* indicates not a per game stat, which obviously impacts rank this season
History vs. Michigan:
Michigan leads all-time series 5-1
Last meeting: 2019 at Rutgers - 52-0 Michigan
This Season:
at Michigan State - W 38-27
vs #17 Indiana - L 21-37
at #3 Ohio State - L 27-49
vs Illinois - L 20-23
Quarterback: Noah Vedral 6'1" 195 lbs (RS Jr.)
Vedral has completed 82 of 130 (63%) of his passes with 723 yards and 5 TD to 7 INTs. He's rushed for 77 yards on 36 attempts with a TD and a long of 24.
Running Back: Isaih Pacheco 5'11 210 lbs (Jr.)
Pretty much the only running back and rightfully so, Pacheco has 55 carries for 286 yards (5.2ypc) with 2 TDs and a long of 66. He's had 12 receptions for 79 yards.
Wide Receivers: Aron Cruickshank 5'10" 160l lbs (Jr.), Bo Melton 5'11" 190 lbs (Sr.) & Shameen Jones 6'2" 180 lbs (RS Jr.)
The Wisconsin transfer Cruickshank has 21 catches for 123 yards with a long of 30 and 3 carries for 21 yards. Melton has recorded 20 receptions for 334 yards with 4 TDs and a long of 66 yards. Jones has 12 catches for 92 and a TD with a long of 14.
Tight End: Jovani Haskins 6'5" 251 lbs (RS Sr.)
Transferring out of WVU, Haskins has had 2 catches for 12 yards with a TD.
Left Tackle: Raiqwon O'Neal 6'4" 296 lbs (RS So.)
8 career starts.
Left Guard: Cedrice Paillant 6'4" 298 lbs (RS Jr.)
4 career starts. JUCO previously.
Center: Nick Krimin 6'5" 310 lbs (RS Sr.)
24 career starts.
Right Guard: Bryan Felter 6'3" 299 lbs (Fr.)
1 career start.
Right Tackle: Reggie Sutton 6'4" 291 lbs (RS So.)
4 career starts.
Defensive Tackles: Michael Dwumfour 6'1" 296 lbs (RS Sr.) & Julius Turner 6'0'' 265 lbs (RS Sr.)
Michigan transfer Dwumfour has 14 tackles with 1.5 for a loss. Turner has recorded 13 tackles with 4.5 for a loss.
Defensive Ends: Mike Tverdov 6'4" 254 lbs (RS Jr.) & CJ Onyechi 6'0" 248 lbs (RS Jr.)
Tverdov has 15 tackles, 3.5 of which were behind the line of scrimmage to go along with a forced fumble and a fumble recovery. Onyechi plays a hybrid position as Rutgers technically runs a 3-4 defense but can be found as an outside rusher as a LB/DE type of player. He has 18 tackles, 4 for a loss and 2 sacks.
Outside Linebackers: Tyshon Fogg 6'1" 232 lbs (Sr.) & Tyreek Maddox-Williams 6'1" 226 lbs (RS Sr.)
Fogg has compiled 41 tackles with 2 for a loss and a forced fumble. Maddox-Williams has totaled 8 tackles with 1 for a loss, a pass deflection and a fumble recovery.
Middle Linebacker: Olakunle Fatukasi 6'1" 234 lbs (Jr.)
Fatukasi already has 50 tackles on the season with 6.5 for a loss, a forced fumble and 2 fumble recoveries.
Cornerbacks: Tre Avery 5'11" 180 lbs (RS Sr.) & Avery Young 6'0" 198 lbs (Jr.)
Avery has 15 tackles with 1 for a loss, 4 pass breakups and an INT. Young has 24 tackles with 1 for a loss and 2 forced fumbles.
Free Safety: Lawrence Stevens 5'8" 184 lbs (RS Sr.)
Stevens has 15 tackles. Last week was his first career start.
Strong Safety: Christian Izien 5'10" 198 lbs (RS So.)
Izien has 26 tackles with a pass deflection.
Punter and Kicker: Adam Korsak 6'1" 185 lbs (RS Sr.) & Guy Fava 6'0" 191 lbs (RS Fr.)
Korsak has had 20 punts with an average of 43.0 yards with a long of 66. 9 have been fair caught and 6 downed inside the 20. Fava is 2/2 on field goals with a long of 44. He's kicked it off 11 times failing to generate a single touchback.
Returners: Avery Young 6'1" 190 lbs (So.) & Aron Cruickshank 5'10" 160l lbs (Jr.)
Young has returned 4 punts for 11 yards and a long of 9. Cruickshank has returned 15 kicks for a 20.8 yard average and a long of 55.
