11Nov 2012
Highlights: Michigan 38, Northwestern 31
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| Kenny Demens makes the game-clinching tackle (image via AnnArbor.com) |
Kenny Demens goes boom. In Friday’s game preview, I predicted that Demens would have a big game. It seemed like the coaches were trying to give him a breather by playing Joe Bolden a little bit, but I’m really not sold on Bolden being ready for Big Ten play right now; he’ll be good but he’s not yet. Back to my point, Demens stepped up in a big way late in the game by making the final two tackles, including a thumping hit on Northwestern superback Tyris Jones to end the game. Games against a team like Northwestern set up well for someone like Demens, who can take on Northwestern-caliber linemen and still make plays on interior runs. He did get burned for a touchdown in pass coverage, but he was covering a wide receiver, which was hardly a fair contest. Demens ended the game with 9 tackles and 2 tackles for loss.
Devin Gardner for Heisman? Okay, not really the Heisman, but Gardner has played really well in Denard Robinson’s stead. Brady Hoke insists that the offense doesn’t really change when Gardner takes over for Robinson, but nobody who watches these games can actually believe that. I felt bad for Kain Colter when he got hurt late in the game, but I didn’t feel bad for Northwestern, because Michigan was already down their starting quarterback. For Gardner to be so inexperienced and still have the ability to come out and beat the #24 team in the country speaks well for him. And, oh by the way, some guys really stepped up and made plays for Gardner. The junior QB finished the game 16/29 for 286 yards, 2 touchdowns, and 1 interception, along with 9 rushes for 47 yards and 2 touchdowns.
Roy Roundtree is stepping up. I don’t know why, but Roundtree has stepped up his game now that Gardner is playing quarterback. Robinson and Roundtree are close friends, so I’m sure it’s not related to a lack of personal chemistry. It just seems like Roundtree has realized that he needs to step up to help out his inexperienced quarterback. I wish it had happened earlier, but I’ll take it now. He had 5 receptions for 139 yards, and his final reception in regulation was a juggling catch he made while the Northwestern defensive back interfered with him. (No interference was called, but it should have been.)
Michigan won the game in the trenches. Brady Hoke’s philosophy seems to be that he wants to wear teams down, and Michigan will do so more consistently when the offensive line improves. Right now Michigan’s interior offensive linemen are just average, but by the fourth quarter, they had sufficiently worn down the Wildcats’ interior. Toussaint started to get some running room . . . which is why I was frustrated with Michigan’s play call on the penultimate regulation drive, after Dennis Norfleet had returned a kickoff to Michigan’s 47-yard line. Al Borges had overused the play action pass up to that point, because Michigan hadn’t been running the ball. So when Borges called a post-wheel (for Gallon and Funchess, respectively), Northwestern hadn’t learned to respect the run yet. He put the game on Gardner’s shoulders, and while Gardner has been playing well, he hadn’t been in a situation this year when Michigan needed a crunch-time drive from him. Michigan could have moved the ball by running on the interior with about four minutes left and down by three points. What happened the next time Michigan had a chance to run it, in overtime? Fitzgerald Toussaint ran for 5 yards, then 3 yards, and then Gardner ran a bootleg for the game-winning touchdown.
Stop kicking to Venric Mark! Mark is one of the most explosive players in the Big Ten, but Michigan’s kickers and punters couldn’t seem to help themselves from kicking to him. He burned Michigan for a 96-yard kickoff return late in the game, but one of the Wildcats held Brandin Hawthorne and got flagged for it.
Northwestern doesn’t throw well except against Michigan. Backup quarterback Trevor Siemian completed 6/7 passes for 87 yards and 2 touchdowns. Kain Colter was slightly less successful at 8/14 for 96 yards and 1 touchdown. Michigan struggled with the pace of Northwestern’s offense, and the Wolverines were beaten on the edge several times (partly because of numerous obvious holding calls that weren’t noticed by the referees). Northwestern could run and pass on Michigan’s defense, and there was no consistent answer until overtime. That answer was, of course, Kenny Demens.
