Injuries

I am fairly certain that Satan would not deal with someone of Urban's ilk.

Literally any of the four playoff teams would have had a rough go of it if they lost their 1st and 2nd-string QBs (as Michigan did when McNamara went down).  OSU gave the bulk of their carries to a converted RB-to-LB-back-to-RB against Michigan because their top 2 backs got hurt and their 3rd-string RB underwhelmed as a freshman.  Yes, after the 4th WR Michigan's depth gets a bit light; I'd assume that TCU and Georgia look pretty light there as well. 

By comparison, Michigan lost their starting tackle in Jones and took it in stride, and had other offensive line injuries and just kept plugging in bodies with seemingly no drop-off.  They have immense talent and depth at defensive tackle, and a plethora of edges even if none of them really broke out.  They had some questions in the secondary after the starters but still had 3 above-average corners and some depth at safety.  It's not perfect but freaking Georgia struggled to get pressure against OSU because they lacked top-level edge rushers and Jalen Carter was basically the only guy they had who could get after anyone.

Guys get hurt.  It sucks.  But it's college football and even the best teams with all the top talent run out of proven bodies.  This isn't the NFL where you can make a trade, pull a guy from the practice squad, or sign someone mid-season.  You recruit what you can, develop the players you have, but everyone has a limit to how many dings they can take.

At the beginning of the year our RB depth was bragged about.  Having said that, we tend to keep our starters in games way too long, as Mike Morris being injured with 5 min left in a 34-3 route shows.   I can remember getting pretty pissed watching Corum and JJ taking snaps when games were out of reach for opponents.  It also stifles development of backups.  Remember when Bobby Bowden used to let his entire 2nd string have a series in the first half of every game.  That was smart and I don’t think it really hurt them.  Good change of pace, 2nd team can pose different matchups and have different packages.  We light enough downs on fire with non-read read options.  

So, we were two deep with star rb’s and had them both get injured.  You’re complaining about our 3rd string running back not being a stud.  Guess we should have found a star rb that would be ok with sitting behind two studs for a couple of years.  Given that obvious situation, would you sign with Michigan as a highly rated rb?  Gee, if only our staff had listened to you….

His knee hyperextended on that hit. Not sure how you can look at the way his knee buckled and think it was anything else than that specific play/hit

He ran out of bounds once that entire game.  This blog loves nothing more than trying to divine great insights out of disconnected events.  But that was literally the first carry of the game and Corum then proceeded to carry the ball 15 more times, including multiple short-yardage plays where he ran directly into contact.  He then tried to run later that half and the following game, again both times into traffic.  He got hit directly on his knee by a helmet and it got injured.  It's really not deeper than that.

Maybe, but we're talking about 3 more games.  And guys always get banged up; Edwards barely ran the ball and still severely injured his hand that took months to heal.  Again, I don't think there's really causation here beyond "getting hit playing football increases your risk of injury vs. not being hit", which if we're going by that logic we should be rotating linemen constantly because they take way more violent hits consistently than basically anyone on the team.

This and the horribly constructed blitzes against a QB whose arm was barely doing anything, were gravest failings of the game.  

I saw 2-3 times in that first half when McCarthy should have pulled the ball, either as a read option or on a passing down, and didn't.  Some of that is on the coaches and some of that is on him as the QB and his decision making.  That makes total sense; he's a first-year starter at QB.  But like both of his picks where he starred down the receiver basically at the snap, allowing the corner to sneak over, he made some mistakes early on due to jitters, game tempo, etc. and loosened up a bit in the second half.