| How many years does Nebraska have to be in the conference before we stop hearing the 1997 what ifs every time they play Michigan? With Frost coaching his first game in the series, there was going to be a natural uptick this year. Hopefully absent Brian Griese taking the Michigan job at some point in the future this will be peak for that. Neither team is where they were in 1997, but obviously Michigan is much closer. They are in Year 4 of their coaching regime, so their "rebuild" whatever it was, is over. Nebraska's is just beginning, and is including a massive overhaul of offensive systems. I picked Troy to upset them last week without Martinez, and that panned out. Sounds almost certain Martinez will play this week, which as a neutral fan is a good thing. He's fun to watch, and it's clear that Frost's offense is fully dependent on having a quarterback with his skill set in there. They've faced a mediocre defense in Colorado (#50 in S&P+ defense) and a bad one in Troy (#96). Michigan's is #7, and probably after the first drive of the season, is much higher. The "weak spot" if there is one, is at linebacker, now particularly with Hudson suspended for the first half due to a targeting ejection in the second half against SMU. You still have a Butkus Award candidate there in Devin Bush Jr., so as I said, relatively. So while the Huskers don't have the personnel yet, this is the type of attack that could help negate Michigan's strengths at cornerback and pass rush, because their run defense has been merely fine. Not that anyone is trying to hand out Blackshirts to the group, but the Nebraska defense has been better than the blame they've taken. The turnover differential isn't helping, averaging 3 turnovers, and -2 per game, both 2nd worst in the Big Ten. The overall scoring and total defense numbers don't look great, but on a per play basis, they are only allowing 2.7 yards per carry, 3rd best in the Big Ten, and 6.5 yards per pass attempt, squarely in the middle. To help this offense in transition though they have to create more turnovers, particularly this week. For Michigan's offense, this is a good litmus test. They looked bad against Notre Dame. While the Wimbush we saw that night was probably not the real Wimbush, the Irish defense appears to be every bit of what we saw, still a top 5 unit nationally. After that they played a pair of defenses ranked outside the top 100. So judging anything, positive or negative, from those three games seems unfair. Nebraska's defense is more indicative of the type of defense Michigan is likely to play week in and week out. Karan Higdon is expected to play Saturday, and that is huge. The run game struggled without him against SMU. While Chris Evans is a home run threat, he's clearly not an every down back. Instead the offense leaned heavily on the passing game, and Donovan Peoples-Jones had his coming out party, with 3 touchdowns. Banking on 13.2 yards per attempt is generally not a good strategy. Win or lose, coming out of this game I think we can finally draw some conclusions about this offense. |
