The Michigan Wolverines beat the Maryland Terrapins Saturday but was it more to do with Michigan being good or Maryland being bad?
After losing to the Penn State Nittany Lions a few weeks ago, the Michigan Wolverines have put together two of their strongest performances on the year. Michigan slaughtered the Notre Dame Fighting Irish in The Big House last week and just obliterated the Maryland Terrapins on the road in College Park to improve to 7-2 (4-2) on the season. Maryland falls to 3-6 (1-5) on the year.
So can we safely say that Michigan is back to being good again or was this more about how bad the Terrapins have been of late under first-year head coach Mike Locksley? It might be a bit of both, but Michigan should get more credit than Maryland deserves blame and here’s why.
Outside of its two losses on the year to Penn State and the Wisconsin Badgers, the Michigan defense has looked solid all season long under defensive coordinator Don Brown. Maryland has had its issues on offense for a good bit of the season, despite that being the side of the ball where Locksley specializes. That being said, we can count on Michigan to play good defense most weeks.
What has hurt Michigan’s reputation this season had been dismal nature on offense. While they are not lighting up through the air by any means, it does seem that the Wolverines have established a strong ground-and-pound offensive identity under offensive coordinator Josh Gattis. Michigan ran for over 150 in its beat down of Maryland on Saturday afternoon. It’s clearly working.
This has to be one of the most dominating games of Michigan’s season thus far. The only points they allowed to the Terrapins were on a 97-yard kickoff return. So we got a great offensive game plan from Gattis and a dominating defensive one out of Brown on Saturday.
This will take some pressure off head coach Jim Harbaugh before heading into Michigan’s rivalry game with the Michigan State Spartans in two weeks. After that, it’s two more division rivals in the Indiana Hoosiers and the archival Ohio State Buckeyes at regular season’s end. Michigan isn’t going to win the Big Ten East, but you have to like what we’ve seen out of them in recent weeks.
As for Maryland, it’s a tough situation for Locksley to enter taking over for D.J. Durkin in College Park. It may take a few years for the Terrapins to right the ship, but you can’t win ball games with when you average less than three yards per rushing attempt. Maryland will not be going bowling this year, as the Terrapins have to play Ohio State in Columbus next week. Good luck with that.
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