Wednesday - October 24, 2007
Quick Thoughts
I'm heading back to Michigan for the Minnesota game and I won't be mobile blogging via iPhone from the sideline or anything, so this is the first and last word on Illinois week that you'll hear from me.
That was good. Simply put, that was good. It was a road win against a seemingly respectable team, without Mike Hart and with 2/3rds of Chad Henne. I don't know how to spin that as anything other than impressive. Chad Henne was fantastic. The WR corps was excellent (what a catch! by Arrington, and a heck of an effort by Manningham on his TD catch). Carlos Brown was better than most expected. The defense always felt shaky, but held up exceptionally well, giving Mendenhall and Williams none of the big plays that we all feared could be our undoing.
Were there points to pick at, real and perceived? Sure. The pass blocking was a disaster. The linebacking corps seemed to be handled far too easily. And the play selection for Ryan Mallett does not put him in position to succeed as a passer. But more on that later.
As Michigan gets its act together, as it has done over the course of the 6 game winning streak, there's a bit of a divide in the fan base. Some are relieved that our long national nightmare is over, and others can't get over how this talented a team lost to Appalachian State and got creamed by Oregon. I can understand the frustration that lingers from those two abject failures, but let's not allow that frustration to infect topics it has no relevance to.
The Purdue and Illinois games were well called, generally well executed games from Michigan, impressive wins that show that Michigan may finally be playing up to potential. Neither can these wins "redeem" Michigan's coaching staff after the failures of Appalachain State and Oregon nor can those two losses blemish these two impressive wins. There is no need to nitpick these victories searching for negatives to justify the lingering frustration of 0-2.
What have we seen the last two weeks?
Chad Henne is on his game and he is every bit as good as he should be. Since Henne has returned to the lineup against NW, over 60% of all the meaningful drives* he's led have resulted in points (22/36), with almost half of the drives ending in touchdowns (17/36). That is extraordinarily efficient. (*) does not include half and game ending kneel downs and such drives.
Carlos Brown may be a competent backup to Mike Hart. We may no longer be looking at the 5.5 yards/carry when Hart is in, 3 yards/carry when Hart is out offense that has so often been the case against the better teams we've played. It is only one game, but it was more than we've seen before, and against a pretty good run defense, too.
Our wide receiving corps is excellent, and both of our starters are versatile WRs who can run routes all over the field and succeed.
Our offensive coordinator is absolutely willing to deploy the wide receivers all over the field, to stretch defenses or to attack them down the middle and to try to get points out of the passing game. He is willing to go shotgun 3-wide if the situation calls for it. As long as Henne is in the game.
Our D-line is becoming dominant against the pass and adequate against the run.
Our secondary is vastly improved. The corners are playing extremely well and all three safeties in the main rotation (Englemon, Adams and Harrison) are making plays.
On the other hand:
The playbook with Ryan Mallett is extremely limited, even without Hart and trailing early in the game. The first down passes that Chad Henne is allowed to throw are whittled down to a few short waggles to Carson Butler when Mallett is in. Simply dropping back in a pass look and throwing 10 yards downfield on 1st down is not in the playbook (though, to be fair, the 4 Ryan Mallett possessions against Illinois included 3 good drives into Illinois territory, 2 of which ended on turnovers, not bad or conservative playcalling).
The line is struggling mightily at times, both in recognizing / picking up blitzes and, against Illinois, at handling a simple bull rush.
Ryan Mallett cannot take a snap from Justin Boren.
No big plays in the kicking game (at least none that we caused ... 2 big penalties and a dropped punt by Illinois turned the special teams in our favor).
On Balance
I look at that list, and it is very much in the positive to me. I'm encouraged. I'm not predicting 10-2; I'm not that encouraged. But I feel much better about our shot at the Big 10 title now than I did two weeks ago. The offense is clicking the way it should, and that can cover any bumps along the way the defense or special teams may encounter.