ANN ARBOR, Mich. — So it was as bad as we feared. Against a formidable Wisconsin team, Michigan continued to backslide in glorious fashion, losing 49-11.
Here’s our instant reaction as to what went wrong for the maize and blue:
- There are no bright spots, first and foremost.
- Whether Michigan was in man or zone — the latter of which it played often — it was exposed on defense.
- Michigan seemed to have the snap count timed pretty well, but Wisconsin always had a plan to move away from the side the pressure was coming from.
- Weirdly, Vincent Gray had an OK game. Wisconsin also passed for just 127 yards, but Gemon Green had some struggles at times. But 341 rushing yards — that’s a hard number to swallow.
- The offense was a full-on disaster. That side of the ball was OK in the previous two games, even with bad playcalling. This week, nothing was working. The playcalling wasn’t the culprit this time around as much as poor execution was.
- This team has no fire, in terms of getting hyped up. Yes, big plays were few and far between, but it always seems as if they’re waiting for the bottom to fall out. It looked like that was set to change in the second-half when Michigan started getting Ronnie Bell the ball, but it was short-lived. Once Cade McNamara came in, the offense had suddenly found life. But, Wisconsin had a 35-3 lead. Makes you wonder if there will be a QB competition, but when the defense can’t get off the field, whatever life you have at that point is far too little, far too late.
- Michigan got killed on the perimeter by the wide receivers in the run game. It did OK in coverage and it did OK against the actual running backs — until late, when it was getting killed in the run game no matter where the ball was going. But it was particularly abysmal on the edges.
- It’s not just that Michigan makes mistakes or commits penalties, it’s the timing of them. It allows drives to be extended, pushes itself backwards, and the opponent — Wisconsin or otherwise — converts.
- Michigan just still isn’t built for a comeback — though the efforts are there. Down 35-11, it seemed the offense had life. But when the Wolverines needed to cut into the deficit, it was Wisconsin that extended it. Similar to last week with Indiana.
- I know it’s been faced after last week, but let’s continue to face it: this is a bad Michigan team, which, regardless of inexperience or COVID-19, shouldn’t be nearly this bad.