Notre Dame week has become a tough one for me in the past few years. I grew up hating Notre Dame even more than Ohio State, cheering their every loss and hoping they never awoke the echoes. Then I met my wife. She’s a die-hard Notre Dame fan (and so is her entire family).

At first, I tried to bring her over from the dark side, but when that was unsuccessful, I succumbed to just hoping for a Michigan win each year so I can have bragging rights for another year. Fortunately, this year I’ll be watching the game from a work trip in Buffalo while she’ll be at home in New York City, so the contentious moments in the heat of the game will be avoided. I can cheer and sing “The Victors” all I want without hurting her feelings. I can jeer Notre Dame follies and celebrate their mistakes without getting the silent treatment the rest of the day. Ahh, it’s Michigan-Notre Dame.

Both teams made impressive statements last Saturday. Michigan dominated a UConn team that was picked by many to win the Big East this season. Notre Dame stifled an average Purdue team in new head coach Brian Kelly’s first game in South Bend.

Both enter this week’s matchup with a lot of confidence and needing a win to silence the doubters. A Michigan win would set up the Wolverines for a great shot at a 5-0 start. A Notre Dame win would make Irish fans forget about Charlie Weis already. So what does Michigan need to do to win in South Bend on Saturday?

1. Score a lot

Obviously scoring is the name of the game for any team, but the combination of Michigan’s defense this year and Notre Dame’s offense virtually requires Michigan’s offense to score 35-plus points if it wants to win this game.

The defense was bailed out by dropped passes and mistakes against UConn, which it can’t expect Notre Dame’s experienced receivers to make. Make no mistake about it: this defense won’t hold many teams to just 10 points, with the exception of maybe UMass and Bowling Green in the next couple of weeks.

Last year was a shootout, with Michigan scoring the game-winning touchdown with 11 seconds left to beat Notre Dame 38-34. This year should be much the same and the offense is going to have to score often if it wants to keep pace with the Irish.

2. Control the ball

Time of possession doesn’t tell the whole story, but it certainly does help. Last week, Michigan controlled the ball for nearly 37 minutes, the longest since Rich Rodriguez took over at Michigan in 2008.

Denard Robinson, in his first collegiate start, ran 29 times for 197 yards and the offense racked up a total of 287 yards rushing. It put together four drives of 11 plays or more, three of which accounted for a total of over 22 minutes, or a third of the game.

Putting together long drives wears down the opposing defense while keeping your defense off the field. So while you can’t look at the time of possession alone to determine the outcome of a game, it can certainly go a long way toward helping you win the game.

2a. Hold onto the ball

Two years ago in South Bend, Michigan lost four fumbles in the rainy conditions and lost 35-17. The weather forecast calls for similar conditions this Saturday, so whichever team takes better care of the ball could be the one that wins.

Michigan did a great job of taking care of the ball last week, though it did get lucky, recovering a muffed punt by Jeremy Gallon. In theory, rainy conditions should favor Michigan’s running game over Notre Dame’s spread passing offense as long as Michigan holds onto the ball.

3. Don’t give up the big play

Notre Dame quarterback Dayne Crist is just a sophomore in his first year as a starter, just like Robinson, but he has a very talented group of pass catchers.

Two years ago, Golden Tate caught four passes for 127 yards and a touchdown. Last season, Tate and Michael Floyd torched the Michigan secondary with nine catches for 115 yards and two touchdowns and seven catches for 131 yards and one touchdown, respectively.

Michigan was able to survive the onslaught last season because the offense was able to keep up. Tate is gone to the NFL, but Floyd is still there, as is tight end Kyle Rudolph, which means there’s no guarantee that the Michigan offense will be able to keep up this season. The defense has to employ the bend-but-don’t-break attitude that it used last week, making Notre Dame work to get the ball down the field, rather than making big plays.

With safety Carvin Jonson out three-to-six weeks with a knee injury, the responsibility falls even greater on the defensive line to put pressure on Crist and keep him from settling in. If he does, he will pick the secondary apart.

4. Control the line of scrimmage

Michigan’s lines dominated UConn last week on both sides of the ball. There’s nothing to suggest it can’t do the same this week, as Notre Dame has a very young and inexperienced offensive line.

Defensively, Mike Martin, Ryan Van Bergen, Greg Banks, and Craig Roh should be able to get to Crist, but linebackers Obi Ezeh and Jonas Mouton have to keep an eye on Rudolph or else Crist will pick the defense apart over the middle.

Offensively, Michigan faces a 3-4 defense for the first time this season. Notre Dame nose tackle Ian Williams is big and slow and ends Ethan Johnson and Kapron Lewis-Moore didn’t do much to stop Michigan last season. Michigan’s line opened up holes for Robinson and running backs Michael Shaw and Vincent Smith to run through all game last week and if it can do the same, the offense will be able to put up points.

Overall, I think this is sure to be a shootout. Rodriguez will likely open up the playbook a little more than was needed last week, so don’t expect Robinson to get 29 carries again. Depending on the weather, look for a little bit more from the passing game.

Michigan is 2-8 in its last 10 road openers and 1-4 in its last five games in South Bend. Despite the great performance by Robinson last week, this will be his first start on the road in hostile territory, most likely in poor weather. He’s still unproven when forced to play from behind or use his arm to win the game, and I don’t think Michigan’s defense will be able to slow down Floyd and Rudolph enough to win the game.

Prediction:

I desperately hope I’m proven wrong, but Notre Dame wins at home, 37-31.

While offenses around the country struggled to shake off the rust of the offseason, Michigan sophomore quarterback Denard Robinson led touchdowns on three of his first four possessions en route to a 30-10 win over UConn.

Robinson, who got the start over last year’s starter, Tate Forcier, looked poised and confident all afternoon. The sophomore rushed 29 times for 197 yards and a touchdown and completed 19-of-22 passes for 186 yards and a touchdown against an experienced Husky defense.

He became just the fifth quarterback in the past five years to exceed 185 yards both on the ground and through the air, and if that’s an omen of what’s to come, things are certainly looking up in Ann Arbor. The others were West Virginia’s Pat White (under Rich Rodriguez), Texas’ Vince Young (twice), Missouri’s Brad Smith, and UAB’s Joseph Webb.

So is the performance against UConn what we can expect from the offense all season? Let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves.

It was certainly a great start to the season and refreshing for Michigan fans to see an offense that was virtually unstoppable for 60 minutes, but we have to be cautiously optimistic.

Last year started off with a bang as well, dominating Western Michigan and jumping out to a 4-0 record before falling back to earth in conference play and going just 1-7 the rest of the season. The true test of whether this offense is for real will be determined in conference play.

That being said, there were some very positive signs that point toward a much improved offense from a year ago.

1. Drive sustainability

Michigan had four touchdown drives of more than 70 yards, as well as a 75-yard drive that resulted in a field goal. Perhaps none was more important than the very first one.

After forcing a three-and-out on UConn’s first possession, Michigan took over just four yards in front of its own end zone. Fourteen plays later, sophomore running back Vincent Smith carried it in from 12 yards out, putting Michigan ahead 7-0. Call it a statement drive: 96 yards (plus 13 yards that Michigan lost on a personal foul committed by guard Patrick Omameh), 12 runs, two passes, and seven points.

Robinson rushed six times on the opening drive for 58 yards and completed both passes he threw for 23 yards. Just like that, questions of whether Robinson was ready to run the offense were answered.

Last season, Michigan had just 13 scoring drives of over 70 yards all year against FBS opponents (Michigan had four against Delaware State). For the Michigan offense to go out there with a quarterback making his first career start and put together five long scoring drives against an above average defense, it was quite a statement.

2. Ball possession

Robinson’s ability to move the ball kept Michigan’s suspect defense off the field. Michigan won the time of possession battle 36:52 to 23:08, the best since Rodriguez took over at Michigan in 2008. The next closest was in last season’s opener against Western Michigan, when Michigan held the ball for 34:20. In fact, that was the only game that Michigan won the time of possession battle last season and just the fourth time in his 25 games at Michigan.

While having the ball for longer than your opponent doesn’t necessarily lead to a win, it’s no secret that Michigan’s weakness this season is the defense. When UConn had the ball, it was able to move pretty effectively against the Michigan defense. Fortunately for Michigan, the Husky receivers didn’t help out quarterback Zach Frazer, dropping several open passes, and Michigan cornerback J.T. Floyd was able to force a fumble inside the five-yard line.

Make no mistake about it, the 10 points given up was not indicative of how well the defense played. It allowed eight plays of 15 yards or more and the game should have been much closer than it was.

The offense’s ability to keep the ball out of Frazer’s hands kept the defense off the field and the strength of the team on the field.

3. Ball security

Turnovers have plagued Rodriguez’s offenses the past two seasons. In 2008, Michigan committed 30, and in 2009, it gave the ball away 28 times. Saturday was the first time since Rodriguez’s second game in Ann Arbor on Sept. 6, 2008 that Michigan has gone turnover-free.

It was great to see Robinson hold onto the ball on his 29 carries and throw perfect passes to his receivers. His decision-making looked far better than last year and if he keeps making the right reads, the offense will continue to plow ahead.

4. Blocking

The offensive line is definitely a strength this season and that was no more apparent than on the first drive of the season. Center David Molk, guards Stephen Schilling and Patrick Omameh, and tackles Perry Dorrestein and Mark Huyge constantly opened up huge holes for Robinson and running backs Michael Shaw and Vincent Smith to run through.

Molk is definitely the heart and soul of the line, providing solid snaps and great protection. When he went down midway through the season last year was when Michigan’s offense started to struggle because it meant juggling the rest of the line to replace him. Provided the line stays healthy this year, it will remain a huge strength for the running game.

In a Rich Rodriguez offense, the receivers have to be just as adept at blocking downfield as they are running routes and catching passes. On several runs, the great blocking by Martavious Odoms, Darryl Stonum, Roy Roundtree, and Kelvin Grady sprung more yards than what should have been. That’s the reason Rodriguez starts Odoms, at just 5’8” and 175 pounds at outside receiver. Despite his small frame, he’s not afraid to throw a block to help earn extra yards.

5. Third-down conversions

Michigan converted 14-of-19 third-down conversions on Saturday, eight of them of more than six yards. Last season, Michigan averaged just under 40 percent on third-downs, which was exactly middle-of-the-pack in the national rankings.

That certainly won’t happen every week, but with a quarterback like Robinson, who can beat you with his feet and his arm, converting third downs is a little bit easier. In fact, this might be the most important aspect of the offense this season, since converting third downs keeps the ball in your hands, keeps your defense off the field, and gives you a chance to score.

