Each week, usually on Sunday or Monday, we break down the game the previous Saturday to give an even better idea of what went on.

This week we look at Michigan's first loss of the season. The Wolverines lost in overtime to Michigan State on Saturday, 26-20. It was Michigan's first road game of the year.

OFFENSIVE THOUGHTS: -Michigan’s offensive line, from the start, was porous. On the first play, a handoff to Carlos Brown, three Michigan State linemen beat their men.

-The Spartans also seemed pretty adept at reading the zone read by Tate Forcier early. On the second play, they had two guys assigned to Forcier.

-It should have been a sign of things to come, but Michigan’s first drive offensively was inept. Never mind the loss of yardage considering it started in the red zone, but there were miscommunications everywhere - from quarterback to receiver (Carlos Brown) on third down - to shoddy blocking from the start.

-Michigan’s offense looked no better on the second drive. The defense sat on the run, keying on Carlos Brown. And right tackle Perry Dorrestein got beat by Michigan State’s defensive end on third down, collapsing the pocket. But the Spartans appeared to have a quarterback spy on Forcier, who had to throw it out of bounds. Now that there’s some tape on Forcier, don’t be surprised if more teams commit a spy to the freshman quarterback.

-Forcier turns his back to the field a lot. Pretty much every time he scrambles on a designed roll, especially when he goes left, he is forced to turn his back. Forcier looks a lot less comfortable in this roll than when he rolls right.

-Kelvin Grady had a bad drop in the second quarter. Forcier hit him in the hands pretty open on a rollout deep in Michigan’s territory and he dropped it off his knee.

-Speaking of the roll, he was flushed on that next play and finds Kevin Koger in double coverage. It was a dangerous throw that paid off because Koger caught the ball at midfield in the double coverage. Great play by Koger, who has been missing from the offense for the past three weeks. Koger, of course, dropped a pass two plays later.

-The play after that, with Forcier now having a little bit of confidence, Michigan brought in Denard Robinson for a play that didn’t work. Not sure I understand that strategy since it was the first time Michigan’s offense showed any life.

-On Michigan’s first sustained drive of the game in the middle of the second quarter, having Brandon Minor and Carlos Brown in the backfield was a good option. Except when they run into each other, like they did during Michigan’s first play in the red zone of the day, causing a loss.

-Michigan’s best run of the first half came off a delay for Carlos Brown. Michigan got about six yards.

-Forcier, though, looked like a freshman in the first half. For every good play, there’s then this: An errant snap, Forcier trying to scramble and then throwing it away as he’s running. He threw it well behind the line, pretty much to no one and got called for intentional grounding, ending the drive. Forcier was lucky, though, that it wasn’t deemed a lateral, which could have meant a sure touchdown for Michigan State if the Spartans recovered. Typified an ugly half for the Wolverines.

-Michigan looked no better to start the second half. Forcier was sacked on the first play of the second half.

-Forcier looked to be in pain when the second half started on the first series. His third down throw was well off the mark and as he ran off the field, it looked like Rich Rodriguez asked Forcier if he was OK.

-Any time Michigan appeared to make any sort of progress, a negative play came - be it a penalty or a Forcier sack.

-When Robinson came in during the fourth quarter, it is possible Forcier needed a break considering his shoulder.

-Michigan’s trickery failed in the fourth, when Michigan tried a reverse to Odoms. At least it was something different for Denard Robinson to do instead of a non-option read run.

-Robinson showed some toughness when he ran, breaking tackles and fighting back to the line of scrimmage. He looked like a freshman, though, bouncing everywhere and then ran right into the defense on a big third down sack.

-Forcier, though, came back in the next series.

-Darryl Stonum, besides his late touchdown, had a rough day. Fumbled once on offense. Also fumbled on special teams.

-Roy Roundtree played a decent amount in the fourth quarter. With about nine minutes left, Forcier just overthrew Roundtree on what would have been a big play. The next play, Minor fell on a potential open reception.

-Junior Hemingway, who has been invisible the past couple of weeks, made a huge catch on the second to last drive for Michigan. He bailed out Forcier, who threw a 50-50 ball right at Michigan State’s defensive back but Hemingway picked it out of his hands.

