It’s 1:00 a.m. I’m out on my patio with a good cigar, a decent scotch, and my laptop. This is where my football creative juices usually shine… No that doesn’t make sense… Juice doesn’t shine… Juice is… sweet? Sticky? I don’t know… Despite as much excited as I want to be about writing a football blog, it’s hard to follow up the greatness that was the past few seasons. It’s easier to focus on the negatives. Sure, this is a nice laptop, but the keys aren’t as deep as the mechanical board I used most of last year. I spent so much time warming up and trying to write something new, the cigar went out. The second draw was so without smoke that all it left was the stale taste of air through no longer hot tobacco leaf. Much like Mason Graham at defensive end, as cool as this setup looks, it’s simply not going to be as affective as last years.
But here’s the good news. Ali got me this burnt brass lighter for our anniversary. It’s huge. It has four torches. It’s got a little notch on the top to hold the cigar while I type. It might be awesome. It was, after all, seemingly designed to do this job even better than the lighter that came before it. There should be no drop off in cigar performance from last year, right? But everything has a learning curve. It may burn hotter, but how frequently can it be used without running out of butane? This year there aren’t 2nd or 3rd string lighters to swap in with no noticeable drop in performance…. Is that enough metaphor yet? Is it clear I’m talking about Wink Martindale and Michigan’s defense in this paragraph? Good, let’s move on to football.
There are things about last week that were bad regardless of opponent. Let’s start there. The defense was incredibly disappointing. Individual efforts were poor. Tackling was the worst it’s been at Michigan in years. Jyaire Hill looked lost (how do you byte on a double move 5 yards short of the sticks on 3rd and 13?) Wink (Defensive Coordinator) seemed to be so set on running a cool NFL offense that he ignored the fact that this is college and “cool looking” doesn’t always mean most affective.
As for the offense, I don’t know what to think. I was really hoping to see the offense change for Orji’s strengths. Even if he’s a below average passer, I don’t know how most defenses would deal with Orji, Loveland, Kalel Mullings, Donovan Edwards and Max Bredeson on the field at the same time. Seems like somebody would always have a favorable matchup to exploit, but so far, we wouldn’t know. For all of the off-season talk about Alex Orji vs Jack Tuttle for QB1, they sure don’t seem to trust Orji. He’s been in … 8 snaps through two games? I can see a few different possibilities for this. 1. They were lying and Alex Orji is truly terrible so they have no choice but to play Davis Warren. 2. They were too stubborn to change the offense, to suit Orji, 3. were so focused on the future that they’re willing to set this year’s offense on fire to maintain continuity when Jaydin Davis steps in next year, or 4. Jack Tuttle won the job, so that’s the offense they implemented in the off-season. Then Tuttle got hurt (again) and Orji can’t run this offense so they went with Warren. 4 is the least disheartening, but also maybe the most depressing? I feel like it’s 2, and that is infuriating.
But here’s the good news. Texas is elite (Man I hope this take holds up… Go Longhorns!!). This may be the best offense Michigan plays until Ohio State (fortunately, Oregon doesn’t look as unbeatable as pre-season hype.) And Warren doesn’t look terrible. He does seem to be making his decisions pre-snap and throwing check-downs too often but 1. His offensive line isn’t giving him much choice, and 2. that’s young QB stuff that could improve. His interceptions are largely not his fault. The pick against Fresno was a touchdown if on time and not underthrown, but if the receiver makes a play on the ball, it’s a pass interference or incomplete pass. The ones against Texas were a tipped ball and a potentially wrong route by the best player on the field (Colston Loveland).
The offensive line is perhaps the strangest. I don’t understand why they’re playing Evan Link and, to a lesser extent, Dom Guidice. They look terrible. They’re the majority part of the reason why Donovan Edwards has been disappointing and Davis Warren is Check Down Champion. And the strange thing is, guys they seemingly “beat out” don’t have these issues. Crippen and Gentry have both shown to be solid replacements when called upon in the past. Even in limited snaps this year, it seems like they should be the guys. Link is only a sophomore, so I suppose playing him over Gentry would support the “set this year on fire” hypothesis, but Guidice is a Sr. and Crippen has stuck it out after having Oluwatime and Nugent transfer in to take his job in back to back years. Seems like you’d want to reward that especially since he’s shown to be an improvement after replacing Guidice in both games.
As puzzling as this is, I wouldn’t say I’ve lost hope. Michigan did a similar thing last year with Miles Hinton vs. Trente Jones, and while still think Trente should have played more, the O-Line ended up being fine. The head coach of this team is the reason why Michigan has had the best O-Line two of the last three years. Eventually I’d imagine he’d step in and take over if the new assistants can’t get things to improve. It’s also only a matter of time before somebody realizes that when you have literally Superman on your team, that player should not be sitting on the bench. PUT KALEL MULLINGS IN THE GAME! This was a rough week, and Michigan’s schedule more than makes up for 3 years of early season cupcakes. But we still get to watch 10+ more games of Mason Graham and Will Johnson and (hopefully not on the bench) Kalel Mullings. I predict 8-4 but with a win against one of Oregon, USC, or OSU with a weird loss somewhere in the mix.