Yesterday was a wake up call for Michigan football but don't hit the panic button yet

Defense

I am going to start by saying that the defense was not as bad as a lot of people want to make it seem. Texas is really good and might have the best offensive line in the nation. They had three scoring drives in the first half with field positions starting at their 45-yard line, Michigan's 37-yard line, and Michigan's 42-yard line.

One of those came after a three and out by the offense and two came after turnovers. I'm not saying there is no blame to go around on the defense but those are really difficult positions to be put in against one of the best offenses in the nation. That brings me to what I am concerned about with this defense... the depth.

Michigan's defense was on the field a lot yesterday which meant guys needed to be rotated. Any time Michigan had their second defensive line unit in the game, Texas was running right at them. There was a major drop-off from the first unit to the second unit.

The other concerning part for the defense was just the sloppiness. There was confusion on assignments and the tackling was bad. Those two things were strengths of the Michigan defense the last three years. They tackled better than any team in the country and were so sound in all phases under Macdonald and Minter. I think it is fair to say that this falls on the coaching staff and I expect it will be addressed this week. I still consider the defense to be the strength of this team and expect them to be one of the best groups in the Big Ten. There is a lot of work to be done, especially with USC coming to town in a couple weeks.