Michigan football was sloppy in its win over Bowling Green on Saturday night and here are five things we learned about the Wolverines in the win.
The Wolverines got a 31-6 win on Saturday night against Bowling Green but it wasn’t a performance that left Michigan football fans feeling warm and fuzzy going into Big Ten play.
J.J. McCarthy threw three interceptions in the loss. He did have two touchdown passes and the mistakes weren’t just on him, but McCarthy can’t have that kind of game again.
When it was all said and done, Michigan football ran just 44 plays — against Bowling Green. Part of that had to do with four turnovers by the offense.
A win is a win. However, the Wolverines need to wake up before next week, and here are five things we learned from the Michigan football win over Bowling Green.
The Wolverines have work to do
Michigan football is 3-0. That’s a good thing, but the Wolverines have to pick up their level of play, especially on offense.
Defensively, the first team still hasn’t allowed a touchdown and did a good job of getting stops when put in tough spots by the offense.
The running game was better, but still doens’t look like it did the past two seasons. We’ll see how things look on Saturday against Rutgers, but if Michigan football keeps going through the motions, it’s going to be in for a rude awakening at some point.
Michigan needs some urgency and hopefully, this was a wake-up call.
J.J. McCarthy isn’t perfect
Through the first two games, it seemed like McCarthy couldn’t make a mistake. Yet, he came back down to Earth on Saturday and it was mostly about decision-making.
There was a bad throw that also led to an interception and other factors were at play too. Yet, McCarthy took responsibility after the game and vowed to improve.
He’ll study the film and examine the mistakes. We broke down all of the interceptions and frankly, there isn’t a long-term concern. McCarthy only had five interceptions all of last season and this is just the second multi-interception game of his career.
What worried me more was that it seemed to shake J.J.’s confidence. He missed a wide-open touchdown pass to Tyler Morris and that reminded me of last season. The ball was too flat and McCarthy seemed to be aiming instead of throwing it freely.
That’s what has me worried a little. You don’t want the quarterback thinking too much about the interceptions. I don’t think that will be the case with McCarthy, but the Rutgers defense will be the best he’s faced so far this season and McCarthy needs to play like he did in the first two weeks.
Otherwise, Rutgers is definitely capable of handing around and making it a ballgame.
Blake Corum looks right
There were some nervous moments on Saturday night, especially when Michigan football allowed Bowling Green to hang around.
However, the offense opened the game with a 57-yard run from Blake Corum. It was the first time that Corum went over 100 yards this season and it took just 12 carries to get there.
Corum also scored twice and more than anything, he looked like the guy that nearly won the Heisman Trophy last season.
It takes time to fully recover from injury. Corum said he was 100 percent in Week 1, but he didn’t quite look like it. He was still regaining confidence in that surgically repaired knee. Yet, you have to feel really good about how Corum looked on Saturday night.
Donovan Edwards also had nine carries for 50 yards. The offensive line still has work to do, but the running game was solid. The Wolverines averaged 5.6 yards per game but only got 30 attempts.
4. The defense is damn good
Many Michigan football fans want to talk about McCarthy or some of the other mistakes, but the defense was spectacular again.
Bowling Green was able to score in the first half, which was the first time a team has done that all season against Michigan football, and they got over 200 yards, but the defense was the reason that the Wolverines won the game by 25 points.
Michigan’s defense finished the game with three sacks. It also got three takeaways and limited the Falcons to 81 yards rushing, as well as 205 total yards. The interception by Kris Jenkins was a massive play and really turned the tide.
While I have some concerns about the offensive line and the offense in general, Michigan football’s defense is probably better than last season and once the secondary truly gets healthy, we’ll see its true potential.
Makari Paige did return. Will Johnson was also in uniform and it sounds like Rod Moore will play next week, so there’s one thing Michigan fans don’t have to worry about.
5. We haven’t seen Michigan’s best yet
After three games, it’s safe to say we haven’t seen close to the best out of this Michigan football team. The Wolverines have failed to cover the spread in three straight games, but at the same time, outside of stretch last night, none was competitive.
Michigan football has won by an average of 26.6 points per game. It’s not like the Wolverines haven’t played well — they have.
But I don’t know that Michigan has played like a national championship team so far. The Wolverines haven’t had a game where they rushed for over 200 yards yet. They have also allowed just 16 points in three games.
Michigan has averaged just 4.9. yards per carry this offseason and it’s clear to the eye that the offensive line still has some work to do. There’s still plenty of time for the offensive line to get better and the real bullets start flying next week.
But Rutgers is 3-0 and beat Northwestern, Temple, and Virginia Tech. I’m not saying the Scarlet Knights are going to win the Big Ten title but if the Wolverines don’t sharpen things up, they are going to have a fight on their hands next Saturday. They will also need to up their game if they want to win the Big Ten again or a national title in January.