Announcement

**Hannibal** · November 12, 2017, 05:32 PM

Originally posted by hack View Post

I'm not suggesting I would trade this for that. The outcomes are independent of each other. Just saying that a win against Wisky would in no way make up for a loss against OSU.

Don't worry we won't have to face that dilemma LOL

**Jeff Buchanan** · November 12, 2017, 06:18 PM

Most of the post Maryland game comments have revolved around what that game means for Wisconsin..... Here's my take.

In the second half, Maryland out-gained Michigan, 228-93, and averaged 6.9 yards per play to Michigan?s 3.7. Still, Harbaugh commented in his post game with Jim Brandstatter that he thought this game was the best M had played this season and ran down his observations why - Peters has done everything he's been asked to do with no turnovers. His play has made the running game better - and no turnovers. STs blocked a punt. The D forced two turnovers and held Maryland to one TD.

Also in post game comments from Inside Michigan Football, Hurst confirmed what I had thought were poor gap control/missed run fits when Maryland got some plays going in the 3rd quarter. I still don't have a feel for S play v. Maryland. Was M's D in zone in the second half after gaining a 28-0 lead? I saw one completed throw on replay where there were 3 M players around the Maryland receiver but none in close. That suggests zone at least on that play. In this kind of scheme or anything like it, teams running an offense like Maryland where there are a lot of quick throws on slants and screens, RPOs to the edge, a bit of misdirection and then IZ/OZ runs do well v. a laid back zone protecting a big lead. A tendency for aggressive defenses like Brown's over-pursuing in the direction of play and leaving big rushing lanes open doing that is problematic and we saw that in the 3rd quarter. Not at all in the first half. Brown knows how to defend teams like Maryland and, oh, BTW, osu that runs a similar offense to Maryland. Durkin, hello.

Metellus and Kinnel play press-man, C1 better than zone from what I can tell. We?ve seen it for three straight weeks now that the safeties, especially Josh Metellus, can be a liability in coverage. I think it's a zone scheme thing becasue he has his terrific coverage moments. If Wisconsin star wideout Jazz Peavy returns and matches up with the Ss next week in zone, that's going to be a problem. As well, when it's C-1 and Ss play up either at the LOS on either end and/or threatening a blitz in a gap, that leaves McCray responsible for that middle zone. Those sorts of match-ups have been disastrous (see PSU). Wisconsin RB Jonathan Taylor is legit, and if Mike McCray matches up on him with Ss out of the picture, or with Peavey you might as well put six on the scoreboard. Pretty sure Chryst will be working hard to find those match-ups with slants to Peavey (if he plays) and short throws to Taylor.

Maryland proved it can't run power at M. Wisconsin will try and fail. It is a good thing that Wisconsin does not appear to present a threat to run a Maryland like RPO, IZ/OZ with three wides offense. You can bet your sweet ass though that Cryst will have his boys repping it or something like it. Whether or not they can execute is another matter. This has been M's Achilles Heel on defense...... which is why osu is a bigger threat to M and a much worse match-up than Wisconsin. Beat the Badger.

If Onwenu and Higdon are back, and I think they will be, M will run against the Wisconsin defense. How effective those runs are, i.e., are they 2-3y or 4-5y per carry, will depend on how well Wisconsin can set an edge (Maryland did this fairly well) and whether M's QB (probably Peters) can run a PA and make the Badgers pay for keeping the Ss up to stop the run. I'm not so sure about M's inside power game. Bredeson, Kugler and the RG are going to have to have a really good game and defeat Wisky's DTs.

No Dave Arnada at DC (he went to LSU in the same role). 35yo Jim Leonhard is now DC and he was promoted up from within. He's a former Wisconsin player and worked under Arnada for 2 seasons. Make no mistake this is Dave Aranda's 3-4 Hybrid D. They play a lot of press-man, less of it v. spread teams, and will do this v. M. You saw Maryland basically take away most of Peter's throws deep. Peters routinely checked down and hit his TEs. The first one to DPJ was a nice throw with an obvious, uncalled PI. JH stopped dialing those up almost entirely when he saw how those kinds of plays were going to be refed.

