FanNation - The Republic of Sport

When Big Brother was last seen playing football, Lloyd "Much Maligned" Carr's team had introduced a spread offense for the Capital One Bowl to go along with his allegedly "can't handle the spread" defense. The result was to defeat Urban Meyer's spread offense team, the defending national champions. Reflagged since then as the Fighting Rodrigi, Big Brother now runs a spread of its own full time, has been practicing it since this spring, and presumably has a defense that is quite used to stopping it.

Michigan fans don't have Lloyd Carr to kick around anymore, and it seems that most have been excited that they have now become their old spread nemisis. We should therefore pause and note the irony that in its first outing after beating Urban Meyer's current team, this bunch failed to stop his old spread offense team. Lloyd Carr certainly doesn't ever want Michigan to lose and doesn't strike me as the sort to go anonymously on message boards or talk radio shows to mock his old detractors. But if a desire to act on a tiny fraction of that temptation occupies a dark, unmentioned corner of his brain this week, one could certainly forgive him for it. It may be a dozen games or more before Michigan gets back to where Lloyd left them.

All summer and all through the first game, the quarterback situation has mimicked the typical presidential election: The successful candidate is the one who will do the least amount of harm, rather than the most talented of two pleasantly promising prospects. Once chosen, it is hoped that Mr. "Lesser of Two Evils" will have the chance to gain experience and grow into the job. But unlike the politicians, there is a strong possibility that a spread offense QB will not serve every day of his term, thus sometimes flushing away that hard won experience and temporarily turning the keys over to the guy who did the most to earn his time riding the bench. And compounding all of this is the dangerously thin offensive line, meaning a third-party candidate could even get a turn or two.

The putrid rushing totals for the Utah game probably shows more about the offensive line maturity and lack of an experienced passer than anything else. Are any of those backs any good? It may be a long time before a fair judgment can be made. By definition, that probably means a lot more small numbers in the yards-per-carry category.

The defense was supposed to protect the team while the offense got its act together. It is merely good at this point -- not great. It will need to be great, capable of putting its own points on the board every game. That's not impossible. Other teams have been carried by their defenses, so long as they have offenses that take care of the ball and capitalize on the opportunities given them by the defense.

This offense isn't there yet -- three turnovers vs. Utah -- but it could get there before the year is over. If that happens reliably, then a solid defense will let the Fighting Rodrigi play completely different football with much more confidence later in the year. I still think as I did from the beginning, that this is a 6-6 team.

A lot of this depends, of course, on injuries and whether Rodriguez really does know what he's doing. But all that said, it's only partly crazy to say that a 6-5 Michigan -- after losing to Utah and maybe even Notre Dame in September --could improve enough and be inspired enough to beat Ohio State at the end of November. It's a rivalry game, it's college football, and equally crazy things happen several times every year.