Michigan started solidly at the beginning of the game by stopping the 1st two Wisconsin drives and they moved ball on offense. On Michigan's 2nd drive things began to come apart when Chad Henne threw an interception and that was Henne's last pass because he did not return the rest of the game.The Badgers would turn it into seven points with the help from two Shawn Crable personal fouls. From there things snow-balled do in large part to Michigan's losing focus by having players arguing with other players, defensive players trying to do too much instead of playing fundamentally sound football.
When Michigan had the ball :
Wisconsin front four controlled and at times dominated the line of scrimmage. This allowed the Badger LB's and DB's to make plays in both the passing and running game. They held the Michigan running attack to under 100 yards. The badgers were especially effective in their blitz packages which gave Michigan problems all afternoon. Wisconsin also mixed up coverage very well and had Ryan Mallett confused much of the game combine that with both bad passes and too many dropped passes and you have a recipe for an offensive disaster. What it all added up to was a sub par offensive performance by the entire Michigan offense.
When Badgers had the ball:
The Wisconsin O line played a solid game, but it was the Michigan defense that made Wisconsin look so good. This was Michigan's worse performance since Oregon and as with Oregon it was the same poor fundamentals that absolutely killed Michigan. Poor positional play, horrible angles, giving up contain, and not staying home. Lost count of number of times Michigan played strong at point of attack, only to have the Wisconsin RB's cutback through huge hole and how many times did Tyler Donovan able to break contain after initial pressure to only gain yards either running or throwing out on the perimeter.
Special Teams:
Michigan's special teams were a negative again today with average coverage, terrible punting, and below average returns. This is Michigan's biggest concern or weakness and you cannot continue to lose special teams battle and beat good teams.
What happens now:
The big question is how will this Michigan team reacts now? Will they lay it all out on the line and go for the Big Ten title, the Rose Bowl and another BCS bowl trip or will they pack it in at the first sign of defeat? Nobody really knows until 12:00 p.m. EST. on Saturday when they face rival Ohio State. They are beat able, but Michigan has not played a complete game all year and they will have need to play the best four quarters of the season to beat Ohio State. Also they aren't going to be able to do the same things that Illinois did either like putting pressure on the QB and also using the QB as a running back to get the bucks out of their element. The biggest thing is getting up on them and keep the pressure on and make them get out of their game of running the ball, controlling the clock, play great defense and special team and just have the offense does enough to win. You make the QB scramble and get pressure on him and this game Michigan can win if they play sound football and get back to basics of fundamental football and play with some heart, passion, pride and your school.
Thursday will be Special edition with the Offense Preview of what Michigan needs to do to win and Friday will be what will the Defense need to do to win against Ohio State on Saturday with predictions as well. Also check back daily for new additions to the blog.
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