The State Of Michigan Wolverine Football

So the University of Michigan football is off to a 1-2 start this year.

They have been sluggish on offense as expected, but thankfully the defense has been rather strong. Michigan has always had a strong running offense and Sam McGuffie is starting to show signs of the promise he came with into the University.

The ceiling for the Wolverines can not be based in wins and losses this year although many fans will disagree. Progress takes place with the offense getting more efficient every week and the players getting more comfortable with Coach Rodriguez's spread offense.

That said, a bowl game is still in the picture albeit a low level bowl like the Motor City. I expect them to make significant progress by the end of the year, enough to give the Buckeyes fits in their annual clash at the end of the season. It won't be as strong as last year's offense with Henne, Hart, Manningham, and Long, but should be able to score more than 20 points.

Right now they are making mistakes that remind us how young this team is such as the number of turnovers against Notre Dame. Those problems are easily correctable and should not be an issue as the season goes along.

Until the offense starts producing the way Coach Rod and the fans expect, they will have to rely on their strength, which is their defense.

The 35 points against Notre Dame was misleading as the defense was put in horrible field position due to the several miscues on special teams and offense. The Big Ten is a heavily run oriented league with Purdue possibly being the only team that thinks pass before run in the conference.

Coach Rod can minimize the mistakes by giving his skill players at wide receiver and running back chances to make plays and by fixing the problems on special teams.

The turnovers are killing the team and that can be easily taken care of. This is a young team that is only going to get better as the season goes along.

Whether that will translate into wins is yet to be seen but there has been enough shown to think this program will only get better and with the recruits coming in next year, the future is bright for this storied program.  It shouldn't be too long before we can claim Michigan as the victors again.