Michigan Beats Miami 16-6 in Ugly Fashion

Rich Rodriguez said it himself after Saturday’s game. “I’d rather win ugly than lose pretty,” Rodriguez told the team and reporters following Michigan’s 16-6 win over Miami (Ohio) that can be described as anything but pretty.

Michigan did show signs of greatness on offense during a couple drives, but for the most part it was another performance that makes you simply scratch your head. The defense thankfully continued its play from the second half of the Utah game and held Miami to only 6 points. Eventually this team is going to have to score some points to win games, but against a team like Miami they were able to get away with the rather disappointing performance.

Before things began to get ugly offensively for Michigan, things couldn’t have gone smoother. That may be surprising to hear, but the offense looked outstanding on their first drive of the game. The defense forced Miami to go three and out and quickly got Michigan the ball, and the first play of the game set up an eventual touchdown. It was the same play that Michigan ran last week against Utah to open the game, but rather than only going for 3 yards it went for 50. Martavious Odoms made the catch and found room to run. He was off to the races and even when a defender caught up to him, Odoms simply kept going to pick up even more yardage.

Following the big play the momentum was clearly on Michigan’s side and they decided to establish the run. Sam McGuffie picked up 5 yards before Michigan went into the I-formation and fullback Mark Moundros got a handoff. Moundros powered forward for a gain of 7 and a first down. Steven Threet decided to show that he can run the ball as well by picking up 6 yards and then getting into the end zone on the next play. Threet faked a handoff to McGuffie and ran into the end zone untouched from 9 yards out as the fake was tremendous. The Miami defense all thought McGuffie had the ball, and by the time they realized he didn’t, Threet was already in the end zone.

Two plays into their second drive of the game Miami had a miscommunication of some sort and put the ball on the ground. Their center snapped the ball, yet no one moved. The quarterback didn’t look like he was necessarily ready for the snap and fumbled the exchange. From far away it looked like there was a penalty for false start as no one did move. I figured the play was blown dead or something, but thankfully Obi Ezeh didn’t think that way. Ezeh aptly jumped on the ball and gave the Michigan offense great field position for their next drive.

Just as we would begin to see throughout the remainder of this game, Michigan’s offense went from running smoothly to not running at all in a matter of only one possession. I figured after the first drive of the game that the Wolverines would get into the end zone again here and start to pull away, making my statement about being shocked if they won by more than a couple touchdowns look foolish. Sadly, that wasn’t the case at all and my statement was right on.

Michigan came out and picked up 5 yards on a McGuffie run, but he was stuffed on the following play. On third down Threet did have Junior Hemingway somewhat open in the area of the first down marker, but he threw the ball too low and into the ground, just out of the reach of Hemingway. Despite going three and out, K.C. Lopata was able to come in and hit a 47-yard field goal thanks to the defense to put Michigan ahead 10-0.

Following another Miami three and out, Michigan got the ball back on their own 19 and did put together a nice drive. It wouldn’t end with any points, but I’ll get to that in a second. Kevin Grady got into the game to pick up a first down on a short gain after Threet had another great fake that allowed him to run for 9 yards. Freshman Michael Shaw then entered the game and had two awesome runs of his own. The first went for 30 yards as Shaw found open space and used his speed to get by defenders, and then the second went for 15 and included Shaw breaking a tackle to get down field.

With the offense again running smoothly, I was again thinking they would find the end zone pretty quickly. The problem with that is that I forgot Steven Threet can’t hit any open receivers. On second and third down following Shaw’s big runs, Threet had open receivers and threw a pair of passes too high and out of their range. Odoms was open after breaking to the sideline and Threet didn’t even come close to hitting him. Odoms did make a nice attempt to catch the pass, but he couldn’t get to it. The very next play was more of the same as Carson Butler got open in the middle of the field, but Threet overthrew him, too.

The pair of incompletions brought up fourth down and K.C. Lopata had a chance to kick a field goal from 41 yards out. Even though this was his shortest attempt of the season, Lopata didn’t kick the ball very well and it ended up going wide left. That was a tough way to finish an otherwise decent drive, especially since the lead was only 10 points. The defense was playing well, but they can only do so much.

After Michigan and Miami traded possessions for the rest of the first quarter and for much of the second quarter, the RedHawks did finally get on the scoreboard. They were already starting to move the ball well, but it was a 42-yard pass that put them in position to cut down the Michigan lead. On a play-action, Miami quarterback Daniel Raudabaugh threw a perfect pass downfield and found Dustin Woods for the 42-yard gain. Woods got by Morgan Trent and Trent couldn’t recover in time to make a play on the ball. The Michigan defense did recover, though, and held Miami to only a field goal, making the score 10-3 in favor of the Wolverines.

With Michigan’s offense struggling so much, Rich Rodriguez decided to put Nick Sheridan in at quarterback to replace Threet. I didn’t get the move at the time, especially considering there was just under 4 minutes left in the half. Although Threet was struggling, I didn’t exactly have a whole lot of trust in Sheridan after what happened at the end of the first half last week. The last thing Michigan could afford was a turnover, and with Sheridan in that was a possibility every time he threw the ball downfield.

