Michigan Football Game Balls: Please Don't Confront Me With My Failures

The final installment of Michigan football game balls this season, this time coming from the Orange Bowl.

Years from now, we’ll look back through the Michigan Football Wikipedia page and see that in the 2016 season they went 10-3 and lost in a New Year’s Six bowl.

We’ll see evidence of an extraordinary defense and an unremarkable offense. We’ll also probably see that the three losses were by a combined five points and that the victories included three of the top ten teams in the country.

What will be a little harder to spot will be that, for the first time in a decade, it actually seemed plausible that Michigan would win a national championship. Alabama caveats notwithstanding, the Wolverines seemed like they could hang with anyone in the country in a given game.

Then Iowa happened. I was so confident in this team before that game I felt comfortable making my first on paper prediction of the year: Michigan, 41-10. Then Wilton Speight was injured. Then Indiana happened and it seemed like Michigan was a good team that would never reach the lofty expectations its early season performances produced.

Then Ohio State happened and it felt for the first time in a very long time that the teams were evenly matched and belonged in the nation’s upper echelon. Michigan had about three legit shots to win that game, and, depending on who you ask, they did actually win that game. Either way, Michigan was literally inches from the playoff.

They lost the Orange Bowl instead, the result of a hard fought if sloppy game that ended in the last minute because the defense couldn’t get off the field. That happened in all three losses, which makes it all sting just a little more.

Still, this team was fun as hell and was a joy to watch and had too many seniors to possibly properly honor and and players that are better than most in lifetime and played in a few of the best games I’ve ever seen. So we won’t be bringing up failures from this point on.

Game balls!

Taco Charlton

On a defense that boasted a Heisman finalist and at least 12 eventual NFL draft picks, Charlton has managed to make a legit case as its best player this season. He had five tackles, two for loss, and one sack to go along with three quarterback hurries against FSU.

After the Seminoles sort of just walked down the field on their first drive, Taco introduced himself to quarterback Deondre Francois:

Ouch. From then on, the defensive line got back to being terrifying: Francois finished 9/27 and if you take out Dalvin Cook’s 71 yard run he broke because he’s Dalvin Cook, he went for 74 yards on 19 carries.

Taco finished the season with 40 tackles (20 solo), 13.5 for loss, and 10 sacks, despite missing time with an injury early in the year. Between his play this year, his athleticism, and his size (6’6, 275), it’s hard to imagine him falling out of the first round or two in April.

Here’s another bone crushing hit, for good measure:

Charlton went from raw athlete with a goofily amazing name that couldn’t get on the field to first round pick in the course of four years. That’s pretty damn impressive.

Kenny Allen

Allen kept Michigan in the game for at least the entire first half. The team ended said half with about eighty yards of offense and Florida State was doubling them up. Allen made most of those yards irrelevant, though, punting for 379 (!) yards and consistently single handedly flipping the field behind an anemic, uninspired offense.

He also made three field goals after Wilton Speight and company stalled in the red zone multiple times. Those drives were frustrating but not demoralizing because Allen was there to drill a couple kicks.

After some early season hiccups–the result of switching from just kicking to kicking and punting–Allen got back on track and became one of Michigan’s key players during his senior year.

Chris Evans

The offensive line got torched all day, and it was clear by the end of the day that this was a potential championship team but for the  O-line, which is kind of important. Speight was uncomfortable or under pressure all night, De’Veon Smith couldn’t bounce off tackles against a really good Florida State defensive line, so that left evans to try and shake and bake his way to a few yards a carry, something he’s been able to do pretty successfully this season.

Evans was the only back that was able to get anything going, and that was really only on his nifty thirty yard scamper to the end zone:

That open field juke is exactly the type of thing we haven’t seen from a Michigan back in a long time, and is exactly the type of thing to get excited about next year. Unfortunately, this play is when the game went from buzzed to falling-off-its-stool drunk, so Michigan still ended up losing.

Evans led the team with 49 yards, and showed again that he’s better in traffic than one would expect from a freshman burner: he was bouncing at least four yards upfield on all of his carries. Michigan loses a lot next year, but the running game should be a bright spot behind Evans.

Season Winners: Jabrill Peppers, Jourdan Lewis, Taco Charlton (4 each)

Well, that worked out. I think these three are the best on a team full of future NFL players. This triumvirate can at least partially explain why this defense will go down as one of the best in modern program history.

Their strengths are all kind of different and complimentary: Lewis was consistent, had impeccable technique, and could always be relied on the be in position and be ruthless when he was. Charlton was a disruptive force in the backfield and would free up fellow defenders just by virtue of offenses having to account for him. Peppers was a destructive, frenzied chaotic force insured against by the safety blanket provided by Lewis and unleashed by the openings created by Charlton.

One thing they all had in common, though, was the fact that they could do anything they were asked. Charlton stood up for much of the FSU game, Lewis followed Curtis Samuel around in the OSU game, and Peppers literally played every position in most every game. That’s not normal.

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