-Two plays later, Stonum scored that touchdown, as Michigan showed when players can get in space (a staple of a Rodriguez offense) what happens. For Stonum, he had a hole when he caught the ball, cut up and across the field 60 yards for a touchdown.

-On the last drive in regulation, Forcier’s shoulder looked to droop again after he dove on a 3rd-and-1 run.

-Forcier again looked like a different quarterback on the final drive, although he overthrew an open Mathews and missed an open Hemingway on one play.

-Forcier really is a late-game player. On a 3rd-and-10, he scrambled for a first down. But he landed on the right shoulder again and winced in pain. That said, he looks like a much more focused player when he has to make these late-game plays.

-On the game-tying touchdown, Forcier had time and found a wide open Roundtree. Bad coverage by Michigan State and no one blitzed or even pressured Forcier on the right side, his preferred roll side. It was a perfectly executed play by Michigan and Forcier to tie the game at 20-20.

-Forcier started his overtime drive the same way, a scramble left, a pitch-and-catch to Odoms right. Then Forcier, again, ran up the middle. Makes you wonder where this offense was for the first three quarters.

-On the interception in overtime, Forcier had time, looked for Odoms but Odoms never got there. Forcier said later there was miscommunication on the route and that Odoms was supposed to keep running. Still, it was a difficult throw to make with three defenders in the end zone.

-Michigan finished the game with five drops.

TO BREAK THIS UP, SOMETHING CALLED A DRUM-OFF - OR AT LEAST PART OF IT - FROM MICHIGAN-MICHIGAN STATE:

DEFENSIVE THOUGHTS: -Michigan, at least at the beginning of the game, started with a pretty good run defense. They had sent six and seven guys on the first two plays, setting up a third-and-long, which resulted in an obvious pass situation.

-Ryan Van Bergen was really the one who forced Stevie Brown’s interception in the first quarter. He beat his guy and then was able to hit Kirk Cousins’ arm as he released the ball, sending it flying into the air. Michigan only sent four on the play, so it was a good play by Van Bergen. Michigan has seemed to get one of these types of plays per game.

-Michigan’s run defense was pretty good early, which was an improvement from the previous three games. Its pass defense, though, not so much. Cousins’ first completed pass was dropped between four Michigan defenders, none of whom seemed like they were paying attention to Charlie Gantt.

-The middle of the defensive line has been pretty good. Mike Martin, Brandon Graham and Ryan Van Bergen held their own. Usually, they got good push against Michigan State’s offensive line.

-Mike Martin played well. He forced a fumble that wasn’t on the official stat sheet and closed the middle gap of the defensive front.

-Horrendous tackling early, too. Michigan had Michigan State wide receiver Keshawn Martin dead on an end around to the right, but Mike Williams missed a tackle. Then he cut back left and Troy Woolfolk missed a tackle before Stevie Brown wrapped him.

-Michigan’s blitz wasn’t effective against the pass early. Whenever the Wolverines’ sent a bunch of guys, Cousins just dumped it over the middle on a crossing pattern. It’s a theme against Michigan this year.

-Obi Ezeh sometimes takes odd routes to the ball. On Cousins’ first scramble, he clearly ran too high, tried to avoid the blocker and ended up being taken out of the play. Michigan clearly struggled with Cousins’ scrambling all day. Once the pocket collapsed, there was no one within five or six yards of the line of scrimmage besides defensive linemen in the backfield, leaving huge holes for Cousins.

-On Michigan State’s first touchdown from one yard out, Larry Caper was basically untouched. The left side of Michigan State’s offensive line and the tight end Gantt just ran over Jonas Mouton to create the hole.

-Cousins got hurt on his third scramble, limping pretty heavily. The next play, he was sacked by Van Bergen.

-In the first half, Michigan played a lot of zone coverage in the secondary, which puts a lot of pressure on the cornerbacks and safeties if there isn’t a pass rush. On a 3rd-and-17 in the second quarter, Michigan sent three, which one would think would mean there’d be a blanket across the rest of the field. Cousins stepped up and found a large hole between Woolfolk and Donovan Warren, where Cunningham was sitting. This was a hole that was open throughout much of the first half.

-Jordan Kovacs had a nice forced fumble in the second quarter, but Michigan State recovered.

