Michigan 51, Colorado State 7

Michigan 51, Colorado State 7


September 5, 2022
Blake Corum (image via Yahoo)

Who’s your QB? Cade McNamara started the game and completed 9/18 passes for 136 yards and 1 touchdown. It was not a great start. He threw an easy completion into the dirt, had guys drop a couple passes, and had to throw a couple balls away. One play looked like a bad interception initially, until you realized that tight end Erick All fell down coming out of his break; luckily, the pass was ruled incomplete after replayed deemed it hit the ground. Meanwhile, J.J. McCarthy played sporadically, completing 4/4 passes for 30 yards and running 3 times for 50 yards and 1 touchdown. I don’t put too much stock in either performance. McNamara started off slowly last year and had a good season. McCarthy’s package against an inferior team is not a large enough sample size to make an overall decision.

Hit the jump for more.

RB #3 is decided. Or is it? The question in the off-season was about replacing the role of short yardage back, and it was thought that Tavierre Dunlap or Kalel Mullings would step up. But instead of employing a short yardage back specifically, Michigan stayed with the top two guys, Blake Corum (13 carries, 76 yards, 1 TD) and Donovan Edwards (12 carries, 64 yards, 1 TD). The third guy appears to be freshman C.J. Stokes (6 carries, 35 yards), who looked eerily similar to Karan Higdon, albeit further along physically at this point in his career than Higdon was as a freshman in 2015. Stokes probably isn’t a short yardage guy right now, but this game didn’t really reveal whether there will be one or not, since success on the ground was steady, if not explosive. On a side note, Corum looked like his elusive, physical self, but Edwards still left a little to be desired when it comes to his running instincts. He’s not as elusive or as patient as he’s going to need to be if he takes on a lead role.

The receiver room is murky. Fifteen players caught passes in the game, and nobody caught more than two. Six of those players were tight ends, and three of the fifteen were walk-ons (Max Bredeson, Hunter Neff, Peyton O’Leary). The lone explosive play was a 61-yard bubble screen touchdown to Roman Wilson. Early on it seemed as if McNamara was trying to single out Cornelius Johnson, but some drops and inaccurate throws led to Johnson making just 2 catches for 19 yards on the day.

Better than the Joe Moore Award? We heard this summer that the offensive line could be better than the Joe Moore Award-winning line from a year ago, despite losing center Andrew Vastardis and right tackle Andrew Stueber. I would say reviews are mixed after one game. Part of the issue was that left tackle Ryan Hayes missed the game and his replacement, Karsen Barnhart, left with a leg injury. So for a good chunk of the game, left guard Trevor Keegan bumped out to left tackle and Giovanni El-Hadi was inserted at left guard. Colorado State had a decent front, and Michigan definitely won the line of scrimmage, but it wasn’t a dominant performance. Also, Trente Jones gave up a sack at the right tackle position to CSU’s top pass rusher, Mohamed Kamara.

The pass rush might still be good. Officially, Michigan notched 7 sacks and most of them came from unexpected places. Rather than monster pass rushers on the edge, Michigan got 2.5 sacks from defensive backs (Rod Moore, R.J. Moten, Mike Sainristil), 2.0 sacks from defensive tackles (Mason Graham, Kris Jenkins, Mazi Smith), 1.0 sack from an inside linebacker (Michael Barrett), and 1.5 sacks from edge players (Eyabi Anoma, Jaylen Harrell). That’s probably more indicative of CSU’s poor offensive line – a pretty immobile unit – than truly athletically dominant players for Michigan, but it’s nice to see that Michigan could be a little more well rounded up front. Michigan only got 9.0 sacks from guys not named Aidan Hutchinson and David Ojabo all of last season, and the Wolverines notched 5.5 in this game alone from other positions.

The secondary wasn’t challenged. It’s hard to glean much from the performance of the secondary when CSU didn’t have enough time to push anything downfield. The one downfield shot they hit was a late touchdown to #1 receiver Tory Horton, who beat freshman cornerback Will Johnson for a score. Otherwise, there were a ton of short throws and screens to just get the ball out of quarterback Clay Millen’s hands. He completed 80% of his passes, but those 16 completions went for just 137 yards, the aforementioned touchdown, and 1 interception to Rod Moore. The Rams will put up some yards this season because of their tempo and scheme, though.

This is what Michigan should do. It would be great to get a shutout, but young guys need to play and get experience. And mistakes come with youth on the field. Michigan should beat a team like this by 40-ish points, and they did. Jim Harbaugh teams have been really consistent about beating the inferior teams soundly and winning the games they should. Obviously, the real measurements come against Michigan, Michigan State, Penn State, and quality non-conference opponents.

Freshmen galore. With new redshirt rules in the past few years, it’s pretty pointless to talk about the freshmen who played, since every single one of them can still redshirt. Perhaps it’s more relevant to mention the few freshmen who didn’t see the field:

  • S Zeke Berry
  • QB Jayden Denegal
  • S Damani Dent
  • OG Connor Jones
  • TE Marlin Klein
  • OT Alessandro Lorenzetti
  • LB Deuce Spurlock

So 15 of the 22 true freshmen saw action in week one.

You must belogged in to post a comment.