Players to watch:
Isaih Pacheco - RB
Bo Melton - WR
Olakunle Fatukasi - LB
Isaih Pacheco - RB
Bo Melton - WR
Olakunle Fatukasi - LB
Prediction:
The stoppable force meets the moveable object.
People are loving themselves some Rutgers, though. Rutgers looks almost competent on paper when it comes to scoring points and competing, even on par or better than Michigan! But there's still a lot of ugly under the hood and the bottom dweller does not get to come out just yet because they beat MSU. Let's take that game for example.. MSU has been proven to be a dreadful team despite cleaning up their turnover act and beating us. Rutgers even beat them by 11. But a closer look at that game and an 11 point win is actually pretty underwhelming given the circumstances. Those circumstances were 9 turnovers by MSU. Those circumstances were an AVERAGE starting field position of their own 45.5 yard line across 14 drives (excluding their final 1 play kneel down drive). I don't think there's much to write home about when you get the ball 14 times with an average length of field of 55 yards against MSU and you manage 2.7 points per drive.. It's just not very good.
Now, that's not to say Rutgers is trash and Michigan will win easily. A handful of those turnovers were forced and they did put together some really good drives. But it is to say they aren't as good as they appeared in their best showing thus far. Their other games have been typical Rutgers (were down 37-14 to IU until 3 minutes left, down 35-3 against OSU at the half and 42-15 into the 4th, and lost to Illinois).
The main issue plaguing Rutgers is turnovers. They've turned the ball over 11 times in their 4 games with at least 2 in all of them (3, 3, 2 and 3 to be exact). Outside of that they have a decent running game besides a dreadful performance against MSU. Their passing game is much improved but it's mostly off of short passes. While Vedral is completing 63% of his passes which is a massive upgrade over Rutgers recent teams, he's also averaging 8.8 yards per completion. Which may seem somewhat decent but for reference, Milton who seems to refuse to throw it deep is averaging 13.0 yards per completion. Despite some scary receivers on paper, Rutgers has not yet shown the ability to do what we saw MSU and IU do so easily against us.. Throw it deep consistently. All that said, if there's one thing that may just keep Rutgers in this game it's our putrid defense despite Rutgers being yet to outgain any of their opponents. Whether or not we can do anything to not get gouged by deep balls is a coin flip. Whether or not we can stop the run in a coin flip. Whether or not we can even get pressure on the QB to not have to worry about deep balls as much is a coin flip. Whether or not we don't get burned by the dink and dunk passing attack is a weighted coin flip against us if slant routes are deployed. Have to hope that Rutgers continues it's trend of crapping itself on offense to limit these coin flips.
Which brings us to their defense. Rutgers actually had a very impressive run defense their first 2 weeks followed up by an expected poorer showing against Ohio State but yet an even worse showing (5.7ypc) against Illinois. Michigan's rushing attack has been God awful outside of week 1 but on the bright side, this is probably the worst defense we'll see since week 1 and likely for the rest of this season. But so far... Another giant coin flip in this regard. Through the air, Michigan will have an opportunity to exercise some demons. MSU completed 72% of passes against Rutgers on 43 attempts, IU had 65% on 26 tries and OSU completed 86% on 28. They tightened up against Illinois and played a great game stopping the pass but were gouged on the ground in return. Faster players and a QB that can place a ball where it needs to be will cause them trouble and I don't think they can afford to sell out to stop either option without the risk of getting burned. Michigan has done a decent job not turning it over overall (7 times fewer than Rutgers) so hopefully the last 2 weeks were a blip against solid teams and not the start of a trend. Michigan hasn't turned it over against bad teams YET.
So what does all this mean? Michigan's odds of beating Rutgers is less than 60% and that is disturbing. Faith has bit me in the ass back to back weeks but I've come to grips with the fact that we're not very good.. In fact we may even be bad. But surely we aren't Rutgers bad. The team that dominated Minnesota is in there. We had an awful game vs MSU and got beat by 2 teams that are probably just better. Though losing to a team that hardly even practiced for 2 weeks as bad as we did last week is inexcusable. I really wouldn't be surprised to see a Minnesota like performance and we win 56-17 and everyone enjoys themselves for a day. We still have the athletes... Don't we? Make some throws to receivers that should be open and open some holes for the backs and don't turn it over and we can score a lot of points in this game. Easier said than done but this is the easiest game to actually do it. But I can't even come close to betting on that after what we've seen this year. We lose this and I can't pick this team to win again this season.
Michigan wins 38-30
This years predictions:
Don't worry about it, I was 13-0 last year!
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