Michigan Football: Grading the Wolverines against Wisconsin
Michigan football couldn’t have played much worse than it did Saturday in a 49-11 loss to Wisconsin and the final grades aren’t good.
While Michigan football fans held out hope that the Wolverines would be able to turn things around against Wisconsin, somehow, U-M managed to play worse than even before.
Following back-to-back losses to Indiana and Michigan State, the Wolverines were dominated in every phase of the game Saturday night. Hell, Wisconsin probably could have won the game going away without even attempting a pass.
The Badgers didn’t need Graham Mertz, they probably didn’t even need their fourth-string walk on. Essentially, any stiff who could turn around and hand it off would have sufficed.
The 49-11 defeat was an embarrassment in every sense of the word and there isn’t a whole lot else to say about it so let’s dig in with the report card.
Offense: F
Cade McNamara came off the bench and engineered a touchdown drive, which he finished off with a touchdown pass to Mike Sainristil, but outside of that, the offense was pathetic.
Michigan football managed just 47 yards on 19 carries and again, the running back rotation made absolutely zero sense. Hassan Haskins came into the game averaging more than seven yards per attempt, but got one rush for six yards.
Zach Charbonnet ran it three times for 21 yards, while Blake Corum had seven rushing attempts for five yards. I don’t know what Josh Gattis is thinking, but his use of the running backs has been inept. The only thing that matches it has been the awful play of the offensive line.
Some of those guys just don’t deserve to be on the field. Let some younger guys play because these veterans are getting embarrassed. This has got to be the worst running game in the Big Ten conference and with that group of running backs, there is no excuse for it.
The quarterback play was also terrible. It’s clear that Joe Milton isn’t the savior. He is just keeping the seat warm for J.J. McCarthy — and actually, that might be McNamara’s job from now, because after the way Milton has played the last three weeks, something needs to change.