Ah, the depth chart mind games! It’s a staple of every football coach. Chip Kelly, during his Philadelphia Eagles days, even once said that he lets a Media Relations staffer make his for him. Depth chart obfuscation is all part of the Art of War that is football, and no one takes that to heart more than Michigan football coach Jim Harbaugh.
He doesn’t release his to the public; ever.
Remember Michigan football is a submarine after all. This week, Illini football Coach Lovie Smith refrained from releasing one either.
Let the good times roll as we preview #3 Michigan football hosting the Illini.
SPREAD: Michigan football -36
TV/RADIO: Saturday, Oct. 22, 2016 | 3:30 ET / 2:30 pm CT
BTN | BTN2Go.com (Kevin Kugler, Matt Millen & Lisa Byington)
Here’s an interesting factoid:
Saturday's game between #Illini and @UMichFootball will be a college football first. pic.twitter.com/fT0jDLkJ2e
— Illini Football (@IlliniFootball) October 17, 2016
Michigan football Preview:
Michigan is ranked third in the national polls and #1 in total defense. The Wolverines average 50.0 points per game on offense while allowing 1just 0.3 on defense. They crushed Rutgers 78-0 a couple weeks ago and after the game Harbaugh said that he actually wasn’t trying to run the score.
Uhm, ok.
The Illini beat Rutgers 24-7, on the strength of forcing/RU committing five turnovers. Illinois was alarmingly -65 in the yardage differential in that trip to RU. Thus, you see this game now having a 36 point spread.
Here’s an interesting side note. Let’s just hope that nobody takes their cues on the most important environmental crisis of our time from a Michigan football coach. It’s pretty socially irresponsible of Harbaugh to keep saying myopic, self-serving dreck like this though. He could poisoning some minds with statements like that.
“Global warming is good for Michigan,” Jim Harbaugh said on his radio show, according to USA Today. “It’s good for recruiting.”
Global warming usually isn’t considered a great thing no matter what college football fan base you belong to but you can understand the benefits of a nice day in Ann Arbor if Michigan were hosting some recruits. This isn’t the first time Harbaugh has brought up global warming and linking it to recruiting either, saying roughly the same thing toTom Brady back in an event on national signing day.
Moving on, the last time that a defensive player won the Heisman trophy it was a Michigan Wolverine. Charles Woodson, a defensive back to be exact. Maybe the next time that it happens, it’ll also be a Michigan star, who also plays DB (among other things) in Jabrill Peppers.
Good ol’ #5 began his UM career as a DB but now he’s moved on to doing that and so much more. Michigan Coach Jim Harbaugh listed out everything Peppers can, should and does do for the Wolverines this preseason. You can read the very long quote.
Peppers, like Woodson before him, also makes his impact felt on both offense and on special teams too. Today, Woodson has retired and now moved on to making ridiculous attention grabbing, click-bait statements as a NFL Analyst while Jabrill Peppers seems poised to become truly “the next big thing.”
Here’s a link to more on Peppers, and his chances to win the Heisman.
This is homecoming for Michigan football, and as we wrote up yesterday, the team you schedule for homecoming is by default a bit disrespected. Here’s a link to more on why that is.
Lovie Smith did mention at his Monday presser how his team has scheduled for homecoming a lot.
cover a lot of Homecoming games on the road. For some reason, other #B1G schools keep scheduling the #Illini & #Northwestern for Homecoming
— Paul M. Banks (@PaulMBanks) October 15, 2016
Illinois Fighting Illini Preview:
Lovie did not name his starting quarterback, and you can bet that this decision will be a mystery up until pregame warm-ups. Smith said that Wes Lunt was getting better from the back injury that he suffered. However, he still had the second-worst QBR (45.5) in the conference — behind only Rutgers’ Chris Laviano. It’s worth noting that Laviano has already been benched.
Time to go with Chayce Crouch, plain and simple. Whether Lunt is fully healthy or not, he’s earned a place on the bench, and more importantly this team needs to look towards the future.
Most of the team’s best players will be gone next year. Defensive lineman Carroll Phillips leads the Big Ten in tackles for loss with 11. Linebacker transfer Hardy Nickerson Jr. has a conference-best 58 tackles.
Both are graduating, as is defensive end Dawuane Smoot, the team’s most NFL draft ready talent.
It’s time for Lovie to play all the kids, as this is a totally lost season. The Illini are not going bowling, and they’ll be underdogs in every game here on out. Why not see what you have in the pipeline for the future?
Lovie seems to already be doing that, although publicly he says the opposite:
“That’s not what we’re looking for,” he said. “We’re looking for the best fit.”
The opening day depth chart was extremely senior heavy at starting positions, but that’s been totally revamped now. Smith started six players on defense Saturday at Rutgers who were not starters for that opening game. There’s been major makeovers at safety and linebacker.
Like the old Quaker Oats campaign said “it’s the right thing to do.” 2016 is lost, and 2017 could be brutal as well. Let’s get the youngsters some valuable experience now, so that ’17 could be better than we think, and ’18 could be competitive.
Also, since we’re talking about Lovie Smith, be sure to check out my op-ed in the Chicago Tribune RedEye about the Chicago Bears and Illinois Fighting Illini. The theme is why can’t we have nice things like they do right across the state border?
Here’s an excerpt:
The Badgers have three Big Ten titles since 2010 and 10 seasons of nine or more wins since 2004. By contrast, Illinois has just three nine-win seasons and only one Rose Bowl appearance since earning a berth in 1984.
It’s difficult to claim that the Illini and the Badgers are true conference rivals.
Meanwhile, the Packers and Bears comprise the NFL’s most-played rivalry, having played each other more than any two teams in league history.
However, the Bears and Packers rarely have been on equal footing lately, a required element for any true rivalry.
Read the whole piece here.
Your 2016 Michigan football team just keeps on rolling like a set of Uniroyals on the highway to an 11-0 start to the season.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net, partnered with FOX Sports Engage Network. and News Now. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, currently contributes regularly to the Chicago Tribune’s RedEye publication and Bold Global.
He also consistently appears on numerous radio and television talk shows all across the country. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram and Sound Cloud.