Michigan Football: Three Takeaways from Orange Bowl Loss to Florida State

Michigan offensive line struggles

The foundation of the Michigan football is its line play. Their offensive play-makers are the explosive receivers and grinding running backs. But none of that happens without a push up front. Throughout the season, the line have opened holes for DeVeon Smith and gave Wilton Speight time to find Jehu Chesson and Amara Darboh deep.

On Friday night, that push was nowhere to be found. Michigan ran for 89 yards, but it took 46 attempts. Smith was kept bottled up, and only averaged 2.3 yards a carry. Florida State repeatedly got to the open spaces and stuffed runners. If not for Chris Evans knifing style, Michigan wouldn’t have had a ground game to speak of. Florida State’s 15 tackles for loss speak for itself.

The pass blocking wasn’t better. Wilton Speight was repeatedly hurried and rushed about half of his throws. He seemed to be constantly scrambling as pocket after pocket collapsed around him. He made a few good finds, but his stats were way down from his averages, ending  21/38 for 163 yards. That he only averaged 4.3 yards a throw shows how often he had to dump it to a safety valve.

The Seminoles sacked him 4.5 times, with DeMarcus Walker repeatedly caused disruption. Said senior Kyle Kalis: “Obviously that’s not how you want to go out. It’s not how you want to leave your legacy.”

The line will be one of the places where graduation will hurt most. The Wolverines will lose starters, including tackles Eric Magnusson and Ben Braden, and guard Kyle Kalis. Two backups, Patrick Kugler and David Dawson, have also played their final game for Michigan.