8 — Tuesday, September 24, 2019
Sports
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Four parting thoughts from Michigan’s disastrous loss at Wisconsin
Michigan went into Saturday’s
game against Wisconsin aiming
to
make
a
statement.
Well,
mission accomplished.
Instead of a statement of
affirmation — that this program
could win a game in a tough
environment, against a team
of equal or better talent — the
Wolverines
confirmed
the
opposite.
Now forced to pick up the
pieces from a 35-14 drubbing
in Madison, Michigan has to
re-evaluate and re-calibrate. In
doing so, it left plenty to digest
about a season suddenly teetering
on the brink. Here are four
parting thoughts on a season-
altering weekend and the peril it
puts this season in.
So
much
for
offensive
balance
After the game Michigan coach
Jim Harbaugh was asked what
he wanted this team’s offensive
identity to be. He didn’t dare
utter the phrase that is quickly
descending into meme territory.
You know the one. “Quickness
in open areas,” or something of
that ilk. Hard to remember at
this point. His answer, though
nondescript, spoke to one of this
team’s many flaws.
“To be able to run the ball, to be
able to throw the ball,” Harbaugh
said. “Both equally effective and
efficient.”
Through
three
weeks,
Harbaugh’s offense — ahem, sorry,
Josh Gattis’ offense — has been
neither balanced nor efficient.
Saturday against Wisconsin, that
play-calling tilted heavily toward
the passing attack by a margin of
42-19. Last week against Army,
the Wolverines ran the ball 45
times and threw it 31 times.
Through
three
weeks,
Michigan is averaging 3.49 yards
per carry. From a group that was
supposed to be anchored by an
experienced,
sturdy
offensive
line and a promising young
running back, balance should
be an attainable necessity. And
yet, both Harbaugh and the
players lamented the disparity on
Saturday.
“(The running game is) one
thing we ran away from and I
wish we would’ve stayed with
it,” said senior tight end Nick
Eubanks after the game.
Making strict judgments off the
run/pass ratios can be misleading;
play-calling is often dictated
by game context, and Michigan
has allowed a touchdown on the
opening drive of all three games
this season. That can throw any
plan for a loop.
But
for
an
offense
that
continues to strive for balance,
among other things, it’s doing
little to actually dictate game
context instead of lay victim to it.
A
different
kind
of
quarterback quandry
As
Saturday’s
first
half
progressed, the murmurs became
rumblings, rumblings became
primal screams.
The calls for junior quarterback
Dylan McCaffrey stemmed more
for a desperate clamor for change
of any kind.
Senior
quarterback
Shea
Patterson continued to display
carelessness in terms of ball
security. He missed open reads
and open receivers. In the third
quarter, whether via injury or
ineptitude, he was replaced by
McCaffrey — only to come back
in when McCaffrey exited with a
concussion. Asked to assess their
play, Harbaugh declined to go
into specifics.
“Shea was being evaluated at
halftime, and then we put Dylan
in to start the second half,” he
said after the game. “Dylan, he’s
got a concussion.”
It’s easy to funnel any offensive
frustrations to one place, and by
default, the quarterback is often
the victim of that. Patterson has
played poorly through three
weeks, and the quarterback play
is problematic. Solving those
issues cannot, and will not, turn
a floundering offense into a
thriving one on its own. Those
two things can be, and are, true.
In the short term, there’s little
discussion to be had. McCaffrey
is potentially recovering from
his concussion; Patterson will be
under center next week against
Rutgers.
In the long term, if these
issues persist from Patterson,
it will become harder to ignore
the validity of those frantic pleas
from fans.
Keep it simple, stupid
Let’s start with the facts.
Donovan Peoples-Jones, Tarik
Black and Nico Collins have
33 combined targets through
three weeks. That trio, the most
talented Michigan has had in
quite some time, has 19 combined
catches for 313 yards in that span.
Saturday, they had one combined
catch through three quarters,
until all three made plays in
garbage time to reiterate the
following point:
Michigan’s
misuse
of
its
three best playmakers has been
inexplicable
and
inexcusable.
It’s an abject failure of coaching.
Period.
They have the potential to
spearhead the best receiving
corps in the Big Ten. Instead, they
haven’t been given a chance.
Eubanks was asked after the
game about their involvement (or
lack thereof) in the offense this
season. He expressed faith in the
staff to figure it out.
“We all see it on film. And I
believe the coaches will see it as
well,” Eubanks said. “And we’ll
go from there in terms of who
needs to get the ball and moving
through the offense.”
As
this
offense
searches
frantically for its identity, it would
seem prudent to start with its best
players. As the saying goes, “keep
it simple, stupid.”