Thankfully nothing bad did happen other than a three and out that forced Michigan to punt the ball away. The defense held Miami and forced them to punt, and the Wolverines wisely took a knee to run out the clock and end the first half. It wasn’t pretty, just as the second half would be as well, but Michigan was ahead 10-3, so it wasn’t all bad.

Miami’s chance to tie the game up came on their first possession of the second half following a Michigan three and out. The RedHawks were moving the ball effectively and got a big gain of 25 yards when Stevie Brown tried to intercept a pass and failed to do so. The pass was caught and the receiver had running room as Brown dove in front of him to try and catch the pass.

The RedHawks then began to move the ball by picking up a few yards on each play. Twice they were held to third and short and twice they picked up the first down, although the second conversion was controversial. Michigan had Miami stopped as a lateral was ruled a forward and incomplete pass. The Miami running back picked up the ball and advanced it forward as he assumed the lateral was really a fumble. The whistle was blown early, though, and the running back paid the price when Stevie Brown tackled him by his hair. I guess that’s what happens when you take the risk of having dreadlocks in football.

Anyways, Miami challenged the play despite there being a rule that you cannot review an incomplete forward pass. The refs did anyways, though, and determined that it was not an incomplete pass and ruled that third down would be replayed since the whistle was blown early. I don’t get how the review even happened when there is a rule, according to the announcers, at least, that prevents incomplete forward passes from being reviewed. Either way, that’s what happened and Miami did pick up a first down on their second third down attempt.

In hindsight the controversial call meant very little as Miami would be stopped on their next third down try and decided to kick a field goal. That was the case only because Brandon Harrison made an outstanding play on that third down try. A fade was thrown into the corner of the end zone and the receiver looked like he caught the pass. He actually might have for half a second or so until Harrison knocked the ball out of his hands to cause the incompletion. That forced Miami to kick a field goal that cut the lead down to 10-6, and looking back the replay of third down only delayed the inevitable, which was a field goal. Still, Michigan’s defense did a nice job of getting the stop and keeping the RedHawks out of the end zone.

With Michigan’s offense going nowhere with Nick Sheridan, Steven Threet came back in to be quarterback. The move didn’t change anything, though, as the offense continued to struggle. Because of that, Sheridan actually came back in on Michigan’s next possession, and take a wild guess about what happened. Okay, it wasn’t exactly a three and out as Sam McGuffie ran for 26 yards on the first play of the drive, but after that the Wolverines failed to pick up a first down and had to punt the ball away again.

When Michigan got the ball back again Nick Sheridan was still the quarterback, and finally the offense had success. In very similar fashion to the first drive of the game, Michigan’s offense just seemed to click and things went well. McGuffie rattled off another solid run, this time for a gain of 13 yards, and drew a late hit penalty on Miami. That added 15 extra yards to the play and really got the offense going.

Sheridan then hit Darryl Stonum for 8 yards and Kevin Grady picked up the first down on the next play. After McGuffie ran for 5 yards and Sheridan for 1, it was 3rd and 4 for the Wolverines. Sheridan found McGuffie on a flare route and McGuffie took it from there. He ran by one defender, avoided being tackled by another, and was finally brought down after a gain of 27 yards.

Only one play later Brandon Minor came into the game and found the end zone in his only carry of the day. Minor got the handoff and cut up field before being wrapped up by a defender at the 12-yard line. Minor kept powering forward, though, and broke the tackle. With the help of a great block from Carson Butler, Minor ran the remaining 12 or so yards and dove into the end zone for a touchdown. K.C. Lopata hesitated on the extra point as he didn’t think the hold would get down in time and missed it, meaning Michigan was up 16-6.

The missed extra point wouldn’t come back to haunt Michigan as the defense wasn’t about to let that happen. Miami turned the ball over on downs twice to finish the game after the defense put the clamps down to finish off a great performance. The final score would read 16-6 and Michigan would get its first win of the Rich Rodriguez era. After the game the players went over to the student section to sing the fight song with the band in what I can only imagine is a new tradition, and one I like, I might add.

Although this game didn’t result in a blowout and the offense continued to look terrible most of the time, it is a win. Beating Miami (Ohio) by 10 points doesn’t exactly breed confidence for the remainder of the season, but it does mean the Wolverines are one step closer to becoming bowl eligible. And trust me, every single win will matter in regards to keeping the bowl streak alive as 6 or 7 wins is actually looking like a stretch at this point.

Regardless of that, Michigan’s next chance to get one step closer comes next Saturday when the Wolverines head to South Bend to play Notre Dame. The Fighting Irish are coming off of a scare of their own as San Diego State was in position to go ahead by 13 points in the fourth quarter before fumbling the ball inside ND’s 1-yard line. Notre Dame took over, went down the field and scored, and eventually won 21-13. Similar to Michigan, the win was anything but pretty, setting up next week’s game between the Wolverines and Fighting Irish to be a battle of ugliness. That battle can be seen at 3:30 p.m. ET on NBC.