Michigan Keys To Winning

Another stab at what it will take for us to win this weekend...

Offense

I think the primary key to winning this game will be to get going early and get up on them in the first quarter. This goes along with points 1) and 2) for the defense in forcing them to play from behind and throw the ball a lot. I think our offense and defense need to work together to make Henne beat us. Getting up early is part of that as are the first two defensive points I make below.

Control the aggressiveness of their outside pressure via screens and draws. Michigan likes to use an outside pass rush from their two defensive ends. I think using screens and draws to keep them off balance is key. Doing this early to make them hesitant for the rest of the game will go a long way in determining how successful we can be when we drop back and pass. Weis did this same thing last year with Tennessee when he opened the game with a double screen and then ran another screen on the next play. He also did this against Philadelphia in the Superbowl to start the second half. We have always been a good screen team (minus against Georgia Tech) so let's use it to our advantage.

The offensive line must play better. Weis said it took until about Purdue of last year to really get ourselves in the positions we wanted and play like a team on the offensive line. He expects that earlier this year. This game would be the prime time for them to come together as a unit and play well. Let's hope Morton doesn't let every other defensive lineman run right by him.

Defense

We must stop the run game. This is part one of the necessary thing(s) we have to do on the defensive side of the ball and, like I said above, is a three-prong attack on Michigan. We need to play outside-in since we have speed and not size at most positions on defense. Don't be surprised to see Minter pull out something "unorthodox" to do this as well.

Along with stopping the running game we must force Henne to beat us. Ever since the guy lost Edwards and can't just throw the ball anywhere (a la Reggie Ball and Calvin Johnson) he hasn't put up very good numbers. It's one thing to have good production as a player coming out of nowhere. It's another thing to do it year in and year out. I guarantee you if you asked Leinart which year was his toughest to perform in he would say his last. After his first year coming out of nowhere other teams were able to gameplan for Henne. The result...he hasn't looked that good. We need to force him to beat us. And when I say this I don't mean force Michigan to beat us with the pass. I mean force Henne to beat us. Make him work to complete a pass, pressure him, chase him around, take a page out of the Georgia Tech defensive playbook where they made Brady beat them. This isn't simply stopping the run and making Michigan pass. This is stopping the run and forcing Michigan into obvious, long passing situations where all of the pressure is on Henne because we know they have to throw.

Force turnovers. In a game like this turnovers could be the difference. We can't have them and we need to force some from them. This is especially true early on in the game so that we can get ahead.

I'll throw one more item in there. We need to win the special teams battle to get field position. We need to shut down Breaston (which we did last year) on returns and we need our kickoff return coverage to be more like Georgia Tech, not PSU.