Michigan’s defense has an
identity crisis of its own
It was hard to tell where this
defense stood after two weeks.
It had allowed 21 points against
a
meager
Middle
Tennessee
State, but the offense set it up
for failure. Same for the showing
against Army, in which it held
the Black Knights to their lowest
rushing yardage total since 2015.
The
institutional
framework,
it seemed, had carried over.
The defense was not the source
for concern. While the offense
overcame the speedbumps of its
transition, the defense could help
tread water.
“We finally can play Michigan
defense, where we can go back
and run our stuff that we run
all preseason and all spring
practice,” Brown said last week.
“Quite frankly, I’ve been writing
Wisconsin cards (and) I’m kind
of: ‘Whew, whew.’ I can whip
‘em out like that, because it’s
all the stuff our guys know and
are comfortable with, and we’ll
jump in it at a high level without
question.”
So much for that.
The
Badgers
rampaged
their way to 354 rushing yards.
Wisconsin
quarterback
Jack
Coan completed 13 of 16 passes,
and
with
comparative
ease.
And it wasn’t just that they
ran
through
the
Michigan
defense, but how. There were no
schematic mysteries, no notable
gameplan mishaps. This was one
team telling its opponent what
it planned to do, then shoving it
right at them anyway.
For the Wolverines, these are
problems that aren’t going away.
The personnel isn’t changing.
The coaching staff isn’t changing.
Three weeks in, all Michigan’s
cards are on the table.
And it certainly appears Brown
was bluffing.
MAX MARCOVITCH
Managing Sports Editor
ALLISON ENGKVIST/Daily
The Michigan football team has a bevy of problems to deal with and questions to answer after Saturday’s 35-14 loss to the Badgers in Madison.
Harbaugh shoulders blame, looks
to correct physicality and hustle
You saw it, and so did Jim
Harbaugh.
There’s no extra level of
analysis needed, no added layers
of expertise necessary. Michigan
got rocked on Saturday.
Now it has to deal with the
fallout.
“Watching the film it was
pretty obvious to everybody that
was watching in the entire football
world, from A to Z, it wasn’t good,”
Harbaugh said. “It wasn’t good
enough. Not acceptable.”
It wasn’t one area that proved
decisive in Wisconsin’s 35-14
win. It was all of them. Coaching.
Physicality. Effort.
On Monday, Harbaugh stood at
the podium with the demeanor of
a man ready for introspection.
The scene bore all the makings
of a normal press conference:
Harbaugh standing there in a
sweatshirt and khakis with his
hands folded, speaking with as
much of a filter as he can muster
and giving short responses to
injury questions. Rarely, though,
has the Michigan coach been
as direct as he was Monday
afternoon.
He took responsibility, and
so did the players. He said,
repeatedly, that the performance
wasn’t acceptable, and that it
starts with him. He said the
effort wasn’t there on Saturday,
giving the requisite cliches about
believing in his team, with the
caveat that, in all areas, things
must improve — no excuses and
no way around it.
“We
didn’t
play
physical
enough,”
Harbaugh
said.
“We were out-hustled. I take
responsibility for that. In any
ways that we were out-schemed,
I take responsibility for that.
It’s my job to make sure we are
completely sound, in all offenses
and defenses that we’re running.”
There are no shortage of areas
to improve, but Harbaugh turned
the focus to the trenches, on
both sides of the ball. Wisconsin
outran Michigan by a margin
of over 300 yards on Saturday.
The Badgers overwhelmed the
Wolverines with size in the run
game, breaking open holes for
Jonathan Taylor. The subsequent
scoring forced Michigan to throw
the ball on offense. After the
game and on Monday, offensive
players talked about how jarring
it was to have passed 42 times,
“which is something I haven’t
seen at Michigan since I’ve been
here,” fifth-year senior tackle Jon
Runyan Jr. said.
Strictly
speaking,
he’s
incorrect.
In
2015,
Runyan’s
freshman year, Michigan hit
that mark three times and it did
so in the 2018 Outback Bowl as
well. But his answer speaks to
something greater.
Despite Josh Gattis’ promises
of a vertical passing game, this
group still wants its identity to
be rooted on the ground. On
Saturday, it lost that.
“They took us out of our game
that we wanted to play,” Runyan
said. “That’s something we’re
really not used to, with throwing
that many times in a game.”
It doesn’t help that senior
quarterback
Shea
Patterson
seemed to be playing through an
injury Saturday — Harbaugh said
Saturday that he was evaluated
at halftime — and was constantly
dodging pressure, as Wisconsin
racked up two sacks and seven
hurries.
Patterson proved his mettle
last year, when he threw for 2,600
yards and had as good a season
as any Michigan quarterback has
in the last decade. But against
Wisconsin, he alternated between
running for his life and looking
lost.
