Following Loss to Illinois, Questions Abound For Rodriguez, Michigan

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Michigan traveled to Champaign, Ill. on Halloween looking to become bowl eligible, but instead came away with its second straight 25-point loss.

After building a 13-7 halftime lead, Michigan took the opening drive of the second half down to the Illinois 1-yard line. But four straight runs were unable to crack the end zone and Illinois took captured the momentum, and the game, scoring 31 unanswered points en route to a 38-13 victory.

Michigan looked like a kid that was trick-or-treating house-to-house, filling his bag of candy but then got beat up by the kid down the street and his bag of candy stolen.

For the second week in a row, Michigan looked uninspired and somewhat lost – far more so than a team should nine games into the season.

In the wake of the loss, and looking ahead to the final three games of the season, there are some questions that need to be answered.

Please note that I am still confident in Rich Rodriguez, and I’m not at all calling for his head after less than two seasons. I think he needs to be given time to build his team. I do have some questions, however.

1. Why can’t the defense stop the spread option?

This was a huge problem under Lloyd Carr. His defenses could defend the standard pro-style offense with the pocket-passing quarterback just fine, but when facing mobile quarterbacks, they looked lost.

Troy Smith, Vince Young, Dennis Dixon, and Appalachian State’s Armanti Edwards are still giving Michigan fans nightmares.

Much of the reason Michigan athletic director Bill Martin went out and got Rich Rodriguez two years ago was to change the stagnant culture of Michigan football.

The four and five loss seasons were getting old. The slow defense that broke down every time it faced a faster offense needed a change.

So why are we still having trouble defending it?

Make no mistake about it; this defense is dangerously thin. Only 58 percent of the defensive commitments from the past five years are still on the team. Fifty-eight percent!

That's certainly not a recipe for success.

Twenty defensive commitments are no longer on the team due to numerous factors: graduation (four), leaving early for the NFL (one), leaving the team (13), and not qualifying (two).

Until Rodriguez is able to bring in a couple more classes, this defense should continue to struggle, simply because of lack of depth.

But depth aside, why did the defense struggle so much to defend Darryl Clark last week and Juice Williams this week when it goes up against a similar offense in practice every week?

Rodriguez is the father of the spread-option offense, so he should know how to defend it.

Today, it wasn’t just a mistake here and there; the defense looked completely lost out there. Every time Williams ran a zone read, the same play that is the staple of the Michigan offense, everybody crashed down on the same guy, which usually tended to be the one without the ball.

Illinois had seven rushes of 20 yards or more, three of them going for touchdowns.

I have to believe that this will improve over time when Rodriguez gets more defensive recruits and more speed into the system, but it’s frustrating that it hasn’t improved at all.

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