The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com Thursday, October 13, 2011 - 7A Robinson's throwing issues are an easy fix Brute strength anchors'D' By TIM ROHAN Daily SportsEditor The second Denard Robinson lets go of a pass, he can tell if something's wrong. Maybe his feet weren't right. Maybe it wasn't the best decision. Last Saturday against North- western, when Robinson tied a career high with three first-half interceptions, the problem was his hips. "Do you transfer through your throws when you set your hips to throw?" asked Michigan offensive coordinator Al Borges on Tuesday. "If you can get your hips set to the target and you can transfer it through your throw, you can do a lot of other things wrong and still complete passes. We didn't do that and that's why we threw a couple of intercep- tions." Borges and Robinson "went over the tape and doggone it we beat it up one side and down the other," as Borges said. They saw Robinson sail two passes over the head of fifth-year senior wide receiver Junior Hemingway and toss another carelessly into dou- ble coverage, looking for junior running back Vincent Smith. "Over-striding," Robinson said, diagnosing the problem. "And every time you over-stride, the ball tends to sail. "It's really easy to correct. I mean, we've been working on it all fall and summer." Most of Robinson's mistakes are easy to correct. Simple tech- nique and fundamentals usu- ally are, but now he just has to be more consistent in his approach. Each time he struggled early against Notre Dame and North- western - two of Michigan's toughest opponents so far - then he improved in the second half. He threw for 202 yards, com- pleting 7-of-10 passes for three touchdowns and one intercep- tion in just the fourth quarter against the Fighting Irish, then completed 7-of-8 passes for 139 yards in the second half against the Wildcats. And the Wolverines outscored their opponents 56-7 during those three quarters. After the Northwestern game, Robinson admitted to being excited and amped up at the start, just like he was against Notre Dame when he started poorly and recovered late. The overthrows may have been over- striding, but they were ultimately blamed on an "excitable" quar- terback, as Michigan coach Brady Hoke likes to call him. "He's not the first guy to have that happen to him," Borges said. " He was fired up. It's interesting. Missing E By STEVEN BRAID Daily Sports Writer Entering its matchup against Michigan State, the Michigan women's soccer team was not onlylookingfor itsfirstwininthe series since MICHIGAN 0 2003, MICHIGAN STATE 2 but it was also searching for its first score against its in-state foe in roughly three years. The Wolverines (3-3-1 Big Ten, 8-5-2 overall) will have to wait another year to try to snap both droughts, as they were shut out once again 2-0 by the Spar- tans. "They're a good team all around," said Michigan coach Greg Ryan. "They're a solid defensive team, but I don't think they were really worried about defending us because they knew that we didn't have our personnel in place, and rightly so. I give them a lot of credit for having a very aggres- sive game plan." Playing shorthanded, Michi- gan wasn't able to absorb the pressure applied by Michigan State (4-3-0 Big Ten, 11-4-0 overall). Already without junior midfielder Holly Hein and soph- omore forward Meghan Toohey for the remainder of the season, the Wolverines were also with- out their leading scorer, sopho- By TIM ROHAN for Michigan this season. His Daily SportsEditor stats aren't flashy - 16 tackles, 1.5 tackles for loss - but his pres- Michigan strength and con- ence on the defensive line has ditioning coach Aaron Wellman allowed others to make plays. has a system set for the way his On Saturday, the Spartans will players bench press. If they can be hell-bent on running the ball lift 225 pounds with its trio of backs - Le'Veon 25 times, they NOTEBOOK Bell, Larry Caper and Edwin move up to 275 Baker - each of whom took pounds. If they can move that turns slashing a porous Wolver- much weight 25 times, they grad- ine rush defense in last year's uate to 315 pounds. game. When Wellman arrived at It was in that game that Mar- Michigan, after Brady Hoke was tin first hurt his ankle on a play hired as head coach in January, near the goal line. He wasn't the he had never had a player who same player for the rest of the could bench press 315 pounds 25 2010 season, recording just one- times. half tackle for loss and zero sacks He told senior defensive tack- the final seven games. So Mar- le Mike Martin: "If you get to tin's no stranger to how physical there, you never have to work out the matchup can be. again." "I get excited when we run Martin laughed it off, retell- into a team that wants to run," ing the line to his teammates. But Martin said. "Defensive line, then he started working hard. you've got to thrive on that. Wellman's methods were work- You've got to be excited about a ing. team that says, 'We're going to A few months into training, run at you every single play and Martin was getting close to the we'll see if you can stop it.' That's 25 reps at 315 pounds when the a big challenge for us." Wolverines were about to mea- Martin said he's heard the sure their bench presses again. stat that the team that's won the "Hey Mike, I don'twant you to rushing battle is 38-3 in the past strain a (pectoral muscle) or get 41 years. If it were up to brute hurt or anything like that," Well- strength alone, Martin would man intervened. have already won. "I think in the back of his head But could Martin put up 315 he didn't want me to break that pounds 25 times? 