“We have to do a better job
of protecting the quarterback,”
Harbaugh said. “Have to give him
time to make throws, make reads.
Do what he’s capable of doing, he’s
a very good player.”
On Saturday, tight end Nick
Eubanks said that the offense
dwelled on their early errors, in
particular Ben Mason’s fumble
near the goal-line. Harbaugh
didn’t reject the premise outright
on Monday, but he refused to take
it as an excuse.
If that bled into effort, it’s
correctable, but also as indicting
as anything Michigan did on
Saturday.
“Effort’s something that can’t
be coached it’s kind of a personal
business decision you make,”
Runyan said. “... Looking back
on the film, not trying to call
out anyone, but I feel like there
were some plays where the effort
could’ve been better.
“I think along with effort
comes execution. Guys aren’t
going to trot on the field being like,
‘I’m probably only going to give
60% of effort this play.’ No one’s
thinking that. They were able to
exploit those matchups and get to
where they wanted to get.”
Acknowledging those errors
is the first step. Now it’s on
Harbaugh
and
Michigan
to
correct them.
ETHAN SEARS
Managing Sports Editor
Wolverines hoping to rebound
Jordan Glasgow remembers
his first tough loss at Michigan
— the infamous “trouble with
the snap” play that doomed the
Wolverines against Michigan
State his freshman year. But
they didn’t let it stick with
them, winning their next four
games — including three on the
road — before losing to Ohio
State to finish 9-3. Michigan
capped it all off with a win in
the Citrus Bowl.
Last year, the Wolverines did
something similar, dropping
their opener at Notre Dame
before ripping off a 10-game
winning streak to finish 10-2
with a loss to the Buckeyes and
a berth in the Peach Bowl.
Neither
of
those
things
guarantee that Michigan will
do the same this year. After
all,
the
Wolverines
looked
much worse against Wisconsin
on Saturday than they did in
their
previous
early-season
losses. But Michigan players
still remember that they’ve
rebounded before, and going
forward, the only thing left
to do is believe they can do it
again.
“There have been a lot of
tough losses since I’ve been
here and I don’t think we’ve let
any of those losses really define
us,”
said
fifth-year
senior
linebacker Jordan Glasgow. “
… I feel like we can go on to be
a successful team and we can
improve going forward.”
The
Wolverines
pointed
out again and again Monday
that all their goals are still
ahead of them. Every Big Ten
East
winner
since
division
realignment in 2014 has had
at least one loss, and losing to
a West team like Wisconsin
means that it could still hold
the
head-to-head
tiebreaker
against other East foes. And
Michigan will enter the easiest
part of its schedule: home
games with Rutgers and No. 14
Iowa and a road trip to Illinois.
Those games could provide a
good opportunity to get back on
track, but could is the operative
word. The Wolverines have
shown little cohesion so far,
and they’ve struggled to handle
in-game adversity. There are
multiple areas that need fixing,
from run blocking to turnovers
to defensive line play. But
there’s now plenty of the bad
stuff on film for Michigan to
learn from. The trick now is to
stay mentally strong enough to
not get discouraged.
“I’m kinda looking at this
loss as a learning moment,”
said fifth-year senior offensive
lineman Jon Runyan. “I’ve had
some hard losses here, this
one is early on in the season.
It’s against a Big Ten West
opponent. Everything we want
is still ahead of us.
“We can’t lose another game.
It’s tough losing a game in the
Big Ten already, but we’ve got
everything ahead of us. Can’t
dwell on this too much or we’re
not gonna be moving forward.”
Runyan
noted
how
the
Badgers were able to dictate
what
the
Wolverines
did
offensively, forcing them to
throw the ball way more than
they were comfortable with.
Against the Scarlet Knights, the
first item on Runyan’s agenda
is to force Rutgers’ defense to
react to Michigan’s offense,
rather than the other way
around.
But after the Wolverines
are done with their film study,
there’s no reason to dwell on
Wisconsin anymore. If there’s
any hope of still reaching the
goals they constantly speak of,
they’ll have to keep that game
in the past and just keep moving
forward.
“It
was
a
bad
day
for
Michigan,”
said
Michigan
coach Jim Harbaugh. “And I
don’t want that to turn into two
losses, don’t let one loss turn
into two. ... This week (is) the
most important. Win the next
game, come back to work and
make sure it doesn’t happen
again.”
ARIA GERSON
Daily Sports Editor
ALEXIS RANKIN/Daily
Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh took the blame for Saturday’s loss.
ALLISON ENGKVIST/Daily
Jordan Glasgow is drawing on past losses in his response to Saturday’s.