Know Thy Enemy: Michigan Wolverines
This is normally Zound’s duty, but since he’s out of town getting drunk for free on a business trip, it’s all me this week.
Everyone can agree that we lost a tough one last week. Ferentz even said that “it feels like the roof caved in”. It did, at least in terms of our Big Ten title hopes. What that means is that we have a chance this week to show someone else how it feels to have their Big Ten title hopes damaged. Winning in the Big House is never easy, but it didn’t seem to matter to the 2002 team that pummeled Michigan in to the ground. It can be done.
Why Michigan is dangerous:
Where to start? I helped out with a scouting report of their passing game last week, so I’ll go with what I know. Life is good when you’re a Michigan receiver. It’s also good for quarterback Chad Henne, who has the good fortune of throwing to three of the top receivers in the nation. Mario Manningham, Steve Breaston, and Adrian Arrington may be the best receiver trio in the country bar none, and that includes you tOSU.
Manningham is almost exclusively a vertical threat. His favorite move is a fake like he’s going to make a cut, then he turns on the jets. And it’s very effective. In the three games we broke down, no fewer than 75% of his catches went for touchdowns. Pray to God that he doesn’t play this week.
Steve Breaston is the string to Manningham’s kite. He primarily runs under routes and receiver screens, a la the screen that he killed us with last year. Things haven’t changed much for Breaston despite the graduation of Braylon Edwards and Jason Avant in the past two years. He’s not quite in Ted Ginn’s league as a return man, but he’s no Ryan Baum slouch either.
As everyone knows, Adrian Arrington is from Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Unfortunately for us, he chose to attend Michigan because of their proven track record of placing receivers in the NFL. Now a junior, Arrington saw a good variety of long and short passes. He has emerged as the go to guy in Manningham’s absence. Containing Arrington is one of the big keys to containing the Wolverines.
Michigan also features a solid running back combo with Mike Hart and Kevin Grady. Grady is undoubtedly annoyed by the thousands of Facebook pokes he has received from Iowa fans this week as the subject of our ‘Poke The Other Team’s Quarterback’ chapter. Yes, we know Grady isn’t a quarterback, but Chad Henne apparently doesn’t have an account. That doesn’t mean you can’t still poke him and piss him off. So do it, you’re two clicks away: http://iowa.facebook.com/poke.php?id=2221484.
And let’s not forget about the defense. I can’t say it much better than the Press Citizen did today:
No. 2 Michigan has one of the most fearsome defensive fronts in college football. They are allowing a ridiculously low 32.6 yards rushing per game and just 241.3 yards of total offense.
It appears that Albert Young and Dominique Douglas may be ready to play, but that’s a damn tough defense if I’ve ever seen one before.
Where Michigan is weak:
Nowhere, really, aside from the fact that Mario Manningham is a long shot to play in this game. When a team is rated #2 in the nation, there just aren’t many holes to plug. We’ve played well against Michigan in recent years despite their supposed lack of weaknesses, so this doesn’t seem to matter much to the Hawks.
Bottom Line:
IOWA 17 - Michigan 10
Just when the rest of the world wrote off Iowa, the Hawks turn around and show everyone why we’re one of college football’s finest programs. Godspeed, Iowa…Godspeed.
ON IOWA, GO HAWKS!!!!!!!
14 Responses to “Know Thy Enemy: Michigan Wolverines”
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i love the facebook poking idea… that’s hilarious. if he pokes me back i’m gonna be pissed though. he’s an ugly mofo
http://cfn.scout.com/2/581422.html
Another weak effort by the recieving corps. Atleast 3 drives were killed by dropped passes. The running game was non-existant but I guess that was expected going up against this unit. Defense played very well, but you can only expect to keep Mike Hart bottled up for so long. I want to get pissed off at and blame the wide recievers again, but I think Michigan was just the all around better team. Looks like its the big 2 and the little 9 in the Big Ten this year.
