ANN ARBOR, Mich. — While much of the onus for the Vrbo Fiesta Bowl is how Michigan football’s defense will perform against the vaunted TCU offense, the offensive side of the ball for the Wolverines is preparing to face the Horned Frogs’ defense.
Ranked No. 74 in the country, the TCU defense isn’t among the nation’s elite, but much of that could be explained away by the pass-heavy Big 12 conference. The Horned Frogs are one of five Big 12 teams with a top 50 passing offense across college football.
But the Wolverine offense is fully focused on what the TCU defense presents, noting that there are a lot of things that the Horned Frogs do well.
“I’ve watched them the past week. Obviously, they’re a really good defense,” senior left guard Trevor Keegan said. “They run the 3-3-5. Their linebackers fly around to the ball, they come downhill. Their safeties want to make tackles in the run game. Their D-line, they’re thick, their nose tackle’s thick. Their two four (interior players), they play five techniques, too. They’re pretty good players, too. So it’s gonna be a challenge for us.”
One thing that stands out to freshman tight end Colston Loveland is that this will be the first time this season that the Wolverines have faced the 3-3-5 defense, which will be a challenge since it’s unfamiliar. He also noted as we did above, that the numbers may not be reflective of how good the TCU defense is, given that it’s faced a lot of air raid attacks given the conference.
“Off the head, I can’t think of anyone that plays similar,” Loveland said. “I mean it’s Big 12, there’s a lot of air raids so we don’t want to see a lot of that but yeah, not I can think of right now. I’m sure there is.”
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But there is one advantage that Michigan does see: this isn’t a TCU defense that gets after the quarterback that often.
Michigan already has the best offensive line that the Horned Frogs will have seen all year, and while there may be an onus on stopping the Wolverine run game, they’ll likely also do whatever they can to stymie the Michigan passing attack.
Still, it’s a pick-your-poison type of situation, as the Wolverines have shown, especially the past two weeks, that they can win through the air just as much as they can on the ground.
“We know that they’d like to drop a lot of guys in coverage, don’t bring much pressure,” Loveland said. “So we’re gonna take advantage of that.
Michigan and TCU will face off in the Vrbo Fiesta Bowl on Dec. 31 with kickoff at 4 p.m. EST.
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