Michigan 63, Indiana 47 Comment Count

Ace



NOT PICTURED: Indiana's defense (far left: Upchurch; center and right: Fuller)

Michigan comfortably defeated Indiana by 16 points, outgaining them by 161 yards and staying even in the critical turnover battle.

Or something like that, at least.

In real life, the Wolverines and Hoosiers traded haymakers, smashing records while combining for 1,323 yards of total offense. I'll spell that out: ONE-THOUSAND, THREE-HUNDRED AND TWENTY-THREE YARDS OF TOTAL OFFENSE. 751 (SEVEN-HUNDRED--okay, you get it) of those belonged to Michigan, a school record. Devin Gardner passed for 503 of those yards, another school record, and added 81 yards and three touchdowns on the ground, breaking Denard Robinson's U-M record for single-game total offense. Jeremy Gallon caught 14 passes for 369 yards and two scores, felling not only the Michigan receiving yards record, but also the Big Ten mark.

On the other side of the ledger, Indiana amassed 572 yards and 28 first downs while scoring on seven of their first 11 full drives. We all know this feel, probably-drunk student (via bubbaprog):

When the above occurred during the game doesn't matter, because it could've been any moment of the game.*

Remarkably, the teams traded punts to begin the game; matters escalated quickly. First, Indiana QB Nate Sudfeld hit a wide-open Cody Latimer for a 59-yard touchdown when Michigan's defense couldn't get set against the lightning-fast Hoosier attack; Raymon Taylor got beat over the top, and the safety help it appeared he expected never arrived.

Michigan responded with a five-play, 56-yard march capped by a 13-yard Gardner scoring run; all but one of the plays was a shotgun run. Clearly, Al Borges wasn't pleased with last week's effort; not only did Michigan come out with two new starting guards, Erik Magnuson and Joey Burzynski, they spread the field to make attacking a porous Indiana defense that much easier.

From there, it was the Jeremy Gallon Show. The Wolverines took a 14-7 lead after a 70-yard Gallon catch set up a two-yard TD run by Fitz Toussaint. By the end of the first quarter, he had 116 yards. Back-to-back first down passes to Gallon set up the next score, too, a seven-yard Toussaint run to the pylon for a 21-7 Michigan lead.

Indiana responded to that score in their trademark lightning-strike fashion, taking just 1:03 off the clock as Tre Roberson took over for Sudfeld, going 3/3 on the drive for 57 yards. That took some luck, as Roberson's second throw went right through the hands of Raymon Taylor, only to be caught by Duwyce Wilson; one play later, Shane Wynn took the top off the defense for a 33-yard score.

The Wolverines looked to carry all the momentum into halftime, going on a methodical 12-play, 91-yard drive that ate 5:19 of the final 5:59 off the clock; a 21-yard touchdown pass to—who else?—Gallon on a wide open flag route. As it turned out, however, 40 seconds was just enough for the Hoosiers to move into field goal range with a little help from a very passive defense, and Mitch Ewald drilled a 50-yarder to make it 28-17 at the half.



Upchurch

Michigan received to start the second half; any hopes of opening up a comfortable lead were quickly dashed, however, when Toussaint dropped a pitch from Gardner and IU LB Flo Hardin returned it 13 yards to the Wolverine five. Three plays later, Tevin Coleman dashed through a huge hole in the middle to bring the Hoosiers within four.

Even as the Wolverines tried to slow the game's breakneck pace, Indiana wouldn't allow them to do so; unfortunately for the Hoosiers, they did this by ceding a 50-yard touchdown pass to Gallon on the fourth play of the next drive. The play came on another very successful adjustment by Borges: bringing in two tight ends, going max protect, and letting Gallon and Devin Funchess work against Indiana's generous secondary. Funchess drew a lot of attention from Indiana's back seven, allowing Gallon to roam freely downfield, almost as if he were invisible.

Indiana came back with a five-yard Roberson pass to an uncovered Wynn on a broken coverage, failed to convert a reverse pass on a gutsy (read: questionable) two-point conversion attempt, and after a Michigan punt another Ewald field goal cut the lead to just one point. The offense once again answered the bell, however, this time in the form of Gardner pump-faking and scrambling through several Hoosiers en route to a six-yard score, eating an illegal late hit after he arrived in the end zone.

