The Michigan Wolverines had another disappointing performance yesterday against Michael Penix Jr. and the Indiana Hoosiers, losing 38-21 and falling to 1-2 on the season.
Adding insult to injury, during the Wolverines’ first defensive series star defensive end Aidan Hutchinson injured his right ankle and is now out indefinitely.
Update on Aidan Hutchinson — he is "out indefinitely" with a right ankle injury, according to his parents. He will be reevaluated "over the next 24-48 hours to determine next steps"
— angelique (@chengelis) November 8, 2020
Hutchinson is a team captain, one of their defensive leaders, arguably their most productive defender and is projected to be a top-25 prospect for the 2021 NFL Draft.
Related: Rumor: A former Badger could be on the move after the 2020 season
How much production is the Wolverine defense losing? The star defensive end recorded 69 tackles last season, 10 tackles-for-loss, 3.5 sacks, 6 passes defended and 3 forced fumbles.
Through two games this year the junior tallied 13 tackles and one pass defended.
As written by our friends at WolverinesWire, despite losing Hutchinson the defensive line improved its play yesterday.
From their piece on what they learned from the contest against Indiana:
“Michigan’s defensive line have had two completely different games to start the season. They were able to get to Tanner Morgan at will when they faced Minnesota, but were unable to even breathe on Rocky Lombardi…
Michigan’s star defensive end, Aidan Hutchinson, went out of the game early in the first quarter. Typically, losing a player of that caliber, would really hurt. But, Michigan was still able to maintain solid pressure all game against Penix.
The Wolverines were unable to record a sack today, but countless times Penix had to leave the pocket and scramble around — which lead to some really good throws and catches. Luiji Vilian and Taylor Upshaw had pretty good games, seeing more playing time with Hutchinson going down.
The only downside to the line today were the multitude of offside penalties. I believe two of them resulted in Penix throwing the ball up for grabs in the end zone — which resulted in touchdowns.
Once the penalties get shored up, this line looks to have some solid potential. The status of Hutchinson is still unknown, and Michigan will definitely want him back when they take on Wisconsin next week.”
The defensive line may have had a good showing, but as we learned last night Hutchinson is lining up to miss the contest against the Badgers on Saturday.
From a pure production and football perspective, this should help the Badgers find a rhythm in the running game after struggling to push the ball forward on the ground for the first three quarters against Illinois.
Stay tuned to BadgersWire all week as we preview the Badgers’ contest against the Wolverines and follow the ongoing COVID-19 status within the program.