Saturday was Kickoff Saturday for the Wolverines
So, Saturday morning dawned as a beautiful day. The game was scheduled for 3:30, so I had some time to warm up to the game. It always seems weird to have a late afternoon game like that.
I wasn't in much of a hurry to get up and in fact I didn't even have my football stuff laid out like usual. It's not like I wasn't excited. Just that the season snuck up on me this year. Northern Illinois wasn't a cakewalk team. I kept saying that to all my friends. They have a pretty good rushing game and they proved it on Saturday. Oh sure, Michigan played a pretty ho-hum game. The defense gave up one big run of 76 yards which made the stats look a lot worse than they could have. It was a play where the end pinched and the safety was supposed to support, but that didn't happen and the back got outside and ran away.
There were a lot of bright points too though. Michigan caused 5 turnovers, 3 of them fumbles. Last year Northern Illinois only lost 1 fumble all year. The offense seemed to be in gear, and we didn't punt while the first team was in. Things were clicking pretty well. The biggest criticism is that Henne's passes were behind the receiver all day. I think we could maybe call that first game jitters or something.
Ok, so this isn't a detailed analysis by any means. I think that the defense has a lot of work to do before this weekend against Notre Dame, but I think we're better than I thought we might be. I'll post more during the week if I hear more about how things are going.
I wasn't in much of a hurry to get up and in fact I didn't even have my football stuff laid out like usual. It's not like I wasn't excited. Just that the season snuck up on me this year. Northern Illinois wasn't a cakewalk team. I kept saying that to all my friends. They have a pretty good rushing game and they proved it on Saturday. Oh sure, Michigan played a pretty ho-hum game. The defense gave up one big run of 76 yards which made the stats look a lot worse than they could have. It was a play where the end pinched and the safety was supposed to support, but that didn't happen and the back got outside and ran away.
There were a lot of bright points too though. Michigan caused 5 turnovers, 3 of them fumbles. Last year Northern Illinois only lost 1 fumble all year. The offense seemed to be in gear, and we didn't punt while the first team was in. Things were clicking pretty well. The biggest criticism is that Henne's passes were behind the receiver all day. I think we could maybe call that first game jitters or something.
Ok, so this isn't a detailed analysis by any means. I think that the defense has a lot of work to do before this weekend against Notre Dame, but I think we're better than I thought we might be. I'll post more during the week if I hear more about how things are going.