Utah 24, Michigan 17
Bryan Fuller/MGoBlog
A coaching change can only do so much.
Michigan flashed their potential to turn the corner. De'Veon Smith had some punishing runs. Jake Butt couldn't be covered. Amara Darboh and Jehu Chesson consistently got open. The alignment of Chris Wormley and Willie Henry looked like a stroke of genius at times. Jourdan Lewis locked down one side of the field. After an up-and-down first half, Jabrill Peppers looked like a five-star talent in the second. Blake O'Neill had that punt.
But the mistakes were numerous. Jake Rudock's first interception looked to be the fault of freshman slot receiver Grant Perry, who hitched when Rudock expected him to cut outside. The next two Rudock picks, both thrown in Perry's direction, looked to be the fault of the quarterback; the third proved especially costly when Utah's Justin Thomas jumped a throw to the flat and took it back 55 yards for a score, giving the Utes a late 24-10 lead. Rudock also missed a few open deep throws that could've changed the outcome of the game; he finished with an underwhelming 279 yards on 43 attempts and didn't tally his second touchdown until desperation time.
The errors weren't limited to Rudock. Michigan's second cornerback spot is far from settled; neither Channing Stribling nor Jeremy Clark stood out there. Joe Bolden missed a handful of tackles on slippery Utah running back Devontae Booker. The offensive line got manhandled in the run game, losing leverage and missing assignments. Smith offset many of his broken tackles by failing to hit the correct hole. Kenny Allen pushed a 44-yard field goal wide right, after which Jim Harbaugh could clearly be seen muttering "I should've gone for that."
There were flashes, chief among them Peppers' second-half TFLs and Jake Butt's spectacular third-quarter touchdown catch to briefly pull Michigan within seven.
But on the road against a decent team, Michigan simply made too many mistakes, big and small, to expect to come away with a victory. They'll be better than they looked tonight, there's little doubt of that. There'll also be rough patches. Home games against lesser teams lie ahead until BYU comes to the Big House, by which time the Wolverines should look more impressive.
At least there was Harbaugh, a sensible gameplan, and a solid outing from the defense. That's something to build on. If this turns out to be an anomalous performance from Rudock, this squad still could be very good. After all the offseason excitement, it's painful to wait through the development process, but even tonight it wasn't hard to see that the process is underway. It just might take a little longer than we had hoped.
September 4th, 2015 at 10:42 AM ^
The kid needs to work on tracking the ball in the night sky with stadium lights. On the first long bomb when he was so wide open, clearly he wasn't tracking it very well because he didn't do anything to try to reel it in (dive, accelerate, stretch out, etc.) when any one of those could have made the difference. It was not overthrown by much, maybe one step.
September 4th, 2015 at 11:14 AM ^
Yep. Especially the first one. It's like he didn't even want to try unless it fell right in his bread basket. The ball actually landed well within the endzone. Would've been a spectacular grab no doubt, but it was catchable I think.
September 4th, 2015 at 11:35 AM ^
Coaching was a huge positive for me from the game. He gave us a chance to win in the 4th despite the problematic QB play. Hoke would have pulled Rudock in the 3rd only to put him back in in the 4th after Morris threw a couple pics. Probably would've thrown in a failed fake punt at some point in the 2nd half. Am I right?
September 4th, 2015 at 11:40 AM ^
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September 4th, 2015 at 12:33 PM ^
With fans like you who needs rival fans?
September 4th, 2015 at 12:56 PM ^
So in your view, the only "fans" are irrationally exuberant pollyannas who don't think that their teams are subject to the same laws of probability as everyone else's.
September 4th, 2015 at 1:10 PM ^
because of a loss in the first game need to get a grip and let the season develop before rendering judgments. The first game was the first test, but it was the not the final exam. That does not come until the last Saturday in November.
September 4th, 2015 at 1:47 PM ^
People aren't rendering judgements. They are making predictions. Predictions based on the data that they have at hand and their experiences. The small data set that we got last night was highly discouraging in two areas that were identified as critical to this season's success -- run blocking and QB. If you are into making predictions (and almost everyone on this blog is), then you are a fool if you don't adjust your expectations accordingly.
September 4th, 2015 at 11:52 AM ^
Smith can't be our feature back. He runs hard, and he doesn't go down at first contact, but that only gets you so far if you can't follow a block, pick a hole, or make a cut. He never had vision last year, and he still has none this year. I'd like to see how Drake Johnson looks when he gets on the field, but at this point give me Ty Isaac. BTW, what the hell happened to Derrik Green? What did he get, like 1 or 2 carries for no yards? #1 RB in his class and he's 3rd (more like 4th) on the depth chart? Pathetic.
Other concerns - Rudock's progressions.... Stare down a receiver much? After his umpteenth consecutive pass to Butt I said "jeez, throw to somebody else!" Well, he started throwing to Perry, and we all know how that turned out. I'm not ready to throw in the towel on Rudock just yet however, I think that would do more harm than good. He's an experienced QB, yes, but he's still in a new system with new WRs. This doesn't excuse all of his poor play, but Morris has been with the program for years, he's been with these WRs for years, and he STILL didn't earn the job, so I'm not sure throwing him in is the right choice... yet.
