Champaign Juice | Michigan Musings

I guess four straight onside kick turnovers don't worry Lloyd Carr; he didn't mention it once during his press conference Monday. If I were Illinois coach Ron Zook I would be practicing onside kicks all week, because Michigan clearly can't get a handle on this facet of special teams. Lloyd did seem fairly concerned about the Illini offense and rightly so. Running back Rashard Mendenhall and option QB Juice Williams are a pretty potent backfield. Throw in their other QB Eddie McGee with his super arm and you've got some pretty good firepower. I can forgive Lloyd if he decides to ignore the special teams problems and focuses on defending the option offense all week. Now I know Lloyd had all summer to get his team ready to defend the spread offenses they saw in the first two weeks of the season and he still couldn't get it done. He also knows what Illinois is bringing, he saw the same thing last year, so hopefully one week will be enough to get the team ready to defend it. Williams and Mendenhall had great seasons last year and they're only getting better. I've seen the option destroy a slow Michigan defense many times in the past...I really don't want to see it again. Also throw in the fact that it's a night game and it doesn't get any easier. It will already be a long day by the time they take the field at 8:00. Lloyd better not let them sit around getting lazier by the minute. It's going to be a cold, dark, inhospitable contest in front of a national audience as only the second away game this season...good luck.

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October 16, 2007 11:32 AM ET

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I didn't watch his press conference from Monday, but in the post-game show Carr was asked about the two onside kicks that Purdue recovered. He stated that there was no reason to have his first string "hands" team in that late in an already won game. He had the second string kick team in and had them line up to take the kick. The first kick was an excellent hop and may not have even been recovered by the first team, but the second one was garbage. The ball did not travel 10 yards and I'm almost positive that it was not touched by a Michigan player, although I did not get to see any replays. Special teams is something that gets practiced on a very regular basis and I'm sure that Carr has addressed the problems that he saw. Sometimes it all depends on the bounce.
As for the game this Saturday, hopefully Michigan can bottle up Mendenhall. Williams doesn't have the best runnning stats on his own and certainly isn't the most stellar with his pass game. Maybe Michigan's signs of life from the Purdue game is a show of whats to come. Manningham finally looked good, Carlos brown may have gained a lot of much needed confidence and from all of the players accounts, Mike Hart will play. The X factor is that the game is on the road at night.