It will be interesting to see how the offense handles adversity this season when forced to come from behind. Saturday’s game was never in doubt, as Michigan jumped out to a 21-0 lead before UConn closed the gap to 21-10 at halftime.

Michigan came out in the second half and used a 19-play, 74-yard field goal drive that took 8:05 off the clock. Robinson was effective when he established the running game, both on his own and with Shaw and Smith. That opened up the receivers, which made his throws that much easier. But what happens when Michigan is down 10 in the fourth quarter and can’t afford to keep running? I think that’s the biggest question at this point.

Rodriguez said after the game that he doesn’t plan to let Robinson run 29 times a game, and that’s a good thing. He took some hits and even had to come out of the game for a few plays with a hip bruise. According to Rodriguez, that’s what worked for this game, and Robinson didn’t need to throw more. But that won’t be the case for every game, especially since Michigan’s defense won’t be able to hold every opponent to 10 points.

Overall, it was a great way to start the season and even more encouraging than last season’s opener for a couple of reasons: because UConn is a good team, picked by many experts to win the Big East this season, and because while Robinson is a first-year starter, this is his second year in the system.

I’m certainly not knocking Tate Forcier, but last year no one knew what to expect. As a true freshman he came out of the gates hot, leading Michigan to a 4-0 record, but then everything caught up to him when conference play began and he fell back to earth.

This year, Michigan has a quarterback with a year of experience under his belt, so the performance was much more expected.

I still think a 7-5 record is where the team is headed this season, but next weekend’s opponent, Notre Dame, is one of the opponents I picked to beat Michigan. We’ll find out next Saturday if this week’s performance was indicative of the rest of the season or if it was just an upswing on the pendulum.

The Big Ten announced the layout of its two divisions beginning in 2011 and Big Ten fans across the country should be happy. While there was much speculation in recent days that Michigan and Ohio State being put in separate divisions would equal doom, since it could mean moving the historic game between the two rivals to mid-season, it didn’t happen. 

New Big Ten Divisions
“X” Division	“O” Division
Ohio State	Michigan
Penn State	Nebraska
Wisconsin	Iowa
Purdue	Michigan State
Illinois	Northwestern
Indiana	Minnesota

Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany came through with a layout that I believe is as good as it can get with two yet-to-be-named divisions, though I would still prefer one big conference with 12 teams where each team plays all the others. However, current NCAA rules require multiple divisions in order to hold a championship game, so if this is how it’s going to be, this announcement should please the masses.

First of all, the parity is perfect. Since Penn State joined the Big Ten in 1993, the six schools in the “O” Division have an overall record of 724-517-3 (58.3 percent), while the six schools in the “X” Division have an overall record of 708-517-9 (57.8 percent).

Narrowing down the sample size to the past decade doesn’t change the parity either, as the “O” Division had an overall record of 428-317 (57.4 percent) and the “X” Division had an overall record of 416-322 (56.4 percent).

It would appear that the “X” Division is a little bit more top-heavy with Ohio State (54-10), Penn State (51-13), and Wisconsin (48-17) ranking as the top three in the Big Ten in wins during the past five years. However, much of that disparity is a result of the past two seasons in which Michigan has gone just 8-16. In other words, when Michigan returns to form, the “X” Division won’t seem quite as top-heavy compared to the “O” Division.

The “O” Division seems to be more well-rounded from top to bottom, with only Minnesota (27-36) compiling a losing record during the last five years, while in the “X” Division, Purdue (30-32), Indiana (23-37), and Illinois (21-39) all featured losing records during that time period.

Protected Crossover Games
“X” Division		“O” Division
Ohio State	vs.	Michigan
Penn State	vs.	Nebraska
Wisconsin	vs.	Minnesota
Purdue	vs.	Iowa
Illinois	vs.	Northwestern
Indiana	vs.	Michigan State

Secondly, the existing rivalries will remain intact, most importantly Michigan-Ohio State. The announcement that The Game will remain at the end of the season will satisfy the vast majority of the Ohio State and Michigan fan bases whose outcry was mentioned by both Michigan Athletic Director Dave Brandon and Ohio State Athletic Director Gene Smith on the Big Ten Network’s announcement special. Even Nebraska Athletic Director Tom Osborne confessed to receiving phone calls and emails from angry Michigan and Ohio State  fans about moving The Game, some blaming him for causing the move.

Since the two teams are in separate divisions, the door is open for the possibility of playing twice in the same season, but realistically, that should rarely happen.

Keeping The Game as the last game of the conference schedule makes it essentially a do-or-die game, preserving the core of the rivalry – the chance to either make it to the next level or salvage your season by keeping the other from advancing. And that’s the way it should be. In 14 of the past 15 seasons, The Game has had implications on the Big Ten title.

Michigan will also be able to keep its rivalries alive with Michigan State and Minnesota (for the Little Brown Jug) in the “O” Division, while also forming a divisional rivalry with Nebraska, which claims a share of the 1997 National Championship with Michigan.

Other rivalries like Ohio State-Penn State and Purdue-Indiana will be played every season as well since they fall in the same division. The conference will also preserve other rivalries, such as Minnesota-Wisconsin, as protected crossover games.

Thirdly, and perhaps least importantly, the divisions fit well geographically. Not that the area encompassed by the Big Ten is all that big, but it’s essentially divided up into the north (the “O” Division) and the south (the “X” Division).

Nebraska is really the only outlier in the west, similar to Penn State in the east, and with the protected crossover game, the two will alternate home and away trips each year.

So how does this affect Michigan?.

Upcoming Michigan Big Ten Schedules
2011		2012
Oct. 1	Minnesota	Sept. 29	Bye
Oct. 8	Northwestern	Oct. 6	Purdue
Oct. 15	Michigan State	Oct. 13	Illinois
Oct. 22	Bye	Oct. 20	Michigan State
Oct. 29	Purdue	Oct. 27	Nebraska
Nov. 5	Iowa	Nov. 3	Minnesota
Nov. 12	Illinois	Nov. 10	Northwestern
Nov. 19	Nebraska	Nov. 17	Iowa
Nov. 26	Ohio State	Nov. 24	Ohio State
*Home Games in Bold
*2011 Big Ten Championship in Indianapolis

For starters, the schedule sets up perfectly for Michigan’s expected rise back to power in 2011. Michigan will get a break by seeing Penn State and Wisconsin drop off the schedule for the next two years and Purdue and Illinois added as the crossover games.

In addition, Michigan gets Nebraska and Ohio State at home, along with non-conference rival Notre Dame, setting up a dream home schedule for ticket-holders.

Trips to Michigan State and Iowa loom, but Iowa is a very senior-heavy team this season and will be breaking in a new quarterback in 2011 when Ricky Stanzi graduates.

Finishing out the season with Nebraska and Ohio State back-to-back is a tough way to close, but that’s exactly the way it should be. The teams should be playing at their best by the end of the season, so long as they stay healthy, so the final two weekends will virtually serve as play-in games for the Big Ten Championship. Ohio State hosts Penn State the week before traveling to Michigan as well.

All the talking heads saying Rich Rodriguez is on the hot seat this year should simmer down the burner because he’s not going anywhere.

With the combination of the 2011 schedule, 19 returning starters (counting senior cornerback Troy Wollfolk who is expected to redshirt for the 2010 season with an ankle injury), and third-year quarterbacks (Tate Forcier and Denard Robinson), the worst thing Michigan Athletic Director Dave Brandon could do is fire Rodriguez after this season.

For the Big Ten as a whole, today’s announcement should be seen very favorably. For Michigan fans, this announcement just gives us another reason to get excited for 2011. 

For now, though, there’s another season to play – the last of the old Big Ten.

Being a Michigan fan that grew up in Ohio and currently lives in New York, I’m constantly bombarded with ridicule from friends and family about the state of the Michigan football program.

“Wow, Michigan has really fallen apart; I don’t think they’ll ever be the same,” one will say, or “Don’t you wish you had a quality coach like Tressel?” another will ask.

In passing conversation, especially with an Ohio State fan, it’s impossible to adequately describe the perfect storm that has been Michigan football the past two seasons.

So as we enter Week 1 of the 2010 college football season, let’s put into words how Michigan’s recent demise, while frustrating, is not quite as bad as it seems.

Be Careful What You Wish For

On the surface, it’s easy to pronounce, “Carr never had a losing season and Rodriguez has losing seasons in each of his first two years, therefore, Rodriguez is a terrible coach and must be fired.”

Yet, a little critical thinking will tell you that there’s more to it than that. The blame for the past two seasons should be as much on former Michigan Athletic Director Bill Martin as on Head Coach Rich Rodriguez. It was Martin, after all, who decided to take Michigan down a completely new path to modernity following Carr’s retirement after the 2007 season.

Carr was a conservative coach who continued the success of his mentor, Michigan legend Bo Schembechler, combining with Bo and Gary Moeller to guide the program to 40 straight winning seasons and 33 straight bowl games. His teams were never going to go out and put up 60 points or step on an opponent’s throat while it was down. But they were never going to get blown out either.

That was both a blessing and a curse. Carr’s safe approach, whether it was punting on fourth-and-one from the opponent’s 45 with a minute and-a-half left in the half, or running three straight times to wind down the clock late in the game while clinging to a two-point lead, worked out more often than not. However, in the few instances when it gave the opponent enough time to score before the half, or gave the opponent the ball back with a chance to drive for the winning score, it was enraging. Michigan fans were constantly calling for Carr to stop being so conservative and some were even calling for him to be fired.

When Martin went out and hired an offensive innovator from West Virginia, some Michigan fans were disappointed that he didn’t get former Michigan offensive lineman Les Miles, while others were intrigued by the notion of the spread offense in Ann Arbor.

Martin knew upon hiring Rodriguez that, while he was an offensive genius, that coaching IQ fit a certain system. His style of coaching doesn’t mesh with the 320-pound offensive linemen and statuesque quarterbacks of Michigan past. He needs smaller, quicker offensive linemen and dual-threat quarterbacks. Whether you think that’s the sign of a good coach or not, that’s what Martin hired.

Right off the bat, Michigan fans expecting a carry-over from the Schembechler/Moeller/Carr regime were in for a letdown. That blame cannot be pinned on Rodriguez.

