Happy Tuesday to all of the Michigan Football fans out there. We are still in the process of putting a bow on the week that was for the Wolverines in its slim defeat of Army, so let’s keep plugging along.
Don Brown: U-M was ‘hosed’ on fumble recovery non-TD
Don Brown was over the moon about his defense’s performance against Army on Saturday, but one critical officiating error could have come with a much heavier price to pay in a certain situation.
Michigan recovered a fumble in the game that was scooped up by Josh Metellus and ran into the endzone, except the whistle blew right after the recovery and the play was marked dead. Because it was a dead ball, it was unable to be reviewed, and it pissed off Brown and the Wolverines.
“We got hosed big time on that fumble recovery,” Brown said on Monday at Schembechler Hall. “That’s a touchdown. That’s got to be in the end zone. Why do you need to blow the whistle there?”
On the very next play, the Wolverines would fumble the ball right back to the Black Knights.
“You don’t need to blow the whistle.” Brown said. “Just let it play itself out and then go take a look at it. That could be the difference between success and failure. Those are killers. Guys get hired, fired, lose jobs over those things.”
Gattis says ‘little things’ holding back Michigan’s offense
Offensive coordinator Josh Gattis also spoke to the media on Monday and cited the biggest reason for his team’s struggles through the first two games is about what our eyeballs have said it is — turnovers and self-inflicted mistakes.
“We just had too many self-inflicted wounds,” Gattis said. “Little things like that, we’ve got to clean up. But I thought our kids, they battled back from adversity. Obviously the adversity was from some things that we put ourselves in, but they didn’t let it rattle them.”
Michigan’s mistakes never allowed them to get in the rhythm that this new offense is supposed to establish and the three first half turnovers crushed their chances of taking care of business in the first 30 minutes of play.
“We had five drives in the first half, and three of them ended either between the first and fourth play on a fumble,” Gattis said. “Those things are drive killers. They put your defense in a bad position.
“I just need our kids to settle down. Just settle down and play the type of football that we want to play, and not ourselves with the costly mistakes.”
Gattis told the media that he believes these are happening because players are pressing too hard and trying to do too much. That is especially true in the explosive play department, which they label as a run of 12 yards or more or a pass of 16 yards or more. Missed throws and missed running lanes are killing them right now.
“We’ve missed about six of those,” Gattis said. “We’ve just got to get our timing down in every phase, ever aspect of our operations on offense. Quit with the mistakes that kind of hurt us. In the drives that we’ve stopped, we’ve stopped ourselves.”
Charbonnet wins Big Ten Freshman of the Week
Not a huge surprise here, but true freshman running back Zach Charbonnet is taking home some hardware this week after a 33-carry, 100 yard and three touchdown performance in the victory over Army.
Zach Charbonnet has been named the #B1G Freshman of the Week after his 100-yard, 3-touchdown performance vs. Army.
— Michigan Football (@UMichFootball) September 9, 2019
Way to go, @zachcharbon! #GoBlue pic.twitter.com/CWYhGsVmTy
Michigan might feel that Charbonnet is its best back at the moment, but the staff knows a No. 2 needs to emerge so as to not wear down the young star. Perhaps this comes in the form of Tru Wilson’s return from a hand injury and Christian Turner improving in pass protection, but they cannot ride him like this every week. At least they do not want to.
National Brews
- LSU head coach Ed Orgeron accused Texas of not having air conditioning in its visiting locker room, which is a claim that the Longhorns athletic department is vehemently denying.
- Lynn Swann has resigned as the athletic director at USC, the university announced on Monday. One would assume major changes are set to come once again to how they are run.
- A bit of a curveball here and a pivot to hockey, as former Wolverine Zach Werenski has signed a three-year contract worth $15 million to remain with the Columbus Blue Jackets. And it looks like he could get paid again in the near future.