I'm starting to come around to the idea that it literally may not be possible for the 2023 Michigan Wolverines to score 40 points in a football game.
And while this is normally the point in Threat Level where I say it's because a witch cursed Donovan Edwards with rickets or Jim Harbaugh hit a leprechaun with his car, in actuality I think that Michigan's offensive malaise can be chalked up to two factors that feed into each other: new clock rules and a lack of explosive offensive plays.
Harbaugh's triumphant return to the sidelines netted Michigan a lazy 31-7 win against Rutgers, in which the home team had a grand total of seven offensive possessions. People have made a lot of hay about how the new clock rules aren't changing much, actually, and we should all shut up about it, but I don't think that's quite accurate; while it's true that the total number of plays haven't gone down a ton, I think what the new clock rules have done is put significant pressure on slower, more methodical teams like Michigan that don't love stretching the field in either the run or passing game. For them, almost every offensive play is essentially a running play in terms of time consumed, and if your forte as a team is long drives that eat up a lot of clock, you're going to end up with literally seven offensive possessions during the entire game (as Michigan did against Rutgers).
Put another way, Michigan averaged 70.5 offensive plays per game in 2022, which wasn't a ton, but still almost perfectly average nationally. In 2023? Just 57.8, slightly above freaking Iowa and good for 126th in the country. Part of this is on Harbaugh and company in not looking up the word "tempo" in their Webster's, but there's a larger question to be asked about the implications of these rules and how they will homogenize certain offensive play styles.
Anyway, anyone picking the over on a Michigan game this season is doing so at their own risk.
THE OFFENSE
Oh right, Harbaugh escaped Shawshank this week. Good for him!
The other good news for the Wolverines is that J.J. McCarthy wasn't utter ass against the Scarlet Knights, in case you thought his disastrous performance against Bowling Green was part of a trend. That's not to say he had a great game passing the ball (he was a decent but boring 15/21, 214 yards and a touchdown), but he was by necessity more involved in the running game (seven carries, 51 yards).
"By necessity" because Blake Corum was sub-par (21 carries, 97 yards) and Donovan Edwards (6 carries, 13 yards) is lost in the Bermuda Triangle on one of those WWII ghost ships. I think a lot of people expected Jim Harbaugh's return from suspension to magically make Michigan's running game look like some kind of harbinger of death, but against Rutgers at least it was more of a harbinger of a nap.
Also the Michigan offensive line gave up a couple of sacks, which probably isn't a big deal but feel free to make it one when dogging on your annoying Michigan fan co-worker.
THE DEFENSE
Is [INSERT TERRIBLE EARLY SEASON OPPONENT HERE] that bad, or is the Michigan defense that good? How many times can I ask this question before I lose my freaking mind as I watch the Wolverines take on some of the worst offenses in the country? Michigan held the Scarlet Knights to 278 yards of offense, probably, I don't know because it doesn't matter and I can't be bothered to look it up.
Defensive back Mike Sainristil is still legit, at least, and had this extremely funny pick-six that resulted from the entire Rutgers offense lapsing into a collective fugue state and forgetting which sport they play:
Playmaker, that's what @UMichFootball's @MikeSainristil is.
— Big Ten Football (@B1Gfootball) September 23, 2023
: @BigTenNetwork pic.twitter.com/OfZjLnzZzy
MATT WEISS DRAMATIC REENACTMENT OF THE WEEK (THANKS BRYANT)
THREAT LEVEL
At this point I think that we can pretty definitively say that Michigan is not the second best team in the country. They're good, to be sure, but again: it may be literally impossible for this team to score 40 points in a game. With a running game stuck in a deep malaise and a defense that won't face a single real test until mid-November, it's hard to know what, exactly, the identity of this team actually is.
The Threat Level remains HIGH, but the next month will be an important one for the fighting Harbaughs. And likely very, very boring for everyone else.
