Defense and Ground Attack Powers Michigan to 27-7 Victory

The start of the 2006 college football season brings new expectations and hopes for each team across the country. In Ann Arbor, things are no different. After having one of the worst seasons in a very long time, the Wolverines go into the ’06 season looking to rebound from a lackluster 7-5 record. Offseason changes at the coordinator positions brought a new hope for Michigan fans that could only lead to a Big Ten title. But, before anything about a title is brought up, you first have to kickoff the season and start somewhere. For the maize and blue, that start is against Vanderbilt.

Coming into the season opener, most would tell you that they expected a win, and it to be in blowout fashion. Although Vandy is in possibly the best conference out there, the loss of star QB Jay Cutler made most figure that the game wouldn’t even be close. Michigan would go on to win by a score of 27-7 after all was said and done, but the game was closer than you might have expected.

Michigan got the ball first and would start off the game with a very good drive. 5 minutes into the game and about 81 yards later and the Wolverines rumbled into the endzone on a 19-yard run by Kevin Grady. The TD run came on a 3rd and short play where Grady made a nice cut to the outside. Maybe losing some weight did help his speed. After watching the first drive I would’ve thought that the game would be a blowout, at least on the offensive side of the ball. But, I thought wrong, very wrong. Michigan wouldn’t score another touchdown until the 3rd quarter. More on that later.

Vanderbilt trailed 10-0 early-on in the 2nd quarter. Their offense wasn’t doing anything. Every time they tried a scramble with the QB a Michigan defender would get in there and stop any chance of it being a long-yardage play. The Commodores simply couldn’t push it past the newly-transformed defense that the Wolverines presented. The lone score of the day for Vanderbilt would come via some trickery. Vandy wide receiver Earl Bennett received a backwards pass from quarterback Chris Nickson that setup a wide open Marlon White. White, who is another Vandy WR, ran down the field in what appeared to be to block for Bennett, but instead was running the route for a touchdown. Bennett threw a pass to White, who stood alone in the endzone, for the TD. Vanderbilt got a lot of momentum from that play, and had me worried. It was only a 3 point game, and the ‘Dores were on the upswing.

Going into the locker rooms, Michigan would still hold the lead, but only by a mere 6 points. The second half would have to be different on offense if the Wolverines wanted to clinch the victory. The running game had proved to be effective, but passing on the other hand was a different story. Mike Hart and company had controlled the ground attack and that was what had given Michigan the 13-7 lead. Chad Henne had completed a few passes here and there, but they were only short outs on the sidelines.

The third quarter clock ticked away and still Michigan hadn’t increased their lead. At this point, they were due for a score, especially through the air. With only 2:29 to go before the final quarter arrived, Tyler Ecker was on the receiving end of a 14-yard touchdown pass from Chad Henne. The play was perfectly executed. Ecker found a gap in the secondary and got himself wide open for Henne to throw to. Henne’s pass was a little high, but Ecker bailed him out by making a spectacular grab while falling backwards. Planting a foot down to make sure the score counted, and the Wolverines now had a 20-7 lead.

I felt more comfortable with a lead of more than one possession as now one big play couldn’t change who was ahead. Either way, I still wanted to see Michigan put points on the board one more time. Heading into the 4th quarter the defense stood tall and didn’t allow Vandy to do anything. Drive after drive the front four would just push back Chris Nickson and force him to throw it prematurely or take a sack. Led by LaMarr Woodley, during one drive, Nickson was sacked almost three straight times.

Still looking for that last touchdown to put the Commodores away once and for all, Chad Henne went to his new favorite target, Mario Manningham. The play was reminiscent of Mario’s first score against Penn State in 2005, same location in fact. Henne just lobbed the ball into the back of the endzone and Super Mario went up and brought it down for the TD. The play covered 27 yards and gave Michigan a 27-7 lead, which is what the scoreboard would read when time expired.

As expected, Michigan got the win over Vanderbilt, and although it may have been a little harder than first hoped, a win is a win. There were many positives to take out of this game, and maybe a few negatives depending on how you want to look at things. One thing I’m changing from last season is to look more at the positives. The game reminded me of the season opener against Northern Illinois from one year ago. U-M got the win, but the defense didn’t look that good. U-M got the win in this game, but the passing game could’ve been better. Instead of worrying about how the passing game wasn’t great, I’ll briefly talk about where there can be room for improvement.

