Michigan Defense Blows Last Chance For Bowl Game
2 Nov
It’s the irony of ironies. The one thing that could be said with any certainty before the 2008 season started was that an experienced Michigan defense would keep the Wolverines in games. Unfortunately, standing at 2-6 and desperately needing a win against Purdue just to keep hopes of a 34th consecutive bowl appearance alive, the Wolverine defense was the very thing to cost Michigan a win.
With a 48-42 loss to Purdue and seven total losses on the season, the Michigan Wolverines officially are not going to a bowl game—even though it became pretty apparent that they wouldn’t after they lost to Toledo. Along with a streak of 40 consecutive years without a losing season, Michigan’s bowl streak—the longest active bowl streak in college football at 33 consecutive bowl games—has come to an end. Florida State now holds the longest active bowl streak at 26 and will extend that streak to 27 if they make it to a bowl game this season–which seems incredibly likely since they’ve already got six wins. Nebraska holds the longest bowl streak at 35.
An inept Michigan offense, which played their best game going into West Lafayette against rival Michigan State, actually played a full game for once. The Wolverines finally broke 30 points for the first time this season, racking up an amazing (for them) 42 points by running the ball very well. At times, quarterback Steven Threet looked as if he had finally learned how to pass well, although he only completed 9 out of 21 pass attempts. Still, the offense did nearly everything right and everything they could to win the game. The kick in the head was that the Michigan defense simply let Purdue’s offense do whatever they wanted. Michigan held a 14-point lead—twice. The defense just squandered leads by bad tackling, leaving Purdue receivers wide open and repeatedly failing to make stops on third down.
To be fair, Purdue started a Terrelle Pryor-like quarterback in Justin Siller. If you watched the game, you’d have to think Purdue head coach Joe Tiller has been nuts for starting Curtis Painter at quarterback all season despite Painter’s perpetual ineffectiveness. And this is a guy some analysts thought could be Heisman material at the start of the season. Painter makes Purdue look worse than Michigan (i.e. Michigan probably would have won had Painter played all game). Siller makes Purdue look better than Ohio State. Putting Siller in a game with running back Kory Sheets gives Purdue the kind of offense OSU fans probably expect to see with Pryor and running back Beanie Wells in games together.
What impressed me more, though, was that the Michigan offense kept hanging with the Purdue offense. You would have thought Michigan’s offense couldn’t handle a shoot-out this year, but they really did. Heck, they scored way more than Georgia did against Florida, for crying out loud, and this is an offense that usually has a hard time finding the end zone! But as the Michigan offense shows any improvement, their defense declines. Despite somewhat-expected offensive woes all season long, the defense has failed significantly at times in games against Utah, Toledo and Michigan State (among other teams). With better defensive performances in those three games, Michigan might have been looking at bowl eligibility going into the game against Purdue. And showing up defensively in West Lafayette would have gotten them that bowl eligibility.
Most people will ask “what now” for Michigan. Perhaps the Wolverines should consider benching some of those defensive players, with possible exceptions including Brandon Graham and Obi Ezeh. Michigan is sitting at 2-7 now—what do they have to lose, other than the games they’re going to lose regardless? I guarantee you one of the problems on defense is that some of those players no longer care. Let some of the players who might actually want playing time get it.
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