An Empty Cupboard Won’t Yield a Feast

Carr officially retired following the 2007 season, but he seemingly checked out a couple of years prior. He first hinted at calling it quits prior to 2007 and many believe that had Michigan beaten Ohio State in 2006 and advanced to the National Championship game, Carr’s exit would have come then.

He entered 2007 with a senior four-year-starter at quarterback (Chad Henne) and a hot-shot freshman (Ryan Mallett) backing him up. Part of Carr’s bait to hook Mallett, the number two quarterback in the 2006 high school class, was that the job was his when Henne graduated and Carr wouldn’t recruit a quarterback in the 2007 class.

Mallett, however, had trouble adjusting to Ann Arbor, butting heads with Carr during his freshman season, while being thrust into playing time during Henne’s injury-plagued senior season. By all accounts, Mallett intended to return home following that season regardless of who the coach was in 2008.

Following that season, Henne graduated along with four-year starting running back Mike Hart and left tackle Jake Long (the 1^st overall pick in the 2008 NFL Draft). Junior wide receivers Mario Manningham and Adrian Arrington chose to enter the Draft and left guard Adam Kraus graduated, leaving Rodriguez with just a handful of returning starters on offense, none of which were suited for his offense.

The coaching transition was further slowed when Rodriguez lost out on Terrelle Pryor to Ohio State and offensive lineman Justin Boren bolted for Ohio State, bad-mouthing the program on his way out.* Pryor’s talents fit Rodriguez’s system and would have made some difference in 2008 and Boren certainly had the talent, but wasn’t committed to working hard enough for Rodriguez’s system.

Instead, Rodriguez was left with less talent and experience on offense than the majority of college football. His choice at quarterback was a freshman (Steven Threet) or a walk-on junior (Nick Sheridan), neither of which had any game experience and neither was suited for Rodriguez’s system. That alone wouldn’t have doomed the Wolverines had there been an experienced supporting cast to make up for it.

The best running back Rodriguez had was also a true freshman, Sam McGuffie, a Carr recruit who would have redshirted in any normal situation. The top receiver was a true freshman as well, Martavious Odoms, one of Rodriguez’s first recruits at Michigan who is more suited to be a supporting receiver rather than the lead role.

It’s certainly no stretch to say that no team in college football history has succeeded with freshmen starting at quarterback, running back, and wide receiver, no matter how highly-touted they are coming out of high school. It’s also no stretch to say that no coach in the country could have fared well with what Rodriguez had to work with in 2008.

Essentially, Rodriguez had two choices: to design a completely new playbook to fit the talents of the players Carr left behind or to begin installing his spread ‘n shred offense.

The former might have yielded another win or two that season, allowing Threet and Sheridan to be drop-back passers and McGuffie to run for three yards and a cloud of dust. Yet it would have set back the progression of the offense Rodriguez was going to install – the one he made his living on in working his way up from Glennville State to Tulane to Clemson to West Virginia and, ultimately, to Michigan.

The latter would at least get that progression started for Odoms and the rest of the players recruited by Rodriguez specifically for that offense.

Again, keep in mind that Martin didn’t hire a coach who then surprised everyone by running some wacky offense that no one knew about. Martin knew when he hired Rodriguez that he was essentially a system coach and the best in his field.

To expect that system to work from Day 1 is ludicrous even if he had Henne, Hart, and Long. Simply put, Michigan didn’t have the right players and that’s not Rodriguez’s fault.

Imagine if Schwinn Bicycle Company hired a new CEO who decided the company was going to start making airplanes. While the company is great at making bikes, handlebars and spokes will only fly so far. Mr. CEO would have to begin acquiring the necessary components to build airplanes and it wouldn’t happen overnight.

In the world of college football, players stay in a system for four or five years, making the roster turnover a slow process. It’s impossible to just get rid of 100-plus players of the old regime and bring in 100-plus of your guys. It takes four or five years to turn over the roster, and in theory, the results should progress each year.

By planting the seeds of his offense from Day 1, Rodriguez began to water the roots of his system.

In 2009, Rodriguez was able to land two quarterbacks that fit his offensive style, Tate Forcier and Denard Robinson. Threet transferred to Arizona State when he realized he was a square peg in a round hole and Sheridan was relegated to third string.

In one sense, Rodriguez has progressed with Odoms and the rest of the returnees from 2008 already having a knowledge base of the system. But on the other hand, he was back at square one, having to start another true freshman at quarterback.

Even so, the offense showed marked year-over-year improvement, going from 20.2 points and 290.8 yards per game in 2008 to 29.5 points and 384.5 yards per game in 2009. It just lacked consistency as a result of inexperience.

Reporters With an Axe to Grind

The next fodder for the anti-Rodriguez crowd is the allegation of cheating which was exposed by the Detroit Free Press last August. While all kinds of conspiracy theories exist, the fact is that the Free Press’ reports were nothing short of slanted, biased and exaggerated.

The paper’s writers, Michael Rosenberg and Mark Snyder, succeeded in creating a national sense of animosity towards Rodriguez and ego-boosting by fans of other schools.

The NCAA’s probe, released in February found five violations that in any other situation would be considered the minor, slap-on-the-wrist types that are constantly self-reported or overlooked by other schools. However, as a result of the “Freep Jihad,” the NCAA came down hard, finding five so-called major violations.

While all are nothing more than what would be found at nearly every other school in the country, the national perception is that Michigan and Rich Rodriguez knowingly cheated. It’s easy to create that perception when you’re a reporter with an axe to grind. Just find a couple of disgruntled former players who will gladly trash their former coach as well as a few ignorant freshmen and distort their words. In that way, the situation in Ann Arbor is different than everywhere else.

There is no doubt that Ohio State would find itself behind the eight-ball if the Columbus Dispatch decided to declare jihad on the school. Just this summer the Ohio State athletic department self-reported 13 minor violations between Jan. 1 and July 1, six involving the football program. In fact, since 2000, Ohio State has self-reported 375 minor violations (across all sports), the most of any school in the NCAA. By comparison, Oklahoma has self-reported 224 and Florida 112. 

This leads to two possible conclusions: either Ohio State purposely crosses the line just a little bit, and decides every now and then to self-report just to keep the NCAA at bay; or Ohio State’s athletic department and coaching staff don’t monitor the rule book well enough to know that they shouldn’t keep making these kinds of mistakes.

Either way, if the Dispatch decided that instead of just reporting these violations, they were going to dive in and blow them out of proportion, the NCAA would almost certainly have to come down hard.

So the issue isn’t that Rich Rodriguez is a cheating scumbag; it’s that he didn’t meet the standards of two local reporters.

I’m not saying that Michigan wasn’t wrong, but failing to count 10 minutes of stretching as countable practice time certainly doesn’t justify the national perception created by Rosenberg and Snyder, nor does it create any more of a competitive advantage than those 375 minor violations at Ohio State.

To Paraphrase Arnold, We’ll Be Back

So now that Rodriguez finds himself firmly on the proverbial hot seat, many consider him all but gone if Michigan fails to have a great season this year. But that’s not the case.

If absolutely no progress is shown and another losing season is the end result, then it could happen. But a winning season, a bowl game, and signs of progress assure a fourth season on the job because 2011 promises to be a good one.

Following this season, Michigan loses only one starter on the offensive side (left guard Stephen Schilling) and two on the defensive side (linebackers Obi Ezeh and Jonas Mouton).

When senior cornerback Troy Woolfolk went down with a season-ending ankle injury last week, it was both a blessing and a curse. Woolfolk won’t be able to help out a very thin secondary this season, but intends to come back for his senior season in 2011, so a position that will be a weakness this season will be a strength next year.

In addition to 18 starters returning (19 if you count getting Woolfolk back), quarterbacks Tate Forcier and Denard Robinson will be in their third season running the offense. By then, their comfort level will be enough to ensure an offense sure to be as vaunted as those Rodriguez featured at West Virginia.

The schedule also sets up nicely with Notre Dame, Wisconsin, and Ohio State at home, Penn State off the schedule, and Western Michigan, Eastern Michigan, and San Diego State as the other non-conference opponents (although the conference schedule may change due to the realignment and addition of Nebraska).  

In other words, Michigan Athletic Director Dave Brandon would be ill-advised to fire Rodriguez after this season unless things really blow up. I don’t support firing him this season anyway, since 2011 will really be the determining season.

Consider 2010 the primer for a run at the inaugural Big Ten Championship next season. Don’t write off Rodriguez and the Wolverines just yet, because it’s not quite as bad as it seems.

________________________________________________________________________________

*Many have also piled on Rodriguez for the players that have left the program for various reasons, such as Boren and wide receiver Toney Clemons who transfered, Justin Feagen and Boubacar Cissoko who were kicked off the team, and others who failed to qualify. Yet they forget that Carr had the same troubles.

In 2007 alone, Carr dismissed tight end Carson Butler, defensive end Eugene Germany, and cornerback Chris Richards from the team for violating team rules, backup quarterback Jason Forcier (Tate’s older brother) transfered to Stanford, and linebacker Cobrani Mixon transfered to Kent State (all of which subsequently hurt the depth of Rodriguez’s teams).

Starting spots usually aren’t won or lost in spring practice, but young guys get a chance to prove themselves and gain experience while everyone else gets to show how much they developed throughout the winter.

Development was apparent in one key player today, as sophomore quarterback Denard Robinson lived up to the hype he’s been garnering all spring with a fantastic performance in Michigan’s annual spring game.

On the first possession of the scrimmage, Robinson guided the first-team offense down the field on a touchdown drive that included a nice bootleg pass to Roy Roundtree. Robinson ran it in from 10 yards out to cap off the drive.

On his next possession, which the offense started on its own three-yard line, Robinson hit Roundtree perfectly in stride about 25 yards downfield and Roundtree did the rest, outrunning the secondary for a 97-yard touchdown.

Later on, Robinson found Roundtree in the end zone again, this time from 12 yards out.

In the overtime drill, which simulates an overtime possession, starting from the opponent’s 25-yard line, Robinson completed a touchdown pass to Martavious Odoms from about 10 yards out. On his next possession, also the overtime drill, he threaded the needle for a 24-yard pass to Terrance Robinson to set up another touchdown.

By my count, Robinson led five drives, two of them overtime possessions, and all five resulted in touchdowns. Some of this can be attributed to playing against the second-team defense, but with the way Robinson was throwing, it wouldn’t have mattered if the first-team defense was out there or not.

One of the quirks about the spring game is that the quarterback is down once he’s touched in an effort to avoid an injury. On many of Robinson’s runs, he would have picked up significantly more yardage if he had to actually be tackled.

