Real Kato Blog: College Football Recap

Michigan ennui; N.C. State loses in a shootout; USC, Virginia Tech, and West Virginia fall.

Michigan 13, Illinois 38. In the state of Michigan, it's usually Michigan State that starts the season well, then finds a way to lose some close games, then plunges into the abyss for the second half of the season. This year, somehow Michigan has become Michigan State. In a game that Michigan should have won easily, poor offensive execution and huge defensive busts were absolute killers once again.

Let's look at the second-half possessions for Michigan: turnover on downs, punt, punt, fumble, turnover on downs, fumble, turnover on downs. Of those seven possessions, four reached the Illinois red zone. That's 28 potential points that Michigan left on the field, 28 points that could have won the game. At times Michigan moved the ball easily, gaining yards in huge chunks, only to waste the drive with a turnover.

The downhill slide started when Illinois made a goal line stand; Michigan tried four I-formation dive plays in a row from the one yard line. Now, I know this is a play that Michigan is normally able to execute. But after being stoned on first down, I think perhaps we should have tried a play-action pass or at least our bread-and-butter zone read play. Even if we had lost yardage on second down, it wouldn't have been the end of the world; in fact, Michigan's offense often operates better with a little more room to spread the field.

After that stop, Illinois busted a huge touchdown run, with Michigan's linebackers seemingly all in the wrong position, and walk-on safety Jordan Kovacs simply too slow to make the touchdown-saving tackle.

Clearly, Michigan continues to have huge problems on defense. The problems were masked early in the year by the fact that Michigan was able to keep pace with its offense. In the last two games, offensive execution has fallen apart, and now we're starting to look like last year's team all over again.

Offense: D. The offense moved the ball pretty well, but red-zone execution was atrocious, and the fumbles were deadly. It's time to get back to fundamentals in practice, I think.

Defense: F. 500 yards of offense from Illinois means something has gone horribly wrong with the defense. Linebackers are constantly missing assignments and missing tackles. I was a believer in the Greg Robinson's aggressive defensive scheme all year long, but I think perhaps we need to adopt more of a "no-big-plays" and "bend-don't-break" scheme. We simply can't count on our safeties to be our last line of defense.

Sigh. A win against Purdue next week probably gets Michigan into the Motor City Bowl, which is something, I guess. Other than that, the only thing Michigan has to play for is a stunning upset over Ohio State. That's still not out of the question, but the defense will have to play the game of their lives to make that happen.

Also, it's probably time to start looking to next year. It looks promising on offense, with Forcier and a stable of skill position players returning, even though we lose Moosman and Ortmann from the offensive line. On defense, I'm worried. I'm not convinced our existing safeties and linebackers are going to get much better, and our young recruits are untested. Perhaps Rodriguez will start thinking about replacing one of the defensive assistant coaches...

N.C. State 42, Florida State 45. This was certainly an entertaining back-and-forth game, but Florida State simply made a few more plays down the stretch. It seemed like NCSU's receivers and offensive line have made some strides over the course of the year, but the undersized defense was blown off the ball, and they were simply unable to stop Florida State's rushing attack.

Big Ten

(#4) Iowa 42, Indiana 24. Indiana was up 24-14 in the fourth quarter and looked well on their way to an upset victory, when Iowa exploded for 28 points to stay in the national title hunt.

Wisconsin 37, Purdue 0. The same Purdue team that knocked off Ohio State a couple weeks ago got absolutely crushed by Wisconsin. Michigan plays Purdue next week, and Wisconsin after that.

Penn State 34, Northwestern 13. Northwestern actually led this game at the half, but the offense stalled when quarterback Mike Kafka was knocked out the game with an injury. Penn State broke three big plays in the fourth quarter to pull away for the victory.

Michigan State 34, Minnesota 42. Oh, Sparty.

Top 25

(#10) Oregon 47, (#5) USC 20. This is an "upset" that perhaps everyone saw coming. Oregon has been playing great football, while USC has at times looked shaky. Oregon is in the driver's seat for the Pac-10 title, while USC is 3-2 in conference play. Does this mark the end of USC's dominance out west?

North Carolina 20, (#13) Virginia Tech 17. Looks like business as usual in the ACC, with no teams (except perhaps Georgia Tech) looking dominant.

South Florida 30, (#21) West Virginia 19. WVU has piled up wins against lesser competition on route to its #21 ranking; they finally get exposed by a decent team.

(#3) Texas 41, (#14) Oklahoma State 14. Texas makes its case for the title game, winning in convincing fashion against a good Oklahoma State team.

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