The Michigan Wolverines improved to 5-3 after beating Rutgers, 28-21, on Halloween. The game itself wasn’t necessarily an exciting one. Still, the Wolverines survived.
Each week, we ask you to share your thoughts and react to the outcome in three words on The Feed.
Here’s an assessment of where the fans are at as we prepare for the last third of the season.
So, QB Tommy Carr looked good
Michigan’s offense has struggled this season, but against a pretty bad Rutgers defense, freshman quarterback Tommy Carr put together a pretty good
performance. He was 22-of-27 for 266 yards and one touchdown. He also had 54 rushing yards and two touchdowns. Another point to mention: Carr didn’t turn the ball over at all.
While the stat line looks pretty good, Michigan got help by playing Rutgers. The Scarlet Knights haven’t exactly had a great season.
Not a lot of optimism otherwise
When you play a team that isn’t very good statistically, you really hope to look dominant. Unfortunately, that just wasn’t the case this time. Carr had to get some things done with his legs because he didn’t get much help from the running backs. The run game looked barely serviceable. The team managed 161 yards on the ground for an average of 3.6 yards per carry. That’s just not very good for a team that’s had an identity built on running the ball well.
Many of us have been around long enough to know that the defense was bound to have a game where they gave up some big plays and kept the other team’s hopes alive. This weekend, that’s exactly what happened. The defense didn’t have a great overall game. The pass coverage was much better in the second half, but the Wolverines gave up too many big plays against the Scarlet Knights.
Listen, a lot of us are probably thankful for hockey season and the fact that basketball starts on Monday, but there are still four more football games left to endure this season. Two of them are rivalry games.
Michigan won’t be able to turn this season around entirely, but it’d be less miserable if the Wolverines could win at least one game against either Michigan State or Ohio State. If the coaching staff can come up with a game plan to win both, it’d feel a lot better. Alas, we still don’t know how the team will perform. They’ve looked good in some scenarios this year, but it’s really tough to predict which team shows up.
Michigan now turns its attention to one of those two rivalry games, as the Wolverines host Michigan State on Saturday.