Most importantly, he showed poise in the pocket, where last year he would tuck and run after three milliseconds. A few times, he looked through several reads before pulling it down and running. On a couple of plays, he kept his head up while on the move and delivered an accurate strike to an open receiver.

This wouldn’t be all that significant if you hadn’t seen him play last season. While he dazzled Michigan fans with his feet in open space, his accuracy was terrible to the point where Michigan fans would rather him just run it up the middle for five yards even though the defense knew he’d do exactly that, than even attempt to throw a pass.

Today, he looked comfortable running the offense and seemed to be having as much fun out there as any other player in the maize and blue. About the only aspect that looked like it needed some work was a couple of bubble screens that were either underthrown or led the receiver too far.

I wish the coaches would have switched things up to pit Robinson against the first-team defense, but it was an impressive performance nonetheless.

The development and comfort level was evident and showed how dangerous a Robinson-led offense can be when every pass thrown doesn’t end up in the wrong hands.

Last year, almost every time he lined up in the shotgun the defense knew he was going to run it. He rarely even ran the zone read, the staple of Rich Rodriguez’s offense.

This year, he should know the offense and be able to effectively run the zone read, and if he can prove he has any kind of accuracy, he would be the ideal quarterback for this offense.

I certainly realize it’s a lot of “ifs” and you can’t really jump to conclusions based on the spring game, but at this point, I would say Robinson is the starting quarterback heading into the summer.

Click here to see highlights of the top 10 plays from the spring game.

Notes:

— Tate Forcier, who started all 12 games as a true freshman last year, looked basically the exact same, although he was working with the second-team offense against the first-team defense.

He made some good plays, scrambling away from pressure and hitting the receiver on the run, but he also made some mistakes.

One pass should have been picked off by linebacker Mike Jones and another was forced into quadruple coverage and somehow wasn’t picked. He also made a bad pitch on an option play, which was recovered by the running back for about a 10 yard loss.

On the bright side, he completed a nice, across-the-body touchdown pass to Je’Ron Stokes in the overtime drill.

—Freshman Devin Gardner started out shaky, fumbling a handoff on his first play and throwing an interception deep in his own territory to Obi Ezeh, but seemed to rebound nicely with a 20-yard seam pass to Brandon Moore.

He looked nimble with his feet, but still has a weird throwing motion that needs to be fixed. He could be great a year or two from now, but I’m glad we don’t have to start another true freshman this season. He’s certainly headed for a redshirt barring a freak injury to Robinson or Forcier.

—Roy Roundtree is the real deal. He played just as he finished last season and looks to be Michigan’s go-to guy this year. He caught deep balls and screens and showed some speed in pulling away from the secondary on the 97-yard touchdown.

—The running back position has a lot of guys vying for playing time and no one really stood out today. With Vincent Smith assumed to be the starter out with a torn ACL, it seems to be a three-horse race between Michael Shaw, Michael Cox, and Fitzgerald Toussaint.

It’s perhaps the most important position that needs someone to step up, at least on the offensive side of the ball, after the departure of Brandon Minor, Carlos Brown, and Kevin Grady.

Cox had a nice touchdown run of about 20 yards against the first-team defense and the other guys didn’t do very much.

Freshman Stephen Hopkins showed some good strength and should see playing time as the short-yardage back this season.

—The defense didn’t show much today in the way of schemes or big plays. Ryan Van Bergen and Craig Roh got some good pressure on Forcier and William Campbell looks huge in the middle of the line.

Troy Woolfolk sat out the game with a dislocated finger and converted wide receiver James Rogers started in his place, opposite J.T. Floyd. Jordan Kovacs remains the starter at one of the safety spots, at least until Marvin Robinson and Demar Dorsey arrive on campus this summer.

The secondary will continue to be the group in question as the season nears, but linebacker will also be a position to watch. Seniors Obi Ezeh and Jonas Mouton both have a lot of experience, but lost some playing time last season. They both started today, with Ezeh recording an interception and Mouton looking solid.

Redshirt sophomore Kenny Demens also looked promising and could factor in this season as well.

—The kicking game looked pretty shaky and will probably be so all season. Redshirt freshman kicker Brendan Gibbons figures to be the placekicker, but the lefty sure can’t punt. Two of his three punt attempts were shanked out of bounds off the side of his foot.

The punter role seems to be incoming freshman Will Hagerup’s to lose, but he hasn’t even arrived on campus yet, so he better live up to his high school acclaim.

—The stadium looked a bit more than half full, despite the frigid temperatures. The Big Ten Network announcers placed the attendance around 30,000, but it looked to be slightly more.

I’m looking forward to a couple of years from now when Michigan can have a nationally televised spring game drawing near 100,000 fans like Alabama did today.

National Signing Day came and went with Michigan making a huge late-minute splash, adding four-star safety Demar Dorsey from Lauderdale Lakes, Fla. The 6′1″, 175lb. star originally committed to Florida before backing out and eventually choosing the Wolverines, giving Michigan a very solid safety class.

Who are the rest of the high school seniors that round out the class? Here’s a breakdown by position, starting with the offense (defense to follow soon):

Quarterbacks (2)
Quarterback Devin Gardner	DEVIN GARDNER Height: 6-4 Weight: 195 Hometown: Detroit, Mich. (Inkster) Rivals Ranking: #1 dual-threat QB (4-star) Scout Ranking: #5 overall QB (5-star) ESPN Ranking: #5 overall QB (4-star) Chose Michigan Over: Notre Dame, Wisconsin, Purdue, Oregon, Nebraska, Michigan State, West Virginia, Iowa, Cincinnati. How He Fits In: Gardner is the ideal quarterback for Rich Rodriguez’s system. He’s a big, strong, fast, and athletic dual-threat quarterback that has a chance to be an absolute star in Ann Arbor by the time his career is over. The biggest improvement needed is his passing game. He has a strong arm, but needs to develop the stamina to last a full season. A red-shirt is almost guaranteed for Gardner, and with a year of practice and strength and conditioning under his belt, should factor into the starting quarterback race in 2011. Gardner enrolled at Michigan in January and will participate in spring ball, giving Michigan three solid quarterbacks on the roster to push each other.
Quarterback Conelius Jones	CONELIUS JONES Height: 6-2 Weight: 197 Hometown: Spartanburg, SC (Spartanburg) Rivals Rank: NR (3-star) Scout Rank: #60 QB (3-star) ESPN Rank: #92 Athlete (3-star) Chose Michigan Over: Wake Forest, Duke, Stanford, Syracuse How He Fits In: Jones gives Rodriguez a second dual-threat quarterback in the class, though he could move to defensive back because of the three quarterbacks ahead of him (Tate Forcier, Denard Robsinon, and Gardner). He’s an athletic guy with a great body frame for both quarterback and defensive back. Ideally, he’ll start out as Michigan’s fourth quarterback until Gardner is up-to-speed, and then look for a change of position to utilize his athleticism.
Running Backs (2)
Running Back Stephen Hopkins	STEPHEN HOPKINS Height: 6-0 Weight: 235 Hometown: Flower Mound, Texas (Marcus) Rivals Ranking: NR (3-star) Scout Ranking: #52 RB (3-star) ESPN Ranking: #50 RB (3-star) Chose Michigan Over: Texas A&M, Kansas, Stanford, Kansas State, SMU How He Fits In: Hopkins is a big back that isn’t the typical scat back preferred by Rodriguez, but fits the mold of departing tailback Brandon Minor. Hopkins will join the stable of backs competing for the starting job and in time could give Rodriguez a solid power back to complement the smaller guys. He probably will never be the go-to guy, but gives Rodriguez a short-yardage bruiser. He also enrolled at Michigan in January and will have a semester of workouts under his belt when fall camp begins.
Running Back Austin White	AUSTIN WHITE Height: 6-0 Weight: 186 Hometown: Livonia, Mich. (Stevenson) Rivals Ranking: #10 All-purpose back (3-star) Scout Ranking: #15 RB (4-star) ESPN Ranking: #77 RB (3-star) Chose Michigan Over: Michigan State, Illinois, LSU, Wisconsin, Iowa, Purdue How He Fits In: White also enrolled at Michigan in January and fits into a position group in which Michigan has plenty of, thus a redshirt is virtually guaranteed. He’s the type of back that Rodriguez likes — versatile and quick — and can catch the ball out of the backfield. He’s kind of a Reggie Bush type of player (not saying he’ll have the type of career Bush did at USC) who can line up in the backfield, in the slot, catch passes out of the backfield, etc.
Wide Receivers (4)
Wide Receiver Jeremy Jackson	JEREMY JACKSON Height: 6-3 Weight: 194 Hometown: Ann Arbor, Mich. (Huron) Rivals Ranking: NR (3-star) Scout Ranking: #79 WR (3-star) ESPN Ranking: #39 WR (4-star) Chose Michigan Over: Florida, LSU, Minnesota, Louisville, Iowa, Nebraska, Stanford, Tennessee, Texas How He Fits In: Jackson is the son of long-time Michigan running backs coach Fred Jackson. He has great size for an outside receiver and his solid hands and route running more than make up for his lack of elite speed. Jackson should be a reliable possession receiver for Michigan in the years to come. Like Gardner, Hopkins, and White, Jackson enrolled at Michigan in January to get a semester of weights and practice under his belt.
Wide Receiver Ricardo Miller	RICARDO MILLER Height: 6-2 Weight: 208 Hometown: Ann Arbor, Mich. (Pioneer) Rivals Ranking: #66 WR (3-star) Scout Ranking: #27 WR (4-star) ESPN Ranking: #27 WR (4-star) Chose Michigan Over: Florida, South Florida, Tennessee, Stanford, Central Florida, Miami, LSU How He Fits In: Miller is a big wide receiver with great versatility. Originally from Florida, Miller moved to Ann Arbor prior to last season in order to finish his high school career near the U of M. His combination of size and speed could make Miller a No. 1 receiver at Michigan in a couple of years. Also enrolling at Michigan in January, Miller has a chance to see the field next season as Michigan’s fourth or fifth receiver while he continues to develop his route running and hands.
Wide Receiver Jerald Robinson	JERALD ROBINSON Height: 6-2 Weight: 175 Hometown: Canton, Ohio (Canton South) Rivals Ranking: #48 WR (3-star) Scout Ranking: #41 WR (3-star) ESPN Ranking: #99 WR (3-star) Chose Michigan Over: Cincinnati, Michigan State, Illinois, Purdue, Pittsburgh How He Fits In: Robinson is a great athlete with a very lanky frame, great hands, and superb route running. The Ohio native was offered a scholarship from Ohio State late, but he was alredy committed to Michigan. Also enrolling at Michigan in January, Robsinon has a shot at seeing the field next season. He would do well to add some muscle, but his quickness and ability to go up and get the ball in space should earn him some playing time.
Wide Receiver D.J. Williamson	D.J. WILLIAMSON Height: 6-1 Weight: 172 Hometown: Warren, Ohio (Harding) Rivals Ranking: NR (3-star) Scout Ranking: NR (2-star) ESPN Ranking: #54 WR (3-star) Chose Michigan Over: Illinois, West Virginia, Kansas, Indiana How He Fits In: Williamson is the flier of the class. He hails from the school that produced former Wolverines Mario Manningham, Prescott Burgess, and Desmond Howard. His blazing speed (he won the Ohio state track championship with a 10.82 in the 100-meters during his junior year) complement the rest of Michigans receiver class. He’s a converted running back and is still working to develop his pure receiving skills, but his speed and athleticism make him an intriguing prospect. He’s the only receiver in the class not enrolling early, so he’ll have some catching up to do and will most certainly redshirt.
Slot Receivers (1)
Slot Receiver Drew Dileo	DREW DILEO Height: 5-10 Weight: 175 Hometown: Greenwell Springs, La. (Parkview Baptist) Rivals Ranking: #73 Athlete (3-stars) Scout Ranking: #101 WR (3-stars) ESPN Ranking: #138 Athlete (3-stars) Chose Michigan Over: Stanford, Virginia, Northwestern, Tulane How He Fits In: Dileo is small and reminiscent of former Michigan running back Sam McGuffie, who played one season and then transferred to Rice. His quickness and ability to return kicks will allow him to challenge for playing time in Michigan’s return game, especially if he proves he can catch the ball. He won’t factor into the offense for a year or two, playing behind Martaveous Odoms, Kelvin Grady, and Terrence Robinson while he learns the offense, but the hope is that he turns into a Wes Welker-type player.
Offensive Linemen (1)
Offensive Lineman Christian Pace	CHRISTIAN PACE Height: 6-3 Weight: 262 Hometown: Avon Lake, Ohio (Avon Lake) Rivals Ranking: #7 C (3-star) Scout Ranking: ESPN Ranking: #13 Offensive Guard (3-star) Chose Michigan Over: Pittsburgh, Michigan State, Louisville, Florida State, NC State How He Fits In: Pace will undoubtedly redshirt next season, as most offensive linemen do to bulk up and get acclimated to college football. A very strong lineman for his small stature, Pace excels at run blocking, which is nice for Rodriguez’s system. He should have a few years to bulk up and learn the system before seeing the field when current starting center David Molk graduates.

