UTEP Post Game: Arnold Palmer

Jacob Hamilton | MLive.com

I drink Arnold Palmer's, if your not familiar it's half ice tea and half lemonade.  Other's call it half and half.  At a restaurant one time, I ordered a half and half and they brought me half sweet tea and half regular ice tea, which doesn't make sense to me.  

Today's game was 2 distinct different halves.  The first half had 2 turnovers and 2 lapes by the defense that led to two separate occasions where UTEP was leading the Wolverines 7-0 and 14-7.  Michigan's offense looked like a bad high school offense.  You can't run right at a box full of defenders, doesn't matter the quality of the defense, they can tackle the RB when they have a numbers advantage. 

Michigan limped to 3 point lead at half-time and felt lucky to be leading by that much.   Then the 2nd half became the dominating defense, Marsh, and Underwood show.  The defense decided to lead with aggression and limited the UTEP offense to negative yards for the 3rd quarter and Beck decided running into a loaded box was a fool's errand.  

Michigan dominated from that point on and it was game over.  I was worried about this staffs ability to adjust strategy at the half, but they did that and Coach Whitt got the team back to playing with energy and aggression. 

Cheers:

• Bryce was 19/25 for 223 Yards 
• Hiter had 2 TD's
• Marsh 105 yards 10 catches and 1 TD 
• JJ 7 for 92 and 1 TD 
• Chase Taylor led the D with 5 tackles, 1/2 sack, and 1 TFL 
• Bowles continued his good play 
• Lea'ea with the Big Man Pick 6 (Thick 6!)
• Trey Butkowski with a nice long FG 
• The 2nd Half 

Jeers:

• The 1st Half 
• 2 bad turnovers fumbles by Bryce and Savion 
• Marshall being banged up 
• The offensive line is still not great 
• Some early penalties were very costly

Hello, Nice to Meet You!

• Boney Toney! (Tariq Boney) 4 Tackles, 1 Sack, and 1.5 TFL 
• Cater Meadows 
• Travis Johnson 
• S. Moa with a TD catch 
• Tommy Carr with his first Michigan TD pass 

First half was full of WMU flashbacks for the fans, the players, and the coaches.  Good on the staff for re-focusing the team at the half.   Michigan can't have a half like that with conference play starting and a ranked Iowa team coming to the Big House next week. 

3-0 and we will take it. 

UTEP Preview

Paydirt Pete 

Time: 3:30 

Location: Big House 

Weather: 61/71% 🌧

TV: BTN

Line: Michigan -34.5

Michigan is playing the University of Texas the week after they played Ohio State.   Wait a second, its the University of Texas El Paso.  My bad.  Why doesn't Michigan other campuses have football teams?  U of M Flint or U of M Dearborn?  Flint is known for their basketball and Dearborn could be the football campus.  I like this idea lets run with it! 

UTEP as reported earlier this week likes 51 points.  They got beat in week 1 by Oklahoma 51-0 and scored 51 in week 2.  Will this trend continue in Week 3?  The rain might be an interesting factor.  

Dear Coach Whitt:

Not a big fan of swearing in these letters to you, but this is the best way for me to explain it.   The shit got real for you at Michigan really quick.  You win on conservaeral play in Game 1 and then play really well the next week and beat a ranked Oklahoma team.  The Big Ten season starts next week and by nothing short of a miracle your team is 2-0.  I asked you last week to win on defensive and that is exactly what you did. 

Now to this week.  Coach, we need some offense and we need it in a hurry.  The run game is poor to average, the offensive line has not been great, and our passing game is iffy at best.  Hat tip to Bryce, he was not well received after Week 1 but played much better Week 2.   We need to continue to see that weekly progression.  

The Big 10 Season is no joke, so we have to respect UTEP but get better and gain confidence this week.  Here is a quick priority list of things we need to see on Saturday. 

#1: Run the dang ball, Bert! 

#2: The offensive line needs to be road graters and open up some holes

#3: Move the ball through the Air, hit WR's, throw to a TE, get Bryce some confidence. 