OFFENSE
Rushing: In 2005, one of the main reasons Michigan struggled so much was because the running game was nonexistent. A banged up offensive line and an absence of Mike Hart were the cause of an unusually bad ground game. A difference already seen is when U-M puts the ball in the hands of a running back. The holes are there, and the backs are making the moves to get a good chunk of yardage on almost every play. Mike Hart especially was good at that against Vanderbilt.

From the very first snap, Michigan was pounding it away, trying to establish the running game. Mike Hart kept his feet moving and battled for every yard he could. That eventually lead to a touchdown being scored by Kevin Grady, who looked much better speed-wise. The only real mistake all day when looking at rushing was when Kevin Grady fumbled the ball when U-M was on the verge of scoring. Grady just lost control and couldn’t fall on it. Other than that, I must say I was impressed.

Even Chad Henne was showing some quickness when scrambling around. It’s good to have a QB that isn’t going to be sacked every time the least bit of pressure is put on him. Now, Henne shouldn’t necessarily tuck the ball away and run up field every time, but getting out of the pocket every now and then can change the defense’s approach.

Another positive out of the running attack was true freshman Brandon Minor. Much of the press had shifted towards Carlos Brown in the offseason, and Minor was forgotten a bit, but he changed that in this game. Minor got three total carries throughout the game, and made the most of each one of them. Rushing for a total of 30 yards, he helped contribute to a total of 246 yards on the ground by the Wolverines. Mike Hart led all rushers with 146 yards on 31 carries.

That’s the Michigan running game I’m used to. The days where you could go out there and watch the running back just pound it down the throat of the defense seems to be back. The o-line created the holes and the backs burst through them to pickup a good gain each play. Near the end of the game, the distance the backfield got on runs was less, but that was mainly because they were just trying to run the clock out. For the Michigan running game, I give them a big thumbs up.

Passing: The tone of the offense was run first, pass second. The plays designed for this game did not really allow Chad Henne to go down the field very much. Most of the time he would be throwing passes only a few yards in length, and many were to the sidelines. During the game, I was frustrated with the way things were going through the air as it took what seemed like forever just to break 100 yards total. It didn’t help that every time Chad made a pass that a receiver would let it bounce off of his hands either. But, after thinking about it, I’ve cooled off some.

To say the least, Chad Henne and his receivers looked rusty. That’s to be expected in the first game of the season as it’s the first time they’ve played in an actual contest since December. It’ll take a full game just to get your timing down, and I understand that. One thing that can’t be excused is the amount of drops that Michigan wide receivers had. Time after time a decent pass would be thrown to an open player and it would be dropped. It seemed like the pass catchers were trying to turn up field before they had the ball in their hands, like they were looking too far ahead. That’s just something that has to be fixed in practice, and I’m sure it’ll be on the schedule this week.

Moving on, the play calling was a little suspect up until the end of this game. Since this is only a game with Vanderbilt, Mike DeBord may not have want to unload his entire playbook until a more meaningful game comes about. That would make sense, but to run what appeared to be the same plays over and over was very weird. The most common play would be outs to the sidelines or screens to the receivers. Rarely did a pass go up the middle of the field, and one of the times it did, Steve Breaston dropped it. Either way, I’m not going to get bogged down in what should’ve been different about calling the plays, because I’m not the offensive coordinator. As I said, DeBord may just be waiting to use some of the better plays for a better team. Who knows?

For the passing game, I won’t totally give a thumbs up on it as it could’ve been a lot better. Chad Henne still looks like he’s unsure of what to do when dropping back. The one thing I didn’t like the most was that anytime Henne felt pressure, he would tuck the ball away and try and run for the first down. It’s good a few times a game, but we can’t afford to lose him to an injury, and eventually all of those runs are going to take a toll on him. It wasn’t his fault that he had to be quick with a decision many times because the pass protection still looked a little weak. On one third down play a Vandy defender almost sacked Chad as soon as he snapped it.

Taking a positive out of the passing game, I’d have to go with the return of the rollout, or waggle to the Michigan offense. On the first drive of the game, Henne rolled out to the right side of the field, and fired a perfect pass on the run for a decent gain. A play like that can be successful because of its versatility. If there’s a receiver open then you can throw it to him, or you can run it down the field. With two options, it causes the defense to play differently.

DEFENSE
The Jim Herrmann era of Michigan defense came to a close this offseason, so that meant a new hope that once again the domination that we used to see would be back. After one game, even though it was Vanderbilt, I have to say that I’m impressed. Ron English has exceeded my expectations for the first game of the season. Since we don’t know how good Vandy actually is, you can’t get a lot out of this game when looking at the statistical part, but mentally I’m more confident in the team because of the defense’s performance.

