3 Reasons Michigan Football Will Beat Penn State on Saturday

3. Michigan will take advantage of an Over-Aggressive Manny Diaz Defense

Penn State defensive coordinator Manny Diaz decided to take to social media to rub salt in the wound of Michigan this past week.

That’s fine, we’ll let what happens on the field be an adequate response. And what is going to happen on the field doesn’t seem promising for a Manny Diaz. Penn State plays a hyper-aggressive style of defense. They blitz a ton and play a lot of press-man coverage. For those of you who aren’t familiar, this was the same scheme Michigan played under Don Brown during Harbaugh’s early tenure. It was also the same scheme that would get Michigan killed against Ohio State every year.

The thing is, this scheme relies on having more talent than the other team. When your defenders are better than the players on the other side of the ball, there’s nothing that can be done. But when you use this style of defense and play a team that is either as good as or better than you, it leads to a ton of problems (remember when we ran for 400 yards against Penn State last year?).

Unfortunately for Manny Diaz and Penn State, Michigan is one of the few teams on their schedule that has the talent to exploit this scheme. It’s going to be really hard to cover Roman Wilson, Cornelius Johnson, and Colston Loveland on every play. Even if they do JJ McCarthy can take off with the ball and run it for big gains.

I don’t see Penn State being able to hold this offense in check. They might slow them down more than other opponents Michigan has faced this season, but it won’t be enough. I’m sure the Big 10 is praying that Michigan loses as a means of hitting the breaks on everything that’s come out about Michigan the last few weeks.

Even if Harbaugh can’t coach the game, I’m taking Michigan football to not care, come out, and win in their own form of response to what everyone has to say about them right now.