Nebraska Gets Husked at the Big House

John T. Greilick / The Detroit News

The RR Experience is now dead and the Wolverines can put a nail in that coffin next Saturday at 3:30 with a win over rival Ohio State. 

We all have been critical of Denard and Al Borges for Michigan's 2 losses this year.   The play calling and decision making in Iowa City and East Lansing were questionable at best.   Saturday they got their revenge. 

Denard played a near perfect game (minus the tipped screen pass) and Al finally figured out that for this offense to be effective they have to run the Spread primarily and the pro set power game secondarily. 

Credit also goes to the Michigan defense and Greg Mattison who has to be a leading candidate for best assistant in the country award.   Last year the Michigan defense gave up 35 points a game which ranked 108 in the country. This year Michigan is giving up 15 points a game, which ranks 7th in the country.   Same players, better coaching and fundamentals.   An unbelievable turn around. 

The Michigan offense was moving the ball and the defense was stopping Martinez and Burkhead, so all the Michigan special teams had to do was protect the ball and not make mistakes.  Instead, for the first time this year the Wolverines Special Teams unit were a game changer.  There were good returns, made field goals, fake field goals,  a blocked punt, 2 fumbles recovered, and a roughing the kicker penalty.   It's hard to beat any team with those type of results out of a special teams unit.   

Cheers

• Denard Robinson
• Al Borges Playing Calling
• Mike Martin and Ryan VanBurgen are playing great!
• Greg Mattison's defense transformation
• Fitzgerald Toussaint running the ball strong and staying healthy
• Michigan's offensive line
• Jordan Kovacs for his consistent good play

Jeers

• Urban Meyer for a lot of things.  OSU really? The Buckeyes over health concerns and family?  Florida over Ohio?  The last straw was Urban trying to make the case for Devin Gardner playing QB over Denard Robinson during the game.  I know Urban clearly understands football so he must not understand the Michigan Wolverines very well.   There are 1000 reasons to keep Denard on the field. 
• Will Hagerup has to be better punting the football, his punts to me look low and not very far. 
• Gallon's mistake to let that punt behind him changed the momentum of the game, luckily for Michigan the roughing the punter call changed it back.  After that the tired Nebraska defense had enough. 
• Michigan couldn't stop Nebraska's LB David at all.  It seemed like he was in on every tackle. 
• Denard's screen pass was not thrown very well but the defense held the Cornhuskers to a field goal.
• The big dollar HD scoreboards that weren't working.  Not good Mr. Brandon!

This is the Michigan team we all hoped was there and have been waiting all year to show up.  The steps that defense and specials teams have taken are very impressive.   One of my biggest knocks on RR wasthat  his teams didn't get better during the year, they got worse.  That is a clear sign of poor coaching and mostly on the defensive unit.  RR used to say, it's just so hard to win with freshman playing important positions.  That doesn't seem to be the case for the 9-2 Wolverines this year.

The Wolverines still have some unfinished business next Saturday before they make their bowl travel plans.  Sure I would like a BCS invite but I would much rather have a 11-2 record and a top 15 finish.  I can't wait to see how good this team can play with 15 extra bowl practices.