Purdue Post Game: A Leap Forward

John T. Greilick / The Detroit News

 

The Michigan players have been wearing "Road Warriors" T-Shirts this week which might have help with motivation as the Wolverines clearly had their best effort of the year against Purdue in West Lafayette.  It was a classic Denard Robinson show where he ran for 235 yards and didn't make any mistakes in the passing game.   Purdue couldn't run against Greg Mattison's defense and piled on a few turnovers until they got blown out. 

It was a good win and even a better win after the ND loss 2 weeks ago.  Big Al called a good game and I like how Mattison's defense is getting better each week. 

Cheers:

• Denard Robinson Mr. Offense
• Raymon Taylor for his second pick of the year and a pick 6
• JT Floyd cut his hair and played well
• Jake Ryan is going to be very good LB for Michigan
• WR's only had one drop
• Thomas Rawls running hard at the end of the game
• Brady Hoke and the other Michigan coaches for spending the past 2 weeks getting better.
• Funchess catches everything!
• Special Teams was solid all day

Jeers:

• Running game with Fitz.  What is going on there?  (17 carries for 20 yards - Rawls had 33 yards on 4 carries)
• The offensive line on Michigan's only turnover
• Gardner's drop on 3rd down
• Dline pressure
• Couple bad penalties

Not much to really complain about.  Craig Roh had his best game of the year against the run but I expect him to be pressuring the QB more during passing plays.   I thought Kovas wasn't anywhere near 100%.  I thought he was going to be exposed during pass plays but that never happened.   If his knee continues to bother him, we might see more of Marvin Robinson at his position in passing situations.

Best all around game of the year and a decent win.  Many are expecting Purdue to be in Indy with Wisconsin down and OSU/PSU ineligible.   I really don't see that as a possibility right now.  Michigan and Iowa are the only un-defeated teams in the Legends division right now.  The Leaders division is a huge mess.

Michigan is back as a ranked team in the AP at #25.