Michigan Football: 3 Keys for Wolverines against Indiana
By Adam Childs
The Michigan football team will look to bounce from a tough loss to Michigan State when they head to Bloomington to take on the Hoosiers.
The Michigan football team head to Indiana on Saturday to take on the 13th-ranked Hoosiers. Yes, you read that correctly, the Indiana Hoosiers are ranked inside the top 15. It has been a long time since the Hoosiers have been ranked that high, but still the Wolverines will come into the game as a slight favorite.
Whether it is right or wrong, the fact that Michigan football hasn’t lost to the Hoosiers since 1987 probably has something to do with it. It could also be that while the Wolverines struggled against Michigan State, they still have more talent on paper than the Hoosiers do.
Indiana, though, is riding high after a huge upset win over Penn State when quarterback Michael Penix Jr narrowly scored on a two-point conversion in overtime. The Hoosiers followed that up by easily dispatching a Rutgers team that just beat Michigan State the week before.
Even with all of that, it is still a tough matchup for the Hoosiers. Remember the transitive property does not work in sports. Just because the Hoosiers beat Rutgers who beat Michigan State who beat our Wolverines, doesn’t mean they are necessarily the better team.
Teams matchup differently against different teams and motivation is a huge factor and is different every game. Not to mention that Michigan State wasn’t nearly as bad as everyone wanted to make them out to be after their loss to Rutgers. You just can’t turn the ball over seven times and expect to win.
Michigan needs a huge bounce-back game or its season could spiral completely out of control. A loss would really turn the heat up on Jim Harbaugh’s seat if it isn’t already scorching.
One thing is for sure, Indiana is ready and the Hoosiers are going to put up a great fight. This is the year they have been waiting on for a long time and they think it is their time to reverse some of their long losing streaks to Michigan and Ohio State.
So what do the Wolverines have to do to make sure that doesn’t happen? We take a look at three keys for them to win.