It wasn’t pretty but it didn’t have to be. Here are five things we learned from the Michigan football win over Maryland.
For Michigan football, at this point, style points don’t matter. The Wolverines just need to win and that’s what they did on Saturday.
Beating 6-4, now 6-5 Maryland on the road isn’t overly impressive. Yet, going into the season, it was one of the games I expected to be difficult.
For one, it’s the week before Ohio State. It was also on the road and the Terrapins have talent, especially at quarterback in Taulia Tagovailoa. Maryland gave the Buckeyes a battle and led Ohio State in the third quarter before things fell apart.
Maryland had its chances on Saturday too, including three chances to tie or take the lead on Michigan football in the second half.
In each instance, the defense held. At one point, it forced a safety on an intentional grounding. Blake Corum was able to salt away the win late, but it’s clear it wasn’t Michigan’s best game.
And no, it doesn’t have anything to do with signals, but everything to do with missing Jim Harbaugh.
Here’s what we learned.
Michigan football misses Jim Harbaugh
The Wolverines are 5-0 without Jim Harbaugh this season, so it’s not like they can’t win without him, but the offense especially hasn’t been the same without him.
Harbaugh has won a lot of games in his career. That’s because he’s a good coach. He knows how to coach quarterbacks and more than anything else, it removes the burden of being the head coach from Sherrone Moore.
Distractions have become a problem and it’s time for the NCAA to leave Michigan alone for at least a week or two. I’m not saying stop investigating, but it doesn’t need to be interviewing players during game week.
Michigan is allowed 90 days to respond to any NCAA allegations anyway. Do the investigation, but stop trying to hurt the players, just as the Big Ten did with the way it enacted the Harbaugh suspension.
Hopefully, the players can overcome this, but the fact that all this is happening for minor violations tells you all you need to know. This is about Jim Harbaugh and you have to give Ohio State credit, it’s worked better than anything they have done on the field against Michigan in years.
J.J. isn’t quite right
It’s clear that J.J. McCarthy isn’t 100 percent. He toughed it out on Saturday and Michigan football did enough to win, but McCarthy can’t play like that next week.
He’s a little hobbled. He also wasn’t accurate and made some poor decisions. The interception right before the half was the play that changed the game.
And what’s frustrating about that exchange is that McCarthy made a bad decision the play before and Maryland dropped an interception. Instead of being smart, he made another bad decision which led to an interception in the end zone.
Instead of Michigan up at least 16, the lead was 13 and Maryland had all of the momentum. He didn’t really run the ball and was 12-of-23 for 141 yards.
Hopefully, he can get healthy, but with the way the running is working, which isn’t as good as the previous two seasons, Michigan won’t beat Ohio State unless McCarthy is better than he’s been the past two weeks.
Injuries are an issue
Michigan football is seeing the injuries pile up at the worst possible time for the second year in a row. Last season, the Wolverines lost Blake Corum the week before the Ohio State game.
This year, there are a number of walking wounded. Roman Wilson left the game with a head injury, so his status is going to be up in the air next week. Starting left tackle LaDarius Henderson missed the game and while it was reported that he would return next week, it’s still not ideal.
His replacement, Myles Hinton was playing pretty well, but then he got hurt. Michael Barrett was also hurt in the game. He’s an impact player as evidenced by his strip sack and even though the Wolverines have solid linebacker depth, he’s a guy Michigan needs against Ohio State.
I’m sure all of these guys will do everything to play. Michigan is going to do everything it can to get McCarthy healthy and make no mistake, Ohio State is banged up too, everyone is.
You just hope that the Wolverines can be as close to 100 percent as possible next week.
The run game struggles again
Maryland actually has a decent run defense. It surrenders about the same yards per attempt as Ohio State, but it was concerning that the Terps bottled up Michigan football for most of the day.
Blake Corum scored two touchdowns, giving him 20 total for the season. Yet, he got just 94 yards on 28 carries, which is 3.4 yards per attempt. Corum didn’t have a run longer than 14 yards. Donovan Edwards didn’t have a run longer than seven (11 for 39).
The Wolverines only had two explosive plays total and one was a pass to Wilson, which was also the play that saw him get knocked out of the game.
Semaj Morgan had the other run over 10 yards and scored a 13-yard touchdown. But this offense needs to get creative next week. It can’t just line up and run over Ohio State.
I wish it could. It did work against Penn State, but man, it was rough sledding on Saturday.
Michigan doesn’t win this game without Mikey
All season long, Mike Sainristil has delivered big play after big play, reinforcing what a genius move it was to shift him from offense to defense last season.
The pass breakup against Ohio State last season was incredible and he continues to show a knack for making big plays when it’s needed most.
Sainristil intercepted Maryland twice on Saturday and nearly had his third defensive touchdown of the season. It’s scary to think about where the Wolverines might have ended up on Saturday without those interceptions.
My guess is that Maryland might have ended up in the winner’s circle. Yet, Mikey is one of the best defensive playmakers in the country, and he helped Michigan football survive and advance to Ohio State with an 11-0 record.