The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
SportsMonday
Monday, September 23, 2019 — 4B
Answers
elude
Michigan’s
offense
MADISON — For a fleeting moment
on Saturday, as Ronnie Bell streaked
across an open field and into an
unmanned secondary with only green
grass ahead of him, it seemed like
everything might be OK.
Bell eyed the end zone and all those
concerns about senior quarterback
Shea Patterson ameliorated. He ran
towards it, and the noise around
offensive
coordinator
Josh
Gattis
dissipated. He got pushed out of
bounds at Wisconsin’s 7-yard line
and it didn’t matter, because this was
speed in space, the kind of up-tempo
juggernaut that can go into a place like
Madison and throw a defense like the
Badgers off their game.
Two
plays
later,
Ben
Mason
fumbled. Wisconsin recovered and
the Wolverines snapped out of their
haze — falling into an ugly reality that
engulfed them for the game’s next 53
minutes.
Patterson left the game at halftime
after an abominable start. He came
back in later on and finished by
completing less than half of his passes.
Backup quarterback Dylan McCaffrey
was lucky not to be intercepted
numerous times, then left the game
himself with a concussion. Receiver
Donovan Peoples-Jones, in his much-
anticipated return from injury, got
hit with an unsportsmanlike conduct
penalty early that took away more
yards than his lone catch gained.
Collectively, eight rushers combined
for 40 yards on 19 carries. Take out the
negative-9 yards Jon Runyan Jr. got on
an ill-fated Patterson decision under
pressure and it balanced out to 49 on
18, or 2.72 per carry.
Michigan scored 14 points and had
299 total yards. All 14 of those points
came once Wisconsin had gone up 35-0
and 128 of those yards came in the
fourth quarter, well after the student
section had started to flood out,
getting an early start on celebrating a
statement win.
“We just can’t play like this again,
cause we’re gonna get our butts kicked
every week,” Runyan said, and it
doesn’t take a football expert to see
that he’s right.
Call it a result of changing schemes
— and senior tight end Nick Eubanks
did — but the Wolverines had all spring,
fall camp, two games and a bye week to
get used to Gattis’ offense, which was
advertised as simple. At this point, the
learning curve is barely a valid excuse.
Call it a result of personnel or not
having enough talent, but this is a group
that returned a senior quarterback,
four starters on a good offensive line
and three NFL-caliber receivers (all
of whom were healthy on Saturday).
There’s nothing inherently wrong with
that.
Call it a result of Gattis, a first-time
play caller, walking into a situation
in which he may not be ready for and
struggling at the first sign of trouble.
But the tape of the first two games
showed open passes left on the field,
and Eubanks alluded Saturday to
“things we missed and opportunities
we had.”
Or you could do what Jim Harbaugh
did, and acknowledge that this is not
one problem. On every level, Wisconsin
was just better, and on every level,
Michigan must improve.
“We were outplayed,” Harbaugh
said.
“Out-prepared,
outcoached,
outplayed.”
Patterson has yet to look himself in
three games. The offensive line has
repeatedly struggled, leaving Patterson
out to dry and putting running back
Zach Charbonnet into situations where
a two-yard gain constitutes success.
Those three NFL-caliber receivers —
Peoples-Jones, Nico Collins and Tarik
Black — combined for three targets and
five yards through Michigan’s opening
drive of the second half on Saturday.
When the Wolverines lined up to punt
after that drive, down 28-0, the TV
camera cut to Harbaugh uttering an
expletive.
What else could he do?
A couple hours later, a reporter
asked Harbaugh about the identity he
wants for the offense.
“To be able to run the ball, to be
able to throw the ball both equally,
effective and efficient,” Harbaugh said.
“Definitely little things that we gotta
do and we gotta do better.”
Thus far, all the offense has been
able to show is short glimpses of what it
could be. Like Bell’s on Saturday, those
don’t amount to much in the long run.
M
ADISON — Ten days
ago, Don Brown stood
in front of reporters,
flashing his trademark energy and
easily consumable sound bites to
appease an apprehensive fanbase.
