Michigan Football: 5 questions for Wolverines against Rutgers

Can Michigan stop Rutgers’ read-option?

Aside from Rutgers stopping Michigan’s rushing attack last year, one of the most frustrating things that Rutgers did was their annoying read-option offense.

The read-option has been kind of an Achilles Heel for Michigan’s defense throughout the Harbaugh era as it has burned Michigan’s defense too many times to count.

Literally, all Michigan needs to do to stop the read-option is maintain discipline, watch the football, not the football player, and tackle. It’s really that simple.

Obviously, it’s not been that simple and easy for Michigan’s defense, as they would have figured it out by now, but hopefully, Saturday night is the start of figuring it out.

If Michigan stops Rutgers’ rushing attack, the game is over. Rutgers can’t throw the football down the field, so Michigan really needs to worry about stopping the run, whether it be quarterback keeps or a handoff or a toss to the running back.

Overall, I expect Michigan football to take a quarter to figure things out. I think they will have the ball for a long period of time in the first quarter, in a low-scoring game, and then will turn it up every quarter after that.

I don’t think Rutgers will slow down Michigan’s rushing attack to the level that they did last year (with Michigan barely eclipsing 100 yards on the ground as a team) but I think Rutgers will slow it down a little bit (Blake Corum will still rush for over 100 yards though).

I think Michigan won’t have much trouble in the red zone in this game. U-M will be more creative.

Harbaugh said Andrel Anthony needed to get more involved in the offense, so I think he gets more targets in this one and Michigan wins 42-10.