The View From Section 241
It’s hard to describe the atmosphere at Saturday night’s UConn-Michigan football game if you weren’t there. There is no question, it was an event. I pulled into blue lot two hours pre-game. Normally, that puts me within fifty yards of the stadium. Saturday, I was on the other side of the access road. Pedestrians were pouring into the blue lot in numbers never seen. People went to the gates early. And were in their seats early. And, by far, more visiting fans than we’ve ever seen by probably a factor of two. (I would estimate about 10k Michigan fans.) More fans stood, both on third downs and at other times. It was as if the Michigan crowd forced us to be better fans. And yet, something was missing. Now, maybe it was just me, and maybe to others this was the most exciting game in the Rents history, but I didn’t see it. It was an event, without having the air of a real big game. To me, the tingle when you’re playing for a conference championship — Rutgers and Syracuse in ’07, WVU, Pitt and Cincy in ’10, that electricity was just not there. Again, maybe it’s me because I don’t believe in this team, but that is what I felt. This was like the opening against Indiana. It was exciting to be there, but a real, big game electricity — maybe others felt it but I didn’t.
As to the game, obviously it was a good, competitive football game, but I can’t jump all up and down with excitement from what happened. Yes, we played harder, especially on D, but while I was happy to see a competitive football game, I’m not doing somersaults at our prospects. First, my eyes tell me Michigan isn’t nearly the team that Maryland is. Second, the game was competitive because Michigan committed the first four turnovers. Otherwise, everyone would have noticed that our O was still incompetent (we only crossed 200 yards total offense on the last throw to Foxx), our special teams continues to not get it down, and a heroic effort by our D (finally) wouldn’t have been nearly enough. So I thank everyone for trying hard, and giving us a fun and almost good night, but nothing happened Saturday night that changed any view I have of this team and where it is going (other than the fact that our D is capable of a good game).
So, offense, defense and specials. Let’s start with specials. Yuch. What is wrong with Cole Wagner? Just not having a good year. The kick Chad Christen missed was a kick that you miss sometimes, but I knew it was going to bite us in the rear the moment it missed. Does Chandler force the ball into triple coverage if we’re up an extra 3? Coverage remains solidly below average. And Lemelle at least tried catching punts, unlike last week, but still tried forcing a return and almost turned it over again. They have to get better.
On Offense, Gifford rotated series with Hemingway at RT, and obviously it was a bit of an improvement, at least for a while. Anecdotally I thought Gifford was the better of the two, but I don’t pretend I was watching the RT on every play. I thought Delorenzo, and with his carry Hyppolite, did a nice job taking pressure of McCombs (who I thought also was fine), and the running game did a slight bit better. But wasn’t nearly good enough. Green showed nothing subbing for Phillips. After our one TD drive, Michigan clearly decided that it would take Geremy Davis out of the game, and they were able to without us having the ability to take advantage of it. I didn’t put it on Whitmer — I still think the bulk of the problem is on the OL — but on our last drive, the beginning of the end was a horrific decision by Whitmer where he didn’t take 5 or yards on 1st and 10 from the Michigan 48 when it was there and instead threw the ball away with no one in front of him. But the numbers speak for themselves — we put one scoring drive together at home against a Michigan D that gave up points and yards at home to Akron.
Defense, obviously, was a totally different story, and congrats to all of them. ‘Finally a push from the DL. Jesse Joseph finally showed flashes of the old Jesse Joseph. Good pushes from the DTs, including Myers off the bench. Smallwood was a beast, and Ashiru looked much more comfortable. Real nice game from the secondary as well. Jones played well, Mack played well until getting hurt, and both Willaims (especially) and Clark did a great job filling in. Obviously, more than a little to build on here.
So where are we? Well, we’re 0-3. Let’s go to Buffalo and then get USF at home, and at 2-3 we can start talking about whether we are good enough to have a winning record in conference and go bowling. But for now, it’s too soon. I have no need to bash the staff after a good, hard effort (although the use of timeouts at the end of both halves again is just incredible) but I’m also not drinking any Kool Aid as to reading very much into one competitive loss.
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