Postgame Thoughts: Michigan 17, Oklahoma 10
The Oklahoma Sooners received a dose of reality in their 17-10 loss to the Michigan Wolverines on Saturday.
Michigan played field position superbly and deployed quarterback Bryce Underwood’s legs as a foundation of its offense for the first time in his career with the Wolverines. The pressure was on the Sooners to perform without any mistakes. Instead, a couple catastrophic ones doomed their hopes of leaving Ann Arbor with a win.
A smattering of observations from the game, based on one live viewing of the broadcast…
*Yesterday’s performance will rightfully dampen the enthusiasm about the improvement of OU QB John Mateer. Many of his decisions were bad, and the execution was somehow worse.
We could catalogue Mateer’s issues throughout the course of the game, but they wouldn’t be anything you don’t already know about: wonky mechanics, no touch on his throws, poor reads. The Michigan D could have picked him off multiple times on fastballs that floated high towards his targets. The pass that the Wolverines did grab was a back breaker, setting up Michigan inside OU’s 10 yard line for the game-winning touchdown.
Michigan coach Kyle Whittingham and his staff put the game on Mateer’s shoulders. Seems like a smart bet at this point, and more opponents will make it this season. At the risk of understatement, that’s a problem, and any other issues with the offense take a backseat to Mateer’s play.
*Not a great day for the offensive line. Michigan edges John Henry Daley and Dominic Nichols did mean, nasty things to the offensive tackles, in particular.
The return of center Jake Maikkula and utility man Ryan Fodje didn’t provide much of a boost to the unit. Fodje appeared out of his depth filling in at left tackle for the injured Michael Fasusi, while Maikkula showed signs of rust. When Fasusi returns to the lineup, left guard Eddy Pierre-Louis could end up fighting for his job. The same goes for E’Marion Harris at right tackle.
But if you’re pointing the finger at where blame lies for the performance of the offense yesterday, the OL seemed like less of a problem than the player running the show behind it.
*The running backs didn’t have many opportunities to show what they could do. Lloyd Avant ran well enough to command more touches than he received. Conversely, every carry for Xavier Robinson felt like a wasted down for the second game in a row.
Whatever the problem is with Robinson, Avant and freshman Jonathan Hatton, who was held out this week with an ankle injury, look like OU’s best one-two punch in the backfield. And run the damn ball.
*Defensively, OU gave a B-grade performance.
The Wolverines did the obvious thing to improve their offense by making Underwood into more of a runner. He carried the ball 16 times for 96 yards, excluding sacks. His attempts included a 38-yard touchdown run in the first half in which OU’s tackling left a lot to be desired.
As soon as OU adjusted to the QB run threat, the defense didn’t give Michigan much room to breathe.
*The defensive standouts included familiar names such as edge Taylor Wein and nose tackle Jayden Jackson. Peyton and Eli Bowen also played well in the secondary. Cheetah Reggie Powers continues to show promise.
Conversely, safety Michael Boganowski had a rough showing for the second week in a row. Look for Omarion Robinson to keep taking a larger share of his snaps going forward.
*Losing inside linebacker Kip Lewis stings. (Now imagine if Owen Heinecke didn’t get that injunction.)
It look as though the interim fix will involve Heinecke switching to Will LB from Mike LB, with Cole Sullivan stepping in at Mike. That seems like a workable solution from a performance standpoint, but depth is dwindling quickly.
*Special teams? All good.
*Finally, it shouldn’t come as a surprise if Michigan ends up being a good team this season. The Wolverines upgraded their coaching staff and still have plenty of quality players on their roster. They can replicate what they did against OU for the rest of the year and find plenty of success with it against their schedule.
That doesn’t make the Sooners’ performance any less disappointing. At least half of OU’s remaining schedule consists of teams as good as Michigan or better. If the coaching staff can’t figure out a way to make it work with Mateer, the situation will get ugly with a quickness.