conventional, pro style formation with guys like Glasgow, Wormley, Gary, Godin, Taco, Mone, and others manning the front lines. McCray and Gedeon are coming up and doing what they need to do in their run fits. And, of course, Jabrill is special. He can take away a side of the field.
I'm still a little worried about Ohio State's spread sets and the challenges it poses, but with a healthy defensive front (God willing) and more speed at linebacker, Michigan should be able to keep getting better and better at stopping that kind of attack, not to mention Don Brown will have a great game plan.
Offense
Wilton Speight is still settling in. There are times when he needs to throw the ball away instead of taking a sack. For example, before one of the missed field goals, he backed us up by taking a big loss on a sack. The thing I like about him is that he doesn't force too many balls - there have been a couple where he has (including the interception yesterday), but for the most part he avoids the tight window that is too tight for him and is willing to throw the ball high & outside to avoid picks. That's what a smart quarterback should do, especially one that is making his 5th start of his career, and 1st start against an elite defense.
His focus needs to be to get the ball to the plethora of play makers that he has to work with. He did a good job of finding Darboh yesterday, especially late. Darboh has had some drops this season, including a big one on a third down in the 4th on a slant route. But, he redeemed himself on the next possession by catching a slant on the empty set by Speight (who threw a good ball). Then, of course, the deep ball touchdown to win the game. All in all, Speight proved capable in this big game, throwing the ball 32 times, completing 20 passes for 219 yards, and notching 1 TD through the air.
Michigan tried to go deep on several occasions, but only connected on one of them. I think that Speight and the receivers will get better and better at this as the season progresses, much like Rudock did last year with, for the most part, the same receiving corps.
The big three of Darboh, Chesson, and Butt will still be crucial, but it is also nice to see some of the young talent take over a little of the load, and to spread the ball around in Tom-Brady-Like fashion. 7 men in winged-helmets caught passes on Saturday. True freshmen Kekoa Crawford and Eddie McDoom both have seen some action receiving, and on jet sweeps. Michigan ran a lot of formations with a wide receiver motioning across the field to keep the defense honest for the possible jet sweep, and to create some deception pre-snap to open up the run game - both outside, and between the tackles.
Run Game
DeVeon Smith is the premier back on this ball team. He rushed the ball 17 times for 66 yards Saturday, an average of 3.88 yards per carry against a stout Badger defense. Ty Isaac and Chris Evans both contributed as well, both toting the rock 8 times and breaking some long runs (Isaac 13 yard run, Evans 22 yard run). Michigan's coaching staff continues to have a running back by committee and is getting some pretty good production at times, especially last week against Penn State, but also saw a mediocre performance against Wisconsin, only gaining 130 yards on the ground despite rushing it 44 times (average of 3.0 yards per attempt). To be fair, the Wolverines were without their starting left tackle, and arguably their best run blocker in Grant Newsome, who went down with a knee injury in the first half. And, they were facing possibly the best defense they will play all regular season, one that held LSU and MSU to 14 and 6, respectively.
Michigan will need to improve their run game if it wants to beat the Buckeyes in Columbus at the end of November, and if it wants to compete for the ultimate crown just after the new year.
Jabrill Peppers
I really like the Wildcat formation that he came out in yesterday, and it looked oddly similar to Ohio State's offense under Snake Oil Salesman Urban Meyer ran, in recent years, by All A's student Cardale Jones and All A's (drivers training) student JT Barrett. Peppers was clearly reading the defensive end before handing it off every time, and, make no mistake, that was a read-option play, and Peppers had the green light to take it out of the belly of the running back and run around the end if he saw fit.
As someone on the board noted, Peppers was out there on Darboh's deep ball as a decoy, and he's been brilliant in that role the past two weeks. We all better believe that there will be some variations off of the looks Harbaugh has given the general public, and his opponents, to this point.
Kicking Game
Open tryouts??????
Thoughts?
Our Defense Is No Joke
Holding Wisconsin to 159 yards of total offense is a very large feat. Having 3 picks is huge, too. The secondary is down a man in senior corner back Jeremy Clark, but hasn't skipped a beat with Lewis & Stribling playing lock down coverage, with help from Delano Hill, Dymonte Thomas, and Jabrill Peppers over the top.