Jordan Kovacs is now #11. I don’t really care. It’s just a number. Before the game Kovacs was honored by being given the #11 jersey that was previously worn by the three Wistert brothers – Francis, Albert, and Alvin. I’ve seen the argument that this prevents Kovacs from becoming a legend jersey down the road, but come on, Kovacs isn’t a legend. He’s a walk-on who turned into a pretty good player, but that doesn’t make him a legend. I also don’t think Michigan should give Legend jerseys to true freshmen, who still have three years to taint the number with drunk driving arrests, stealing laptops, etc.
Michigan is 7-3. The team and fans should consider themselves slightly lucky to come out of this weekend with a victory. Being 7-3 at this juncture isn’t too bad, considering that Michigan has been without its starting quarterback for the last 2.5 games. Regardless of the opponents, they have scored 35 and 38 points with the backup QB. The defense has picked up its game at critical junctures, and the offense is doing enough to make games winnable, at least when Russell Bellomy isn’t in the game. The Wolverines should beat Iowa, and that would lead up to the ballyhooed game against Ohio State.
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| Does cringing when I see Denard throw the ball make me a bad person? (image via TheWolverine.com) |
Let’s see more of this guy on offense . . . Michael Shaw. Shaw clearly isn’t the most decisive running back in the world. But he is very fast and, despite some people’s opinions, will lower his shoulder and run through people when cornered. I agreed with the way Al Borges used him on Saturday, which was to outrun the Wildcats’ defense to the edge. I won’t be clamoring for Shaw to start anytime soon, but he can serve a role on this team. Oh, and I wouldn’t mind seeing him return kickoffs along with Jeremy Gallon. Give Shaw an alley and you never know what could happen.
Let’s see less of this guy on offense . . . opposing defenders running the other way with the football. Denard’s interceptions are maddening. It’s not like he’s trying to fit passes into tight windows and defenders are making nice plays on the ball. Nor is it that his passes are bouncing off the hands of his receivers into the grips of defensive backs. Denard is just flat-out throwing bad passes, whether because of bad mechanics, bad reads, or both.
Let’s see more of this guy on defense . . . William Campbell. I think it’s near time that Campbell gets a start. Starting defensive end Will Heininger is just a guy. It would be nice to see Ryan Van Bergen bump from 3-tech tackle to 5-tech end. To me that puts the best four defensive linemen on the field at once, with Craig Roh and Mike Martin the other two linemen.
Let’s see less of this guy on defense . . . Desmond Morgan. I’m not really sure why Morgan is playing so much. I’ve always maintained that I think he will be a solid player in the future, but he got more playing time on Saturday than I would expect in a fairly tough game. Brandin Hawthorne is a better player overall and a bigger playmaker. If and when Brandon Herron returns to action, I think he deserves another shot, too.
Play of the game . . . Thomas Gordon’s strip and recovery. When Gordon stripped the ball away from Northwestern wide receiver Jeremy Ebert, I thought that sealed the game for Michigan. As the second man in, I thought Gordon did a tremendous job of raking at the ball immediately before Ebert could get to the ground.
MVP of the Northwestern game . . . Denard Robinson. Even though Robinson threw some maddening interceptions and incompletions in the first half, he once again turned on the jets when the Wolverines needed it in the second half. He finished the game completing 17/26 passes for 337 yards, 2 touchdowns, and 3 interceptions; he also had 25 carries for 117 yards and 2 touchdowns. It’s been said elsewhere, but it’s pretty ridiculous that a 454-yard, 4-touchdown performance can seem pretty ho-hum after all of his heroics. We’re going to see 100-yard rushers and 300-yard passers and 100-yard receivers in the future, but it will be a long, long time before Michigan fans ever get to root for a player like him again.
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| Is it just me or does Michael Shaw look like a prototypical football player? Here he scores on a 2-yard touchdown run. (Image via MGoBlue.com) |
This first bullet almost called for the backup QB. Not permanently, of course. But if Denard Robinson continued in the second half the way he played in the first half, I would have been asking for Devin Gardner to get a shot. Gardner has played well in his increasing role, and Robinson threw three horrible interceptions in the first half. Robinson’s first half looked like this: 10/18 passing, 178 yards, 2 touchdowns, 3 interceptions, and several of those completions were bad throws where his receivers saved him (the bomb to Junior Hemingway, the TD to Steve Watson, etc.). In the second half, Robinson redeemed himself on 7/8 passing for 159 yards with zero touchdowns and, most importantly, zero picks.
