I am watching the Michigan v Washington football game as I write this. This is the week after Michigan got smoked by Southern Cal 31-13. Washington kicked off to Michigan who prompted did nothing on 1st and 2nd down to have a have a 3rd and 9. Underwood completed a pass, but it was short of the first down forcing Michigan to punt.
Michigan punted. Washington promptly ripped off two first downs borrowing a bit from the Southern Cal playbook from last week (effective screen passes). After that the Michigan defense toughened up and forced a punt.
Michigan took over and the offense looked more like it should to us Michigan fans. They had a few gutty runs for decent yards, a reverse, and some good passes. After two first downs, they were penalized for holding and faced with a 1st and 20. They got to 4th and 1. But, Semaj Morgan dropped a swing pass that would have clearly been a first down.
Washington’s first play was a 48 pass to the Michigan 19. Michigan held them forcing a 3rd and 9 which ended up being an incomplete pass in the endzone. Washington attempted a field goal which, whew, went wide right.
Michigan is a very young team. Our quarterback is a freshman who shows signs of brilliance and, more importantly to me, showing signs of improvement. With an injury in this game to a senior offensive tackle, half of the offensive line are redshirt freshmen. The Last year was a rebuilding year. The cupboard was bare after the 2023 National Championship Season, and we had five losses going into the Ohio State game which was a brilliant upset. Michigan put an exclamation point on the season by then beating Alabama. We did not have a spectacular offense, but our defense got stingier with each game and ended up being very strong in the impressive wins over Ohio State and Alabama.
There is promise on this team and I am still optimistic given our that we have two losses to Oklahoma and Southern Cal. If Michigan beats Washington, most pundits think they should win their remaining games until the regular season finale versus Ohio State which is in Ann Arbor on November 30th. If that happens and then if Michigan beats Ohio State for a 5th straight time, Michigan should have a chance for the championship playoffs.
My biggest concern with this program versus Ohio State is that Ohio State is strong every year. As one commentator said many years ago, “Ohio State never has to rebuild, they just reload.” Their pipeline seems to always be full. If a player goes down in the middle of the season, they just put the next player in line, the back-up, in to take his place. They just reload. A talented quarterback graduates, goes pro, or transfers to Texas… the back-up becomes the starter, or they get a championship ready fifth year replacement from the portal. They just reload. Michigan is good, they recruit well but, they just haven’t built that full pipeline culture that would allow them just to reload.
No comments:
Post a Comment