Nobody can run the football on Michigan in any sort of conventional, pro style formation with guys like Glasgow, Wormley, Gary, Godin, Taco, Mone, and others manning the front lines. McCray and Gedeon are coming up and doing what they need to do in their run fits. And, of course, Jabrill is special. He can take away a side of the field.
I'm still a little worried about Ohio State's spread sets and the challenges it poses, but with a healthy defensive front (God willing) and more speed at linebacker, Michigan should be able to keep getting better and better at stopping that kind of attack, not to mention Don Brown will have a great game plan.
Offense
Wilton Speight is still settling in. There are times when he needs to throw the ball away instead of taking a sack. For example, before one of the missed field goals, he backed us up by taking a big loss on a sack. The thing I like about him is that he doesn't force too many balls - there have been a couple where he has (including the interception yesterday), but for the most part he avoids the tight window that is too tight for him and is willing to throw the ball high & outside to avoid picks. That's what a smart quarterback should do, especially one that is making his 5th start of his career, and 1st start against an elite defense.
His focus needs to be to get the ball to the plethora of play makers that he has to work with. He did a good job of finding Darboh yesterday, especially late. Darboh has had some drops this season, including a big one on a third down in the 4th on a slant route. But, he redeemed himself on the next possession by catching a slant on the empty set by Speight (who threw a good ball). Then, of course, the deep ball touchdown to win the game. All in all, Speight proved capable in this big game, throwing the ball 32 times, completing 20 passes for 219 yards, and notching 1 TD through the air.
Michigan tried to go deep on several occasions, but only connected on one of them. I think that Speight and the receivers will get better and better at this as the season progresses, much like Rudock did last year with, for the most part, the same receiving corps.
The big three of Darboh, Chesson, and Butt will still be crucial, but it is also nice to see some of the young talent take over a little of the load, and to spread the ball around in Tom-Brady-Like fashion. 7 men in winged-helmets caught passes on Saturday. True freshmen Kekoa Crawford and Eddie McDoom both have seen some action receiving, and on jet sweeps. Michigan ran a lot of formations with a wide receiver motioning across the field to keep the defense honest for the possible jet sweep, and to create some deception pre-snap to open up the run game - both outside, and between the tackles.
Run Game
DeVeon Smith is the premier back on this ball team. He rushed the ball 17 times for 66 yards Saturday, an average of 3.88 yards per carry against a stout Badger defense. Ty Isaac and Chris Evans both contributed as well, both toting the rock 8 times and breaking some long runs (Isaac 13 yard run, Evans 22 yard run). Michigan's coaching staff continues to have a running back by committee and is getting some pretty good production at times, especially last week against Penn State, but also saw a mediocre performance against Wisconsin, only gaining 130 yards on the ground despite rushing it 44 times (average of 3.0 yards per attempt). To be fair, the Wolverines were without their starting left tackle, and arguably their best run blocker in Grant Newsome, who went down with a knee injury in the first half. And, they were facing possibly the best defense they will play all regular season, one that held LSU and MSU to 14 and 6, respectively.
Michigan will need to improve their run game if it wants to beat the Buckeyes in Columbus at the end of November, and if it wants to compete for the ultimate crown just after the new year.
Jabrill Peppers
I really like the Wildcat formation that he came out in yesterday, and it looked oddly similar to Ohio State's offense under Snake Oil Salesman Urban Meyer ran, in recent years, by All A's student Cardale Jones and All A's (drivers training) student JT Barrett. Peppers was clearly reading the defensive end before handing it off every time, and, make no mistake, that was a read-option play, and Peppers had the green light to take it out of the belly of the running back and run around the end if he saw fit.
As someone on the board noted, Peppers was out there on Darboh's deep ball as a decoy, and he's been brilliant in that role the past two weeks. We all better believe that there will be some variations off of the looks Harbaugh has given the general public, and his opponents, to this point.
Kicking Game
Open tryouts??????
Thoughts?
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