I hope Mike Hart is okay. It was reported that Mike Hart suffered a seizure on the sideline. I don’t know how much Hart’s medical situation affected the team on the field, but running back Donovan Edwards clearly seemed to be emotional and seemed to be on a knee next to Hart while the medical crew was attending to him. The TV crew also reported that a Michigan spokesperson said Hart had no history of similar events. Regardless, I hope this is a one-time thing and that Hart recovers quickly.
Hit the jump for more.
Outside zone troubles. Michigan’s coaching staff knows more than I do, but I was frustrated by Michigan’s early insistence on running outside zone. They found a little bit of Fool’s Gold on Blake Corum’s first run, which went for 50 yards, but it shouldn’t have. Corum made four guys miss at the line of scrimmage on that play, a Barry Sanders-like effort. Indiana has a habit of bringing outside linebackers, corners, and safeties off the edge to mess with a lot of what Michigan does. I think the Wolverines would have been better off waiting until later in the game, when Indiana started to get a little bit tired, to run outside. Michigan had an advantage with the offensive line inside. Corum finished with 25 carries for 124 yards and 1 touchdown. Backup Donovan Edwards had 7 carries for just 15 yards.
I love J.J. McCarthy. J.J. McCarthy is the first Michigan quarterback since Jake Rudock who looks the part of an NFL QB. Michigan has gone through several starting quarterbacks since Jim Harbaugh arrived in 2015 – from Rudock to Wilton Speight to John O’Korn to Brandon Peters to Shea Patterson to Joe Milton to Cade McNamara – but McCarthy is the first one since Rudock to actually carry himself, make reads, and have the mechanics/arm strength to look like a true future pro. It was not an “exciting” game because he didn’t really take any deep shots, but he was 28/36 for 304 yards, 3 touchdowns, and 1 interception. He completed 77.8% of his passes. The lowest completion percentage of his season was when he completed 69.2% of his throws against Maryland a couple weeks ago. For a comparison, McNamara only completed 77.8% or more of his throws twice – on 9-for-11 passing against Western Michigan in 2021 and when he went 1-for-1 against UConn earlier this year before getting injured.
Well, I guess the pass rush might be there after all. Michigan had 34 sacks altogether during the outstanding 2021 season, when Aidan Hutchinson set the team record and David Ojabo had a paltry 11.0 QB takedowns. Now through half the season, Michigan has 22 sacks. Amazingly, nobody in the Indiana game had more than 1.0. So seven different guys recorded sacks: LB Michael Barrett, LB Junior Colson, EDGE Jaylen Harrell, EDGE Braiden McGregor, EDGE Derrick Moore, EDGE Mike Morris, and EDGE Eyabi Okie. Indiana was tied at #86 in the country for giving up sacks, so it’s not too surprising that Michigan’s rushers got home, but it was relentless. Good for Indiana QB Connor Bazelak for hanging in there all game, but he was clearly feeling it and at the end of the game, he was resorting to chucking the ball far out of bounds almost immediately. He finished 25/49 for 203 yards, 1 touchdown, and 1 interception, while taking those 7 sacks for -61 yards.
What if Indiana actually had good offensive players? Teams like Indiana, Rutgers, and Ole Miss always fascinate me, because their offenses operate at a breakneck pace but they rarely have great recruiting classes. Ole Miss is in better shape than Indiana and Rutgers from a recruiting perspective, but I wonder what kind of numbers a team like Alabama or Ohio State could put up with Indiana’s Walt Bell as the coordinator. Presumably, with 5-star and 4-star offensive linemen, a 5-star QB with 5-star wide receivers wouldn’t have to worry about getting sacked anywhere close to 7 times in a game. Maybe we’ll never see it, but it’s an interesting thought experiment.
The team misses Roman Wilson. Wide receiver Roman Wilson missed the Indiana game, and it seemed to be relevant, because A.J. Henning is not a very effective wide receiver as a junior. Henning got more snaps, but he’s raw in much the same way that Steve Breaston was raw early in his career. Some guys are just return guys and gadget guys, and maybe that’s all Henning will really be. His hands are questionable, and he doesn’t adjust well to the ball when it’s in the air. Wilson is the #1 speed guy on the squad, and he’s a threat on bubbles, posts, fades, and end arounds/jet sweeps.
Beat Penn State. Indiana has played Michigan pretty tough over the past decade or so, and this was a bit of a trap game between playing at Iowa and then facing Penn State next week. The early 10-10 tie was concerning, but Michigan outscored the Hoosiers 21-0 in the second half and wore them out. The final score doesn’t reflect how touch-and-go it was for a while, but the biggest numbers that matter are the 6 and the 0.
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