Amid his playful acts and posi-
tive reinforce-
ment, the
criticism came.
Michigan had
given up 21
points to a pair
of unranked
teams at home
so the question
naturally fol-
lowed: How are
you going to
stop Wisconsin?
Brown’s response was not to
worry. Sure, Michigan struggled
for stretches against a pair of
teams that finished 79th and 62nd
in yards per game a year ago. But
Wisconsin — 31st in that category
— ran a familiar offense, so the
Wolverines shouldn’t have any
trouble stopping them.
“I’ve been writing Wiscon-
sin cards and I’ve kinda been
‘Woohoowoo!’ because I can whip
them out like that!” Brown said at
the time. “Because it’s all the stuff
our guys know and are comfortable
with. And we’ll jump in at a high
level, without question.”
So, about that.
For two and a half quarters Sat-
urday afternoon, before the Bad-
gers elected in favor of empathy,
Michigan had to count any play
that didn’t end in a first down as a
revelatory success.
At that media availability last
week, Brown was asked to address
the concern that the Wolverines
couldn’t handle Wisconsin’s vaunt-
ed run game, led by All-American
back Jonathan Taylor.
Brown’s response: “Bunch of
crap.”
Wisconsin finished with 57 car-
ries for 359 yards and five touch-
downs.
Where, then, was the prepa-
ration that Brown talked about
before the game?
Ask those on the field and the
answer’s clear — not on Michigan’s
sideline. When senior safety Josh
Metellus was asked how the Wol-
verines let Taylor romp for 203
yards, his response, before a pause,
was one word: “Scheme.”
“They came in with a differ-
ent type of scheme than they did
last year,” Metellus continued. “…
They ran more of a double-counter
(guard-tackle) type of scheme, try-
ing to get the cutback lanes. Say
they’d try to run to the left, we’d
overflow it, try to get their cutback
through the A-gap or something
like that.”
Metellus wouldn’t outright say
that Michigan failed to adjust,
but when you give up five rush-
ing touchdowns in the first seven
drives, the implication is clear.
In the Wisconsin locker room,
candor was in greater supply.
“We knew the pressures that
were coming,” said Badgers left
tackle Cole Van Lanen. “We
watched a lot of film and we got
to shut those things down early so
they stopped running them and
then they’re getting a lot of base
defense.”
All of this, about the defense
that’s regarded as the hallmark
of the Jim Harbaugh-Don Brown
era. The defense that’s ranked top
three nationally in yards allowed
per game since Harbaugh arrived
in 2015, sure. But also the defense
that has played 10 games at top-20
teams or home vs. top-10 teams
under Don Brown and given up an
average of 31.9 points.
So when the Wolverines describe
this as an uncharacteristic perfor-
mance, they’re not wrong, they’re
just off by 3.1 points.
Still, there’s optimism in the
Michigan locker room.
“You look at the defense, we
have a lot of good guys,” said
sophomore defensive end Aidan
Hutchinson.
Hutchinson isn’t wrong. He’s
one of those good guys, a disrup-
tive force whether he lines up at
tackle or end. Josh Uche and Kwity
Paye are dynamic threats off the
end. Lavert Hill and Josh Metellus
are NFL players in the secondary.
Running down the roster,
though, misses the point. No one
on this defense is a likely first
round pick. You know who was?
Jabrill Peppers, Taco Charlton,
Devin Bush and Rashan Gary.
Jourdan Lewis, Delano Hill, Chase
Winovich and David Long were all
selected in the first three rounds.
And yet, all of those players have
walked out the doors of Schem-
bechler Hall without a win against
Ohio State or in a New Years’ Six
bowl. They walked out without
even notching a top-20 road win,
members of a defense that failed to
hold up its end of the bargain when
it mattered most.
So, with Michigan down 28-0
after two quarters and yet another
big-game loss looming, what was
Don Brown’s message?
“We treated the game 0-0 at
halftime,” Hutchinson said.
Not with this defense.
Mackie can be reached at tmackie@
umich.edu or on Twitter @theo_mackie.
ETHAN SEARS
Managing Sports Editor
We knew the
pressures that
were coming. ...