Despite kicking off from the 50 with a nine-point lead and a defense seemingly incapable of slowing down Indiana, Brady Hoke elected to have Matt Wile boot the ball through the end zone instead of trying a relatively safe onside kick. The Hoosiers made up the 15-yard difference in one Tevin Coleman rush, then cut the lead to two on a 15-yard Roberson scramble.

Hearts quickly jumped into throats and stomachs plummeted into shoes after Michigan moved their way down to the Indiana two-yard line, only for Gardner to fumble the snap on first-and-goal; Indiana recovered and the Big House fell silent as the Hoosiers took the ball with a chance at the lead. Michigan caught two big breaks, however: first, Roberson dislocated his thumb, forcing Sudfeld back onto the field; second, Sudfeld softly tossed the ball in the direction of an open receiver, only for Thomas Gordon (above, Fuller) to undercut it for a critical interception, giving the Wolverines the ball back just three yards worse for wear.

After two runs were stuffed by the Hoosiers, Gardner dropped back to pass, niftily eluded a corner blitz, and took off up the middle, barrel-rolling over a tackle attempt and into the end zone to make it 56-47. Roberson gamely got Indiana into scoring position again on the next drive, but Hoosier hopes were dashed when either a bad overthrow or a miscommunication with the intended receiver resulted in a ball deflecting off Jourdan Lewis's hands and straight to Gordon for his second pick. Toussaint, who finished with 151 yards and four touchdowns on 32 carries, capped the scoring with a 27-yard dash up the middle.

This felt a lot like the 2010 Illinois game, with Michigan looking unstoppable on offense and incapable on defense. The difference, of course, is that the offense was supposed to be the big question mark with the defense being called upon to keep the team afloat. For this game's good signs—the offensive explosion and adjustments from Borges—there were plenty of bad ones, especially the defense allowing five different Indiana receivers to record catches of at least 20 yards. One thing is for sure: this team still looks eminantly beatable, and after this week's bye, the Wolverines face the teeth of their schedule, starting with a trip to East Lansing to face the vaunted Spartan defense (and also, thankfully, a Connor Cook-led MSU offense).

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*If you must know, it was after Gardner's fumble on the goal line, which stood out as particularly absurd even in this absurdity of a game.

Comments

Maized and Confused

October 19th, 2013 at 8:47 PM ^

Does anybody have any guess or idea what time our game with little bro will be??? I have a wedding shower that day @6 and I need to prepare for how much shit I'm going to catch if I have to miss my own shower...

maizenbluenc

October 20th, 2013 at 8:25 AM ^

Michigan football is a priority in your life, and she is going to lose you every Saturday we are playing for here on out. If you give in to a wedding shower, which guys are better off not being at anyway, then you are giving the future away as well.

(While your at it, try to establish precede ts like golf every week - even on your honeymoon - and sex every day. Very few guys get the latter, but hey you need some bargaining chips and you you m8ght just get lucky

Prince Lover

October 20th, 2013 at 2:06 AM ^

While leaving the Big House, the wife and I were walking behind 3-4 guys all declaring the d coordinator needs to go. They were all saying the d was on the field too long and they were too tired to defend. They were declaring IU had the ball twice as long as UM so they were right in their thinking.
Meanwhile last time I looked, after 3, time of possession was UM 30 compared to I5 for IU. I tried to explain to my wife how funny fans are. She didn't care. She was just happy she saw such a non boring game. Not her exact words, but she said something along those lines several times.

dnak438

October 19th, 2013 at 10:03 PM ^

but I thought that the playcalling was much more aggressive and much improved. I presume that the coaches knew that we would need to score points to win this game. Obviously we are much better at running the ball out of the shotgun and it was nice to see Fitz have some room and get into the endzone. There were still several "tackle over" plays, and none of them seemed at all effective. At least once they ran at the weak side of the formation, which didn't work. I honestly don't know what they see in it... it seems like a waste. 