Mike Shaw provided a little bit of a spark. Neither of Michigan’s first two running backs had much of a day. Fitzgerald Toussaint had 14 carries for 25 yards and couldn’t punch the ball in on two goal line opportunities. Vincent Smith had 3 carries for 8 yards. It looked to me like Shaw’s speed was too much for the Northwestern defense. He beat the Wildcats to the edge a couple times, rushing 6 times for 25 yards and 1 touchdown, plus making 1 reception for 12 yards. I was impressed with the Wildcats’ rush defense and tackling.
That’s not the Dan Persa I remember. I think Michigan got a little lucky that Persa still has his Achilles on his mind. It seemed like there were a few opportunities for Persa to run where he decided to throw the ball instead. He completed 32/44 passes, but a lot of those were bubble screens that were essentially sweep plays and easy completions. Other than one 39-yard bomb over Blake Countess, the Wolverines kept everything in front of them.
Kenny Demens had his best game of the year. Demens hasn’t been as productive this year as I expected, but he’s still been a solid player. This game was his best, though. He had 10 tackles, including a sack, and did a good job of chasing down wide receivers and crossing routes in space. A lot of middle linebackers (Obi Ezeh, for example) would have been left in the dust or would have missed the tackle on those smaller players, but Demens is so strong that if he gets his hands on someone, that person is going to the ground.
Michigan needs to review the option. I was somewhat surprised that Northwestern didn’t run more option. They had quite a bit of success with it in the first half, and I thought Michigan did a poor job of defending it. They didn’t have guys in position to make plays, they were tentative when they got there (Jake Ryan), or they just failed to square their shoulders and make the tackle (Carvin Johnson). The bubble screen was effective and it’s a safer play, so maybe that’s why the Wildcats didn’t run the option as much.
Congrats to Steve Watson. Watson stuck around for five years, played tight end, outside linebacker, defensive end, and now tight end again . . . and finally caught his first collegiate pass on a 9-yard scoring play where he adjusted well and got his hands underneath the ball on a poor throw from Robinson. That had to be exciting for him.
The defensive line is improving. I wish William Campbell weren’t already a junior, because that kid is close to turning into a player. He’s going to have only one year as a starter at Michigan, despite the fact that he was totally unneeded in 2009 and Rich Rodriguez wasted him in 2010, too, by burning his eligibility at defensive tackle and then flipping him to guard halfway through the year. Overall, the defensive line had 14 tackles and 2 sacks.
It’s horn-tootin’ time. Okay, not really. My predictions from Friday weren’t close to being 100% accurate, but I did say that Persa would have 325 total yards (he had 326) and that the final score would be 38-24 (it was 42-24). I keep forgetting to review my predictions in these wrap-up posts, so here’s where I do that. On the other hand, Denard didn’t carry the ball 12 times (more like 25), Jeremy Gallon didn’t score on special teams (but he did on offense!), and Northwestern’s running backs didn’t average 2.5 yards a carry (more like 5.5). Also, there’s a picture of Denise Milani wearing a tight dress, so I think that was a good move on my part, too.
I typically like Pat Fitzgerald, but . . . he seemed like a bit of a weirdo during his halftime interview with Jeannine Edwards. He was all rubbing his head and using strange vocal inflections. I guess that’s what adrenaline does to some people, but he seemed a little high strung.
Taylor Lewan false started but nobody called it. Lewan has been penalty-free so far this year, I believe, but he should have been flagged for jumping the snap. He probably won’t be so lucky next time, and I’m guessing Michigan State’s coaches will alert the refs to look for that next week; Lewan did it a bunch last year, too.
Speaking of the referees . . . Michigan got lucky a few times on Saturday night. Brandin Hawthorne’s interception looked like an incomplete pass to me (his hands were under it, but I thought the ball clearly moved when the nose hit the ground), Jeremy Ebert’s fumble was about as close as it gets (I think it was a fumble but probably wouldn’t have been overturned if he had been called down in the first place), and Jordan Kovacs probably should have been called for a facemask (his right hand was okay, but it looked like his left hand pulled on the bottom bar). Of course, Northwestern was holding the s*** out of Michigan’s cornerbacks and safeties on those bubble screens, so maybe the penalties evened out.