Overview

Although Rodriguez signed just 10 players on the offensive side of the ball in this class, those who signed filled needs and complement one another well. The biggest commit was definitely Gardner, who will be Michigan’s quarterback of the future—the only question is when.

Rodriguez does not want to start a true freshman quarterback again, so Gardner will most likely redshirt, allowing Forcier to man the position for a second straight year. In 2011, Gardner will compete for the starting job and could supplant Forcier, since he’s bigger and more athletic.

The addition of Hopkins adds a big back to go along with Michigan’s wealth of small guys and replace Minor and Kevin Grady.

The four outside receivers were probably a bit much for one class, but will provide depth at the position to help stretch the field for the slot ninjas. Dileo is one of the slot ninjas and will give Michigan a true return man, which it has lacked in the past couple of years.

The only position that suffered in this class was the offensive line. Rodriguez signed just three offensive linemen in 2009 and runs the danger of a ridiculously thin position group in a couple of years. The current junior and senior classes are fairly solid, but Rodriguez really needed more than one commit in 2010.

There’s still the tiniest sliver of hope out there for Seantrel Henderson, the nation’s top recruit, who verbally committed to USC, but won’t sign until he finds out about the impending NCAA penalties the program faces. But Henderson reportedly isn’t even considering Michigan (his top five outside of USC were Miami, Florida, Ohio State, Notre Dame, and Minnesota). Unless Rodriguez can replicate the magic he used on Dorsey, Henderson isn’t coming anywhere near Ann Arbor.

Overall, it’s a small offensive class, but solid nonetheless. If Rodriguez had gotten more offensive linemen to provide depth at the position, it would have been a good one. Because of that, I’m giving the class a C+.

With another losing season in the books, the Michigan football program appears to be in disarray to many outsiders, as well as a fraction of the Michigan fan-base.

But is everything doom and gloom for this squad, or is there help on the way? Is head coach Rich Rodriguez in over his head in the Big Ten, or has he already laid the groundwork for success?

On this Thanksgiving day, as we visit with loved ones, stuff our faces with turkey and pumpkin pie, and watch the Cowboys and Lions, let’s take an early look at what the 2010 version of Michigan football will look like.

Certainly a lot of questions have to be answered, and I believe it starts with the players Rodriguez already has in the program.

Freshman quarterback Tate Forcier played the entire season and at times looked like a confident veteran, but at times looked every bit the 18-year old freshman he was.

He enrolled early at Michigan last January, a move that greatly helped earn him the starting job over last year’s returning starter, walk-on junior Nick Sheridan.

Forcier led comeback wins over Notre Dame and Indiana, brought the team back from 14 points down to force overtime at Michigan State, and performed well in late-season conference games against Illinois, Purdue, and Wisconsin.

But he was also prone to throwing the ball up for grabs, not securing the ball when scrambling, and making the wrong reads on zone option running plays.

These mistakes speak more toward his youth and inexperience than his true talent level. His solid performances showed he has the talent to be Michigan’s quarterback for the next three years.

The good thing is that the mistakes are correctable and will be cured by more time spent on the practice field, in the film room, and in the weight room. In short, we have a bright future ahead at the quarterback position.

Another off-season under strength and conditioning coach Mike Barwis will help Forcier add muscle to his slight frame and help avoid injuries. Many forget that Forcier played most of the season with a sprained AC join in his shoulder – the same injury Oklahoma quarterback Sam Bradford suffered, albeit to a lesser degree.

As Forcier gets more practice time and learns more of the playbook, his understanding of Rodriguez’s complicated “spread-n-shred” offense will grow.

Many of those misreads when he kept the ball instead of handing it off, or when he handed it off and should have kept it, will be fixed next year and in the years that follow.

In addition, he will improve with his passing reads, as he gets more comfortable in the system. This season, he tended to pull it down and scramble the instant he sniffed pressure. His creativity and ability to throw on the run covered up some of these problems, but it also led to turnovers or a failure to throw the ball away.

You can’t fault the kid for trying too hard. Some of the ill advised throws were a result of just trying to make something happen, but will be fixed with experience. Some of the plays he made in the comeback against Notre Dame were the same type of plays that resulted in turnovers down the stretch, as was glaringly evident against the great defense of Ohio State.

Forcier’s background leads me to believe he’ll be a fantastic quarterback. He was groomed to play the position, trained under Marv Marinovich, and has two older brothers that play quarterback as well. The mechanics are there, as is the quarterback mentality. Now, he just needs to develop in Rodriguez’s offense and he’ll be fine.

Michigan’s other quarterback, fellow freshman Denard Robinson has a lot further to go in his development, but is also a great fit for Rodriguez’s offense.

Robinson didn’t enroll early, so he had only about a month of practice prior to Michigan’s opening game against Western Michigan. The majority of the action Robinson saw was designed runs to utilize his athletic ability.

Early in the season it worked. He scored four rushing touchdowns in Michigan’s first seven games. As the season progressed and the meat of the schedule was reached, opposing defenses caught on and stacked up to stop the run whenever he entered the game.

It was frustrating at times to see Robinson come in, knowing he was going to run, and get stuffed for little gain. Yet, we have to remember that he had very little practice time and doesn’t yet possess the passing ability needed to be a quarterback for a major Division 1 quarterback.

Unlike Forcier, who already possesses the mechanical skills, Robinson will take more work to develop. But his upside is his athletic ability, which is much greater than Forcier’s.

His touchdown run against Western Michigan left Michigan fans salivating for him to be used in a Percy Harvin-type role.

Late in the season we saw more plays in which Robinson lined up in the backfield next to Forcier or spread out wide running a fly pattern. Against Ohio State, he was thrown to deep a couple of times, although neither was completed, and one was intercepted.

I think we were all a bit impatient throughout the season, assuming that it would be easy to thrust him into plays at running back or receiver. However, with the dire need of quarterback depth in case of a Forcier injury, and merely the fact that Robinson was a true freshman, time spent practicing plays at other positions meant time spent not developing at quarterback.

In the future, when Rodriguez adds to the quarterback depth, he will have more flexibility in using Robinson in other roles. But during the course of this season, I think we overlooked the need to keep him where he was.

Next year, that depth will be added to by Inkster, Mich. quarterback Devin Gardner. The dual-threat quarterback fits the mold of Rodriguez’s ideal quarterback perfectly and his arrival in Ann Arbor is highly anticipated.

In his senior season at Inkster High School, Gardner has thrown for 1,472 yards and 14 touchdowns to just three interceptions, and rushed for over 700 yards and 15 touchdowns. He has led his team to the state championship game against Lowell on Friday.

Scouts compare him to Penn State’s Darryl Clark former Auburn (and current Washington Redskins) quarterback Jason Campbell. They are high on his size and strength, as well as his arm strength and running ability.

An ideal situation would be to redshirt him next season and allow him to develop and learn the system until Forcier and Robinson graduate and then take over for his junior and senior seasons.

But with his talent, will he be patient enough to wait in the wings for three years? In order for Rodriguez’s system to succeed, I hope he’s unselfish enough to do so.

Granted, there’s always the possibility of Gardner coming in and beating out Forcier and Robinson for the starting job next season or the year after, and if that’s the case, then by all means, the guy that gives Michigan the best chance to win should play.

Whatever the case, the centerpiece of Rodriguez’s system is in place and the future looks bright at the quarterback position.

The backfield is where Michigan loses the most talent, but due to the nature of Rodriguez’s system and the injuries that Michigan suffered this season, the stable is not empty.

Seniors Brandon Minor and Carlos Brown will be big losses, and certainly their absences in many of the games hurt Michigan’s chances for success, but it also allowed young guys to gain experience.

The most impressive runner late in the season was freshman Vincent Smith. His performance in Michigan’s spring game last April gave Michigan fans a glimpse of what he is capable of, but he didn’t see much action through the first half of the season.

