Instant Analysis: Utah-Michigan

Almost by definition, there’s no such thing as a dominating two-point win. But if it was ever possible for a two-point win to be dominating, Utah did the deed on Saturday against Michigan.

Interestingly enough, Michigan’s new coach, Rich Rodriguez, presided over a game in 2006 in which a three-point spread masked the extent to which one team dominated another. When Rodriguez’s West Virginia club beat Georgia 38-35 in the 2006 Sugar Bowl, the numbers couldn’t convey what the live action plainly revealed: The Mountaineers destroyed the Bulldogs in a thoroughly dazzling display of speed. Georgia scrambled late to make the proceedings interesting, but whenever a big play needed to be made, West Virginia made it with authority. Whenever the outcome hung in the balance—whenever anything of consequence was up for grabs—West Virginia dominated. In that sense, the field goal victory wasn’t as close as the final tally suggested.

In his new team’s much-anticipated 2008 lid-lifter, Rodriguez—no longer the bearer of the West Virginia banner—was on the receiving end of a loss in which the final score projected a level of closeness and drama that the game’s events clearly didn’t match.

An honest accounting of this contest can only acknowledge what was seen in the Big House: Of Michigan’s four scores—three touchdowns and a field goal—only one did not follow what one could call, in football terms, a catastrophic event. Two Michigan scores followed Ute turnovers that were more the result of careless ballhandling than defensive prowess. A third score for UM followed a blocked punt that was the result of deficient Utah protection more than Michigan excellence. The only Wolverine tally that did not follow a big Utah blunder was a field goal that came after a minor Utah mistake, a personal foul penalty at the end of a Michigan kickoff return. And that field goal was a 51-yard bomb which came at the end of a mediocre 17-yard drive.

Numbers, as is so often the case in both sports and life, failed to tell the real story in this game. If Utah did not serve points to Michigan on a shiny silver platter, the Wolverines’ offense—left to its own devices and forced to march downfield—would have registered that one lonely field goal. Almost all the scores Michigan accumulated were hand-delivered by the generous visitors from the Great Salt Lake.

This game is put into proper perspective when one considers that, after Utah stopped making particularly consequential mistakes (the turnovers, the blocked kicks, the penalties) and merely made lesser mistakes in the fourth quarter (such as dropping screen passes), the Wolverines’ offense—starting on their own side of the field—could do absolutely nothing. Much like the 2006 Sugar Bowl--when West Virginia fooled around for long stretches against Georgia but ultimately won every battle when the game was on the line--Utah similarly clobbered Michigan whenever the moment demanded it. Rich Rodriguez experienced the other side of life in a game that was scoreboard-tight but qualitatively lopsided.

If this game taught America anything, it established that the Wolverines—who are frankly likely to excel under Rodriguez in the long run—are in for a terribly difficult 2008 campaign. Michigan is a mess, with a transition to a head coach who had a brutally miserable offseason and then inherited a team bereft of proven veteran talent. With the departure of Chad Henne and Mike Hart and a group of formidable receivers, Michigan’s stable was comparatively empty this season. Add in the installation of a new offensive system from a staff outside the Michigan family, and you had a recipe for hardship this Autumn. In 2009 and 2010, the Maize and Blue could very well blossom once again, but for one year, this program will not be a player on the national scene. Ohio State’s biggest contender in the Big Ten will reside in Madison, Champaign, or some other locale other than Ann Arbor.

As for Utah, it’s hard to get a read on this team coming out of this contest. The Utes did get the big road win, but they hardly set the world on fire. With the truckload of really ugly mistakes they made, especially during their complete offensive collapse in the fourth quarter, it’s both difficult and unwise to anoint the Utes as the next big thing in the world of non-BCS conference teams intent on crashing the Fiesta Bowl or another January showcase. Utah has too many deficiencies to shore up, and showed too many signs of mental frailty against the Wolverines this afternoon, to be considered a BCS party-crasher at this point in the season. The boys from Salt Lake will have to work hard—and develop an elusive consistency—before they can attain a higher place in college football’s pecking order. They might have dominated Michigan on Saturday, but they should have had a much larger margin of victory to show for it.