Michigan’s defense quietly did its job against Western Michigan
For all the frustration surrounding Michigan’s season opener, Kyle Whittingham didn’t come out of the film room looking for wholesale changes on defense.
While Michigan’s offense spent most of Saturday fighting itself against Western Michigan, the Wolverines’ defense quietly put together the kind of performance that normally gives a team plenty of room to win.
Western Michigan averaged just 3.3 yards per play.
Michigan allowed no explosive plays by Whittingham’s definition of 20 yards or more.
And despite entering the opener with questions about how much live tackling Michigan had done during fall camp, the Wolverines finished with just five missed tackles.
Those are winning numbers.
“We’ve only missed five tackles, which is outstanding,” Whittingham said Monday. “If we can see the digits, that’s where we want to be.”
The defense’s problem was simpler.
Michigan didn’t force a takeaway, something Whittingham immediately identified when reviewing the game Monday.
That matters even more considering how Western Michigan chose to play.
The Broncos’ plan was obvious: shorten the game, bleed clock and keep Michigan’s offense standing on the sideline. It worked. Western Michigan possessed the ball for more than 40 minutes and helped limit Michigan to just 10 offensive possessions.
The defense largely held up anyway.
Western Michigan completed passes, but Michigan prevented those completions from becoming damaging plays. Whittingham acknowledged some issues underneath in Cover 2, but his larger point was that the Broncos never really hurt Michigan over the top.
“They didn’t get explosive,” Whittingham said.
That’s a pretty good place to start.
Michigan entered the season with talent in the secondary and plenty of reasons to believe its defensive front could make life difficult on opponents. Against Western Michigan, the Wolverines mostly did what a good defense is supposed to do: tackle, keep the ball in front of them, and avoid giving away cheap touchdowns.
The missing piece was creating chaos.
Whittingham specifically mentioned interceptions Monday and noted how damaging they can be to an offense. Michigan had chances to make more plays on the football but never came away with one.
That becomes increasingly important when the level of competition rises.
Against Western Michigan, Michigan could survive without a takeaway because the defense consistently forced the Broncos to earn everything. Against better offenses, there will be drives where simply playing sound football isn’t enough.
Eventually, somebody has to make the play that changes the game.
Still, if Michigan fans are looking for reasons to be concerned after Week 1, defense probably isn’t near the top of the list.
And doing all of that while spending the majority of the night on the field because the offense couldn’t sustain possessions makes the performance look even better.
There are things to clean up. Whittingham wasn’t pretending otherwise.
But there’s a difference between needing improvement and having a problem.
Michigan’s offense had problems Saturday.
Its defense mostly just needs to start forcing turnovers.