But in Michigan’s final two games, against Wisconsin and Ohio State, Smith emerged as Michigan’s go-to back, displaying quickness and pass-catching ability.

He figures to enter 2010 as Michigan’s starting tailback.

Sophomore Michael Shaw has also shown some ability and as his vision for the field improves, could develop into a nice complement to Smith.

His main problem has been that he doesn’t cut through the gaps quick enough, instead always relying on getting around the outside.

Redshirt freshman Michael Cox got some playing time as Michigan’s fifth running back and still has some time to grow. He’ll certainly get a chance to prove himself and earn some more playing time with the graduation of Minor and Brown.

True freshman Fitzgerald Toussaint is a guy that many Michigan fans were excited about coming out of high school. He redshirted this season and will also get a chance in the off-season to earn a role in the offense.

Incoming freshmen Tony Drake, Stephen Hopkins, and Austin White (all three-stars) should give Michigan plenty of options in the backfield.

Receiver is a position that Michigan certainly isn’t lacking talent. A go-to guy emerged in the second half of the season, in redshirt freshman Roy Roundtree. He caught 30 passes for 390 yards and two touchdowns in the final four games of the season.

Though he lacks elite speed, Roundtree showed great hands and a willingness to go across the middle. He should enter 2010 as Michigan’s number one receiver, but it will be interesting to see if he stays in the slot or moves to the outside to replace senior Greg Mathews.

By the time next season rolls around, Michigan will have a lot of experience with sophomore Martavious Odoms in the slot. Odoms started as a true freshman in 2008 and was one of Michigan’s lone bright spots, leading the team in receiving with 49 catches for 443 yards.

Injuries forced him to miss a couple of games late in the season this year, but that could be a blessing in disguise as it opened the door for Roundtree’s emergence.

Also in the slot, sophomore Kelvin Grady showed good speed early in the season, but dropped balls caused him to lose playing time. The former Michigan basketball player definitely has the athleticism to be effective; he just needs to work on catching the ball and he could develop into a weapon in the next couple of years.

A freshman that redshirted this season, Jeremy Gallon could factor into the equation as well. He was highly regarded coming out of high school last year, and a year learning the system should allow him to see some playing time next season.

A wild card in the slot could be incoming freshman Drew Dileo. A 5’9” 170 pound white guy, Dileo committed to Michigan over Tulane, Stanford, and Rice. I mention “white guy” only because of the inevitable Wes Welker comparison. If he can fit that mold, Michigan has itself a steal, but if his low rankings hold true, he could get lost in the mix.

On the outside, redshirt sophomore Junior Hemingway and sophomore Darryl Stonum bring a couple years of experience to the table and have at times shown considerable promise.

Hemingway started 2008 with a bang, catching a 33-yard touchdown pass in Michigan’s game against Utah, but an injury caused him to miss the remainder of the season.

This season, he came out hot again, catching five passes for 103 yards and two touchdowns in the season opener against Western Michigan. But he didn’t catch a touchdown pass the rest of the season, and barely matched the yardage output in the rest of the games combined, finishing with just 16 catches for 268 yards.

Stonum started 10 games as a freshman in 2008 and had his best game against Purdue, scoring on a 51-yard catch and run.

This season, he hauled in only 13 receptions for 199 yards and a touchdown, though the touchdown was a thrilling 60-yard play to ignite Michigan’s comeback in the fourth quarter against Michigan State.

Je’Ron Stokes is a freshman that played primarily on special teams this season and could have an impact in 2010. The 6-0 181 pound speedster out of Philadelphia was a top-100 recruit and was rated the eighth-best wide receiver in the nation last season according to Scouts, Inc.

Stokes caught two passes for 16 yards against Delaware State in the only real action he saw this season.

Four-star receivers Ricardo Miller and Jerald Robinson and three-stars Jeremy Jackson and D.J. Williamson make up a solid group of incoming freshmen will help bolster the ranks of what should be the deepest position on the team.

On the offensive line, Michigan returns nearly everybody and should get a big boost from a group of redshirt freshmen that fit Rodriguez’s system.

Left tackle Mark Ortmann and right guard-turned center David Moosman both graduate, but neither is a huge loss. Ortmann was serviceable and Moosman was a solid guard, but struggled at the center position when David Molk went down with an injury.

Getting Molk back next season will provide Michigan a solid, experienced center who started every game in his redshirt freshman season in 2008 and would have this season if not for a broken foot. He was rated the No. 1 center in the nation coming out of high school.

Redshirt junior Steven Schilling will probably be Michigan’s best offensive lineman in 2010. Schilling was ranked as the second-best guard in the nation coming out of high school and has started for three seasons, counting this one.

Perhaps the most surprising player is redshirt freshman Patrick Omameh, who earned a starting spot towards the end of the season and played pretty well. Omameh is a Rodriguez recruit who was just a two-star, mostly due to a lack of size compared to the typical offensive line recruit.

His performance has earned him strong consideration to start next season, probably at either right guard or right tackle.

Redshirt sophomore Mark Huyge started much of the season at right guard and figures to start next season either there or right tackle.

True freshman and highly regarded recruit Taylor Lewan is perfect for Rodriguez’s offense, rated as one of the most athletic and versatile linemen in the nation as a senior. He should get a chance to start at left tackle next season.

Another freshman that could get some action next season is Quinton Washington. He was a four-star recruit and the sixth-rated offensive guard as a senior.

Redshirt junior Perry Dorrestein, who has seen some action, should battle for the left tackle spot, while redshirt freshmen Ricky Barnum and Elliott Mealer will have a chance to earn a spot as well.

Incoming freshmen won’t help next season, as offensive line is a position in which recruits need time in a college strength and conditioning program to develop, but the future looks pretty good with last year’s haul. Only one offensive line commitment is secured for this year’s class unless Rodriguez is able to snag the nation’s top recruit, Seantrel Henderson, but that seems unlikely at this point.

At tight end, Michigan is stacked with experience in sophomores Kevin Koger and Martell Webb.

Koger finished fifth on the team in receiving this season, catching 16 passes for 220 yards and two touchdowns. He caught an important touchdown pass against Notre Dame, but had some problems with drops midway through the season and didn’t see as many balls thrown his way in the last few games.

Webb caught just four passes for 44 yards and a touchdown, but got a lot of playing time and was a fairly effective run blocker.

Webb was a junior this season and Koger just a sophomore, so the tight end position should be a strength for Michigan next season.

Overall, the Michigan offense made some strides this year, averaging nine more points per game and 95 more yards of total offense per game than last season.

In addition, the offense showed that it could sustain drives this year, and although turnovers were a problem, those are mistakes that are fixable.

We didn’t see all the negative yardage plays that we saw last year when the offense just completely bogged down.

Next year we can expect even more improvement as the Rodriguez system enters its third year. The losses of Minor, Brown, Mathews, Ortmann, and Moosman should not slow this team down very much, since their replacements all got a lot of experience this year.

Most importantly, the core is in place, and there won’t be fresh blood needing to play a crucial role, as there was this season.

So on this Thanksgiving, let’s be thankful for the seniors that stuck out the coaching change and put forth their best efforts. Let’s also be thankful for the young guys that got their feet wet this year and will pioneer our maize and blue back to prominence in the years to come.

And let’s be thankful for an offensive innovator as our head coach – someone who is a proven winner and cares as much about getting the Michigan football program back on track as anyone else does. He will take Michigan to a place far beyond what we have seen if we afford him the time to do so.

The offense is certainly on track. Stay tuned for my defensive preview in the next few days.

As the 130th season of Michigan football comes to an end, it’s time to reflect on what we saw and look forward to next year and beyond.

2009 yielded some highlights and some lowlights, some controversy and some challenged loyalty. A legend was made and some buds blossomed. Records fell, both good and bad, and a system started to show some promise.

No one knew what to expect from this year’s version of Michigan football in Rich Rodriguez’s second year at the helm.

The overly optimistic among us predicted a breakout season of nine or ten wins.

Realistic optimists pointed to Rodriguez’s penchant for second-year turnarounds and predicted a record of 7-5 or maybe, if luck goes the way of the maize and blue, 8-4.

Realists pointed to the true freshmen quarterbacks and lack of overall talent on the squad and predicted a 5-7 or 6-6 finish.

As it turns out, the realists were right, but the realistic optimists weren’t too far off.

The fact of the matter is, Michigan fans were so shell-shocked from the worst record in 46 years in 2008 that we were looking anywhere we could for hope.

We ignored comments that Rodriguez made in the preseason such as, “There’s still going to be some transition. We’re going to play a lot more freshmen and redshirt freshmen than we would like to.”

We thought, sure there will be a lot of freshmen playing, but Tate Forcier and Denard Robinson are surely better options than Steven Threet and Nick Sheridan. Or, yeah, but it can’t get any worse than last season.

In this space, I offered some words of caution: “Coming off a season that resulted in the most losses in school history, and pinning all hopes on a true freshman quarterback, this seems to be the window of opportunity before Rodriguez’s system begins to take hold and terrorize the Big Ten.”

But then I followed it up with an overly ambitious response: “However, I think we’re going to see a very fast, well-conditioned and much-improved Michigan team playing with a chip on its shoulder to avoid being put to rest again.”

While that may have held true for a while, reality eventually sunk in that this team was indeed loaded with youth and razor-thin on the depth chart.

What began in August as optimism and eagerness to forget the epic disaster of 2008, quickly turned to scorn as the Detroit Free Press brought into question allegations of NCAA infractions on the part of Rodriguez and his coaching staff.

The opening game against Western Michigan couldn’t come soon enough. We cursed Michael Rosenberg and Mark Snyder for the timing of their article and the witch-hunt that ensued and we promised to get revenge on Justin Boren, who transferred to Ohio State, for his comments that seemed to be the centerpiece of that article.

And then the season began and practice time was forgotten and the story of Shoelace became one we would hear every game the entire season (as my wife would roll her eyes every time the announcers felt compelled to tell the story of why Denard Robinson doesn’t tie his shoes…every…single…game).

Robinson thrilled us with a 43-yard touchdown run, Tate Forcier showed promise in his first game by throwing for three touchdowns, Junior Hemingway caught nearly half his season total in receiving yards (103) and all of his touchdowns (two), and the defense shut down what many thought would be a high-powered offense.

We saw a show of solidarity for Rodriguez, Michigan won easily, and the season started off with a bang.

The came Notre Dame, fresh off of throttling Nevada, and riding preseason BCS bowl (or national championship game) predictions.

