n 1967, Michigan lost the first three Big Ten games on their schedule. Michigan State skunked them 34-0 in Ann Arbor, Indiana won by a touchdown on Homecoming day in Michigan Stadium (the Hoosiers made the Rose Bowl that year), and Minnesota won by five in Minneapolis. That Wolverine team finished the year 4-6, including a 10-point home loss to Ohio State in front of just 64,144 people.
That was the last time Michigan started the Big Ten season with two straight losses.
By the way, in case you missed it, the 2005 version of the Wolverines lost in Madison on Saturday to open league play and travels to East Lansing to play the point-a-minute Spartans this weekend.
Good times in Ann Arbor, eh?
When Michigan had the ball: Since this is a Lloyd Carr team we’re talking about, I feel obligated to start out by making a couple excuses for their loss.
Star halfback Michael Hart sat this one out with a balky hamstring, and they’re still missing two of their starting offensive tackles (Jake Long and Mike Kolodziej).
However, that being said, the only unit in the conference as banged up as Michigan’s offensive front is Wisconsin’s defensive front, and UM still didn’t exactly blow them off the ball.
The good news for Michigan is that sophomore halfback Max Martin had a couple nice runs including a 28-yarder, the longest run by a Wolverine RB all year (Steve Breaston had a 30-yard reverse earlier in the season) and finished with an average of 5.6 yards per carry, although he lost a critical fumble. Freshman halfback Kevin Grady did not fumble (he had coughed it up repeatedly in the non-conference season). True freshman receiver Mario Manningham enjoyed a coming-out party, catching four passes for 107 yards and a long touchdown. Jason Avant had another strong day (seven catches, 108 yards, one score) But that was about it.
Chad Henne was “off” again. Two weeks after an uneven performance against Notre Dame, Henne missed on more passes than he hit (he finished 15-for-32), and threw behind a bunch of open receivers. He also threw an interception in the fourth quarter, hitting a defensive back in the hands with no receivers anywhere in sight. He has looked shaky against the two decent defenses he’s faced this year (no offense to NIU and Ypsilanti Middle School), and while some of that can be chalked up to losing Hart, some of the issues are his, too. He’s going to be a very good quarterback down the road, but right now he’s still learning and it’s not always pretty.
The highlight of his night was hitting Manningham in stride on a 49-yard bomb off a flea-flicker. Other than that, he looked very uncomfortable and was way off on most of his deep throws. Henne shot-putted up a rain-maker to Manningham for a big gain, but it was more or less a prayer that Manningham camped under and could have called a fair catch on. He also overshot a wide-open Avant in the end zone on one play. He just doesn’t look like the same guy he did last year when he had Braylon Edwards to bail him out.
That being said, if Henne has time to sit back in the pocket, he can hurt you. You need to pressure him, get hands in his face and knock him on his butt. You can rattle him, and this year he hasn’t shown a consistent ability to make opponents pay when they bring extra guys.
Henne did have another positive—showcasing some heretofore relatively unseen scrambling ability. He picked up 22 yards on a 3rd-and-9 (that one was called back for a penalty), and converted a 3rd-and-7 on another scramble. He’s not going to be confused with Vince Young, but if he can at least pick up critical yardage like Craig Krenzel used to, that will help this offense.
Martin caught a pass on a wheel route for a nice gain (remember the pass from Krenzel to the player-whose-name-we-dare-not-speak in the Michigan game in 2002 that set up Maurice Hall’s winning touchdown? This was basically the same thing.).
Avant made a nice touchdown grab on a play inside the five, running a good post route when everyone in the stadium (and certainly the Badger DBs) expected him to run the same fade route to the corner that he’s run 12,000 consecutive times in that situation.
TE Tim Massaquoi was back (he reportedly had a broken wrist), but couldn’t do much because he was wearing a cast.
WR Steve Breaston has moved from the side of the milk carton to the cold case files. At this point, he’s either hurt (and it’s just not out yet) or he’s just wildly over-rated.
I’m guessing that he’s nursing some kind of injury because he’s been a complete non-factor on offense all season. He had one catch for minus-1 yard against UW, and while he did have one nice punt return that was called back for a penalty, he was pretty dreadful overall in the return game, too (more on that in a minute).
No recap of this game would be complete without addressing the most surprising development of the night. Lloyd Carr actually showed some stones while playing a decent team on the road.
No, seriously.
Michigan was facing a 4th-and-goal on the 1 in a scoreless game in the first quarter and Carr opted to go for it. Kevin Grady got stuffed, but it was at least a sign that he wasn’t going to sit back and play the hyper-conservative style that has made his teams such woefully underperforming units during their first trips of the year away from Ann Arbor. Then he went back to playing a lot of the same hyper-conservative style that we all know and love.
Michigan fans have been crucifying Carr for the call, but it was the right one. A field goal would have gotten them almost nothing there (they settled for field goals early against Notre Dame in 2004 and lost when ND scored touchdowns) and reinforce the well-known “in two weeks you would have a diamond” theory about how he and his teams perform during their first trips on the road. Instead, he showed some faith in his guys and displayed some intestinal fortitude. Frankly, if they score there, they probably win going away. But they didn’t. And they didn’t. Still, they left Wisconsin with the ball at their own one, instead of giving it to them at the 35 on a kickoff return (more on that later, I promise). You can’t really rip him for it.
When Wisconsin had the ball: Things went pretty much as you might have expected. The Michigan defense performed better than it did during the NIU game, and actually did a great job keeping Wisconsin from getting any big plays (50-yard runs, etc.).
But they once again struggled with a shifty back. Just like Darius Walker two weeks earlier, Brian Calhoun was able to bounce the ball outside and run consistently for solid gains. He finished with 35 carries and 155 yards. His average performance against the mighty wrecking crews that comprise the Bowling Green, Temple and North Carolina defenses was 157 yards. Draw whatever conclusions you want from that.
Yet again, Michigan’s coaches sat DT Gabe Watson at the start of the game. I’m not sure what exactly he did to earn this spanking, but whatever it is, it must have been bad. When he got in he made a couple mental errors, including one offsides penalty which was somehow not called, but when he’s in the game, you see a push in the middle of the line. When he’s on the bench, the push often isn’t there. Consequently, Michigan had a lot of trouble getting to the quarterback with a four-man rush for a lot of the night, and was forced to bring pressure from the back seven to get that pressure. That, in turn left them open to plays like a middle screen that Wisconsin ran very effectively a couple times.
With Watson playing only on-and-off, junior LaMarr Woodley and sophomore Alan Branch were the standouts up front.
Woodley you already know about; he’s quick, he’s strong, and because Michigan continues to line him up on the weak side of the line (away from the tight end) you need to commit a back to help double him on a lot of plays or risk having him turn your quarterback inside out.
Branch put forth a pretty good showing, picking up a sack on a straight power rush, and then blowing up a running play by simply shoving Wisconsin’s left guard four yards into the backfield.
The linebackers looked sllloooow against Calhoun. To be fair, a lot of people look slow against Calhoun, but he was able to gain the corner on this defense more than he should have. David Harris played respectably for this unit, but teams with fast and shifty backs (Jehuu Caulcrick and Jason Teague, anyone?) can make them look bad at times.
The defensive backfield was fine, not giving up a pass longer than 20 yards all night, but that was against John Stocco, so take it for what it’s worth.
Michigan’s special teams: An unmitigated disaster. Watching the Buckeyes play on special teams during the Tressel era (and conveniently overlooking A.J. Trapasso’s “oops, I forgot to kick it” during the Iowa game) it’s absolutely remarkable how Michigan can’t seem to get things right with people who are supposed to be a similar caliber of athletes.
The Wolverines’ kickoff coverage was beyond abhorrent. The Badgers’ Brandon Williams
averaged more than 33 yards per return, and hauled one out to the 46.
On the other side of the ball, Wisconsin showed zero respect for Breaston, seemingly kicking away from Grant Mason to put the ball in his hands.
He rewarded them by averaging just 15.3 yards on three returns, including one where he couldn’t make up his mind whether to take a touchback and ended up stumbling out of the end zone and getting brought down at the 8.
When a team averages an 18-yard advantage in kickoff returns, that’s a huge, huge edge in a close game.
Barring some major changes, Michigan will give up a touchdown on a kick return sometime in the next month.
As mentioned earlier, Breaston had a nice punt return (43 yards) called back on a penalty. He averaged 5.5 yards on the ones where they didn’t get caught cheating.
Garret Rivas hit two field goals (44 and 28 yards). The first one was only a “sort of” make. He actually missed a 49-yarder (it looked short), but got another chance on a really shady “running into the kicker” penalty where a Badger grazed Rivas and he went down like he was shot. Once again, Rivas is solid on everything from 40 yards and in, but if you can keep the Michigan offense outside the 30, (kicks of 47 yards or longer) he just doesn’t have the range.
What does it mean?: There’s plenty of crying and gnashing of teeth in Wolverine-land right now, along with talk of playing in the Motor City Bowl. I’ll believe it when I see it.
Only two years ago, Michigan was 3-2, coming off a brutal come-from-ahead loss to Iowa and heading into a tough road game against Minnesota. They fell behind 28-7 in that one before roaring back to win 38-35. That was the start of a six-game winning streak that put them in the Rose Bowl. (Surprise! They lost that game!)
I’ll believe this team is dead when I see the glum faces of 110,000 Michigan fans sulking out of their stadium on November 19th at the end of a five or six-loss season. Until then, no dice.
But next week doesn’t look too good for the folks in the ugly helmets.
When you’re still trying to work out the kinks in every facet of the game, you don’t want to face your ticked-off intrastate rival. You especially don’t want to do that when that rival has put up 1.35
miles of offense in their first four games, and is
averaging 49 points per game.
As I said after the Notre Dame game, it’s definitely not out of the realm of possibility that Michigan could be a 2-3 football team this time next week. And since I know you’re all dying to know, the last time Michigan had a losing record at least five games into the year, it was also 1967. They started 1-5 and ended up 4-6.
They were 4-4 at one point in 1993 (let’s not talk about how that year ended), 3-3 at one point in 1990 (ditto) and finished 6-6 in 1984 but never had a losing record.
For a school that prides itself (and some might say “lives in”) its history, this isn’t the kind they wanted to be talking about this year.
The road to the big one
Sept. 3: Michigan 33, Northern Illinois 17
Sept. 10: Notre Dame 17, Michigan 10
Sept. 17: Michigan 55, Eastern Michigan 0
Sept. 24: Wisconsin 23, Michigan 20
Oct. 1: @ Michigan State
Oct. 8: Minnesota
Oct. 15: Penn State
Oct. 22: @ Iowa
Oct. 29: @ Northwestern
Nov. 5: Idle
Nov. 12: Indiana
Nov. 19: Ohio State
[/FONT]</td> </tr> </tbody> </table> Can Rhett Bomar's Oklahoma and Gabe Watson'sMichigan both miss out on bowl bids? It's not as crazy as you might think. This and more in this week's 5 Thoughts | Bowl Projections new Who's Hot & Not| Top 10 Player Race | 10 Best Games
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