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Wolverines Win 41-17 After Hour Long Weather Delay
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Perhaps one of the bizarrest moments that I’ve ever experienced while attending a Michigan football game, or any football game for that matter, happened during the blowout win over Central Michigan this past weekend. Near the end of the first quarter, lightning apparently struck within five miles of Michigan Stadium, and forced the first ever weather delay in the history of the Big House. The delay lasted for exactly one hour, and caused the players and coaches to head back to the locker rooms for the long wait. A downpour of rain didn’t help things either, much of the crowd was looking to get under some kind of protection, but when there’s over 108,000 fans doing the same thing all at once, it can get a little crowded.
Even with the added break of play during this game, the Wolverines didn’t seem to be affected by it too much as great play for the second straight week by Mike Hart led the Wolverines to a 41-17 win. Michigan got rolling right away on offense and never looked back. The passing game looked a little suspect still, but that may just be Mike DeBord’s way of coaching. There really isn’t any need to unleash the playbook on teams like Vanderbilt and Central Michigan when Notre Dame is the next team on the schedule. The defense didn’t look as impressive as the previous week, especially when defending the long passes, but nonetheless, still helped get the victory.
Following a trend that has been present recently in college football, Michigan won the toss and elected to receive rather than defer or kick. Usually with Michigan, a won coin toss means that they will be kicking off first. Not this time. An idea that getting the ball to start the game can give you momentum with a score is very smart coaching. In the past, that was normally the idea of the opposition.
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Upon receiving the ball, Michigan marched down the field and appeared to have had their drive stall short of the endzone when stopped on a third down play. Some gutsy play calling and aggressiveness by the coaching staff was shown after the Wolverines went for it on 4th and 7. It was a good decision as UM did convert the 4th down play, and eventually pushed it into the endzone on a 4 yard scamper by Mike Hart.
The Michigan defense made one of their biggest stops of the day on the following drive. CMU was driving down the field and had made it all the way down to the Michigan 14 before Dan LeFevour was hit hard by LaMarr Woodley jarring the ball loose. At that point, the ball had rolled quite aways and was about to be recovered by CMU before Dave Harris basically just held him back. In doing so, Shawn Crable had enough time to fall on the ball and get it back into UM hands.
Just as Michigan was about to take over possession from a Central Michigan punt, the players and coaches left the field as I had stated earlier due to a weather delay. After an hour long wait, play was resumed, and Michigan wasted little time in adding to their lead. Mike Hart found the endzone for the second time on the day, this time from 18 yards out, to give Michigan the 14-0 advantage.
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The Wolverines got ahead even more right after the start of the second quarter when Kevin Grady got in on the action for a 3 yard TD run. 21-0 Michigan leads. Central got on the board with a long TD play of their own when Dan LeFevour connected with Justin Gardner for a 38 yard pass.
At the half, after a few field goals, Michigan led 24-10. In the second half, there wasn’t a lot of action, but there were a few key plays.
- 2 yard TD run by Mike Hart, his third of the day
- 40 yard FG by Garrett Rivas, his second of the day
- 12 yard INT return by Max Pollock for a TD, the first of his career as he sees very limited playing time
- 3 yard pass from Dan LeFevour to Damien Linson
At the end of the day, Michigan came out with the 41-17 victory. There’s not too much to say about this game as it really was just the one before Notre Dame. After getting the first look at this team against Vanderbilt, focus shifted from that to Notre Dame in my mind, and the CMU game was simply a break in between. This is a good win by the Wolverines, but the passing game and passing defense do need to be improved before facing the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame.
