Michigan coach Rich Rodriguez has a message for the Wolverine student body:

"Any student out there who's enrolled at the University and is in good academic standing and a good guy and can kick field goals and can kick the ball into the end zone," Rodriguez said. "We'll have another tryout for you."

It may be more of a message to Michigan's kickers.

Michigan's special teams struggled mightily once again this week during the Wolverines' 42-37 win over Massachusetts. Redshirt freshman Seth Broekhuizen missed the only Michigan field goal attempt, a 39-yarder in the third quarter, making Wolverine placekickers a combined 1-for-5 on the season.

But it's not only the field goals the coaches are worried about. Brendan Gibbons, also a redshirt freshman, has been handling the kickoff duties for the first two weeks of the season with unsatisfying results. His kicks often land near the 10 or 15-yard line and have little hangtime, which gives the kickoff coverage team little time to get downfield.

The coaches gave Broekhuizen a shot at kicking off on Saturday and were happier with his performance.

"I thought Seth kicked better," Rodriguez said after the game. "He got down to the five a couple times, with better hangtime. Brendan hadn't been kicking well."

But the placekickers weren't the only ones struggling. Highly-touted freshman punter Will Hagerup has also had his share of trials this season, and they continued on Saturday. Hagerup averaged just 16 yards on two punts and fumbled a snap, which resulted in the punt being blocked.

"It's an inexperience thing," Hagerup said. "You go from high school with a couple thousand people, then you play out here. It's getting experience, getting used to the game and getting comfortable. It'll come ... special teams is definitely something that sticks out as something our team has to get better at."

Hagerup also said that despite the struggles of the kickers, he has not been asked to kick field goals.

Backups stay on the bench

The plan going into the game on Saturday was to give the backups an opportunity to play. Massachusetts is, after all, a Football Championship Subdivision team.

Especially pressing was getting some snaps for the backup quarterbacks, freshman Devin Gardner and sophomore Tate Forcier. Not only did the coaches want to get the two some game action, but they also wanted to rest sophomore Denard Robinson, who took a lot of punishment in the first two weeks of the season.

But the Minutemen flipped the script and kept the game close, forcing Michigan to keep Robinson and most of its starters in the entire game.

"If we would have played better, we could have played more guys," Rodriguez said. "But that didn't happen."

Still, fans were looking forward to seeing other players get some action, including running backs, freshman Stephen Hopkins, redshirt sophomore Mike Cox and redshirt freshman Fitzgerald Toussaint

In the end, it wasn't meant to be. The incumbent running backs, junior Michael Shaw and sophomore Vincent Smith, got all the carries and excelled.

"It was the plan to get the other guys in, but obviously we didn't play well enough to do that," Smith said.

One backup who did get some playing time was redshirt freshman offensive lineman Taylor Lewan. The 6-foot-8 294-pound left tackle hadn't played in the first two games, other than one snap against Notre Dame last week. He was neck-and-neck with the starter, redshirt junior Mark Hugye during the spring, and he finally got his chance to play with almost 10 minutes left in the third quarter on Saturday.

"The first drive, I was so nervous. My heart was beating a thousand miles per hour," Lewan said. "At the end of the drive, I was so tired. I was wondering, 'Why am I so tired right now?' because usually I'm not tired at all. Then I realized, that's just first-game jitters. After the first series, things started going real well."

First turnover of the year

For the first two games of this season, Michigan had been turnover-free.

After tallying 16 turnovers last year, holding onto the ball on offense was a point of emphasis throughout the offseason, and it's clearly paid off.