25 mark, because he knew what "Yeah, I'll tell coach Wellman he said, and he was probably and walk down there right now going to have to eat those words," and do that, " he said. Martin said Wednesday. TAKING ONE FOR THE TEAM: A few days before he plays Questions about how excited what is dubbed the most physical junior quarterback Denard Rob- game of the season, Martin said inson got before games got Mar- he could bench 225 pounds - the tin thinking about how he gets standard weight used at the NFL ready for games. And traveling Scouting Combine - 40 times as to play Saturday in East Lansing of the Wolverines' last strength will be no walk in the park. test before fall camp. Just six "I actually talked to Dave players in the pastsix years at the Molk about how he prepares Combine have recorded reps of mentally," Martin said. "And I 40 or greater on the bench press. don't know, you guys have prob- Michigan State is going to ably heard that he bangs his have one strong man to move off head. He grabs a freshman and the ball come Saturday. he headbutts a freshman to try Martin has quietly been one of and get his anger out. Because he the cogs ina defensive revolution can't go out-" The room burst into laughter. "Oh, wellyouprobably haven't heard that then. He's got to get his anger outso when he goes out there and snaps he can't have bad snaps. He has to be able to step and execute. "But for me as a (defensive) lineman, I've got to be very aggressive and very amped up the whole game. I guess it's a lit- tle bit different for each position, and quarterback, obviously you have to be very calm, I'm guess- ing, got to be able to make throws and read keys." Then Martin let the gravity of what he said about Molk sink in. "Yeah, that's pretty funny," he added. "Is that with helmet or with- out helmet?" one reporter asked. "With helmet, I think," Mar- tin said. "Dave's crazy. You never know with Dave." KICK ONE FOR THE GIBBER: Up 11 points in the fourth quar- ter, Michigan didn't necessar- ily need redshirt sophomore kicker Brendan Gibbons to hit the 47-yard field goal he stared down. But it would've been nice. Gibbons's kick was blocked, Hoke explained Thursday, because the guard just couldn't handle the two or three guys Northwestern threw at him. With the miss, Gibbons fell to 4-for-6 on the season, connect- ing on all four kicks inside the 40-yard line and missing tries of 40 and 47 yards. Hoke previously said that if the kick was too long for Gib- bons, freshman kicker Matt Wile would be called upon from a certain distance. But that plan seems to have changed. Hoke was comfortable send- ing Gibbons out for the 47-yarder against Northwestern because he's seen the kicker hit from 55 yards, "with a little bit of dis- tance to it." But has he supplanted Wile as the long-range field goal kicker? "I don't know," Hoke said. "I have a lot of faith in Brendan right now." Junior quarterback Denard Robinson has thrown nine interceptions this seasor. You can feel it pregame the way the guy's going to go. Basically you want to make sure he under- stands to keep a good fundamen- tal foundation. Do the things that are right about the position. It's a finesse art, and if you let your emotions override your funda- mentals, like any other position, you'll struggle. "Once he got a groove, it all changed. You could see it. You could really see it. Second half, he flung one dig on third down, and I could tell he was back. Every quarterback, even great quarter- backs sometimes, they have those kinds of games." Borges praised his quarter- back's ability to recover once he did make a bad throw. But the one mistake Borges can live without is the interception - Robinson has already thrown nine in six games this season. Only two of the top-100 rated passers have thrown more interceptions than Robinson. Borges's mantra is simple: "You can recover from incom- plete passes." Turnovers hurt more. They certainly did a year ago when Robinson ran into his first roadblock of a Heisman-hyped start to his 2010 season - rival Michigan State. In perhaps his worst passing game of the season, Robinson threw three interceptions and quarterbacked four drives that ended in three-and-outs. "There were some turn- overs that hurt (Michigan last year)," Borges said of the 2010 Michigan-Michigan State game. "Mostly a lot of the same stuff we did last game. That was pretty much it. There were times when I've watched last year where they looked like they moved the ball pretty good on them, but there were some issues with just not being able to finish drives." If he sticksto his fundamentals and avoids letting his excitement inhibit his throwing motion, the 2011 season has proved Robinson should be fine against the Spar- tans. "Big thing is he's got to let the game come to him sometimes," Hoke said. Regardless, Borges isn't a believer in benching quarter- backs, even if he wasn't coaching Denard Robinson. "Just because a kid throws a couple of picks, pulling him out of the game - I know a lot of guys who are quick trigger guys and they'll say, 'He's not playing well, we'll get the other guy in there,' " Borges said. "We're never doing that. They can boo or do whatev- er. ... You want to stick with that guy, and if you stick with him you give him a chance to prove that he's your leader and the team will believe in him. But if you go south on him, I just don't believe that's a good way of doing it. "Now I've taken quarterbacks out before, but that's usually because they've lost their confi- dence." ' -- - - - - Senior defensive tackle Mike Martin has been a mainstayon the defensive line for the Wolverines this seaso. zurike,'M' lacks scoring punch EsYou Yoawith a - p. more forward Nkem Ezuirke. Ezurike was forced to sit out this contest after receiv- ing her fifth yellow card of the season against Northwestern. NCAA rules state that if a player receives her fifth yellow card of the season, she must sit out the following game. Her physical presence was sorely missed - Michigan's offensive attack floundered all game against the' Spartan defense. "It completely changes our team," Ryan said. "We just didn't have that target player who could hold that ball up for us today. It was a very, very dif- ficult game. "We're also still trying to fig- ure how to adjust to Toohey's loss, because she was such a dynamic force in our midfield, and not having both those play- ers on the field made it very dif- ficult for us today." Without its usual level of con- fidence, Michigan played pas- sively and defensive-minded for the majority of the game. The Spartans outshot the Wolverines 12-1 in the first half, and they held a 5-2 advantage in corner kicks. But despite the lopsided statistics, the Wolverines did initially shut down Michigan State's offense. The two teams played to a scoreless draw enter- ing halftime. ANNA SCHULTE/ Michigan caoch Greg Ryan was without sophomore forward Nkem Ezurike most lethal scoring threat, in Wednesday's 2-0 loss to the Spartans.