Take away the trick play that everyone was fooled by and Vanderbilt didn’t score any other points, and only had 141 total yards. Not only that, but the quarterback was getting hit on almost every play. Vandy ran a form of the spread offense, and Michigan contained it very well. Now, their QB may not be the caliber of let’s say Vince Young or Troy Smith, but it’s that type of style. Maybe once or twice he broke a run of more than a few yards, and even so, he still was leveled by a defender.

The most important thing I saw on defense was the amount of pressure being put on the quarterback. Every play there would be a blitz where someone was forcing the QB to rush a pass or try and run around. LaMarr Woodley and others on the defensive line really impressed me the most. They put the most pressure on the QB and got a few sacks out of it. The difference between a QB feeling the heat of a defender on his heels to having lots of time means everything. When pressured, the QB must quickly make up his mind of what to do with the ball, and then rush things in doing it. The efficiency of that is a lot less compared to when a QB has time to do whatever.

Overall, I give the defense a thumbs up for a job well done. We’ll have to see if they play this good when an offense of someone like Notre Dame’s takes the field against us, but after watching them throw around Vandy for 60 minutes, I’m having a good feeling.

SPECIAL TEAMS
I won’t get into the special teams to extensively since there wasn’t that much to talk about. Steve Breaston didn’t look that good, he may need to shake off some rust before he gets back to his explosive self. On a few punt returns he bobbled the catch and also missed calling for a fair catch when he should’ve. Other than that, there wasn’t too much happening in the return game.

For kicking, Garrett Rivas was good except for when he had a field goal try blocked. I’ll have to go back and look at a replay to see why the kick was blocked, because he could’ve kicked it low, or there simply wasn’t any protection. But, barring the block, he converted his other 2 field goal chances and also didn’t miss any extra points, which is important.

Finally, the punting game showed an MSC favorite, Zoltan Mesko, getting the majority of punts. Mesko kicked it when a longer distance was needed. He kicked the ball very good and got a few decent bounces to add even more distance onto the end of the punts. Ross Ryan came in once I believe and the punt was average. I would imagine that Mesko will be used for distance and Ryan for those shorter situations where you have to pin it inside the 20.

OVERALL
The score may only show a 27-7 win, but this game was big in the sense that confidence in the defense and running game have been restored. We’ll get another look at how the units perform against Central Michigan in a week, and it’ll show us if Vandy was any good at all. The most important thing to take from this game is that Michigan got the win, as it could’ve seen the upset bug and that would’ve just been devastating. Next up, Michigan has another warm-up game you could almost say before the biggest one of the year takes place against Notre Dame. But, let’s not look too far ahead just yet.

OTHER NOTES
**Lloyd Carr played a lot of true freshman on offense, defense, and special teams. Just off the top of my head… Carlos Brown and Brandon Minor had some rushes. Greg Mathews was in on quite a few plays as a wide receiver, but never got a chance to catch a pass. On the defensive side, Brandon Graham came in on the defensive line for 2 plays at the end of the game. Stevie Brown saw the field on kickoffs and got in on the action. Forgive me if I missed someone, this was just from memory.

**The band integrating itself with the student section is a big improvement for me personally and for the spirit of the crowd. The band should be with the students, and this change should’ve been made a long time ago. From appearance, you can definitely tell that the student section was expanded, it now spans from the edge of the pressbox to the left upright on the goalpost. Also, for the band moving, People on the side opposite of the pressbox could hear it a lot better, myself included. So, I’m loving the change so far.

**The forecast for the game was off it seemed like. It felt hotter than originally planned, and also was not cloudy that much. It started and ended with clouds filled in the sky, but in between was scorching.

**A pretty fair size of Vanderbilt fans made the trip to Michigan Stadium. There were only 2 sections of Commodores’ fans at the Big House, and both were at the top of the stadium as far up as it goes.

**The new rule changes where the clock starts to run after a change in possession and when the ball is first kicked definitely did shorten the game. It was only around 3 o’clock when the game got over with, and usually it isn’t until 3:30 before that happens. I still would’ve rather have seen less commercials to shorten the game instead of the rule change where the clock starts after a change in possession. I just feel like that one is going to hurt us sometime this season.

More reaction from the Vanderbilt game throughout the upcoming week and also information on Central Michigan to get you ready for that game. Until then, Go Blue!