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Michigan football has played seven great halves of football on the offensive side of the ball. But one half of mediocre-to-flat out bad play this past weekend against Rutgers is enough to question whether the Wolverines have what it takes to sort out a top notch defense.
The bad news? Said defense resides in Madison, where the maize and blue travel this week to take on the 1-2 Wisconsin Badgers.
Now, Wisconsin’s defense is among the nation’s best, especially when it comes to the ground game, where it allows just 23 yards per game. But the offense is another story. Regardless, if Michigan wants to win in Camp Randall Stadium for the first time since 2001, it’s going to have to do more than try to ground and pound.
The game is Fox Sports’ Big Noon Kickoff, which means Joel Klatt will be on the call with Gus Johnson. We spoke to Klatt before the season, and he was more bullish than most about what it would take for Michigan to be a success in 2021, noting that if the offensive line were to come together, that would make all the difference. Thus far, it has. But on Wednesday’s The Herd with Colin Cowherd, Klatt was a little more skeptical about the Wolverines’ chances at Wisconsin should it attempt to play a similar game as it did vs. Rutgers.
“First of all, they did a great self scout in the offseason and they realized what they were doing well and what they weren’t doing well,” Klatt said. “They threw the ball too often last year and thought they were gonna be one of those high-flying teams and score a lot of points in this spread system. And Josh Gattis did that Alabama and it just wasn’t paying off at Michigan. It just wasn’t in their DNA. And while he likes some of the pieces that they have, you know what they’ve done? They’ve gone back to the run game — not just the run game that he brought, there was this marriage between the spread run game that Josh Gattis has and what Harbaugh was at Stanford, which was a heavy gap team. They’re gonna pull linemen and they’re gonna get downhill. And now they’re trying to marry that up, similar to what Oklahoma has done the last couple years, similar to what the Baltimore Ravens have done, by the way. Very similar to what John Harbaugh has done with Lamar Jackson and the Baltimore Ravens. And that marriage of committing to the run game and also expanding how they’re attacking in the run game has really benefitted them.
“Now, what remains to be seen is, when that gets taken away, can they throw the ball? Has the quarterback developed? And last week, it didn’t. They only completed one pass in the second half against Rutgers. One. Now, Rutgers is vastly improved under Greg Schiano. But what I can’t wait to see this week, when they go up against what I think is an immovable force in the front seven of that Wisconsin defense, can Michigan go out there and throw the football to move it? Because last week, Notre Dame told me: we ain’t running the ball on these guys! They’re too good, they’re too big. So this week with Michigan, will they be able to throw the football? It’s a fascinating storyline going into this game.”
Michigan and Wisconsin kick off at Camp Randall Stadium at noon EDT on Saturday.
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