Michigan Football: Week 7

Typically, in instances of there being a tale of two teams, that refers to the two teams involved in the game. Well, in this case, the “two teams” were both wearing maize and blue. There is the good side of Michigan, which we saw in the first half and at the end of the game. Then there is the bad side, which was the team we saw as Illinois was making their comeback. Ultimately, this game was way closer than it should have been. It was a road game, sure, but Illinois has not been good so far this year. I credit the guys for stepping up when the game was back on the line. It still does not excuse the fact, though, that it should not have gotten to that point.

Opponent: Illinois Fighting Illini

Illinois is a tricky team to judge based on other games they have played this year, largely because they had Brandon Peters as their starter for every game before he was injured against Minnesota. I think if Peters did not get hurt, it would have been the rout that we all expected. Peters is an unbelievably subpar quarterback, and the fact that he once seemed like our best option at quarterback before he transferred is sad. It does, however, point to how well Harbaugh has recruited since he arrived, as we now have two young quarterbacks, both of which I think have the potential to be stars. It is hard to game plan for a quarterback that has barely seen the field all year in Matt Robinson. He looked out of sorts early on but settled in by the very end of the first half and kept that momentum going into the second half. Essentially, he just started running around more and that made him harder to stop. It is always frustrating going against a team with a running quarterback, because they are so much harder to stop, especially with the aggressive defense that Don Brown likes to run. I credit Robinson a lot in this one, he came to play and way outperformed the expectations I had for him. He will be interesting to watch throughout the rest of the season and into the future and see if he develops into anything. I am certainly interested to see if he leads Illinois to a few more wins than they have had so far this year. Illinois also has two good running backs in Reggie Corbin and Dre Brown, who ultimately did not do much against us, but you could see their flashes of talent throughout this one. Josh Imatorbhebhe (yes, I spelled that correctly), was their only threat on the outside, and he did well against our Lavert Hill-less secondary, racking up 102 yards and a touchdown. The only guy on defense who was somewhat memorable was defensive back Nate Hobbs, who I think was penalized about five times individually before getting beat by Donovan Peoples-Jones for his touchdown to put us up two scores.

Offense

At this point, I do not think it is ridiculous to just assume Michigan will fumble at least twice in each game the rest of the year. I really do not understand why this is an issue. Everyone knows that to not fumble the ball when running up the middle, you must keep two hands on the ball. Despite how well-known this fact is, I continually see our guys run up the middle with the ball in only one hand. The exception to this is Zach Charbonnet, he demonstrates basic knowledge of ball security, and it further pushes me towards thinking he should be the bell cow in this backfield. Yes, he also fumbled, but it was a far flukier occurrence, and upon watching the replay of it, I really do not know how it came out. He was holding it exactly how you are supposed to in that situation. Tru Wilson’s fumble, on the other hand, was preventable, and it frustrated me to watch him continually run up the gut with only one hand on the ball. I cannot sit here and say that we will still beat Penn State, Notre Dame, Michigan State, and Ohio State with our players fumbling like this. We will lose every single one of those games, and maybe even get upset by a team like Maryland or Indiana, if this trend continues. We are leading the nation in fumbles per game. That is right, we are dead last, 130th out of 130. What I find the most frustrating is that if you look back at every game this year, how many times has the game gotten out of hand or close to it because of an untimely fumble by any one of Michigan’s players? You can point to quite literally every game (excluding Rutgers) and make that argument. That is unacceptable.

Shea Patterson was okay, not bad not great. He did not turn the ball over, despite putting it on the ground once. He went 11/22 for 194 yards and 3 touchdowns. Clearly our game plan was to just run the ball down their throats, but it is a bummer that Patterson did not look better with his opportunities. He nearly threw an interception to a defensive lineman on a screen pass. Plays like that scare me because it shows a lack of awareness, and that will not fly against better defenses. I was hoping we would see either Dylan McCaffrey or Joe Milton play but seeing as we had to make the game exciting, we ended up seeing neither of them. Both Zach Charbonnet and Hassan Haskins had over 100 yards rushing and they both looked good. They are similar runners, in that they both run with more power than shiftiness, so it makes sense that they were both effective. Haskins really surprised me with some nice runs, including one where he bowled a guy over as he was running down the sideline. It was a bummer that Christian Turner and all his speed barely played in this one, finishing with one carry for negative four yards, but perhaps that was an attempt to preserve him. Our offensive line was opening up some impressive holes, hopefully that can continue into some of our games against much better teams. Ronnie Bell had one of the highlights of the game with a 71-yard reception. I think he might be the best route runner in the receiver room, at least of the guys who get significant playing time right now. He just finds ways to get open, and I think that is why he is our leading receiver in a lot of our games.

Defense

Cam McGrone is now my favorite defensive player, and it is not close. Every single game now, I am impressed by what he does. He flies all over the field, consistently making plays, and oftentimes when we need them most. I used to say that a lot about Jabrill Peppers, I always wanted him to be a little more consistent, but it seemed like whenever we needed a play, he would make it. Perfect example was when we were struggling with a Colorado team that ended up as high as #9 in the nation, and he blew through the line for a big sack that turned that game around for us. McGrone makes plays like that, but he also shows consistent playmaking throughout the game, much like Devin Bush did. I am not already declaring McGrone to be the next Bush, but he is showing that level of promise this season. McGrone had a big-time play when he stripped Matt Robinson of the ball. We ended up turning the ball over on downs after that, but it was still an amazing play that McGrone should be commended for. Michael Danna had the other big play when he knocked the ball up in the air out of Robinson’s hand and thankfully Carlo Kemp was there to catch it before going down at Illinois’ one-yard line. That led to Patterson punching it in, icing the game away. The defense really scared me for a bit when Illinois cut the lead down to 3, but it could easily have just been the team coming out overconfident in the second half. Hopefully they learned their lesson in that regard, and the two turnovers they forced late in the game shows that they did. One major concern after this contest was the apparent disappearance of Daxton Hill. I do not remember seeing him on the field once, and I find it very puzzling. There was no indication that he was injured or would be rested or anything like that, and I have yet to find anything about why he did not play, so I have no idea what the deal is with that. Hopefully there is nothing wrong and he plays a lot in the coming weeks. We are really going to need him.

Special Teams

Harbaugh needs to just pick a kicker and live with it. This whole switching-between-the-two thing is not working. Just pick the better of the two (Jake Moody) and move on with it.

Next Week

This one worries me a lot. Happy Valley is one of the last places I would want to play, especially at night in a white out against a team ranked #7 in the nation. Penn State has shown up this year and are coming off of a tough win at Iowa. That game was very similar to our game against Iowa, just with a little more scoring. Does that necessarily mean something? No, not really, but it is always interesting to look at that, especially because Iowa played Michigan and then Penn State back-to-back. If we protect the ball, which we have not done to this point, then we certainly stand a better chance just by default. I certainly hope that this game goes better than the one against Wisconsin earlier this year. I think it will require a near-perfect performance from Michigan to pull this one out. Do they have it in them? Sure, but we certainly have not seen anything close to it yet, at least not against a team not named Rutgers. I will be very nervously watching, hopefully it ends up being a good one.