Joel Klatt has already seen his fair share of Michigan football games this season.
Fox’s main broadcast unit has been on the call each of the past three weeks covering the Wolverines and their opponents, first at home against Maryland, then at Iowa, and again this past week at Indiana. And there are a handful of things that are distressing to the premier color commentator.
Klatt went on his podcast on Monday to break down the game, and while he gives Michigan a semi-pass due to Mike Hart suffering a seizure on the sidelines, there are a handful of things that are concerning to him.
He broke it all down.
“So you have to understand, and Michigan fans are growing tired of me and I understand that, I’ve done their game for three straight weeks. I’m going to do it again, I’ve got Penn State this week,” Klatt said. “This Michigan team has to be evaluated through the lens of playing Ohio State in the last week of the season. I’m sorry, but that’s just the cross you’re gonna have to bear. So if you did not have that lens, I think that you would just sing the praises of Michigan, but the fact remains is that they’re gonna have to deal with Ohio State at some point. So what do we know about Michigan? Where are they strong? Where are they weak in light of who they have to play at the end of the year? Now, granted, they beat Ohio State last year, and more power to them, and they did a few things really well that day. In particular, they tackled really well. They got after the quarterback really well and they ran the rock and those are things that they’re gonna have to do again to Ohio State if they want to beat them again this year in The Horseshoe.
But as it stands, this team currently was a team tied at 10 at the half with Indiana. They looked really sloppy on Saturday. I do want to give them, not a full pass, but certainly a nod of understanding for what happened on the sidelines. And this was one of the scariest moments I’ve ever had. As a broadcaster.
“Gus and I were standing up there and we see a giant commotion on the sideline. And our cameras immediately you know, we’re all talking in the break to each other on the headsets to our director and our producer. And Chuck, our producer, says a coach is down on the Michigan sideline and we immediately are trying to see like, ‘Well who is it?’ And we could kind of see that it was Mike Hart. We didn’t know for sure, but it looked as if it was Mike Hart and Mike Hart has a seizure on the sideline during the game in the commercial break. And it was really scary. It was really scary. And I could see the worry and the anxious thoughts written all over the face, in particular of his players, Blake Corum and Donovan Edwards — Mike Hart is the running back coach at Michigan. And so they came out and just from that point on, until they went in, they just weren’t themselves at all — at all. And you know what? That’s understandable. Because it’s so rare in a football game when a football player puts his helmet on, and when you run on that field, it really is a different world. You definitely enter a different headspace in which the worries and cares of real life fade away. And there are moments during games when those real-world issues and cares and influences smack you right in the face and jar you back to reality and that was one of those moments. And I certainly recognized it during the game. And it certainly can be one of the reasons why they struggled.
And in the first half, and I’m not looking for like, ‘Hey, you got to have an excuse for this or that.’ It’s not an excuse. It’s just the reality of what went on. That day. Now having said that, they came out in the second half and played great, played absolutely great football. There’s a couple of things that Michigan’s got to get better at here moving forward in the next couple of weeks. They’ve got to find a way to open up the play-action pass. OK, their passing game is way too static. And there’s not enough creativity in it. They’re either running the football or dropping back and passing, there’s not enough run-action pass. By run action, I mean full flow with the quarterback getting out of the pocket, play-action pass setting up, and pass protection with big heavy, run, play fake trying to put the third-level players in conflict and running past. You can’t just expect to throw the ball down the field with straight drop-back pass all the time. OK, it’s too hard to put the third-level player in conflict. It’s too hard to create the space necessary. You’ve got to give your quarterback, a young quarterback, who, by the way, that’s the only thing he struggled with. is throwing the ball deep down the field. You got to give him some buddies down the field some easier throws down the field. It can’t always be a 50-50 ball in straight drop-back sets. So they’ve got to get more creative trying to get the ball down the field. I think that they need to do that and play-action pass.
“On the other side, their defense has shown some real signs of growth and development, in particular when they are able to rush the passer. I like Mike Morris a lot at their on their edge. I like Eyabi Okie a lot. And when they get you in a spot where you’re one-dimensional, not all that dissimilar from USC, although they’re much better stopping the run than USC, but when they get you to a point that you’re one-dimensional, all you can do is throw when you’ve got an obvious down situation. They’re a threat. They’re really dangerous. We’ve seen that the last two weeks and that’s been developing now. And that’s what Penn State’s going to have to avoid because the pass rush, when they’re allowed to dominate, has dominated.
“So that’s Michigan in a nutshell.”
For Klatt, that’s a little bit of a departure from last year, when he was telling fans to take things more game-by-game. At this point, Michigan looks exactly the same as it did a year ago, essentially, somewhat finding its way through the schedule. Of course, it’s different now, considering there are expectations to be had coming off of a Big Ten Championship compared to last year, coming off of a 2-4 season.
A lot will be answered this week when the Wolverines face Penn State at home.
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