Game balls from the Michigan football team's 42-24 victory Saturday against Northwestern.
DENARD ROBINSON (3): The focal point of the Michigan offense had an up-and-down game. Robinson threw three first-half interceptions, but was solid in the second half. He finished with 454 total yards (337 passing, 117 running) two rushing touchdowns and two passing touchdowns. Robinson was 7-of-8 passing for 148 yards on third down.
MICHIGAN DEFENSE (3): The defense entered the game allowing opponents just 10.2 points a game. That changed in the first half when Northwestern scored 24 points. The Wolverines adjusted and pitched a shutout in the second half, forced a fumble and an interception and held the Wildcats to 139 second-half yards of offense.
MICHIGAN COACHES (4): Interesting to watch, no? Michigan mixed it up on offense with long throws, a variety of runs and screens and a mix of
Devin Gardner and
Denard Robinson at quarterback. More importantly, Michigan adjusted in the second half, eliminating turnovers, creating some of its own and took control of the game on both sides of the ball. The Wolverines finished with 529 yards of offense and were 14-of-17 on third-down conversions.
DAN PERSA (2): The Northwestern quarterback finished 32-of-44 passing for 331 yards, but was sacked four times and never found his rhythm in the second half. Persa and Northwestern scored on four of its seven first-half possessions before stalling in the second half.
Comments
MRunner73
Sun, Oct 9, 2011 : 3:53 p.m.
Michigan Defense: three and a half footballs because the Northwestern offense is high powerd and they played at home. They only scored ten points off the Denard three interceptions. That could have been a lot worse. It took four turnovers against SDSU for our defense to allow a TD. Overall, it was great defensive effort. I doubt if any team will hold Northwetern to under 20 points each game if Dan Persa remains healthy the rest of the season. Kudos to the Maize and Blue on this one. Poor Denard, we hold him to such a high standard. He did look pretty bad on each intercetion he threw in the first half. He played a great second half. Keep earning three footballs, Denard, as long as we win.