Michigan Football: Week 5

I can not sit here and say that beating Rutgers in dominant fashion is some amazing occurrence that will single-handedly turn this season around. It will not. I will argue, however, that while this game went as expected, there were still some encouraging takeaways from it. Again I feel the need to clarify that no, I am not all of a sudden super optimistic because we destroyed Rutgers. If we did anything less than that, you would be reading a far more negative post right now.

Opponent: Rutgers Scarlet Knights

We all know what Rutgers is at this point. They are a team that for some reason was invited into the Big Ten and now just gets beat up on every year. Ever since Janarion Grant, their one and only difference-maker in recent memory, graduated and made a run at the NFL before ending up in the CFL, they have never struck any sort of fear in me. In fact, I was relieved to see Artur Sitkowski out there again, I knew he was not going to do anything to us. Their running back, Isaih Pacheco, had a 70-yard touchdown run against us last year, so he worried me just a little bit. Our defense did their job, though, and he was held to just over 2 yards per carry. Honestly, I do not know why Rutgers was brought into the Big Ten, they do not really bring anything in any sport, at least not the major ones. At least they serve as an (almost) guaranteed win every year.

Offense

Ladies and gentlemen, Shea Patterson went an entire game without fumbling. Progress has indeed been made in the quarterback room. In all seriousness, it was rather gratifying to see him not fumble once over the course of the game. He did throw an interception, but I am less upset about that than I would have been if he fumbled again. Overall, he looked good, he made a lot of nice throws, including a touchdown to Nico Collins, which was nice to see after we barely used him against Wisconsin until the very end. He showed some impressive jets for a big guy as he ran down the sideline. Patterson was also responsible for 3 punch-in rushing touchdowns. It was great to see us converting on the goal line, because nothing is worse than making it that far only to settle for a field goal. It was a very good game from him that I hope will inspire some confidence for the rest of the season. Now, we also were able to see some play from the other healthy quarterback of interest, Joe Milton. Let me preface this by acknowledging that, yes, he was playing in essentially garbage time and it is very possible Rutgers was not really trying. I do still find it encouraging how impressive he looked. I have said from day one that Milton has all of the tools needed to be an amazing quarterback. He is a big guy with impressive arm strength as well as the ability to run. If he can do the mental things correctly, such as making reads and going through his progressions, I think he can really be special. In addition to taking off for a nice touchdown run, he flashed his arm strength as he effortlessly made some nice completions, including a dart to Giles Jackson in the end zone. Am I calling for Milton to be ahead of McCaffrey on the depth chart, assuming both are healthy? Of course not. I think Milton has a little ways to go still, but his brief showing against Rutgers demonstrates he has what it takes.

Zach Charbonnet did not play very much again in this one. As opposed to last week, I can actually understand why that may have been. We rode Charbonnet a ton in the first two weeks, especially against Army, and it makes sense to rest him in a game against Rutgers rather than risk injury in a game where we did not necessarily need him. He still was impressive with his five carries though, running hard for 22 yards. The guy who got the majority of the carries, Christian Turner, also did quite a bit with his 11 carries. He displayed his quicks that I love so much, and he also showed some impressive power on his touchdown run where he stayed upright and kept his legs moving as he powered into the end zone with the help of a nice push by one of our linemen. I did not know he had that kind of power in him, but it only makes me more optimistic about his future. There were a ton of other guys who carried the ball as well, including Hasaan Haskins, who I was surprised to see get as much run as he did, but that may have been part of the effort to preserve Charbonnet. Tru Wilson also returned, which was encouraging to see.

It was a great showing from our receiver corps. Ronnie Bell was our leading receiver again, Donovan Peoples-Jones had a really nice game, and the aforementioned Nico Collins also played well. The fact that Tarik Black was our fifth-leading receiver just demonstrates the incredible amount of depth we have at the receiver position. Freshmen Cornelius Johnson and Mike Sainristil never even saw the field, which was disappointing, to be honest. I was hoping we would see some of the freshmen play more in this game. A guy who did play is Giles Jackson, and I was very excited to see him nab that touchdown. Speed is not something you can teach, and he has a lot of it. I hope to see him get more involved, even if it is in a bit of a gadget role. An explosive offense finds ways to get the ball in the hands of their most explosive players, and Jackson is exactly that.

Defense

It just felt right to shut out Rutgers, and I am glad that our defense was up to the task. It is really hard to single out any one player in particular because everybody played so well. If I had to acknowledge one guy who had a monster game, that would be Kwity Paye. He was disruptive all game, and it was nice to see him really turn it on in this one. The real highlights for me on defense were two younger players, Cam McGrone and Daxton Hill. I can not stress enough how exciting it was to see those two get a lot of playing time. I like both guys for similar reasons, they both show incredible speed from their positions. McGrone bringing speed to the linebacker position is of utmost important for our defense, especially with Josh Ross being out with an injury. He had an outstanding game, consistently causing problems for the offense, including a nice hit on Sitkowski. Hopefully he only gets better as the year goes on, because we really need some help at the linebacker spot right now. Hill had an even bigger standout game than McGrone did. He showed the speed we have all been hearing about when he beat the running back to the outside and stopped him for a loss of a few yards. That was awesome. It is plays of that nature that really make me hopeful that we will see more of him and that he will really help us win some games this year. He also had a huge hit on their punt returner, where he had blown past their blocker and beat everybody to the return man. Yes, all of these things happened against Rutgers, but I do not think it is right to just completely throw everything out the window because of it. There was a lot to like on defense in this contest, now we have to hope that this really translates throughout the rest of the season.

Next Week

This one is going to be interesting. Historically, Iowa has been a bit of a spoiler team, in that they typically will not compete for anything themselves, but they are always good enough to beat you and ruin your season. This year, they are undefeated through their four games and ranked #14 in the AP Poll. Fortunately, we do draw them at home this year, but that does not make me feel super comfortable about this game. Iowa just last week beat Middle Tennessee State (remember them?) by a score of 48-3. Yikes. Now, I know it is hard to make comparisons like that, because a team can play very differently week-to-week, but it is just interesting. They also only beat Rutgers 30-0, so if that brings any comfort to you, then there you go. I think this is going to be a slugfest, and it is going to be close right down to the wire. This is a big game, and I hope that we can pull this one out, because if we do, I think that can really get us back on the right track this season. If we cannot, then quite frankly I have no idea what is going to happen.