I think Peters can make those throws; I don't think his wides can get separation though. Just not mature enough yet. Loosing the natural talent of Tarik Black hurt JH's long ball game off the PA. Still, M is going to have to make those plays to win this game. They are not going to win it trying to run it down W's throat with the quality and aggressive LB and S play that is featured in W's 3-4 Hybrid D.

Jim Leonhard's unit boasts the No. 5 defense in the country, allowing opponents just 268.0 yards per game. It?s anchored by the run defense, which is also ranked No. 5 and has allowed an average of 93.8 yards per game. And against the pass, Wisconsin is the No. 15 unit, allowing a perfectly respectable 174.3 yards per game. In addition, the Badgers are averaging 3.5 sacks, good for No. 5 in the country, and their defense has scored four touchdowns this year. Only Texas has more.

You saw their schedule though. Makes these stats highly suspicious. Yes, I was disappointed to see Iowa play so poorly against them but that is Iowa and Ferentz, not playing at Kinnick in a nutshell. They're inconsistent and this season, it seems, wildly so. I think M brings a better, more consistent and more sophisticated run game. If Isaac and Higdon are back (JH mentioned at some interview I saw today, Isaac will probably play) the running combo of those two with Evans and a bit of Samuels and Walker mixed in could be a problem for W as the game wears on and they wear down.

If M's QB is on with the passing game and whoever is back there is able to survey for 6 counts, let plays develop, M has a good shot at an upset. However, as we know, M's OL v. quality fronts, is suspect in pass-pro. Doing pretty well in the last three games isn't a great measuring stick for improvement but there is improvement. Still, Peters found himself rolling out and still getting chased by maryland's defenders which leads me to believe that the coaches think that M's OL can't hold up and form a pocket for a QB to step up and into to make these big plays happen.

So, I think that is the key to this game on offense. M has to protect the QB, pass for more than 200 yards and a couple of TDs, get out in front by doing some of that throwing early, take the Camp Randall crowd out of the game and make Wisconsin play catch-up. I will say, that's against all odds and if M can pull this game out on the shoulders of the QBs passing they will have demonstrated some championship play in November even though they won't get to Indianapolis.

**Jeff Buchanan** · November 12, 2017, 06:30 PM

Wisconsin opens at -10 v. Michigan. Tea leaves see it at -7.5 by KO as the bets flow to M. -10 is in line with S&P+ and Sagrin after you remove home field advantage on Sagrin.

2024 College Football Odds - NCAAF Betting Odds & Lines

http://www.vegasinsider.com/college-football/odds/las-vegas/

Find College Football Odds, Betting Lines and Point Spreads out of the best sportsbooks for the 2024 College football season at VegasInsider

In other news, M is ranked #18 in the Coaches poll and #19 in the AP poll. Up to #16 in S&P+

**klondike** · November 12, 2017, 07:51 PM

Originally posted by drok View Post

I am quite optimistic about this game. I think we are going to win.

Sent from my SM-G930W8 using Tapatalk

I'm with you about being more optimistic. In truth, the Wolves have Wisky's number. Hell, even Rich Rod beat them when they were ranked.

I expect UM 's defense to really shine this game and get turnovers. Their qb has been susceptible to throwing them and he's not that mobile. Stop their run game and you have at least a chance to win.

**WM Wolverine** · November 12, 2017, 11:26 PM

The injuries have really accumulated and many of them are significant players for M. I've been saying all season Wisconsin is beatable but were going to need to be near full strength to do so. Can't make a prediction on this one till we can see whose playing and Harbaugh will withhold that till Saturday.

Wisconsin's stats are inflated by the weak competition, hopefully yours are adjusting for that Jeff.

**Jeff Buchanan** · November 13, 2017, 08:36 AM

As usual, bronxblue in his piece called "Best and Worst" does a great job at lending balance to the outlying fan claims of prepare for two bad losses versus 10-2 is in the bag.

He goes over the Maryland game in the context of the preceding two and concludes we still don't have a good feel for how M will do v. teams with equal or better talent. All we have is MSU and PSU and, unfortunately, things did not go well in those two games.

For the hand-wringers among M's fan base, the offensive outburst by Maryland in the second half does not mean M's defense is not good anymore and will not hold up v. the Badger. He provides details. You can take my word for it or read the article yourself. The defense is very good and will hold Wisconsin's offense in check. Keep in mind while Taylor is good, M's defense has been practicing against Higdon and Evans. As well, Hornibrook has more interceptions than TDs and has thrown at least one INT in every game this season (except BYU and Utah State) against pass defenses that rank at or well South of 26th. M's pass D ranks 7th.