This will go down as the game that raised all of our expectations, mostly because no one knew at that time how mediocre Notre Dame really was.

It appeared to be Rodriguez’s signature win, as Michigan matched Notre Dame score-for-score and Forcier stunned the 18th-ranked Irish with 11 seconds left.

Forcier looked as veteran and composed as ND junior quarterback Jimmy Clausen, completing 23-of-33 for 240 yards and three touchdowns (one rushing). It’s hard to imagine that that would be the high point of his season, in just his second collegiate game.

Of course, there was the Armando Allen out-of-bounds play, which, despite the evidence , Notre Dame fans will carry to their graves in contempt.

The win over Notre Dame vaulted Michigan into the Top 25 heading into week three against Eastern Michigan. Former Michigan defensive coordinator Ron English brought his Eagles to Ann Arbor and didn’t provide much of a test.

Michigan showed off its running game this time, going for 380 yards on the ground, and getting 163 yards and two touchdowns on just eight carries from Carlos Brown in the first half alone.

Robinson scored two more touchdowns to enhance the unrealistic expectations for a guy that arrived on campus less than two months earlier.

Michigan then opened the Big Ten slate with Indiana in what would eventually be the battle for last place. At the time, though, Michigan was hoping to get to 4-0 heading into its intrastate rivalry battle in East Lansing.

This game provided our first glimpse of what the rest of the season would hold, as Michigan struggled to beat the Hoosiers, needing a 26-yard touchdown pass from Forcier to Martavious Odoms with 2:29 remaining to get the win.

The Indiana victory prompted me to draw a comparison to the New York Jets, who like Michigan, started off hot with a rookie quarterback: “Following Sunday’s Jets-Titans game, Vic Carucci of NFL.com asked Jets safety Kerry Rhodes if he thought the Jets’ style of play was sustainable. Rhodes replied that he thought it was because having such a good defense allows rookie quarterback Mark Sanchez to make some mistakes.

“Unfortunately, that won’t exactly translate to Michigan. While I think Michigan’s offense is further along in its development than Sanchez’s Jets offense, relatively speaking, Michigan hasn’t faced its toughest opponents yet.”

I provided the last part of that quote because I knew we were in for a tough go the rest of the season. I didn’t know, however, that that would be our last win over a FBS team all season. Ironically, Michigan’s fall has mirrored the Jets’ collapse.

At 4-0, a return to a bowl game looked assured, and Michigan entered “Little Brother” week seeking to avenge last season’s 35-21 loss to Michigan State.

It was the first road game of Forcier’s career and we saw the fist true test of the season, as the Michigan offense was shut down much of the game. But Forcier continued his early-season magic, leading a 14-point comeback to force overtime with a touchdown completion to Roy Roundtree with just two seconds left.

In overtime, Forcier was intercepted on a tipped pass that never should have been thrown, and Michigan dropped its second in a row to Michigan State for the first time since 1967.

Michigan Streaks Broken in 2009
First back-to-back losses to Michigan State since 1967
First home loss to Penn State since 1996
First home loss to Purdue in last 17 meetings
First back-to-back losing seasons since 1963-62

This began a run of snapping streaks right and left.

With its first loss of the season under its belt, Michigan traveled to Iowa for a prime-time night game against the nation’s 12th-ranked Hawkeyes.

Brandon Minor had his breakout game of the season, scoring two touchdowns against a defense that hadn’t given up a rushing touchdown in 33 quarters.

The game started out as well as one could ask, as Donovan Warren picked off the first pass of the game and returned it for a touchdown.

Michigan hung around until a muffed punt (hello 2008!) gave Iowa the ball at the Michigan 16. Iowa punched it in and took a 30-21 lead.

Robinson led the offense down the field for a touchdown to narrow the gap, but on the next possession, threw an interception to end the game, beginning the Wolverine-faithful’s love-hate relationship with Denard.

Despite a second-straight loss, Michigan fans were encouraged that the team was able to hang with undefeated Iowa until the last minute of the game, and a return to the Big House to face an FCS school was just what Michigan needed to regroup.

Michigan was able to set numerous school records in the win over Delaware State that week and give many starters a week off.

Five Wolverines scored their first career touchdowns and Robinson was able to get a lot of work at quarterback.

Michigan fans even got the treat of seeing Nick Sheridan on the field without the game on the line.

Many fans didn’t like the idea of playing an FCS school, but following the game, I proclaimed, “I have no problem with Michigan playing Delaware State this year. With a roster comprised of mostly underclassmen, and a complete overhaul in progress, playing an FCS opponent was better than a bye week in my opinion.

Michigan Records Set vs. Delaware State
727 total yards of offense
442 yards in the first half
28 points in the first quarter (ties record)
57 point margin of victory (most since 58-0 win over Indiana on Oct. 14, 2000)
461 rushing yards (most since 480 vs. Iowa on Oct. 3, 1992)
49 first half points (most since 55 vs. Chicago on Oct. 21, 1939)

“I would love to see Michigan start scheduling another tough out-of-conference game every year, but at this point in the development of Rich Rodriguez’s scheme, it’s not time for that just yet.

“Once the team grows up and the spread-n-shred is fully ingrained, I hope the schedule will be strengthened. But when you have Florida, arguably the nation’s top team and reigning national champion, playing Charleston Southern, Troy and Florida International, one must look that way first before pointing fingers at the baby Wolverines.”

I still believe it was okay to play Delaware State this season, but obviously with the way Michigan finished the season the benefits weren’t as great as I thought.

At 5-2, Michigan looked primed to make a bowl game, needing just one more win in its final five games.

Penn State came to town and dominated Michigan, racking up 396 yards of offense, and handing Michigan its first true beating of the season.

For really the first time all season, Forcier looked like a true freshman, completing just 13-of-30 passes for 140 yards. The offense couldn’t get anything going in the cold, rainy conditions.

Michigan wasn’t expected to win this one, and despite the 25-point whooping, I considered this result somewhat of a fluke and still didn’t believe the team was as bad as the final record would eventually indicate.

Following the Penn State game, doomsday headlines abounded, and I cautioned fans not to listen to them.

As it turns out, they were right.

Michigan traveled to Champaign, Ill. for a match-up with 1-6 Illinois, a game that looked like a sure-win.

This one will forever be remembered as the epic collapse, and probably the turning point of the whole season. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a bigger turnaround before.

Michigan was firmly in control with a 13-7 lead and first and goal at the Illinois one-yard line in the third quarter. After stuffing Michigan on four straight rushes, Illinois took possession and seized the game.

Six plays later, a 70-yard touchdown run put Illinois ahead 14-13 and Illinois never looked back, out-scoring Michigan 24-0 the rest of the way.

At this point in the season, confidence in a bowl game turned into hoping to squeeze out a win in one of the final three games. The best hope was the following week against Purdue.

Perhaps hope is the wrong word against Purdue, as Boilermaker head coach Danny Hope carried a grudge into the game, blaming Rodriguez for getting one of his players suspended for a game earlier in the season – nevermind that the player deserved to be suspended just as much as Michigan linebacker Jonas Mouton did the week before that.

This game was much like the Illinois game, where Michigan was in control and let it get away. Michigan led 24-10 at halftime and pushed it to 30-17 in the third, but a 91-yard touchdown drive, an on-side kick, and a 54-yard touchdown pass later, and Michigan found itself trailing 31-30.

Michigan missed a 43-yard field goal and failed to convert a two-point conversion attempt that would have tied the game, and Michigan fell by two.

Michigan traveled to Wisconsin for its final road game of the season, still needing a win to become bowl-eligible.

This game followed the mold of the past couple, as Michigan hung around through three quarters, but faded down the stretch.

Forcier bounced back from some poor outings to complete 20-of-26 passes for 188 yards and two touchdowns, but it was the defense that couldn’t hold up against a powerful Wisconsin running game.

Although Michigan knew Wisconsin was going to run it in the second half, it still couldn’t stop the Badgers.

The bowl hopes all came down to the final week of the season against Ohio State, as Michigan looked to end its five game losing streak to the Buckeyes.

Though many around the nation talked of the lack of luster in the rivalry, the game still had plenty of storylines with Michigan needing a win to make a bowl and avoid a second straight losing season, Ohio State needing a win to capture the Big Ten title outright, and Justin Boren playing against his former team in the Big House.

The Michigan defense played inspired and turned in its best performance of the season, holding the Ohio State offense to just 14 points.

However, it was the youth of Michigan’s offensive leader that doomed the Wolverines’ chances of playing through the holidays.

Forcier turned the ball over five times, including a fumble in the end zone on Michigan’s first possession, which Ohio State recovered for a touchdown.

Michigan moved the ball most of the day against an Ohio State defense that ranks as one of the best in the nation. But it was unable to capitalize on trips to the red zone, turning the ball over too many times.

So as Michigan’s season came to an abrupt end for the second year in a row, many want to know where do we go from here?

Indeed, there are many questions that need to be answered, but I’m in the minority who still believes the program is on the right track.

Stay tuned for part two where I will look at the future of the football program, both short-term and long-term, as well as the recruiting class Michigan has coming in and who is still out there that Rodriguez needs to land.

With the calls for Rich Rodriguez’s firing growing louder each week, and the threat of a second straight losing season, Michigan enters Ohio State week in what could be the most important game for the Wolverines in the history of the rivalry.

Sure, there was the “Game of the Century” in 2006 when both teams entered the game undefeated and ranked 1st and 2nd in the nation.

Sure, there was 1997 when Michigan needed a win to advance to the National Championship game.

Sure, there was the huge upset of No. 1 Ohio State in Bo Schembechler’s first season in 1969, a year after Ohio State drubbed Michigan 50-14, to claim a share of the Big Ten title.

But Saturday could be more important for the future of the Michigan football program than any of those.

No, there isn’t a Big Ten title on the line or a BCS berth to play for.

But for a young Michigan team struggling to find its identity in the midst of the most dramatic change to the program in decades, a win over Ohio State on Saturday would have huge ramifications for the future.

First and foremost, a win would make Michigan bowl-eligible. Though not guaranteed a bowl invitation with a 6-6 record, Michigan is almost certain to get one given its prestige and fan following.

Even if it is the Little Caesars Pizza Bowl (formerly known as the Motor City Bowl) it would be a tremendous boost to the program for the extra practice time and national exposure.

The regular season ends this Saturday, Nov. 22. The Little Caesars Pizza Bowl is held on Dec. 26, so Michigan would essentially have an extra month of practice. For a young and developing team, that extra practice time would be invaluable.

