Keys to the Game: Michigan football vs. Purdue

A cold November Saturday night in Ann Arbor — where would you rather be than sitting on the aluminum bleachers freezing your butt off watching Michigan play a bad football team?

For many, it will be on their sofas next to a fireplace, within a few steps each of the refrigerator filled with beer and the bathroom. It’s hard to blame those who have had enough of the “stupid” night games. We’re all for those electric ones in September, even October against great teams, but a winless (in conference) Purdue team? We’re about done with these (as though we have a say).

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Still, it’s another opportunity to watch Michigan football, and this team isn’t good enough yet to take anyone for granted. That includes Purdue, which has yet to win a conference game and might play two quarterbacks in Ryan Browne (6-4, 210), a Clarkston, Mich., native. He’s been dealing with an upper-body injury, so Malachi Singleton has also gotten snaps.

“I think both quarterbacks have their strengths,” Michigan head coach Sherrone Moore said. “Brown … he’s got a high ability. He can make throws. He’s actually more athletic than you think. He does a really good job of manipulating the pocket and making plays and getting the ball out to his playmakers.[Singleton] is more of the quarterback who is a running guy, but he can throw it.”

Here are the keys to keeping the Purdue offense in check and emerging with yet another Big Ten win.

Michigan Key No. 1 — Be prepared for both quarterbacks

Teams with nothing to lose have a way of throwing caution to the wind and changing things up, showing different looks, and hoping to catch a better team off guard. If you’re not prepared (like Michigan at Purdue in 2008, when Justin Siller moved to quarterback and carved the Wolverines’ new 3-3-5 defense up), you can have problems.

Michigan isn’t going to change that much on defense, of course (who’d be that stupid?), but Moore and his coaches understand the challenge in having to prepare for two.

“We’ve got to have a plan for both of them, the things that we’ve done in the past to eliminate those things,” he said. “It’s kind of like playing a combination of the guys we’ve just played in both weeks. We’ve got to do a good job of disrupting them, making them uncomfortable, and keeping them off rhythm.”

Key No. 2 — Stop the Purdue run game, which means “tackle”

Michigan State’s offense, when the game was in doubt, came on a few big plays, including two in the run game in which the Wolverines went back to the “tackle optional” defense. It looks like Purdue back Devin Mockobee won’t play, but two other backs broke big runs last week and have fresher legs.

The only way Purdue stays in this game is to shorten it a bit, which can mean keeping the clock moving by running the ball. It’s going to be a colder night against a bad team — the Wolverines’ defenders still need the concentration level up there and to get the Boilermakers’ offense off the field.

Michigan key No. 3 — Get the passing game going again

Purdue is one of the worst teams in the nation in pass efficiency rating, ranking No. 119, and is No. 106 in pass yardage allowed. The Wolverines have been better at home than on the road when it comes to throwing the ball  — we thought they’d have a field day at Michigan State last week, but they only threw for 86 yards — and it’s time to start letting freshman quarterback Bryce Underwood throw downfield a bit more.

Freshman Andrew Marsh is emerging as a big play threat, and we’d like to see more targets for him. It’s time to get the tight ends going again, too, after they were quiet against the Spartans following a big game in a win over Washington.

Michigan vs. Purdue — The Breakdown 

The Wolverines are right about where we expected they’d be given the schedule, though we hoped they’d be more competitive in road games at Oklahoma and USC. Given the showings there and the overall weakness of the remaining schedule, though, there’s still a lot we don’t know about this team.

Minus a crazy upset or down-to-the-wire type game, that probably won’t change after Saturday night. Purdue is one of the worst teams in the conference — yes, worse than winless Michigan State — and they should have a hard time scoring on the Wolverines’ defense. The U-M offense is banged up, but even so, there’s enough firepower to win this game going away.

U-M has been a much better team at home than on the road, and we expect that to continue before a much-needed bye week gives the Wolverines more time to rest up for the stretch run.