He offers no reassurances about injuries and says, we're not going to know about them until Saturday so, don't get worked up about it. It is what it is going to be, my excellent analysis of the injury situation above notwithstanding.

I thought the best part of these always humorous and well written articles was the part where he offers to the meat eating, battles in the Roman Colosseum crowd who wanted a blood bath this explanation - M's average starting field position was the their own 44; Maryland's was their own 20. This explains why Maryland had more yards than M. And this ....

Compounding this yardage discrepancy was how efficient Michigan was at scoring. Michigan's average scoring drive in this game was 5 plays; Maryland's was 11. Michigan ran 56 plays to get their 35 points, while Maryland ran 70 to get their 10. For the game Michigan's average play was 5.4 to Maryland's 4.9, but that masks the fact Michigan was averaging 6.8 ypp in that first half while Maryland barely eclipsed 3.

I'd add, we will not often see a Harbaugh coached team try to dismember an opponent that has for all intents and purpose already been killed (2016 Rutgers excepted). There are two reasons for that. JH isn't into style points on the field, maybe off it and during recruiting trips but, no, he's not going to embarrass an opponent. Well, except Rutgers and Ash and his boys deserved it after the public trash talk that went on before the game (something about "Rutgers is going to become M's biggest rival" or such).

As well, after a 28-0 lead gained in the first half, the coaches had every reason to substitute freely, which they did on D, to a lesser extent on O to reduce the chances of injury. The offense is purposefully limited for Peters anyway and there was absolutely no reason to show to the respective coaching staff of these programs how it might get opened up v. Wisconsin or osu..... and ......

M got to play rope a dope with Maryland in the 2nd half with a solid performance by punter Brad Robbins that precipitated the situation where the Terps had to burn clock while driving the field to score. They only did this twice with one of those drives ending in an endzone INT by Long and an 80y return. Hard to watch for the Roman Colosseum crowd looking for the kill but imminently wise and in that context understandable.