OL looked great in pass protection, but pretty bad in the run game. They got zero push against the defensive front. Granted, Utah has a good def. front, but so do many other teams Michigan will play, and that's not an excuse.
Defense as a whole looked great until Utah ran hurry-up. Once the Utes picked up the pace, our secondary was torched; I'd put most the blame on LBs poor coverage. This can be fixed however, just need to make sure everybody knows their jobs; they looked a bit lost at times.
All in all, they played harder and tougher than I've seen in recent years, and if Rudock can get his bearings straight (I think he can) then this season is far from over. I say we have a pretty good shot at winning the next 5 games, Rutgers and Indiana should give us 7 wins, and we can probably at least split Penn St/Minnesota for 8. I know people love to panic with the way the offense played, but keep in mind we had 3 INTs (one for a TD) and still only lost by 7, on the road, against a good Utah team with a heisman conteding RB. Our defense is excellent and will continue to improve, and the offense just needs to settle down a bit. GO BLUE
September 4th, 2015 at 12:47 PM ^
I keep seeing this criticism of Smith but I don't understand where it is coming from. The run blocking was utterly abysmal. Smith missed one huge outcut that would have gone for a long gain. That was literally the only well blocked running play of the night. He didn't miss holes and cutback lanes. There weren't any. The blocking was terrible. And Smith turned a few 0 yard gains into 5 yard gains by finding tiny little spaces to cut back into. And in the meantime, I don't remember if he went down on first contact all night long.
September 4th, 2015 at 12:53 PM ^
You keep seeing the criticism, but clearly you didn't see what (seemingly) everyone else on this blog, maizenbrew, B/R, etc saw. The blocking wasn't great, no arguments there, but there were plenty of opportunities for additional gains that Smith was oblivious to. Sometimes you need to "make yourself skinny" (as the announcer put it referring to Booker) when the holes aren't huge. If the hole isn't where it's supposed to be, Smith just runs into his blockers and tries to push the pile instead of seeing other holes, cutback opportunities, or trying to break it outside. He did it all year last year, and last nights game confirms that he hasn't learned how to use his eyes.
September 4th, 2015 at 1:01 PM ^
I rewound almost every shitty running play in the first half, looking to see if there was ever a hole or a cutback lane that Smith missed. There wasn't. There were missed assignments galore that left free hitters everywhere along the OL and unblocked linebackers who easily filled holes after 1-2 yard gains. And there were at least a few examples where the play was stood up at the point of attack and Smith cut back for a 4-6 yard gain.
September 4th, 2015 at 1:34 PM ^
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September 4th, 2015 at 1:35 PM ^
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September 4th, 2015 at 1:42 PM ^
Are you sure you rewatched the right game? During the broadcast they showed several instances where a cutback lane was there, and Smith didn't see it. The 2nd and 3 before the pick 6 is one instance. And Harbaugh himself pointed out the backs were missing holes in the post game interview. But he probably wouldn't know, right? The line didn't play very well, but if the backs hit their holes, the running performance would have been much better.
September 4th, 2015 at 1:56 PM ^
Harbuagh also said that Jake Rudock's only bad throw of the night was his second INT. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that you probably shouldn't put much stock into his public assessments of the players.
Deveon Smith's vision was no more than 10% of the running game woes last night. The offensive line was 2014 Penn State bad. Watching the offensive line was like watching the Michigan cheerleaders when they spell out "MICHIGAN", and when they are about to make the N they run in random directions for a few seconds as if they don't know where they are supposed to go. Watching our guys last night was like watching a simulation of Brownian motion in a glass of water.
September 4th, 2015 at 12:53 PM ^
September 4th, 2015 at 11:57 AM ^
If Covey is the midget slot guy I think he is, here are the stats for Utah receiving:
Wide receivers 7 recpetions for 48 yards
Tight ends/ slot / running back: 17 receptions for 160 yards.
One of the receptions against Stribling was prefectly acceptable. The guy caught it short of a first down, and Stribling came up for the tackle to hold him short. Now there was one run around end, where I assume that it was Stribling's job to prevent him from hitting the sideline and failed. But overall, CBs are not the issue. If you're going to complain about the defense, it basically starts and ends with the linebackers + buck.
September 4th, 2015 at 12:22 PM ^
I seriously expected more from Rudock. I didn't expect perfection, but 3 INTs just smacks too much of last year. Smith is a tough runner but per usual, just cannot find the hole and runs into the pack--especially the 4th down play. The receivers look good, and the D showed flashes of what it can become.
But I love Harbaugh and am confident things will get better. But it's like a Greyhound bus that's been driven down a sidestreet--it just takes time to reverse something this big and get it pointed in the right direction.
September 4th, 2015 at 6:21 PM ^
It's taken longer than we've hoped now for a decade.
September 5th, 2015 at 12:39 PM ^
Start working at home with Google! It's by-far the best job I've had. Last Wednesday I got a brand new BMW since getting a check for $6474 this - 4 weeks past. I began this 8-months ago and immediately was bringing home at least $77 per hour. I work through this link, go to tech tab for work detail
September 6th, 2015 at 11:36 AM ^
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