Michigan Football vs. Illinois: Five Questions for the Wolverines

Will Michigan be focused on Saturday? 

Now that Illinois is no longer ranked, and Michigan plays Illinois the week before Ohio State, this game is now probably categorized as a trap game.

Michigan will look ahead a little bit to Ohio State. It’s inevitable. The players and coaches can say that they aren’t, but Jim Harbaugh has mentioned Ohio State week for the past two weeks on the “Inside Michigan Football” podcast. The elephant in the room is very obviously looming.

The question is whether Michigan’s players will be focused enough on the game to not let Illinois hang around and force Michigan to play a full game.

If Michigan just plays the way they’ve been playing in the second half, but in the first half, there will be no need to sweat.

Michigan needs to stay focused enough in this game long enough to not let the game become uncomfortable.

Final Thoughts

Overall, I expect Michigan this game to play out one of two ways. Either Michigan comes out and really puts their foot on the gas to move on to next week asap, or they start out sluggish for the umpteenth time and Illinois gives them a game.

If you ask me what I think will happen, I will say somewhere in the middle. I think Michigan will be sluggish at certain points of the game, and I think Illinois will hand around for a while, but at the end of the game, I think Michigan at least pushed on the spread.

I think Michigan will limit Chase Brown, hampered by injury, to just under 100 rushing yards (for the second straight week).

I think Blake Corum will go over 100, but it will be his toughest game of the season.

I think Michigan controls the game throughout. Illinois will stay in the game for a while, but at no point will I feel like Illinois will really threaten Michigan.

I see Michigan winning 35-17.