The Wake Up Call

Rude awakening.

I have been putting this off for over a day now.

I first sat down with the intention of writing my postgame thoughts Saturday night after the seven Michigan State fans I spent most of the weekend with left for the bar, leaving me alone with a glass of whiskey and the hum of Florida vs. LSU in the background.  I typed maybe five or six different openings but wasn't happy with what came out, and on top of it I was only half interested in writing anything.  I clicked back and forth between other open tabs on Chrome and felt myself pulled further and further into Les Miles world of madness.  Finally I pushed the computer away.  Sometimes you just need a little time to let things sink in.

Grades from the First Third: Defense

Before the season began, when this blog was still in its infancy, I decided the best way to jump in to my Michigan football blogging career short of doing a full season preview would be to look at the best and worst case scenarios for each position group.  I called this series "Half full/Half empty" and I used it to lay out what I thought this season might have in store.

Don't get too comfortable with this defense yet,
lest something like this happen again.

Now that we have made it through the first third of the season, it is time to offer some initial reactions.  Since I have already used the gimmick of "Half full/Half empty" I am just going to stay with it   dance with the one that brought you and all.  I will provide links to the original posts in case you feel like reading them for a little background.

Naturally, disclaimers abound.  This is only my estimation of how each position group has done compared to my preseason hopes and fears.  While we have some answers, a lot more will become clear the further this team gets into the Big Ten season.  (Offense Part I, and Part II found here).

Let's start with the defense.

(One note for those unfamiliar with UFRs, I will rely heavily on this performance based recap of the game done at mgoblog.  Any discussion of player performance is incomplete without taking into account Brian's UFR data.)

The Match Up Rundown: Notre Dame

Let up begin looking forward to this week's game against the Fightin' Irish.  Today I will explore some key matchups that will play a big role in this weeks game.  One matchup will favor the Wolverines, the other will favor the Irish.  Whatever team has the most success winning these key battles will most likely win the game.

Conventional wisdom?  No thanks.

When you watch as much ESPN as I do on a daily basis you are either 1) unemployed or 2) masochistic.  Sportscenter is still great for a rundown of scores and highlights, and I'll never change the channel when PTI comes on, but overall the so called "experts" on the different ESPN shows tend to hang on cliches and hyperbole.  So I wasn't surprised today when Mel Kiper and Todd McShay decided to weigh in on players to watch during the Michigan vs. Notre Dame game this week.  I had already decided on writing this piece and figured that these two might have something interesting to add.

Then Mel Kiper made me reevaluate everything I was going to write.  His key player was Michael Floyd.

Here, I had spent the whole morning planning a piece on just how much damage Michael Floyd could do to this thin Michigan secondary.  He is unquestionably a first round caliber draft pick when he leaves school.  He absolutely toyed with sophomore Boubacar "Toast" Cissoko last year, hauling in seven receptions for 131 yards and a touchdown.

But, isn't that the point?  Floyd will have a productive day on the outside against a green secondary unit just like he did last year.  However, the soft coverage schemes and Dayne Crist's inability to be Jimmy Clausen should keep the production at around the same level as last year.  That kind of production I can live with.  After all, the outside receivers had a field day last year and Michigan still pulled out the win.  Which brings me to my first key matchup, the receiver we really need to be worried about this Saturday.

Half Full or Half Empty? Secondary

If you want a full fledged preview of this year's team, you are in the wrong place.  Your first stop should be MGoBlog or your local newsstand for a copy of this year's Hail To The Victors (also written by Brian from MGoBlog).

Hopefully the secondary isn't glass number 3.

Over here at Dreaded Judgement, we (the royal we of course, lets keep these Lebowski references going) like to deal more in abstract scenarios.  How could things turn out?  What should send the majority of the fan base scurrying under the nearest rock, and what possibilities are there for large scale improvement?

To answer these questions, I will try to look at each position group individually and give one reason for overjoyed optimism and one for suicide inducing pessimism.  This Half Full/Half Empty series will touch on all of the position groups by this Saturday, when we will start to get a real idea of where we stand.  With that said, lets start with the bad news...

The Secondary.