We got to shut
those things
down early.
ALEXIS RANKIN/Daily
Defensive coordinator Don Brown’s unit gave up 359 rushing yards in an embarrassing performance against the Badgers on Saturday,
ALLISON ENGKVIST/Daily
Wisconsin running back Jonathan Taylor rushed for 203 yards against a listless Michigan defense in Wisconsin’s 35-14 win.
Identity
makes
difference
for Badgers
MADISON — No matter who
you asked, there was a phrase that
reverberated through the Wisconsin
press room Saturday afternoon.
“We
just
played
Wisconsin
football.”
There’s a very specific style the
Badgers are known for. It’s physical,
bruising
football,
with
a
stout
running game, a steady stream of
overpowering offensive linemen and
a lockdown defense. Done right, every
opponent slowly has the life sucked
out of it. For years, they haven’t
deviated, and there’s a reason: it
works.
It certainly worked Saturday. The
linemen opened up gaping holes for
Jonathan Taylor to burst through.
Wisconsin ran three times as much as
Michigan and gained 319 more yards
on the ground. The defense pitched a
shutout through the third quarter and
wound up with a blowout, 35-14.
As the Wolverines were on the
other side of the stadium, talking
about how they didn’t yet have an
identity, the Badgers made one thing
clear: they know exactly who they are.
Last year, in a 38-13 Michigan win,
the Wolverines did their thing and it
showed. This time, it was Wisconsin’s
turn to return the favor.
“Last year is not who we was,” said
Wisconsin safety Reggie Pearson.
“And coming in this year, every
opponent that we get, break them
down from first quarter to fourth.”
This was a team assured of itself
from beginning to end, a team that
noticed from the first drive — when
the Badgers went for it on fourth
down at their own 34 — that the guys
on the other side weren’t quite the
same way.
Back
on
Tuesday,
senior
quarterback Shea Patterson tried to
make people feel the same way about
Michigan. “We’re gonna go out there
and make a statement,” he said, and
Wisconsin was listening. The Badgers
had something of their own to say.
Linebacker Chris Orr told his team
about Patterson’s proclamation all
week, preparing to give him a test he
didn’t see coming. When asked after
the game who made a statement, Orr’s
response went without saying: “We
did.”
“We were just trying to make
a statement that we were gonna
dominate in the line of scrimmage
up front and you prepare for that,”
Taylor said. “You know coming in
here, the University of Wisconsin,
they’re gonna run the ball.”
Wisconsin
proved
that
what
Patterson had so confidently said
was just a bunch of empty words, that
you can’t make a statement without
knowing exactly what that statement
is going to be.
After the Badgers converted that
first fourth down, they marched
down the field, bludgeoning the
Wolverines’ defense with Taylor,
scoring a touchdown and eating
clock. Wisconsin put Michigan on
watch, showed the Wolverines this
was its identity. Then it went back to
that, again and again.
When Taylor went down with
cramps in the second quarter, it
didn’t matter. There were other
running backs waiting in the wings,
and Michigan couldn’t stop them,
either.
The
Badgers
went
all-in
on their offensive line, sometimes
putting seven or eight linemen in on
short yardage, daring the Wolverines
to stop the run and knowing they
wouldn’t.
The
defense
knew
it
could force an offense to be one-
dimensional, and it did that, too. This
time, it was by stopping the run and
forcing Michigan to pass, knowing
that on third- and fourth-and-long, it
could only do so much.
Wisconsin
fans
chanted
“overrated”
two
separate
times,
knowing fully that the Wolverines
weren’t what they said they were. But
the Badgers like to think it was more
than just that.
“I’m sure people would say that
Michigan lost the game instead of us
winning the game, so we don’t care
about that,” Orr said. “We’re gonna
have the same goal next week and the
week after that until the end of the
season, just dominating whoever we
line up against.”
Michigan didn’t have an identity
Saturday. Wisconsin did.
The difference has never been
more clear.
ARIA GERSON
Daily Sports Editor
Jumped
Michigan outplayed in all facets, loses 35-14
THEO
MACKIE