Michigan Football: Grading Wolverines win over Northwestern

Michigan football notched a 33-7 win over Northwestern and here are the grades for the Wolverines.

The Michigan football team didn’t put together the most sensational win on Saturday but after thinking it would be a really tough game this offseason, we should just be happy the Wolverines are 7-0 and ranked sixth in both the AP and coaches polls.

I’m not saying Michigan football fans shouldn’t raise their expectations. But let’s appreciate what Michigan did beating a conference opponent by 26 points and rushing for nearly 300 yards.

It was an old-school beatdown. Michigan’s Cade McNamara completed one pass in the second half and the Wolverines still racked up three touchdown drives.

The offense isn’t perfect and neither is the defense but Michigan is playing winning football right now and here are the grades for Northwestern.

Offense: B+

This might seem like a high grade to some, considering that the McNamara only averaged 4.5 yards per attempt and the passing game only yielded 163 yards.

But can you really complain about totaling 457 yards and 294 rushing yards?

Blake Corum and Hassan Haskins both went over 100 yards and were among the leaders in missed tackles forced according to Pro Football Focus.

The passing game could have been better but Roman Wilson also didn’t return and McNamara did complete 10 first down passes.

He took one sack and didn’t have a turnover. Michigan lost two fumbles but McNamara continues to protect the ball as well as any quarterback in the country and right now, that’s been good enough to win.

Maybe it won’t be in a few of these final five games, but with the way Michigan runs the ball and plays defense, it can beat a lot of college football teams out there.

That being said, the one thing that dropped this from an “A” performance was the fact that on two red-zone trips before the end of the half, the Wolverines settled for three points.

It didn’t come back to bite the Wolverines Saturday but the red zone offense has struggled all season and there are some games you can’t win with field goals inside the 20.