Best and Worst: Maryland | mgoblog

http://mgoblog.com/diaries/best-and-worst-maryland-2

Best: Hold On Loosely Michigan has been in the equivalent of a holding pattern since the Penn State game, doing enough to comfortably win games and whittling the base offense to a nice, sharp point with which to stab overmatched defenses, but that's been about it. Yes, they have broken in their shiny new QB a bit, but even that’s been only around the neighborhood and some weekend drives, no freeways or crowded streets. It's been vanilla ice cream topped with a pile of vanilla wafers while watching Vanilla Sky. And that's fine; Michigan's biggest issue this season has been a lack of offensive identity, some collection of plays that provide a backbone for your playcalling that, more times than not, can matriculate the ball downfield. Really from the IU game on, the run game has consistently shed most of their zone variants and gone with what people conveniently call "power", shorthand for a cornucopia of plays designed to exploit the most basic of physics problems: that if you throw more mass with more acceleration at a point than your opponent, you'll be able to force the ball down the field. And this mindset, this visceral simplicity of sending JBB and Onwenu voraciously at student-athletes smaller and/or slower than them, allows it to be deployed across a variety of formations that, especially when combined with Counter, keeps defenses off-balance and allows Michigan to finally RPS opponents consistently despite clear limitations in the passing game. So from a fan standpoint, it's been a blast to watch Michigan steamroll a couple of mediocre teams to this degree. But as someone who, for some illogical reason, tries to write an interesting recap of said contests each week, picking out meaningful nuance and at least a handful of semi-intelligent insights, it's been a little rough. Against Rutgers you had the "excitement" of a QB change, Brandon Peters finally getting his moment to shine. Against Minnesota there was Peters's first start, a game where the opposition knew what to expect and could have, I guess, tried to game plan for him instead of trying to cross one of Minnesota's many lakes. Against Maryland you had Michigan's first road game with Peters at the helm, but at that point we're definitely getting into Malibu Stacy's new hat territory in terms of meaningful differences. Rutgers, Minnesota, and Maryland all occupy the same basic space in college football's hierarchy; teams with enough talent to put up a fight but not nearly enough to damage a good team capable of taking a couple body blows. But this was always a four-game season, with MSU slotting into the spot we all sorta assumed Florida would have occupied, and this 3-game stretch was always a prelude to a more exciting conclusion, the Rocky montage of the 2017 season if you will. And so, I'll be honest, there isn't much to say that you haven't read already. During the end of the Hoke era these columns devolved a bit to "look at last week's column and imagine a slightly different way they lost badly", and while this stretch is the opposite result on the field, the useful information to glean from it is similar. Michigan is better than a bunch of teams with far less talent, and whether that talent deficiency is due to a late-game coaching transition after a terrible sexual assault, a voluminous number of injuries at the QB position, or being Rutgers, the reason is irrelevant because the results were always the same. They will now face teams with as much, or more, talent than them, and we'll see if the steps taken by this offense are at least somewhat sustainable or not. And either way, it'll at least give me something new to write about. Best: If You Could Only See Because it's Maryland and Michigan fans just can't enjoy their meal without looking for a reason to send it back, way too much was made of the fact that Maryland finished with more yards than Michigan (340 to 305). Michigan "only" had a 28-0 lead and "only" about 100 yards more of total offense (212 to 112) at halftime, "only" scored 1 TD in the second half while Maryland mounted 3 solid-ish drives (55, 85, and 75 yards) resulting in 10 points, and "only" rushed for 160 yards on 38 carries, a pedestrian 4.2 ypc after two weeks of cartoony numbers on the ground. And so this game became the newest Rorschach test for the Michigan faithful; look at it one way and you see a dominating first-half performance by a team that packed it in the second half in order to minimize injuries/hide any wrinkles for more important games coming up, or look at it another way and see a team get "figured out" a bit by a Maryland offense that sorta, kinda, maybe looks a bit like Ohio State's offense, and good lord not in the face again. Since you have read this far in both this column and this series, I assume you want my take. Well, I fall squarely on the "packing it in" side of the equation. Also, Michigan didn't accumulate more yards in the first half in large part because they had fewer yards to go to score. Their average(!) field position to start a drive in the first half was Michigan’s 48 (!!) yard line. They had TD drives of 33 and 19 yards, which combined required 3 plays. And it didn't really get much better for the Terrapins in the second half, as Michigan's average starting position was Michigan's 44 (!!!) yard line. For the game, Michigan basically started at midfield (!V) every drive, and when you only have about 54 yards to go each time for a score, your total yardage is going to be capped unless you just have an obscene number of drives. By comparison, Maryland's average field position was about their own twenty. Compounding this yardage discrepancy was how efficient Michigan was at scoring. Michigan's average scoring drive in this game was 5 plays; Maryland's was 11. Michigan ran 56 plays to get their 35 points, while Maryland ran 70 to get their 10. For the game Michigan's average play was 5.4 to Maryland's 4.9, but that masks the fact Michigan was averaging 6.8 ypp in that first half while Maryland barely eclipsed 3. Michigan figured out Maryland's offense in the first half and largely stymied it save for one drive; the second half drives that worked for Maryland featured a