<p>Wow! If someone had told me that Michigan would score 36 points on Indiana, I would not have been surprised. But if somebody had told me that Indiana would put 33 points on the board, I would not have believed it. </p>
<p>Needless to say, our defense is not playing well. The talent is there, and we do have our moments, but there is something missing. Perhaps it is senior leadership or just plain lack of chemistry resulting from a new team and new Defensive coordinator. Whatever it is, we need to fix it quickly. Indiana is the weakest team in the Big 10, and if we managed to barely beat them by 3 points at home, how are we going to manage better than a 3-5 conference record?</p>
<p>Prior to this game, I was thinking along the lines of an 8-4 season, perhaps even 9-3, but I must now revise it to 7-5, especially if Tate is injured.</p>
<p>Not all is bad though. We did have a new center and he made mistakes that are easily fixed. Michigan has good RBs, WRs and QBs. Our primary issue is the front on defense, which is not putting nearly enough pressure on opposing QBs.</p>
<p>Don’t worry about games like this. College football is about finding that way to win every single week, and this week it was ugly.</p>
<p>Forcier will be fine, just a small sprain and if he is absolutely at the worst stage of recovery he will be a gametime decision saturday. Robinson is capable of doing this thing for us, and if we win Saturday that will put us at 5-0 with odds of at least 6-1 going into the PSU game.</p>
<p>Let us be confident that 9-3 will be reached.</p>
<p>The second and third quarters were by far the worst quarters of the game. We didn’t score, and we kept dropping the football after the snap. Even though it was partly wet outside we just played poorly. Our offense wasn’t doing as well as it should have either, but Tate somehow managed to pull off two incredible touchdowns, after being slightly injured… Still was an intense and riveting game. Hopefully we beat Michigan State and continue.</p>
<p>Seriously, those bad snaps were ridiculous. How many were there, at least four?</p>
<p>I think there six for a combined loss of 100+ yards. We were put in a 30+ yard to a first down situation twice. Those were very costly. But the poor guy was not at his natural position. He will be better this week.</p>
<p>A. your first point its the most important–we simply are not getting enough pressure on the opposing quarterback. When Graham is double-teamed, someone else has to step up. If we going to blitz, then Stevie Brown needs help. We need guys flying around the ball the in the backfield, and have to find a way to do it w/a 4-3, or the blitz. A 3-man front w/our size will give the opposing quarterback about 5 minutes to find a receiver, heck our 4-man front isn’t much better. I still think 8-4 is completely doable. If our defense would step up on every play, we’d be in every game and would do even better. Hope we don’t have to simply wait for the next recruiting class. Team is young, but we lose a lot of good seniors next year (i.e. at running back, punter, plus Graham and Brown)). Bottom line Graham, Brown and Warren need support.</p>