Many of the freshmen only had a month of practice time before the season started. Tate Forcier and a few others left high school early to enroll in January and participate in spring practice.

But most, including quarterback Denard Robinson, arrived just in time for fall camp on Aug. 10 and opened the season against Western Michigan on Sept. 5.

During the season, there isn’t much the team can work on as it prepares for each opponent week-to-week. Much of Rodriguez’s system was installed in fall practice to get ready for the season.

During game weeks, the practices are spent working on getting ready for that week’s opponent and fine-tuning certain details. Various players miss practices every week because of injury, stinting their learning ability and practice time.

New wrinkles may be installed or specific plays that the coaching staff thinks can exploit the opponent can be put in, but the vast majority of what the players learn (the schemes, the playbook, the fundamentals) is learned during fall practice.

That’s why many times a team can look quite different in a bowl game than it did during the regular season, because that month of practice serves as another fall camp.

Injured players get healthy, new plays and schemes are installed and practiced until they become second nature, and confidence is gained while the losses of the season are forgotten.

Look no further than Michigan in 2007, for example. The team, in Lloyd Carr’s final season, sputtered to an 8-4 regular season record. It endured a humiliating home loss to Appalachian State, a blowout at the hands of Oregon, and got shut down by Ohio State.

In the bowl game, the Capital One Bowl against a 9-3 Florida team led by Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow, Michigan showed a much more dynamic and diverse offense than it had all season, winning 41-35.

It left Michigan fans wondering what could have been had Michigan played that way all season and also excited about the future of that style of offense once Rodriguez was hired.

And while Rodriguez’s offense has shown great promise and flashes of brilliance at times this season, it’s still plagued by inexperience.

A bowl game and the extra month of practice time would do wonders for this young and developing team.

In addition to the extra practice time, making it to a bowl game will give Michigan exposure on a national stage during the holidays at a time when everybody is watching, and a chance to finish on a high note heading into the off-season.

Nobody wants to endure eight months of misery like what followed Michigan’s 3-9 season a year ago. By finishing the season with a win over Ohio State and a bowl game, Michigan fans will be excited about 2010, and the players will be confident heading into the off-season.

The second reason Saturday’s game is so important is that beating Ohio State would help with recruiting. Michigan has quite a few visitors coming to Ann Arbor for official visits.

A chance to see Michigan beat its major rival in the Big House on the final week of the season would go a long way toward helping a recruit tip the scales in Michigan’s favor.

Eight of Michigan’s 24 commitments in the 2007 class were in attendance for the Michigan-Ohio State game in the Big House that year.

And while Michigan didn’t win that game, it wasn’t quite in the dire situation it is in now with a need for talent, especially on the defensive side of the ball.

If Michigan lays an egg against Ohio State and boos rain down from the stands, the attending recruits won’t have as good an experience as if Michigan pulls off the big win.

Some of the visitors expected to be in attendance on Saturday include: Chula Vista, Calif. four-star linebacker/safety Tony Jefferson; Pittsburgh four-star cornerback Cullen Christian; Jacksonville, Fla., four-star safety Rashad Knight; Detroit four-star cornerback Dior Mathis; and Eagle Lake, Fla., four-star safety/linebacker Marvin Robinson.

Robinson is already committed to Michigan, but has talked in the past few months about visiting other schools. A big win and a great experience on Saturday could help solidify his commitment.

Jefferson is currently committed to UCLA, and is visiting Florida next weekend, so showing him what it’s like to beat Ohio State in the Big House could go a long way toward stealing him.

Christian is also a prized recruit, since he’s a cornerback, a position Michigan really needs to fill, due to the dismissal of Boubacar Cissoko and possible departure of Donovan Warren to the NFL.

He has already visited UCLA and West Virginia (and possibly Pittsburgh), so Michigan has a chance wrap up his commitment with a great showing on Saturday.

Michigan needs to make this weekend special with a glimpse of what the future holds for the program and show these kids that despite the recent struggles, the program is heading in the right direction.

The third reason a win over Ohio State on Saturday would be huge for Michigan is for the support of Rodriguez and a reward for the senior class.

A win won’t completely erase the anti-Rodriguez sentiment, but it will at least quiet down until next season and win back some of those who have turned against him.

His 8-15 overall record and 3-12 Big Ten record includes just one win over Michigan’s big three rivals (and that was Notre Dame this season).

That stat alone has caused much of the friction among Michigan fans, since one of their main charges against Carr was that he couldn’t beat Ohio State once Jim Tressel arrived in Columbus in 2001.

Winning on Saturday would make Rodriguez 2-4 in that category, but more importantly, give Michigan its first win over the Buckeyes since 2003.

In addition to helping quell the Rodriguez detractors, a win would give the senior class its first win over Ohio State.

Guys like Brandon Minor, Carlos Brown, Brandon Graham, Stevie Brown, Greg Mathews, and Zoltan Mesko, who hung around through the coaching change, deserve a big win to cap off their careers.

Some of them (Graham and Mesko, at least) have bright futures ahead of them in the NFL and have played hard without complaining all season, despite not being Rodriguez’s recruits.

While “deserve” might not be the right word, since nothing in life is deserved, it would be a major disappointment for those guys to go their entire career without beating Ohio State.

A loss would end Michigan’s season at 5-7 (its second straight losing season) and give Ohio State its sixth straight victory in the rivalry.

It would send Michigan home for the holidays and keep the senior class winless against the Buckeyes.

It would leave feelings of despair and depression among Michigan fans worldwide until next fall.

It could prevent some highly-touted and much-needed recruits from choosing to play football at Michigan, and therefore, stunting the growth process even further.

So while many of the previous 105 games in the Michigan-Ohio State rivalry have featured higher stakes in terms of championships, this Saturday’s game could be the most important game in the history of the rivalry for Michigan.

So let’s hope that everyone is all in for Rodriguez and the senior class when toe meets leather at high noon on Saturday.

The last time Michigan played a game on Halloween, it survived a scare from Minnesota in the Metrodome in 1998, winning 15-10, thanks in part to career days by quarterback Tom Brady and receiver Tai Streets.

This time, 11 years later, Michigan is looking for its first Big Ten win in five weeks, and Rich Rodriguez’s first Big Ten win in October as Michigan head coach.

Thankfully, the opponent is Illinois, which isn’t scaring anybody this season.

Ron Zook’s squad has won just one game this season, over Illinois State, and ranks last in the conference in scoring offense (16.1 points per game) and scoring defense (27.7 ppg).

Quarterback Juice Williams was supposed to blossom into a star in this, his senior season, but instead ranks last in the Big Ten in passing efficiency.

Williams has thrown for just 963 yards this season with four touchdowns and five interceptions, while rushing for just 277 yards (3.1 yards per carry) and two touchdowns.

He’s been so disappointing that Zook is planning to rotate redshirt freshman Jacob Charest into the game.

“Everybody says they don’t want to be a two-quarterback system, and I’d be another one to say that,” Zook said on Tuesday. “But a lot of people do it and a lot of people have success with it. I think the thing we’re trying to do, just like everyone else, is to do the thing that’s best for us and what gives us the best opportunity to win.”

Charest got his first collegiate action last week against Purdue, completing four of eight passes for 52 yards.

While Charest isn’t a huge threat to Michigan himself, as a traditional drop-back passer, the combination of Charest and Williams could be the spark Illinois needs to even the playing field.

If Illinois is able to keep the struggling and injury-plagued Michigan defense on its heels with the quarterback rotation, it could be a long day for Michigan.

So that brings me to my first key of the game for Michigan:

Exercise the demons

Even though Williams is struggling this season, he had a monster game in Ann Arbor last season. He dominated the Michigan defense, throwing for 310 yards and two touchdowns and rushing for 121 yards and two more en route to a 45-20 win.

In the final few years of the Lloyd Carr regime, mobile quarterbacks were a thorn in the side. That should change under Rodriguez eventually, but not quite yet.

The Michigan defense has been tough up front, but the linebacker and secondary play have been poor all season, with the exception of junior Donovan Warren.

Illinois also has perhaps the best all-around receiver in the conference, in junior Arrelious Benn. Although Benn has just 25 catches for 287 yards and no touchdowns this season, the Michigan secondary will have to be careful not to give up the big play.

Big plays have hurt Michigan all season. The defense has given up seven scoring plays of 20 yards or more, including a 60-yard touchdown pass last week against Penn State.

In last season’s match-up, Williams connected on touchdowns passes of 57 and 77 yards.

Can Michigan’s defense finally come together for the final four games of the season? It’s a tall task, especially against a quarterback it hasn’t stopped in three years, but maybe this is the game it finally steps up.

More trick, less treat

In five wins, Michigan is even in turnovers, giving away seven, while taking away seven. But in three losses, Michigan has treated its opponents to 11, while gaining just four.

Michigan ranks last in the Big Ten in turnover margin at minus seven.

In its two biggest games, against Iowa and Penn State, Michigan coughed the ball up nine times. It’s nearly impossible to win against anybody when you do that.

Illinois isn’t much better, having a minus-five turnover margin in Big Ten games, but it really all comes down to Michigan taking care of the ball.

Suck the blood out of the Illinois rush defense

Michigan has the best rushing offense in the Big Ten, at 219.4 yards per game, while Illinois’ defense ranks worst in the conference, giving up 185.3 yards per game on the ground.

Michigan was able to run fairly effectively against Iowa and Penn State, but those defenses were much better took advantage of Michigan’s turnovers.

Seniors Brandon Minor and Carlos Brown should be healthy and ready to go, and need to feast on the Illini defense more often than in past games.

Minor averages just over 11 carries per game and Brown just over seven. The duo needs to get the ball more often to punish the weak Illinois rush defense and cut down on the potential mistakes made by freshmen quarterbacks Tate Forcier and Denard Robinson.

Michigan has to win this game to have any chance at making this a successful season. It currently stands at 5-3, and a win tomorrow would make it bowl eligible, an important step in the growth process of Rodriguez’s system.

Seven wins would be ideal, but losing this game would make a winning season hard to reach, with a visit to Wisconsin and home games against Purdue and Ohio State to finish the season.

Memorial Stadium in Champaign will surely be ready for a Halloween game and a chance to knock off Michigan for the second straight year, but Michigan should be able to run the ball well enough to score some points and control the clock.

Minor and Brown will combine for three touchdowns in leading Michigan to a win.

Prediction: Michigan 31 – Illinois 20