[MattC87]

Originally Posted by PSU42Fan

Problem is, like a lot of big backs, they wear down too fast and don't play hurt.

He's been hurt all season. Been playing with a sprained ankle. Not that it changes much, but Brandon's played hurt and done so well.

The only way UM would've had a chance yesterday was if Minor got 25-30 carries. Tater isn't ready to carry a team with one hand tied behind his back.

Indeed. The ND game gave us a false glimmer of hope in this respect.

BTW, the excuses were flowing yesterday. Maybe Tater needs to spend some time in the Arctic to get his body adjusted...

*shrugs* Maybe.

Originally Posted by psubills62

Thanks Matt, appreciate the thoughts.

Some of my own:

-Zug scored twice on that same play (Moye clears out the underneath, Zug heads to the corner); they might want to work on covering that one better.

Don't ask us to make adjustments. That'd be ridiculous. Iowa only got to Clark by bringing pressure. We shouldn't do that. Yeah, rush four and watch him carve up the defense sounds good.

-Brandon Graham is really good.

We wasted his career. He really is outstanding. He reminds me of former Michigan great LaMarr Woodley, only perhaps more explosive. Plays the run and pass equally well.

-Robinson is a really good runner, and Michigan's run game was good the entire day.

He turns the ball over way too much, though. 2.8 ypc isn't good, either. I guess that's what happens when a team dares you to beat them deep and you don't even attempt to throw it deep, though.

Originally Posted by AustinScottistheone

I have no clue what Michigan is doing....Michigan needs to recruit OLine/DLine and LBs/S in a hurry.

RR, to his credit, has tried to recruit those positions. On the one hand, there's a lot of youth at those positions, so it's a little hard to stockpile talent there. He still has four OL from the '08 class, one DT (Mike Martin), three linebackers and two corners. In the '09 class, he got two DE/OLB, one DT, three LB (counting Mike Jones here), two corners (counting Adrian Witty who will enroll in January and Justin Turner who could be a FS) and two safeties. I feel like the effort's there on D, but we need to start landing some studs.

PSU has 6 DLine commits and will only lose DE/LB Jerome Hayes/DT Jared Odrick after this season. With the philosophy, tradition, expectations, coaching, stability, players, and recruiting PSU has had and will have, Michigan is going to need to amp it up big time on the defensive side of the ball.

This PSU D is going to take big hits with the losses of Odrick, Lee, Hull, and probably Bowman but with the SO DLineman (Crawford, Latimore, Stills), Mauti (RS SO next season - recovering from ACL), Lynn, Morris, and Sukay, things look perhaps even more promising then ever.

Even when PSU was a poor program for a stretch of years, the D showed up and kept an inept (talent lacking) offense in just about every game. What I am trying to say in this long mumbling disgrace of a post is that I can't identify Michigan's identity under RR...maybe it is yet to be formed, I think this is the case.

Yeah. UM's probably never going to recruit the D side of the ball as well as PSU again. Like I alluded to earlier as well, there's also been a logjam of pure numbers at some positions, so it's just waiting on these kids to grow up.

If you are going to be an offensive team, you better be an offensive team and score 35 regardless of circumstances while cashing in opportunities and not handing them out. You can't turn the ball over multiple times against quality opponents AND not play D.

A combined 9 turnovers against Iowa and PSU.

-your QB's will get better, which is pretty scary. They're already good enough to beat mediocre to bad defenses.

Hard to temper expectations down sometimes. We tend to forget they're just freshmen. Hope you're right.

Long post, heh.