Michigan football: One huge underrated key to success this fall

When people think of Michigan’s football team and their strengths this season, they generally refer to the offense.

Michigan will be bringing back Cade McNamara (who is definitely more than serviceable), some talented running backs (Haskins, Corum, Edwards, Dunlap), and experienced wide receivers (Bell, Johnson, Sainristil, Wilson, Henning).

What people really don’t pay attention to is the defense that much. For all the faults of the offense being unable to move the ball last year, the defense didn’t do them any favors in giving up a ton of yardage.

I’m not saying that Joe Milton was a generational talent last year. He was pretty atrocious (and that’s being nice) last year, but the defense did him no favors last season when they couldn’t get off the field on third downs and always had Milton having to play under pressure (which as he showed last season, playing under pressure is not Milton’s strong suit) because the team was trailing by two or three scores right off the bat.

One thing that can help Michigan’s offense out

Michigan football has completely revamped their defense this off-season, getting rid of Don Brown, hiring Mike MacDonald, and a lot of other personnel changes.

This should all help Michigan’s defense this season, but (unless the Wolverines completely surprise us all) I still don’t expect the defense to be a top-10 unit this year. I will say their ceiling is top-30 to top-25.

I really believe if everything clicks (and it has to be everything, including not getting untimely injuries) the defense can be a top-25 unit. This team is definitely talented enough to do it.

It’s no secret that Michigan football has a particularly tough schedule this year, which is discouraging considering the defense was just overhauled this off-season.

The Wolverines play at home against Washington, Northwestern, Indiana, and Ohio State. They also play on the road at Wisconsin, Penn State, and Michigan State.

It’s a fact that some of these games will be a dogfight. The games against Washington, Indiana, MSU, Penn State, and Wisconsin will really test Michigan football this season.

What can really help Michigan this season though is if the defense is opportunistic and turns the ball over. Too many times in the past have we seen Michigan’s defense have chances to turn the tide of a game only to fall just short.

I do know that the defense has been the one consistent thing in years past as well, with the offense being shaky and streaky at best. They always say that a few plays decide a football game.

There were numerous examples last season of Michigan’s defense almost coming up with an interception, or almost getting a fumble recovery only to come up just short. Michigan only had two interceptions and two forced fumbles last season. That’s definitely not going to cut it going forward.

One thing that Michigan’s defenders do well on is getting their hands on the football. They are very grabby, drawing PI’s all the time, but they also have a knack for pass deflections as well. Some of these pass deflections need to turn into interceptions.

If we look back at the games against Michigan State and Penn State last season (two very winnable games) there were two very annoying things that stuck out about those games last year.

One was the tendency to give up the big play at the worst time (a topic in itself that’s for another day) and the inability to just come up with one game-changing play, something that was maddening at times. Yes, Michigan had a lot of injuries up front last season which led to the inability to generate consistent pressure and therefore hurt Michigan’s defensive backs in coverage, but still.

You can’t give up over 300 yards to MSU’s bum QB Rocky Lombardi and allow a third-tier WR like Ricky White to burn you for almost 200 dang yards! Guess where Lombardi is now?! At Northern Illinois! A school that is in the MAC! He threw 9 (!!!) interceptions to only 8 touchdowns last season and Michigan couldn’t even pick him off once! At home!

Nor could they force any fumbles when MSU had three interceptions and four fumbles (for a grand total of SEVEN turnovers) against lowly Rutgers.

It seemed like Michigan’s defense had the worst luck last season, with a sure-fire interception dropped, or a fumble recovery but the opponent was ruled down upon further review. Some of that was just bad luck, with the fumbles, but the interceptions are all on the defense to make.

As I mentioned before, in a lot of games Michigan plays this season, the Wolverines will be in it, at least for a while. It’s going to be how the defense holds up that will result in a win or a loss. Can Michigan’s defense just make one game-changing play to scrape through?

Just take the 2016 game against Wisconsin as an example. A hard-fought game won by Michigan but was essentially sealed when Jordan Lewis had that insane one-handed pick.

All in all, Michigan football can be better than expected this season.

The Wolverines can beat Penn State, Wisconsin, and Washington. Those teams aren’t OSU. But they will need to play a hard-fought game, limit mistakes, and generate timely turnovers.

No maddening drops on easy picks, and no near-fumble recoveries. I’m not expecting Michigan to generate 10 turnovers a game. But, there needs to be a dramatic increase in production in that department. If Michigan’s defense can be more opportunistic this year, there’s a good chance they can at least reach their ceiling of 8-9 wins, and possibly, more.