Michigan Wolverines Football: Expert Analysts Weigh In On The Nebraska Win
Our expert analysts — Doug Skene and Ryan Van Bergen — chimed in to give their take on Michigan's 56-10 blowout of Nebraska yesterday.
Doug Skene
Biggest takeaways: "A couple cool things I saw were new offensive plays. They're committing to pulling the frontside guard and kicking the edge, and Nebraska didn't adjust until the 10th time they gashed. But they didn't seem to care. The defense played with high emotion and threw that quarterback around — he had no idea what was going on. The effort and emotion were encouraging and fun to watch."
Freshman defensive end Aidan Hutchinson: "Chris Hutchinson was the runt of the family, and he was 6-3, 265 when he played. The scary part is there are a lot of similarities between he and Aidan, who is 6-6, 275 or 280, and is just as athletic as his dad was — that's a scary combination, because he has all the intangibles. He's a super smart kid who comes from a great family. Things are lining up for him to do great things at Michigan."
Offensive line: "This line is good at play action pass protection. When U-M has the luxury of being able to pass protect, the pocket is really good. [Senior running back Karan] Higdon put his nose in the throat of a blitzing linebacker and stood him up at one point. There were a few times where the QB got hit — they allowed four tackles for loss and one sack, but three of those were when the backup line was in."
Quarterbacks: "The body language out of these QBs and their command of the huddle is different than last year — you can look in their eyes and you have a feeling they know they're in charge. 'Stand back, listen to what I'm saying, ready, break!' — you can't coach that. You either have it or you don't."
Ryan Van Bergen
Overall takeaway and Scott Frost's 2016 comments: "It's exciting to see Michigan be dominant against an opponent. I don't care who it is — everything clicking like it was yesterday is where we want to be trending. I think they internalized Frost's comments and used it as fuel — it keeps you going for the duration of the game."
The rushing attack: "That's what we've been looking for. That's old school Michigan football and vintage Harbaugh — running it where you want and when you want. They were doing it on third and seven because they could. They moved bodies — good luck with Ben Mason and not letting him fall forward. It's what you want to see and it's encouraging. It's what we expected when Harbaugh was brought on — control tempo and grind teams out. They could've ran the ball every play and have been fine."
Defense: "I counted four sacks while I was watching. [Redshirt junior viper] Jordan Glasgow was came in like Jordan Kovacs on his. I actually trained Glasgow at the gym before he walked on here. The defense was the smothering type we thought we'd see coming into the year. Nebraska had three first downs and negative rushing yards going into halftime. Michigan's personnel should allow them to do things like that in nine or 10 games this year. That's exciting."
Special teams: "Big play ability on special teams is fantastic, but they usually just need to execute and not impact the game in a negative way. I've been on teams that have impacted in a negative way. I remember watching Steve Breaston and you got a little antsy every time he would get his hands on the ball. That's how we're getting with [sophomore wideout] Donovan Peoples-Jones. They're also disciplined on special teams — there were opportunities to blindside guys on his return, but they turned and put their hands up, which shows how well coached they are."
---
• Talk about this article inside The Fort
• Subscribe to our podcast on iTunes
• Learn more about our print and digital publication, The Wolverine
• Follow us on Twitter: @TheWolverineMag, @BSB_Wolverine, @JB_ Wolverine, @AustinFox42, @Balas_Wolverine, @DrewCHallett and @Qb9Adam.
• Like us on Facebook