We have a lot more data to collect before it makes sense to make a judgment on Borges (and in any case that judgment doesn't matter at all). We have three winnable games on the road in November: State, Northwestern (sorta on the road) and Iowa. I'm interested to see how the offense plays in the games against State and Iowa, both of whom have fairly good defenses. We've all seen the offense struggle on the road in the past several years.

Reader71

October 20th, 2013 at 1:01 PM ^

Was drunk, so it was more harsh than necessary. I am truly sorry.

My point stands. Al can't make the guy not hold, but he can call a play that gets the D to overplay one side, thereby opening up a big hole on the other side. For a touchdown, no less, which is the best possible outcome of any single offensive play.

This truth is directly in opposition to your claim that nothing unbalanced worked and that the one weakside run we called did not work. This is the source of my desire that everyone had to tell the truth.

dnak438

October 20th, 2013 at 3:39 PM ^

But I appreciate the apology. No worries!

I see what you're saying, and I see what Borges is trying to do by running at the weak side of the "tackle over." But my response would be that ignores the reality that AJ Williams can't block, even against inferior competition. I don't blame Al for that -- Williams is only a true sophomore -- but I think it's a little silly to run to that side when all we've seen so far is Williams getting beat. It's great that he got away with the hold, for our sake, but it's not replicable until AJ Williams (or whoever they put out there) learns to block (click to embiggen):

Fitz used the hold to bounce to the outside and outran the rest of Indiana's defense to score. It's not a play that I have a lot of hope working against a good defense, do you?

Reader71

October 20th, 2013 at 5:36 PM ^

No, it was a busted play that worked due to an uncalled holding and a great run by the RB. You are 100% correct in your assessment.

But it did work. It worked in such a way that no better outcome is possible. This directly contradicts your original statement that nothing worked when we ran tackle over. That's all, man. I guess this is a semantic debate. That doesn't make it untrue though.

"Tackle over didn't wok very well, but on one occasion, due to a holding non-call and great improv by Fitz, we got a TD from it." Problem solved. It doesn't ignore a TD and it still makes your point.

My problem is that guys on here lately have been making really bad or false arguments to justify their beliefs. After last night, when we passed for at least 300 yards out of the I formation, people were saying we should just stop deploying our guys in that formation. Its crazy, its not true, and I was drunk and calling it out all night.

maizenbluenc

October 20th, 2013 at 8:37 AM ^

he adjusted well after last week, calling a variety of plays so we rarely faced a stacked box. The problem is, we would still be undefeated and a few people's draft stocks wouldn't have suffered if he had just done this at the close of the game and in OT last week.

Everyone of these lizard brain playcalling disasters have happened on the road. Maybe Al doesn't sleep well away from home, because Evil Genius Al goes into a shell or something, and the Debordian comatose play calling alter ego takes over for key stretches in the game.

Leroy Hoard

October 19th, 2013 at 8:51 PM ^

I'm a Joey Burzynski fan given how well he's done to rise from walk on to starter, but the first couple series he was getting beaten regularly. When he went out and Bosch came in, it became a different game offensively - I watched Bosch on many of the plays and he seemed to be largely terrific.

Next week will be the real test - if a line of Lewan-Bosch-Glasgow-Magnuson/Kalis-Schofield can open a few holes and protect Gardner next week so we can put up at least 20 pts., I will be optimistic that the storm has passed. With a decent offensive line I think the offense would roll.

reshp1

October 19th, 2013 at 9:56 PM ^

I thought Burzinyski did well until he got hurt towards the end of the first series. He probably should have come out right there, but obviously he's put in so much work to get to that point so he tried to gut it out. Unfortunately, I don't think he could get any push off that leg after that. I suspect Bryant had a similar thing happen to him. Getting blown up so bad repeatly against PSU after getting good push agains Minnesota just seems inexplicable otherwise.

The Peanut Master

October 19th, 2013 at 8:58 PM ^

And oddly enough, as convincing as the gif may be, she did not appear to be intoxicated during the game.

The guy a few rows ahead of us who would not stop shouting for Indiana to suck a dick the entire first half, however...

team126

October 19th, 2013 at 8:58 PM ^

I saw Hoosiers scoring at will in the second half. How can we beat the buckeyes with their spread attack and their defense?

Congratulations for being bowl-eligible.