fair number of one-off plays and 3 4th-down conversions against a defense that played a number of backups. Yes, you'd like to see Michigan just choke out a team for a whole game, but no matter how much Glen Mason wanted it to be competitive, Michigan was never in danger in this game. Worst: Hurt About the only thing fans wanted more from this 3-game stretch than a coherent offense was to emerge largely unscathed on the injury front. Unfortunately, after seemingly getting by with minimal damage (Michael Onwenu was dinged up the past couple of games, but none of it sounded too serious, and Perry, Crawford, and Isaac all seem to be nursing various infirmaries), Michigan saw Gary, Hill, Long, and Higdon leave the game for various (seemingly minor) injuries. I know that's a lot of equivocating in one sentence, but it's honestly hard to get a read on most of the injuries. Every player walked off the field under his own power; Hill suffered a concussion and Gary had a shoulder stinger, while Higdon and Long had various lower-body injuries, but none seemed all that serious. At the same time, this is a team already out their starting QB and one of their top-3 receivers, and while it has depth in terms of warm bodies to throw into positions, there's Watson and a bunch of freshmen after the starting corners. Similarly, this offensive line really can't afford to miss probably it's best run blocker or the guy best suited to run through those holes. After the game, Jim Harbaugh didn't shed much light on the seriousness of the injuries beyond your boilerplate "we'll see how the guys look". On the one hand, that's sorta ominous when he could just as easily state "they're all good, held out for cautionary reasons". But considering this is a guy who fought tooth and nail to not release a 2017 depth chart before the season, and keeping Wisconsin guessing a bit is every bit a competitive advantage he needs to leverage against a talented opponent, I'd be amazed if much comes out before game day. My working assumption is that Michigan will dress everyone possible against Wisconsin unless it's pretty clear they are working with a hindrance; all bets are off against OSU. Best: Run The stats weren't gaudy by any means, but Michigan was about as dominant on the ground as they have been the past couple of weeks when necessary. Both Evans and Higdon were averaging north of 5 yards per carry at halftime, and Higdon also added 2 receptions for 48 yards, the latter catch-and-run being a great bail-out for Peters that turned into a long gain after Higdon absolutely stiff-armed a Maryland defender straight to hell. In the second half Evans got the bulk of the carries and finished the day with 2 TDs on the ground and a couple receptions, including a key third-down one on the final scoring drive. People may fixate on the offense sputtering for much of the third quarter and the running game's inability to get on track without Higdon, but other than two deep balls to DPJ Michigan never really tried to shake Maryland out of their aggressiveness once up big. Michigan seemed content to run a base offense and just salt the game away, and once Maryland got to within 18 Michigan responded with a back-breaking drive to them off. Wisconsin will obviously be a step up in talent, but this rush offense feels somewhat opponent-agnostic at this point; they should be able to get some reasonable yardage against anyone on the schedule, though consistency and amplitude will depend at least in part on how the other half of the offense performs. Speaking of which.... Meh: Nobody Knows Another day, another perfectly acceptable performance by Brandon Peters. Peters finished the day with 2 TDs on 9/18 passing for 8.1 ypa. The 50% completion percentage is a downer, but he also hasn't thrown a pick all season, though Glen Mason helpfully pointed out that had a Maryland player not been 3 yards out of bounds he'd have picked him off along the sideline. And for the game, other than really bad throw to Wheatley where someone wasn't on the right page, he seemed to make the right decisions and play within the offense. I know there was some optimism that Peters would "unlock" the passing offense, but that's not been the case. He's a first-year starter behind a rickety offensive line throwing mostly to other first-year/lightly-used players or tight ends. That's it, and against Wisconsin and OSU that almost assuredly won't be enough to win. That said, Peters does look more at-ease than either Speight or O'Korn, and while that is probably due in large part to the competition, it's still a good sign that he can make the routine plays more times than not. And he did take a couple of deeper shots in this contest; one was the DPI Peoples-Jones got to extend the final scoring drive, and another was a missed opportunity down the middle of the field to DPJ that would have probably gone for a score had it not been overthrown. It still feels like Peters is figuring out the depth and touch needed on these longer throws; he overthrew Jones one time but his TD to Gentry and the pass interference to DPJ were both underthrown balls that the receivers had to slow down somewhat significantly to pick up. With Gentry it was probably the right call because he had beaten his man so thoroughly that having him slow up wasn't going to stop a score; the one to DPJ was a bit more suspect because had the corner turned around he'd have probably picked it off. Still, it remains an overall positive experience with Peters under center. I would caution fans expecting the playbook to open up dramatically these next couple of games; the coaches seem to be calling the game with a limited playbook intentionally, not because they are saving plays. Peters job is to manage the game, and the offense seems to be called with that in mind. And I don't see him being able to extend plays with his feet nearly as effectively against the next couple of defenses as he had against the past 3 units, so it will be interesting if the coaches push him to just throw the ball away versus trying to make something happen after breaking the pocket. But anyone claiming to having a great read on the QB position after 3 weeks is either Jim Harbaugh (in which case he may be lying) or is just hoping illogically. Best: Strong I've noted this a bunch of times already, but the defense did a fine job shutting down Maryland for most of this game. The highlight were the two picks, one in the end zone by David Long on Maryland's one promising first-half drive, that resulted in 102 return yards. For the game Maryland threw 38 times for 160 yards, something I doubt the was their goal heading into the game with their 5th-string QB. The Terrapins found a bit more success on the ground, rushing for 5.6 ypc, and both Johnson and Harrison broke some long-ish runs when tackles were missed in the open field. I'm sure various LBs and safeties will come in for some dings, though in particular Metellus had some nice coverage downfield and both safeties seemed to limit the damage as much as possible more times than not when put in bad spots. And while Hudson didn't have the gaudy stats last the Minnesota game, he was still disruptive through the contest and had the nice pick on Maryland's last drive of the game. All that said, Michigan still finished the day with 7 TFLs, including 3 from Winovich, and Maryland's running game was still quick boom-or-bust. 90 of Maryland's 180 rushing yards came on three runs, each by Harrison, Johnson, and Brand, with the latter two coming on the missed FG attempt. And for the first half of this game, Maryland really couldn't do much despise breaking out a number of sweeps and a halfback pass that absolutely were game planned for this opponent. I know people want to be concerned about this, and maybe I'll change my tune after Wisconsin, but right now this feels like a defense coming into its own a bit. And Wisconsin doesn't feel like the type of team to really confuse or misdirect this defense. Hornibrook isn't a runner or a passer; even beyond the 2 pick-sixes he threw against Iowa, he has thrown at least one interception every game this year except against BYU and Utah State, and has more picks (11) than TDs (9) in conference play this year despite not playing a defense better than 26th against the pass all year. Michigan's pass defense rank? 7th, and number 1 in terms of efficiency. And their rush offense hasn't faced a top-30 rush defense either, while Michigan's is #12 in the nation. So for all the (rightfully skeptical) questions about how Michigan is going to move the ball against Wisconsin, it's safe to argue that the same questions apply for the Badgers on offense. Quick Hits Because news sites are dying and realize any click is better than no click, MLive ran with the story that Quinn Nordin and Jim Harbaugh got into a yelling match on the sidelines, which of course led to a bunch of people on the internet (especially Michigan fans) to come out of the woodwork to crap on Nordin and question his commitment, his attitude, etc. Basically, your greatest hits of lazy takes. And thought MLive removed it from the link, their go-to tweet was this gem from chatsports, the same site that was found to make up stories, writers, and even readers to keep their numbers up. Yes, Nordin has struggled these past couple of games. We are also dealing with a small sample size. Michigan cannot afford to miss kicks against Wisconsin or Ohio State, but at the same time it seems immensely premature to get worked up over the situation. Glenn Mason was...he was an announcer in this game. I don't know why networks continue to think fans want to listen to guys prattle with barely-relevant information pertaining the games actually being played, but here we are in 2017 and Glen Mason is arguing adamantly that a ball that clearly bounced off the turf was a reception even after being overturned. This guy somehow won more games than he lost at Minnesota, so I guess P.J. Fleck can look forward to floating around in a space suit in 2049 calling games on Mars and not understanding why throwing the ball past Quarg is considered out of bounds. Michigan only had 1 penalty for 10 yards (a hold on their last drive) versus 7 for 59 on Maryland. I never bought into the notion that the refs had it out for Michigan; young, inexperienced players making dumb decisions largely explained away most of their issues. I've been analyzing the penalty situation for Michigan compared to previous seasons, and while it's not complete what I've gathered thus far points to a team making dumb procedural mistakes that lead to penalties, the types you expect to see ironed out both during the season and year-to-year. They'll need to keep this up this improved focus against Wisconsin; being able to do so on the road against Maryland is a decent sign in the right direction. Bring on the Badgers I've already laid out most of my arguments, but this feels like the more winnable game of the two remaining. Wisconsin is probably really good; they certainly aren't undefeated good. This is a team that hasn't played anyone all that impressive, and in all likelihood Michigan is going to be the best team they'll face until the conference championship. Michigan's defense should be able to stymie their running and passing game somewhat; Taylor is still very talented and Michigan has shown enough inconsistencies to expect some breakdowns. But it's still a limited offense and a sound defense, and if that sounds familiar it's because you watch Michigan football. Wisconsin is coming off a hamblasting of Iowa in which they held the Hawkeyes to 66 yards of total offense, though I'd not read too much into that number. Kirk Ferentz game plans intensely for Michigan and Ohio State in a way he doesn't for other teams, and so I'm not remotely surprised all the weaknesses we've seen this year from Iowa would rear their ugly heads against Wisconsin. Michigan's pass protection is probably going to be worked over by Wisconsin's top-10 sack rate, but my guess is Michigan will compensate as best they can with max protection. If Michigan can get some turnovers and reach even moderate success on the ground, they'll have a chance to escape Madison with a win. My best guess is this will look a lot like last year's game at Michigan, where Wisconsin had no right being close late in the game but Michigan made just enough mistakes to keep it close. Flip the teams and I could see Michigan stay within reach of Wisconsin until the end, and then it's anybody's game.

