For the Purdue game:

Steve Schilling will start at right guard, and Mark Ortmann will play left tackle.
Minor and Manningham are both back in uniform this week. Minor will start on kickoff returns. Lloyd specifically avoided calling their absence last week “suspensions,” saying “They didn’t play.” instead.
K.C. Lopata is your FG kicker, but Bryan Wright will kick anything longer than 50 yards.

Posted under Personnel

If Michigan were to win 12 straight games, and lose in the National Championship game, fans would be upset. The expectations at Michigan are such that anything less than a national championship will inevitably lead to disappointment.

This article on ESPN’s Page 2 most definitely applies to Michigan Wolverine football fans (and college football fans on the whole).

In college basketball, this may not be the case. When George Mason reached the Final Four in 2006, they were upset to lose, but simply making it that far was an accomplishment in and of itself. Is it time for a culture change? Are people taking sports too seriously? I don’t know the answer, but it’s certainly worth thinking about.

Posted under Analysis

Highlight. No shitty music this week.

Posted under Video

Posted under Photo Album

http://mgoblue.com/document_display.cfm?document_id=25563

Not really a surprising result, but a relief nonetheless. The Big Ten title is still in reach for Michigan.

The Northwestern roadtrip photo gallery will maybe be coming tonight, though there weren’t that many great pictures.

Posted under Recruiting

The Freep reports that Mario Manningham has been suspended by the team for one game for a violation of team rules.

The suspension means that freshman receivers Junior Hemingway and Toney Clemons will have a chance to gain some stats as the third or fourth option.

Posted under Personnel

First Half Defense
The defense didn’t have a great first half, but if you take out the two big plays (the pass where just about everyone thought Rasheed Ward was down except Ward himself, and the 49-yard Conteh touchdown run), the defense was stout, though not excellent.

64 of NU’s 212 first half passing yards came on that play, about 55 of them after the “tackle.” Take those yards away, and Michigan held NU to 157 first-half passing yards. This is respectable but not great. It’s got to be expected given Michigan’s shitty secondary.

The rushing touchdown, if removed from the first-half stats, takes NU’s yardage down from 15 rushes for 97 yards to 14 rushes for 48 yards. This would be much better.

However, it must be remembered that these big plays did indeed happen (the rushing touchdown with backup linebackers in, I believe). Improved execution in the following weeks should fix these problems.

Second Half Defense
The defense was much better in the second half, mostly bending without break, but also forcing 4 C.J. Bacher turnovers in a row. The main difference appeared to be increased intensity. The two fumbles were forced by pressure, as was the Ezeh interception (with the caveat that it was tipped). The Trent pick was either a bad read, bad throw, or combination of the two.

Michigan has discovered that to win games, the defense must pressure the quarterback. In future weeks (notably against the spread offense of Purdue), this will hopefully happen from opening gun to final whistle, rather than coming and going over the course of the game.

First Half Offense
The first drive with Henne was good. It certainly showed that this is indeed his offense. Mallett was 5 for 11, missing a couple open guys, and not responding to pressure as consistently well as he did in the first couple games. He will improve in the future.

Troubling in the first half was Michigan’s insistence on running into stacked fronts on first and second downs. Michigan has 15 carries for 37 yards in half 1. Michigan ran on 8 out of their 12 first-and-tens for 28 yards. This counts only conventional runs, not backwards screens or reverses.

Second Half Offense
The play selection improved in the second half. Michigan ran (conventional runs) on 8 of 16 first and tens, though they went for only 16 yards. Half as opposed to two-thirds of running plays on first and ten, though the production decreased.

Henne was more accurate than was Mallett, and Michigan was able to move the ball through the air, and Mike Hart did break a big run on a second down to boost the Wolverines. Before compiling these stats (which may not be accurate, check the facts if you’d like), I expected that the rushing was more successful in the second half because Northwestern tired down. However, it seems that this is not the case, and it may be more creative playcalling that benefited Michigan.

Special Teams
The return units were unspectacular, but also didn’t hurt Michigan. Coverage teams were still not great. Lots of Northwestern drives started with good field position. However, the biggest Achilles Heel of special teams is the terrible play of Jason Gingell. He was 0/2 on the day, missing 26 and 39 yarders. This puts his season total at 3/9 (two were blocked in the App. State game, only one was his fault). This week’s depth chart lists K.C. Lopata and Bryan Wright as “OR”s along with Gingell, meaning that a starter will be established in practice over the course of the week. Lopata was mentioned in Carr’s Monday press conference, Wright was not. Expect Lopata to be given a try in the Eastern Michigan game.

Posted under Analysis, Coaching

Highlight.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yqCOFbRR-M]
Shitty music once again.

Posted under Video

Varsity Blue’s College Football Top Ten. Unfortunately, there isn’t accountability (a la BlogPoll) for shitty ballots, but we’ll do with what we have.

1. LSU (10)
2. USC (2)
3. Cal
4. OSU
5. Wisc
6. BC
7. USF
8. UK
9. OU
10. UF

Posted under BlogPoll

On the ride back from Northwestern, one of my compatriots received an e-mail from TheWolverine.com with the cryptic message that Artis Chambers had played in games this year while he was ineligible. Knowing that this could mean very bad things, we tried for the remainder of the trip to find out what the deal was, to no avail.

Upon returning, I did some research (yes, I spent my Saturday night looking for football information) and found the following:

Artis Chambers played this year while he was deemed academically ineligible. Somehow, Michigan violated the rules by letting him enroll early even though he wasn’t cleared to do so. Chambers played on special teams in the Penn State, Notre Dame, Oregon, and App State games, and played defense in mop-up time in the Notre Dame blowout.

Apparently, however, the only game that was threatened (in terms of forfeiture) was the Penn State game. GBW is reporting that it is unlikely UM will be forced to forfeit the game.

More information, as well as postgame analysis of the Northwestern victory, will be coming later.

Posted under Personnel