Subscribe
Follow Us
The Michigan football team could lose two games this season and make the College Football Playoff, but this weekend's game against USC is pretty close to a must-win. The Wolverines already have one embarrassing home loss on the season, and they can't start Big Ten play with another. This is a huge game, and Michigan is breaking in a new quarterback for it.
Davis Warren won the Michigan football quarterback competition, but he was benched last week after throwing three interceptions against Arkansas State. Alex Orji will start this weekend, and that changes the entire dynamic of this offense.
“Now this team [USC] faces a Michigan team that is in full identity crisis,” Joel Klatt said during an appearance on The Herd with Colin Cowherd. “They're changing the quarterback, and it's not just like one for another, it's an entire philosophy for another. Yeah, they don't know what they are. What Davis Warren provides is vastly different than what Alex Orji provides at quarterback in terms of what their skill set is and what the offense's philosophy will likely be when they're in at quarterback.”
Michigan's offense has struggled this season, but Orji could present some issues for this USC defense.
“I don't envy D'Anton Lynn and USC, because they're going into this and it's basically an opener,” Klatt continued. “It's like, ‘well, what are we going to see from from Michigan offensively?' Probably a lot of run. And if I'm Michigan, guess what I'm going to do? Probably run it 50 or 55 times. I want to shorten the game, keep Lincoln's offense off the field, and I want to put Alex Orji in the best possible situation to succeed. Why not test the USC defense in terms of their physicality?”
This USC football defense is much-improved
Coming into the season, the Michigan football team was listed as 10-point favorites for this matchup. A big reason why is because people didn't have confidence in the Trojans was because of their defense. Well, that unit has looked a lot better this year.
“USC needed to answer for me one specific question. Could you play average defense?” Joel Klatt said. “Because I thought average defense would make them a pretty good football team. Yeah, it's better than average. D'Anton Lynn, their defensive coordinator, has come in and made that a strength of theirs.”
USC defensive coordinator D'Anton Lynn runs a similar style defense as Michigan's in recent years. Lynn and former Michigan DCs Mike Macdonald and Jesse Minter all run a Baltimore Ravens style defense.
“I thought that USC had far too many defenders that were in one on one situations in space in previous years, not just like trying to defend, but trying to tackle in space one on one, what you see from this structure of defense is a very different style of defense,” Klatt continued. “This is the Baltimore Ravens style of defense. So D'Anton [Lynn] under that Baltimore Ravens staff. So he was in the room with Jesse Minter and Mike Macdonald when they were all learning this defense.”
Now, the USC defense is looking a lot better because they stop teams from creating explosive plays, and they don't get themselves into one-on-one situations.
“So he [D'Anton Lynn] goes off onto his own and what this defense does in its structure and why it's been so successful, wildly successful everywhere it's been, by the way,” Klatt said. “… Here's what it does: Leverages the football well, and what they do is they force teams to drive 8, 9, 10, 11 plays, versus creating big plays, because they don't expose their their players to one on one situations. They build a run wall up front with their interior defensive line. They have hard edges on the outside, and then they leverage the football with their structure of defense in the secondary, in order to have hybrid athletes go and pinch the football and leverage the football. So what does that mean? Colin, that means that they don't have as many one on one situations in space where one guy has to make the tackle. That's what killed, decimated USC in previous years, and now you don't find that as much.”
This is going to be an interesting matchup to watch, and the Michigan football team badly needs a win. The Wolverines and Trojans will kick off from Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor at 3:30 ET on Saturday. The game will be airing on CBS, and USC is currently favored by 5.5 points.