-There was more of Brandon Herron than I thought in the first half. He seemed to be on the field a lot, but didn’t do much as far as making plays. And it looked like he often replaced Craig Roh, who has been a playmaker for Michigan this year.

-Any type of misdirection confused Michigan on Saturday. The Wolverines looked like they couldn’t read or handle any sort of fakes. Too often, Michigan bit hard on whatever State did first.

-Cousins picked on the Woolfolk/Warren side of the field. There was a hole there on almost every play and Cousins exploited it. Any time Michigan appeared to play zone coverage - where players are assigned more to a part of the field than a specific back or receiver - it was picked apart.

-Michigan, combined with the zone, rarely sent more than four rushers.

-If you’re searching for a positive in Michigan’s defense, it is this: The red zone defense wasn’t bad. It held Michigan State to a field goal at the end of the first half.

-Cousins’ scrambling killed Michigan. On a long third down on Michigan State’s first drive of the second half, Cousins scrambled and had no one within eight yards of him.

-It killed Michigan all game long, including the 41-yard scramble in the fourth quarter where no one touched him for 40 of those yards.

-J.T. Floyd had a nice breakup of a pass from Cousins to Blair White. Could have intercepted it in the Michigan red zone.

-Craig Roh, again, with good pressure that leads to Donovan Warren’s interception in the red zone. Roh again makes a good play. Not sure why he isn’t on the field every play.

-Brandon Graham - and the rest of the defensive line - had a pretty good game considering. They helped hold Michigan State to a field goal after the fake punt and generally didn’t allow Michigan State to run up the middle. If anything, it is an improvement over the past two weeks, when the middle has been gashed. Graham also forced a fumble in the fourth quarter, sacking Keith Nichol.

-Roh also saved a fourth-quarter touchdown when Nichol hit Gantt in the hands but knocked his hands at the same time.

-Michigan’s run problems are more toward the linebackers and the edge. On Michigan State’s last touchdown in regulation, Glenn Winston bounced outside and no linebackers or cornerbacks were there to help. At all. He went in untouched from 15 yards out.

-Michigan made the critical fourth-quarter stop when it needed to, led by Kovacs, who had 17 tackles. Michigan State, though, was playing conservatively to try and use clock.

-On the play before the game-winning touchdown, Michigan stayed with its non-pressing coverage, which didn’t make much sense because all State needed was a field goal to win. Not, of course that it mattered.

-On the game-winning touchdown, Michigan missed tackling Larry Caper twice and it was a rare time the Michigan defensive line got pushed off of the ball. By the time Caper hit the line of scrimmage, the Wolverines defensive line was out of the play. It was just shoddy tackling all around.

-Considering that, Michigan had, at my count, 17 missed tackles that you could see from the television. Michigan State ran a total of 78 plays.

HOME VIDEO OF PANDEMONIUM AFTER THE LAST PLAY:

SPECIAL TEAMS: -Bryan Wright had the wind at his back on the opening kickoff - and he was able to boot it well into the end zone. Through it actually. Same with the second kickoff. Most of the game, though, he was able to be around the goal-line.

-Jason Olesnavage made a 36-yard field goal but even that wasn’t great. It grazed one of the goalposts to get in even though Olesnavage was dead center on the field. Olesnavage also made a second field goal, accounting for all of Michigan’s first half scoring. He’s become a dependable option for Michigan.

-The Michigan kick coverage, which has been very hit-and-miss this season, really struggled in the first half. It allowed Winston to get free on the second return and to almost midfield. Two missed tackles on the drive.

-Still don’t know what was up with the fake punt. After watching it again, I’m more inclined that it was a called play instead of a read by Mesko because Mesko took about two steps before tucking the ball and running. That said, Rodriguez looked absolutely angry when Mesko took off, which makes me think it wasn’t called. Either way, horrific decision by Michigan. The fake fooled no one.

-Darryl Stonum had a decent return day. At least until he fumbled a kickoff. But Michigan held on to the ball because it went out of bounds.

Michael Rothstein covers University of Michigan sports for AnnArbor.com. He can be reached at (734) 623-2558, by e-mail at michaelrothstein@annarbor.com or follow on Twitter @mikerothstein.