Michigan Football vs Maryland: Game Balls

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Michigan football dominated Maryland Saturday at the Big House. Here are our game balls for the Wolverines ninth win.

By all accounts, DJ Durkin should be able to eventually turn the Maryland program around. Until then, there’ll be days like Saturday against Michigan football.

Durkin brought his Terrapins into Ann Arbor for the first time since he left Michigan to take the head position in College Park and apparently being an ex coworker doesn’t account for much in Jim Harbaugh’s mind.

Even though Maryland hasn’t been very good this year, there was at least the possibility that the Terps would come in chippy and wired like Colorado did and maybe throw a haymaker or two. They didn’t.

Still, there were some less than great things for the home team. Containment on the edge continues to be a problem: after rough games last week, Mike McCray and Channing Stribling both missed multiple tackles and McCray couldn’t set at all.

Stribling just didn’t look as physical as he usually does. Lavert Hill and Dymonte Thomas both got burned in coverage. Maryland could have easily had at least ten more points. Those are all tiny nits to pick from a 59-3 de-shelling, though, so there are plenty of game balls to hand out.

Here are the game balls from Michigan’s 59-3 win.

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Wilton Speight

So, Wilton Speight is a top tier quarterback right now. His Total QBR is 85.5, good for fifth in the country, his TD/INT ratio is 15/3. He’s been up and down all season, but it looks like he’s starting to put it all together. After a good game against MSU, Speight went 19/24 for 362 yards and 3 total touchdowns on Saturday and he didn’t play much of the second half.

I don’t recall one bad throw, which is something I couldn’t say last week or even against UCF. Maryland’s pass defense is borderline terrible, but even against worse opponents Speight would sail a few throws and leave a few short, so it seems significant that he was on target all day.

Darboh and Chesson in particular were able to get behind defenders consistently, so maybe it shouldn’t have been too surprising how often Speight was flinging it fifteen or more yards downfield, but still, he looked like a different quarterback on deep balls:

That’s a throw that he’s left short a few times this year. Darboh was open on that play, but he was hitting receivers downfield in traffic and (including a forty yard dime to Drake Harris that got called back on a questionable pass interference call) going to second or third options that weren’t checkdowns.

Also helping matters was the fact that he and Chesson were on the same page. If Speight can get it clicking with Darboh, Chesson, and Butt, this offense is going to be dynamic. I was sure that if Speight ever got to this level it would have been in the bowl game after an extra month of practices, but here we are.

Oh, and he also got his first career rushing touchdown in style:

Dunk on ’em, Wilton.

Rick Osentoski-USA TODAY Sports

De’Veon Smith

Smith went for 114 yards and 3 touchdowns on a season high 19 carries while the rest of the backs only had 11 total carries. Maryland defense caveats withstanding, Smith continued to look really good.

Tyrone Wheatley seems to be doing a hell of a job with this group: as recently as earlier this year, Smith still looked like an blind, angry moose on way too many plays, running right into a pile instead of either hitting the open hole or waiting for one to open up. He didn’t resemble that at all on Saturday. He was hitting holes and waiting for lanes to open up and consistently made positive plays (he averaged six yards per carry and his long was only fourteen).

He’s not ever going to be a gamebreaker the way Evans and Higdon can be, but at this point it seems like he’ll get you six yards every time he touches the ball. He just never goes down at first contact (first contact was usually about three yards past the line of scrimmage against the Terps) and he’s finally sorted out those vision issues.

Smith’s skill set is going to be important against better defensive lines, so it was encouraging to see him get past the 100 yard mark with ease.

Rick Osentoski-USA TODAY Sports

Jake Butt

Butt finished with five catches for 76 yards to continue another borderline All American season. Most importantly, though, is the fact that he broke Jim Mandich’s long standing record for career receiving yards by a Michigan tight end.

Mandich, a College Football Hall of Famer, was a captain during Bo’s first year as head coach and is about as Michigan as they come. It’s fitting that Butt would break the record, considering that he could have easily bolted for the NFL after last season but decided to come back to Michigan with eyes on a championship.

He had a reliably good day against Maryland that included a 37 yard catch and a couple of helpful bail outs for Speight. Like Smith, Butt is going to be important in the coming weeks against better defenses. With the vertical passing opening up, look for Butt to haul in more downfield passes against mismatched defenders.

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Game Ball Count

There have been a lot of standouts for Michigan football this season and it’s easy to see why this team is 9-0. Here is a total count of the game balls given out so far in 2016.

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