Michigan Wolverines: Who's Looking Good and Feeling Blue After Loss To Badgers?

Well, what did you expect?

John Clay out of the game?  Wisconsin's run game never missed a beat.  The Badgers managed 357 yards on the ground.  Yes, Wisconsin is a true power running team, and just when you stack the box because you know they run on every play, Tolzien hits an open receiver for 20 yards.

Certainly, Michigan is not quite ready to play with the big boys; that's something an extra 15 practices, bowl win, and an offseason to mature could fix. 

But for now, here's where we are:  a defense that gets one stop per game (Wisconsin's first drive) and kickers that couldn't make a field goal to save their lives.

But hey, they didn't put up 83 points.

After Michigan's 48-28 loss to Wisconsin, here's who's lookin' good and who's feeling blue.

Lookin' Good

(1) Denard Robinson: well, second-half Denard.  He had a 360 yard, 4 TD performance.  He managed to break 2 records today as well.  First, his 121 yards on the ground brought his total up to 1,538 rushing yards.  This is the most of any major-college QB, ever. 

Denard is also the first player in NCAA (not just FBS) history to rush for more than 1,500 and throw for more than 1,500 in a season.  Also, he made the tackle after he threw his interception (well, after his pass was tipped, then intercepted).  Superman.

(2) Will Hagerup: most of the punts were quite good and he's really working on bringing up his average, which is being bogged down by a poor first few games. 

The student section is starting to throw their hands into a 'W' when we punt.  The student section put their hands in a 'Z' shape whenever Zoltan Mesko punted, so he's definitely earning respect.

(3) Kick return team: I'm sorry, who was that on the field?  They frequently made it to the 30 yard line or better on kick returns.  This is significantly better than we've previously seen (Michigan usually struggles to field the kick to the 20).  I wonder if Wisconsin's kickoff team is really that bad, or if we just had a good day.

(4) David Brandon:  His return to the Slippery Rock tradition and bringing representatives from Slippery Rock to the game shows his commitment to the rich tradition of Michigan football. 

He's going for the win here, and I'm confident that he'll get Michigan on track (with or without Rodriguez is yet to be determined).

Feeling Blue:

(1) The 3-3-5 defense:  Sure, it worked sometimes, but this was my primary fear heading into the game today.  A three-man front just doesn't slow the run, and it didn't.  Michigan's defense got a couple stops here and there, but could never really get off the field.  Wisconsin's massive offense line played with our three-man front like little toys.

(2) [insert kicker here], we miss a field goal inside the 20 in the center?  That's right:  the kicker didn't have the complication of being on the left or right hash, it was right in the middle.  He still missed.  That makes Michigan a combined 5-of-13 on field goals this season.  Awesome.

(3) Rich Rodriguez.  Only for one very specific reason: after Rogers' interception with 30 seconds on the clock, he failed to use any of his three remaining time outs.  He got 2 stellar runs out of Denard (Michigan moved nearly 30 yards in only a few seconds). 

He opted to let time expire instead of going for the throat.  The stands booed the team (well, it was meant for Rodriguez) as they went to the locker room.  I suppose looking like you've given up isn't really the way to win over the crowd.

(4) Our injuries:  Wisconsin didn't have a single injury. I think Michigan had five.  Perhaps Wisconsin was that powerful, but it would seem that our guys are made of glass.  Not good.

(5) The defense:  All right, it should come as no surprise.  One stop the entire game?  Sure, we snagged an INT and recovered a forced fumble (which resulted in seven points).  Okay, we stopped out defense from giving up 62 points: but really, they've got to get off the field.

I'm a fan of people who say "a team of high schoolers could play better defense".  I heard this numerous times at the stadium today.  And, yes, high school defenses are probably better than Michigan's against high school offenses. 

If you put many high school defenses against offenses in the Big Ten, I think you'd see worse results than Michigan's 'D'.  Sure, it's speculation, but the argument can't really be made that they'd be better. 

The defense's myriad of problems are a combination of things: youth (fixable) and coaching (fixed after the season?)

(6) Our first-half offense:  Going into halftime, we had right around 100 yards, 0 points, and managed only 22 passing yards.  We're going to have to play 4 quarters of football against Ohio State next weekend if we expect to have a snowball's chance.

Michigan can put together good quarters (see Michigan outscoring Wisconsin 21-7 in the third), but can't seem to put together a game.  I'm running out of excuses for the offense, but Michigan is capable of beating anyone in the nation if the offense could be in it the entire time.

...But I'm not about to play the "what if" game, we always lose.

In summary, it went almost as expected.  I thought our offense would be able to put a few points on the board (at least) in the first half, but it's all in the past now.  I thought the gap might have been less than 20, but Wisconsin is a great team. 

I didn't predict a win back in August and nothing changed my mind.  It's looking like Wisconsin to the Rose Bowl though.  How can we really be that mad about it?