Swartz Creek View

What we learned in Illinois




 

 

“Michigan jumped out to 28-0 lead over Illinois and never looked back in its 42-25 win earlier this afternoon.”

Never looked back? I was stunned hearing these words broadcast through my car radio on Saturday night. For a split second, my anger was directed at that inept radio DJ, but I know that my guy probably didn’t watch the game and was just reading from a list of final scores. Had this anonymous disc jockey actually sat down to watch the Wolverines on Saturday, he would’ve come to these four conclusions.

1. Josh Gattis needs to go. His first season as Michigan’s offensive coordinator is a disaster. He is like the college football equivalent of an upperclassman philosophy major trying to impress a freshman at a frat party with big words and shallow ideas. To the naked eye, the Wolverine offense almost gives off the illusion of an offense built for the modern era of misdirection and mobile quarterbacks, but it’s anything but that. Wide receivers are set in motion across the backfield and quarterback Shea Patterson has allegedly been given the freedom to keep the ball on read-options, but these movements are all nonsense; it’s simply motion for the sake of motion, which doesn’t fool anyone. The more I watch this offense, the more it looks like a Frankenstein’s monster of the worst parts of Brady Hoke and the most simplistic iteration of Rich Rodriguez.

2. Michigan’s running game is fool’s gold. Sure, the Wolverines ran for 295 yards as a team. Hassan Haskins ran for a game-high 125 yards and score on just 12 carries, while Zach Charbonnet gained 116 yards and a touchdown on 18 carries. Still, most of those yards came in the first half, and all of those yards came against a horrible Illinois team. The Fighting Illini have a 2-4 record and have allowed an average of 201.8 yards on the ground this season. For much of the game, Michigan backs simply ran around their Illinois counterparts or through giant holes in the line and poor coverage. Even if the results beg to differ, that doesn’t bode well for Michigan when its gauntlet of a schedule hits, starting with a road game at Penn State under the lights this Saturday.

3. Patterson might be the second coming of Devin Gardner. There was a moment when I was proud to have Gardner don Tom Harmon’s legendary ‘Old 98,’ but that was fleeting. Gardner had All-Big Ten potential heading into his senior season, but he looked like an entirely different player, throwing for under 2,000 yards and 15 interceptions. After showing glimpses of brilliance, Gardner began to unravel with a spotty, inconsistent offensive line in front of him. The less protection he had, the more hits he took and the worse decisions he made.

Patterson might be built in that same mold. He made some nice tosses on Saturday, throwing for three touchdowns, but seemingly every other pass attempt lacked anything resembling a touch and feel for the position. Patterson is a good runner, as evidenced as his crucial four-yard QB keeper on a fourth-and-two during the fourth quarter, but his decision-making is what worries me. He rarely pulls the ball on optionreads, even when that seems like the obvious call.

4. I am jealous of that radio DJ and his ignorance toward Michigan football.