Michigan Football: 5 things we learned from win over Indiana

Red zone issues still not solved

This post is a little light on the defensive side of things and there’s a couple of reasons for that. One, Indiana was down to its fourth-string quarterback and walk-ons at running back, so let’s not get overly excited about limiting the Hoosiers to seven points.

The pass rush was outstanding though and the front seven played well, which included Junior Colson who had a bounce-back game, as well as Michael Barrett who played as much on defense as he has all season.

The defense was solid as it has been all year. The run defense still worries me though going into the Ohio State game.

At any rate, the biggest concern about Michigan football is the red-zone offense.

Michigan racked up 411 yards of total offense but was just 3-of-13 on third and fourth-down attempts and just 3-of-6 in the red zone again.

Settling for four field goals cost Michigan a victory against Michigan State and kicking three against Indiana didn’t show much improvement.

It was nice to see McNamara find Luke Schoonmaker for a couple of touchdowns and each pass looked like plays we saw a million times during the Lloyd Carr days. But the Wolverines need more production like that. A 50-percent TD rate isn’t going to get it done.

Michigan needs to run the ball better in the red zone and that’s where McCarthy could come in as long as the kid can protect the football.

The Wolverines need guys like Andrel Anthony who suffered a concussion and Erick All, who also didn’t play against Indiana, to step up in the red zone. Along with Cornelius Johnson. Michigan needs to get the ball to its big targets and running well in that area always helps.

However it happens though, Michigan can’t keep kicking a field goal on every other red-zone trip. Not only will it cost the Wolverines against Ohio State, but next week in Happy Valley.