3 keys to a Michigan football victory vs. Minnesota

Michigan football is aiming for a 6-0 start on Saturday night against Minnesota and here are three keys to a Wolverines win. 

The Michigan football team seemed to hit its stride last week in the win over Nebraska. J.J. McCarthy was on fire, the running game could do what it wanted, and the defense didn’t allow a single point until garbage time.

It was an impressive performance. I fully expected Nebraska to make it a competitive game. I didn’t have the Wolverines on upset alert, but I thought Nebraska could cover the spread.

Boy was I wrong.

Michigan football seemed to take Nebraska’s run defense and all the chatter about it personally. The Huskers were allowing 1.8 yards per game. Michigan got 4.9.

The question is will Michigan football play like that again on Saturday night? Before that 74-yard run in garbage time for Nebraska, the Wolverines were on a 76-0 run in Big Ten play after the opening touchdown scored by Rutgers.

Will that carry over to Saturday night? Here are three keys for the Wolverines to make sure that it does against Minnesota.

Stuff the run

Athan Kaliakmanis can be an effective quarterback, but I don’t see him being able to carry Minnesota to a win if the Gophers are forced to be one-dimensional.

The Gophers have some solid receivers. The passing game is capable of some explosive plays but Daris Taylor and Sean Tyler — the running backs — are the key.

Minnesota loves to run the football. They also like to use play-action to create explosive plays. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a couple of tricks up their sleeve.

One of the things their offense does is set up third-and-manageable. Michigan football is really good at doing that too, but if the Wolverines can stuff the Gophers’ running game and put the game on the shoulders of Kaliakmanis, it should bode well for the Wolverines.