#4: Score lots of points 

#5: Play dominating defensive like you have 

#6: No more penalties 

I would like to see Marshall and Hiter both have 100 yards.  I really like Hiter catching the ball out of the backfield and his total can be a combo between running and receiving yards.    Get Marsh a TD, would like to see Bryce complete a long pass.  

If the game starts to lean to a blow out, would love to see the young WR's in the game with Carr.  Don't take your foot off the gas, get them into open spaces and let them run.  

Now, let me be clear on something.  I'm not suggesting Michigan look past UTEP or not respect them.   We saw how that went for Oregon last week and your squad week 1.  Respect the opponent and play clean Michigan Football. 

Now that is out of the way, this week is about getting better, gaining confidence, and setting the table for a Big Ten Championship run. 

Michigan 51 UTEP 9

Big Ten Weekend Preview: Week 3

Not the best weekend for the Big Ten after tough weekend last week when the top 2 teams took loses on the road. 

Friday:

Portland State @ Oregon (-57.5):  Well, I guess this is the reward for playing Boise and OK State in the first two weeks. 

Saturday: 

Kent State @ OSU (-52.5): Well, I guess this is the reward for traveling to Texas and playing bad in the 4th. 

Buffalo @ PSU (-41.5): Is this MAC vs. Big Ten Week?  PSU 41 Buffalo 13

Akron @ Minn (-23.5):  Golden Gophers looked pretty bad last week against the SEC.  This week the Zips.  Minn 28 Akron 10 

EMU @ Wisconsin (-23.5):  Don't sleep on the Eagles!  Wisconsin 21 EMU 17 

S.Illinois @ Illinois (-38.5): Illinois lost to Duke last weekend.  Enough said.   Illinois 24 SIU 7 

USC (-21.5) @ Rutgers:  What is this?  A conference game?  USC does not travel well to the East, but Rutgers doesn't play well anywhere.  USC 38 Rutgers 21 

N. Iowa @ Iowa (-40.5):  Is Iowa good? Not sure this game will be a proof point.  Iowa 44 NIU 9

North Dakota @ Nebraska (-24.5):  Is this Dakota team good?  Is this Nebraska team good? Does anyone want to watch this game? Nebraska 31 NDU 17

E Wash @ UW (-42.5) These are really some good games. UW 51 EWU 6

MSU @ ND (-29.5):  Wow that is a high line.  Is ND 30 points better then Sparty?  I doubt it.  ND 33 MSU 14

Colorado @ NW (-3.5):  This is a sneaky good game.  I like Coach Prime in this one.  Colorado 24 NW 20

VT (-3) @ Maryland:  Another good sneaky game.  James Franklin back in the Big Ten! I have no idea on either team, I like Maryland at home.  Maryland 17 VT 14

Purdue @ UCLA (-14): Talk about a body clock game for the Boilermakers, this game kicks at 11:00 EST that is 10:00 Boilermaker time.  That means trouble.  UCLA 31 Purdue 28 

Good Big Ten games after dark! 

Wolverine Wednesday: What Are We Doing?

CBS and ESPN are struggling with being media companies and being profitable.  So here is a question for you:  Why are they paying these guys in the booth so much?  Tony Romo which CBS clearly wants to cleary cut ties with gets paid $1M per game.  Monday Night Football host Joe Buck just signed a $108M extension.  For working one night a week for 17 - 18 weeks? 

These companies really think people are tuning in for the folks in the booth and not the game?  This entire industry needs a reboot.  

• University of Miami is moving from adidas to Nike next year. 

• Oklahoma needs to be very careful with New Mexico this weekend. 

• WMU has Boise State in two weeks.  It would be great for Michigan if they are ranked 

• The Dabo vs. Capel Bill might have one of those old pro wrestling, "Loser leaves town games this weekend'

• It makes me proud and pissed that Coach Minter and Coach Mac are seeing so much success in the NFL.  Michigan's program would be in a different place if Jesse Minter was our head coach right now.