So, after 10 games, I don't think we really know how M will do on the road, inside Camp Randall against the #5 ranked football team in the country. Looking at that statement, you'd think no chance.

Disregarding that my takes are obviously biased because I am the ultimate homer, other than the ridiculous distraction of Badger fans stomping their feet to put the rickety stadium that is Camp Randall in some sort of harmonic motion on every important defensive play, I like M's chances. A win in Madison will increase my perception of team 138, Jim Harbaugh and the likelihood that M will beat osu in Ann Arbor the following week.

**iam416** · November 13, 2017, 08:45 AM

After multiple 10,000 word essays, the ultimate conclusion is this:

I don't think we really know how M will do on the road, inside Camp Randall against the #5 ranked football team in the country.

Great stuff, Buchanan.

**froot loops** · November 13, 2017, 08:48 AM

How dare fans inside Camp Randall stomp their feet and make noise, how unbecoming can they be?

**Hannibal** · November 13, 2017, 09:11 AM

LMAO at mgoblog apologism and data mining. The eyeball test against Maryland was clear -- the defense got shredded by a team with their fourth QB. A dropped pass on a trick play, a missed field goal, and an interception in the end zone cost Maryland 13-17 points. UM's offense was "efficient" because Maryland handed them the ball inside their 35 yard line on three consecutive posessions. The only defense of this turd is the argument that everyone quit playing once we were up 28-0, so therefore nothing that occurred after that mark matters. That's not a very encouraging scenario either.

**Hannibal** · November 13, 2017, 09:16 AM

Michigan hasn't played a decent power running team yet this year. They'll probably do an okay job of holding of physically, but Paul Chryst is a terrific offensive coach and he'll find our weaknesses. The Badgers are great at combining smashmouth football with jet sweep action to keep the defense honest and coach Chryst has always had a great feel for what mix to run -- dating back to his days as Bielema's OC.

**Mainevent** · November 13, 2017, 09:59 AM

Yeah, Michigan's schedule isn't all that impressive outside of PSU and MSU, who they were manhandled by. Wisconsin's win over Iowa is arguably the best win on either team's resume this season.

**Rocky Bleier** · November 13, 2017, 10:54 AM

This one is easy. One tough team on the road - PSU - and the result was pain and embarrassment. This one is at Camp Randall, and Wisconsin is playing for payback and to clinch their spot in the B1G Championship game. The offense can run against inferior defenses, but Wisconsin ain't Minnesota. Take away the TEs, and Peters won't hit a pass. Defensively, smallish players like Bush, Hudson, Metellus, and Kinnel will not hold up against the power run attack of the Badgers. Gonna be ugly, Optimigos. 28 - 0 ugly. Unless Quinn finally breaks out of his slump and finally hits a FG.

**UMStan White** · November 13, 2017, 12:25 PM

Wisc isn't playing for a spot in the BIG championship game. They already clinched that. They're playing for a spot in the CCG

**Detroit Dan** · November 13, 2017, 12:55 PM

I think Michigan will win, based upon pure homerism. All the injured will play for us. Peters will throw a couple of deep bombs for TDs. Hurst with a tummy rub or two. Breakout games for Donovan Peoples Jones and Ambry Thomas. Might as well throw in Jaylen Kelly Powell, with a surprise big play on special teams.

**Rocky Bleier** · November 13, 2017, 01:24 PM

Originally posted by UMStan White View Post

Wisc isn't playing for a spot in the BIG championship game. They already clinched that. They're playing for a spot in the CCG

You are correct. Also, Jim Leonhard should make life hard for Peters. I look for at least 3 sacks. Just not our year. Probably would have been better if O'Korn hadn't crapped out against Sparty.

Announcement

Michigan @ Wisconsin, Noon, 11/18, Fox/Stream FoxGo

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment