Michigan 36, Cincinnati 14
[Bryan Fuller]
Michigan's home opener was supposed to look a lot like last year's Rutgers game. Instead, it more closely resembled last week's Florida game. While that was perfectly fine against a talented UF squad, it was far less so against an overmatched Cincinnati team that barely squeaked by Austin Peay last week.
The game began as expected. Ty Isaac churned out yards with ease, setting up a 43-yard Wilton Speight touchdown bomb to a wide open Kekoa Crawford on the opening drive. The defense held up its end, booting Cincinnati off the field in three plays. While the Wolverines went three-and-out on their ensuing drive, Tyree Kinnel got them back on track, picking off an overthrow from UC's Hayden Moore and diving into the end zone for a 28-yard pick-six.
Then things started going sideways. A short punt by the Bearcats bounced off Nate Johnson's leg, giving Cincinnati a first down on the Michigan 38-yard line. After a penalty kept the drive alive, Mike Boone squeezed his way in from a yard out for the first touchdown scored against the M defense this season. The next Wolverine drive stalled in the red zone, and Quinn Nordin's 28-yard field goal opened one of the uglier quarters Michigan has played under Jim Harbaugh.
Seemingly nothing could go right on offense in the second quarter. Speight fumbled a jet sweep handoff to Crawford to kill a promising drive. Tarik Black ran what, on review, turned out to be an 11-yard route on third-and-12 to end the next one. Speight winged a couple passes high, evoking bad memories of last week's second quarter.
Michigan didn't get a first-half point after Nordin's field goal with 14:03 left. The defense didn't give up any, either, but only after an interminable final drive by Cincinnati resulted in a 51-yard field goal sailing wide right. As the team ran into the tunnel, the fans were audibly displeased with the 17-7 halftime lead.
[Eric Upchurch]
The grumbling continued into the third quarter as Cincinnati took the kickoff and marched 85 yards in ten plays to cut the lead to three points. Michigan's next two drives went nowhere. What had been an annoyingly close game was becoming a potential nightmare.
Thankfully, Michigan woke up. With 3:01 left in the third quarter, Speight hit Grant Perry in stride on a crossing route, and Perry jetted through the Bearcats secondary and dove in for a 33-yard touchdown. Cincinnati could only threaten to score after that. Michigan's offense, meanwhile, piggybacked off some excellent running by Isaac to drive for a short Quinn Nordin field goal midway through the fourth quarter.
Luke Fickell handled the rest. On fourth-and-two from the Cincinnati 33, down two scores with seven minutes remaining, he called for the punt team. One yakety snap later, Michigan had a safety and the ball back, and the potential nightmare was over. The next UC drive ended after one play when Lavert Hill cut off a Moore pass, reversed field, and slipped inside the pylon for M's second defensive touchdown of the afternoon.
By pure box score standards, this game turned out well. Michigan outgained Cincinnati 414-200, dominated the ground game, and kept Moore under constant pressure. Speight, for all the complaining, completed 17-of-29 passes for 221 yards, two touchdowns, and no picks. Isaac seemingly cemented himself as the lead back with a 20-carry, 137-yard performance.
Still, it's difficult to shake the feeling of the middle two quarters, which were indisputably ugly. The offense has some issues to work out, especially in the red zone, where they haven't scored a touchdown since the wrongfully negated Crawford catch to open the Florida game. Next week, Air Force presents another overmatched opponent, but one that's tricky to prepare for because of their unusual schemes on both sides of the ball. If Michigan doesn't bounce back with a more authoratative win, the good feeling from the Florida game won't carry over to Big Ten play.
September 9th, 2017 at 7:45 PM ^
September 9th, 2017 at 5:19 PM ^
Until I see drastic improvement from this offense, I don't see any way they beat Wisconsin, Penn State or OSU, unless the defense generates multiple turnovers. Even the Maryland, IU and MSU games are now toss-ups in my opinion.
September 9th, 2017 at 5:41 PM ^
September 10th, 2017 at 12:17 AM ^
Ohio State and Wisconsin have just as much, if not more (especially for the Badgers), offensive ineptitude.
PSU is the scary one at this point.
September 10th, 2017 at 11:08 AM ^
You don't think playing atrocious offense yet winning by 22 points qualifies as "out-siz[ing] and out-talent[ing]" an opponent?
September 9th, 2017 at 5:21 PM ^
... only beat FIU 40 - 14 in their 2009 home opener (20 - 14 halftime lead) and then went on to win the National Championship? No? It's okay. Nobody else does either.
I'm not saying this team is going to win the natty this year, but I am saying I think it's hard to get 18 - 22 year old kids pumped up to play Cincy in game two. Especially when it seems many of those kids fall on the lower end of that age spectrum. Relax. They're young. They'll be okay.
September 9th, 2017 at 5:22 PM ^
alot of respect to Cincy DID NOT expect to spend my saturday tapping my leg feverishly because of them
September 9th, 2017 at 5:47 PM ^
Should be fait accompli by the second quarter. I was supposed to be repairing our kitchen cabinets. Instead my nails were digging into my thighs and I was tugging at my jersey all four quarters. So now I get to skip Ravinia prime seats and focus on the kitchen cabinets. I'll suffer that for a win, but this season is going to be a nail-biter or worse.
September 9th, 2017 at 5:24 PM ^
September 9th, 2017 at 5:27 PM ^
September 10th, 2017 at 12:33 AM ^
refs were very bad. The PI call on Hill was crap. There was hand fighting, but Hill had his head around. Later Michigan didn't get a PI call that was considerably more aggregious.
The replay booth refs remain terrible. I swear they have Ray Charles, Stevie Wonder and Helen Keller in the booth. Maybe I missed an angle, but it looked for all the world like Perry made a catch on 3rd down that would have extended a drive.
September 9th, 2017 at 7:48 PM ^
We did get the W in spite of the weird ref calls... there was more than one "Go back to Ohio!" heard in our section. The catch by Perry that they called an incompletion would have helped Speight's numbers, was especially awful - everyone in the stadium could see it on the screens - and it was a momentum changer the team had to come back from. I still think Speight keeps his poise and manages the game, even if he has continuing kinks to work out. Maybe he needs to double up on the steaks and milk.
September 10th, 2017 at 12:34 AM ^
September 9th, 2017 at 5:27 PM ^
September 9th, 2017 at 5:29 PM ^
September 9th, 2017 at 6:09 PM ^
Speight's first TD to Crawford turned him a bit and he fell into the end zone. TD, yes, but if further back and its just a long completion. Hill TD pass underthrown and almost picked. Perry TD pass behind him and only great balance kept him on track. Many other passes off target. 2 fumbles. Its reasonable to expect better play from a Michigan QB. Are you suggesting Speight played a good game today?
September 9th, 2017 at 6:38 PM ^
September 10th, 2017 at 10:52 AM ^
I saw Griese play, he wasn't all American but he put the ball where his receivers could succeed. Multiple long balls to Woodson, Streets and Truman. Even short balls to our fullbacks was a staple that year. That would win us a big ten IMO. We don't even have that.
And it was cute of you to try and disregard my comment by plying the youth card. Perhaps you're too old to see the QB on the field?
September 10th, 2017 at 11:19 AM ^
Interesting you bring up Greise, because he really only played like that as a fifth-year senior. Earlier in his career he was not nearly as consistent and spent a lot of time backing up Scott Dreisbach. M had a very frustrating offense in '95 and '96, and really even the '97 offense was efficient but not particularly explosive.
September 10th, 2017 at 12:40 AM ^
aren't any QB's who make perfect throws on every play, let alone long throws. The thow to Hill was just slightly underthrown. Sometimes receivers need to make plays. Sometimes the window is slightly behind, in front of or above the receiver.
September 10th, 2017 at 7:42 AM ^
I think if he didn't fumble the snap and hand off and the rest of the offense was more in sync the stat line alone would be more tolerable. That, and a good-not-great QB at a blue blood top 10 program should still probably put up numbers against a mediocre non-power 5 team. That performance, considering the ranking of opponents, was well below average.
September 9th, 2017 at 5:30 PM ^
You didn't mention that, in 3rd Q, when it was still a very close game, Cincy dropped a bomb that would've either been a TD or 1st down inside the 10.
We got lucky on that play, and hwo knows what could have happened after that. More concerning, that was one of several incomplete passes for Cincy when their WR was wide open.
September 9th, 2017 at 5:33 PM ^
I think it was Hudson on coverage deep on that play. That's a problem. But yeah, this year's secondary is not last year's. McCray seems like he's still making judgement errors, which is a continuation from last year.
September 9th, 2017 at 5:35 PM ^
32 months with Harbaugh and 14? starts now: Exactly when are the Speight bandwagon crew still expecting him to break out? I think he hit his ceiling last year and what we see is what we are going to get. He's an inaccurate passer who has a very bad habit of locking in on receivers/not going through the progression. He had a handful of good passes today. But I don't see how, after the pick-sixes last week and the over and under-throws all over the place both weeks, plus the fumble and handoff in the shoulder pads/fumble today, anyone can still say he isn't holdng the team back.
Cinci was crowding the line and daring him to throw. He burned them a couple times but better teams are going to use this as the script and they'll have better DBs.
After the failure to communicate punt muff and the "I'll pick it up in a crowd on the 2nd bounce" error, DPJ got to ride the pine. Don't understand how he doesn't know better by now. Special teams are a problem.
Glad to get the W, but boy is it a different game without 14 points by special teams and the D.
September 9th, 2017 at 5:35 PM ^
16 points :/
September 9th, 2017 at 5:51 PM ^
I was being generous and not crediting the PATs to the defense.
September 9th, 2017 at 7:40 PM ^
Point: Literal and figurative.
September 9th, 2017 at 8:51 PM ^
September 9th, 2017 at 9:07 PM ^
Defense: 12 points
Special teams: 12 points
September 10th, 2017 at 11:24 AM ^
The thing about Speight, though, is that he's not playing as well this year as he was for most of 2016. If he hit his ceiling last season, that's fine--we just need him to consistently replicate the level of play from last season that represented that ceiling. It's not unrealistic to think he will be able to do that.
September 9th, 2017 at 5:35 PM ^
September 9th, 2017 at 5:44 PM ^
September 10th, 2017 at 12:37 AM ^
Didn't pay close attention to John Navarre's career, I guess?
September 9th, 2017 at 5:38 PM ^
September 10th, 2017 at 7:48 AM ^
Anyone who thought this team would be good enough to contend for a B1G title this year was being optimistic. This team was expected by most to be a 9-3 team with losses to 3 or the 4 ranked opponents we play. That sounds like a young team to me and about what was expected.
September 10th, 2017 at 11:38 PM ^
Michigan needs to go 15-0, beat every opponent by at least 35 points while only allowing 6 points per game and win the Big 10 and national titles or the season is a failure.
September 9th, 2017 at 5:40 PM ^
September 9th, 2017 at 8:45 PM ^
Ahh...anther fan who thinks they make a difference in a team's performance. Oh my! Just "oh my" a thousand times over.
Should I have watched from out here in the middle of Kansas or should I not have??? Perhaps I was not cheering loud enough??? Enough of this already!!!
September 9th, 2017 at 5:40 PM ^
September 9th, 2017 at 5:49 PM ^
September 9th, 2017 at 6:00 PM ^
The offense played a poor game. Speight played a bad game and this may just be who he is, a mediocre quarterback who is streaky and can hit some throws accurately, and will also miss a lot of throws he should make. I think he plays over Peters because of his command and understanding of the offense as well as decision making (not necessarily execution in games).
The defense was hit and miss. The drive to open the second half wasn't good and they gave up too many third down conversions, but overall played pretty well. The two pick sixes were nice and it's good to see the secondary play decently.
We will continue to improve. The Oline needs to get better. The QB play needs to be better. The execution MUST be better no matter what. Today was sloppy, but we won.
Go Blue!
September 9th, 2017 at 6:14 PM ^
Cincinnati was 6/19 on third down. At least one of those was the result of an abysmal missed offensive pass interference call on a pick route, and I'm willing to bet that at least one other was the result of a missed holding call. The defense was fine; it's not reasonable to expect them to pitch a shutout every single game.
September 9th, 2017 at 6:05 PM ^
September 9th, 2017 at 8:52 PM ^
The offense was "out of sorts" because the QB can't even make a basic hand-off or hit the broad side of a barn. Speight played with a lack of composure that was un-nerving and it had to affect his teammates.
September 9th, 2017 at 9:14 PM ^
Just stop.
September 9th, 2017 at 6:06 PM ^
back for saying this game would not be the blowout win everyone was predicting and that Michigan would win fairly comfortably in the end. Cincinnati was better than they showed last week and Florida might be a dumpster fire.
W's are W's, things to work on and get better, Go Blue.
September 9th, 2017 at 6:07 PM ^
September 9th, 2017 at 6:16 PM ^
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