Michigan football suffered a brutal 21-7 loss to Illinois on Saturday to drop to 4-3 on the season.
Here are three takeaways following the defeat.
How did Michigan look like that off a bye?
Coming off a bye week, the hope for Michigan fans was that the team would use the week to make improvements and adjustments to line up for what had a chance to be a promising second half of the season.
Additionally, the Wolverines had two weeks to prepare for the Illini and be ready for a team that was hungry to beat them.
If Michigan had a good week of practice leading up to this game, certainly none of that showed up on the field on Saturday afternoon.
Even though the defense played well and held the Illinois offense to under 300 yards, the defensive line getting out of rush lanes allowed quarterback Luke Altmyer to gain far too much yardage with his legs in the first half. The defensive backs were also giving too much space to the Illinois receivers in the first half, which allowed the Illini to move the ball.
Ultimately, though, the defense did show up and would have held the Illinois offense to 14 points if not for a fake punt the Illini executed in the third quarter. But the fact Illinois was even allowed to execute a fake punt in a critical stage in the game, and have it go for a big play shows a lack of attention to detail. That was a big play in the game and it falls directly on coaching.
Beyond that, we have seen some bad performances from the Michigan offense this season—but none of them were worse than Saturday.
The Wolverines did almost nothing right on offense all game against a defense that has had struggles against the run and allowed 239 yards rushing and 49 points to Purdue last week.
The offensive line couldn't pass protect, the running backs had no explosive runs, receivers couldn't get open for the most part, and Jack Tuttle had a very bad day.
Nothing was working for Michigan on that side of the ball, and it's another game with less than 350 yards of total offense. Even when the Wolverines did move the ball, huge mistakes in the redzone and in Illinois' territory cost them.
The fact the Wolverines have made zero improvements on that side of the ball all year is a major concern.
Jack Tuttle is clearly not the answer...but nobody is at this point
After showing some promise early in the Washington game last week, Tuttle has taken a nose dive in terms of his performance leading the Michigan offense.
The Wolverines still look the most balanced and structured as opposed to Alex Orji and Davis Warren when Tuttle has ran the offense, but Tuttle cannot stay away from the big mistakes.
When Michigan had a chance to get back in the game and cut it to one score early in the fourth, Tuttle threw a bad interception when he never saw linebacker Matthew Bailey step right in front of Colston Loveland in the endzone.
Tuttle also put the ball on the ground for the second straight week, leading to a turnover.
He finished 20-of-32 for over 200 yards passing, but missed several intermediate throws in critical situations that could have moved the chains for the Wolverines.
The Wolverines coaches have tried three quarterbacks at this point and have found no answers—and it doesn't look like that answer will come any time this season.
This team could miss a bowl game
In what was an unimaginable thought before the season began as the Wolverines had playoff aspirations coming in, I think it's time to start realizing the possibility that this team might not go .500 and make it to a bowl—which would be quite sad after coming off a National Championship.
Michigan has Michigan State, Oregon, Indiana, Northwestern and Ohio State remaining on its schedule.
If this team gives the Paul Bunyan trophy back to the Spartans and falls to MSU at home next week, that might spell trouble when it comes to the Wolverines' chance of even getting six wins.
That's the reality of where things are at with Michigan currently, and it's not a good situation.
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