Best And Worst From Michigan's 63-10 Win Over Northern Illinois

Michigan Wolverines football dismantled Northern Illinois, 63-10, Saturday afternoon at The Big House to move to 3-0 on the year.

Here are the best and worst from the game:

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Michigan redshirt freshman quarterback Cade McNamara threw only 15 times for just 44 yards against Washington, leaving many fans grumbling about the lack of a passing attack. He ended the whining when he hit sophomore wideout Cornelius Johnson on a double-move deep ball down the right sideline with just under two minutes before halftime.

Which leads us to ...

The Michigan football Twitter account fired a veiled, light-hearted shot at its fans, ribbing them about some of the complaints from last week.

Michigan's offensive line had a great game, and that was never exemplified better than on second-year freshman running back Blake Corum's 51-yard touchdown run early in the third quarter.

In the clip below, watch the tight end at the bottom of the screen, who appears to be redshirt sophomore Luke Schoonmaker, pick up his man and push him completely out of the play. Then play it back and take a look at redshirt sophomore left tackle Ryan Hayes' effort as he combo blocked with redshirt freshman left guard Trevor Keegan and quickly moved up to the front-side linebacker, latching on and driving him down to the ground for a pancake.

Corum has been the biggest pleasant surprise of the young Michigan season, and he didn't disappoint this afternoon either. He averaged 9.6 yards per carry, churning out 125 yards on 13 attempts in what was his third-consecutive 100-plus-yard rushing game.

On the season, Corum has now totaled 407 rushing yards and seven rushing touchdowns, along with six receptions for 46 yards and a touchdown catch.

Redshirt sophomore cornerback Gemon Green notched the Wolverines' first interception on the season, picking off NIU redshirt junior signal-caller Rocky Lombardi on a tipped ball midway through the third quarter, nearly returning it for a touchdown or "to the crib," as Green described it postgame.

Michigan fans certainly aren't disappointed to hear that NIU second-year freshman running back Harrison Waylee — the one strength of the offense that Huskie insider Eddie Carifio pegged in our opponent preview before the game — had one of his worst games of his collegiate career. He carried it 12 times for 34 yards, after entering the game averaging 161.5 rushing yards per game.

Waylee had been held to less than 50 rushing yards just once prior in his career.

Michigan rushed for eight touchdowns, one shy of the school record, and four of them came from one yard out.

Perhaps even as interesting of a stat is that 106 Wolverines saw game action. Associate athletic director for communications Dave Ablauf said that it's the most he's ever seen in his 20-plus years at Michigan.

Northern Illinois won the coin toss and decided to receive the ball. But the Huskies went three-and-out on their first possession of the game. Meanwhile, Michigan scored a touchdown on its first drive of the second half.

The decision certainly didn't pay off, though it wasn't the only thing that didn't work for the Huskies on the afternoon.

Michigan head coach Jim Harbaugh was asked about the sentiment his players have continually shared following the last three wins — "we haven't done anything yet." He agreed with what the message means, which is that the Wolverines still have a lot to prove and all their goals in front of them, but made sure to point out that they've accomplished plenty to this point as well.

"I haven’t said they haven’t done anything," Harbaugh said, noting it isn't something he has been telling the players after games. "They’ve done some stuff. Things that are good, you want to build on. But the team does have big goals and now you start playing for the Big Ten championship, and ultimately, that’s what they want to achieve. And that starts next week."

Michigan will begin the Big Ten season against Rutgers next week at The Big House.

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