Zound, shut the fuck up. I’ve had it with your fucking pessimism. Until you can strap on a jock and do Brodell or Douglas’ job, zip it, asscake.
Pessimism? I’m being realistic Mike. Are you going to argue that Michigan and OSU arn’t far and away better this year? Who else do you want to blame for the loss (and the Indiana loss, for that matter)? The defense did all you can ask of them, the offense didn’t get it done - specifically the recievers. You going to tell me that they (the recieving corps) have done a good job this year? I understand you like to come to their aid because you are an athelete too and your more in their shoes. But just because I’m not a student athlete doesn’t mean I can’t justifiably criticise recievers when they drop balls, i.e. dont do what they were given a x$1,000 free education to do.
Or, you could just man up and NOT BLAME ANYONE LIKE A FUCKING BABY. We got OUTPLAYED. Sure, we had some drops- EVERY TEAM DOES. You don’t think that Michigan could have rolled us earlier if they didn’t throw a pick in their own territory? Get real. Every team is going to have mistakes- and it’s not your job to point out Iowa’s, for God’s sake. I’ve just grown tired of you chastizing, publicly, the efforts of our receivers- when you couldn’t catch a cold- let alone a fastball from Drew Tate.
Don’t hang the scholarship they received because they’re gifted over their heads. If you were good, you’d be getting one to do whatever it is you do too- and you’ve got to realize that people, from time to time, will not be at their best. I think our receivers played VERY well, comparable to last week, this afternoon. Get off of Iowa’s ass, man. You write for HAWKIZE, not CycloneReport.
I don’t like to lay into athletes, especially college athletes who are doing what they do because it’s what they love, and I probably shouldn’t. But it just pisses me off Mike because we could have been more competative in this game and easily could have taken it to OT. We hung in with the #2 team in the country for 56 minutes (when Hart iced it with his 2nd TD) in their house.
People who didn’t watch the game are going to see the score line and just crown Michigan because they are Michigan and not give Iowa an ounce of credit for playing as hard as they did. We were just a few plays away from making a statement to the country and putting ourselves in the drivers seat for the Rose Bowl. But people nor the media will care about that. Instead, Iowa will only be looked at as the last hurdle Michigan had to jump over on their way to playing OSU. IOWA WILL NOT LOSE ANOTHER GAME THIS SEASON, but the manner in which we lost these last two really hurts - hence the frustration.
The goal now: Iowa meets Georgia in the Outback bowl so Colestal can settle his personal vendetta against a certain Hawkeye-hating, y’all-blabbering, bull-dog bitch.
On a different note, how does it feel to be in the Big 12 North cellar Cy-Clowns?? HAHA! From ESPN:
NORTH CONF. W-L OVERALL W-L
Missouri 3-1 7-1
Nebraska 3-1 6-2
Kansas State 1-3 4-4
Colorado 1-3 1-7
Kansas 0-4 3-5
Iowa State 0-4 3-5
I’m way into this idea about poking players from the opposing team…
I have a trip to AZ this week, so I might be able to conjure up something for poking an entire roster… will have to look into this while I’m on the plane.
To be continued…
wow breakdown…
You know who takes a Hawkeye loss like a man? Anyone wanna take one fucking guess?
ANDYRAM
This kid doesn’t get upset and take it out on the Hawks… he takes it out on himself. He drank himself sober, then completely fucking drunk again, all within a 16-hour timeframe, and never once said a bad word about the Hawks.
That’s love for a team… I wish he had enough heart to give to some of you psuedo-hawkeye fans.
Has anyone heard about the fall-out from the reffing in this game. Kirk was uncharacteristically pissed and vocal about it all game, and I wondered if anything came of it. The leaping call on our FG, the late helmet-to-helmet hit that leveled Tate in Q1 were potentially dangerous for the kids involved. Those refs should be shot not for being homers and fixing the game for Michigan, but for general negligence.
haha yeah i think i saw him say “bullshit” about 30 times. He’s kind of sexy when he’s pissed. =)
No comment — but they did suck.