After every game of the 2005 season, The Michigan Daily’s football writers will take you for a ride in Lloyd’s car. The gauges all refer to different variables that will fluctuate from week to week, depending on how the team and fans perform.
- Jess Cox
Defensive Intensity is a measure of – you guessed it – how well the Wolverines manage to stop their opponents.
The Carr-o-meter is a rough gauge of head coach Lloyd Carr’s opinion of his team’s play, as judged from his postgame comments.
The Hypemeter provides our opinion of how well you, the fans, supported the Wolverines. Volume, consistency and awareness will all be considered.
Rush Yards is a straightforward measure of Michigan’s ground yardage total in each game. Since an effective running game is crucial to postseason success – especially for this year’s squad, which is loaded at running back – this statistic figures to be a consistently important indicator.
Defensive Intensity
Following a pattern set early in the season, the Wolverines gave up points when they couldn’t afford to. Michigan’s defense yielded an 88-yard drive to clinch the game for the Buckeyes. Unlike the Penn State contest, there wasn’t enough time for the offense to bail out the defense. But the unit wasn’t bad all afternoon. In the latter part of the second quarter and all of the third, the defense actually held Ohio State without points and looked solid. But with the game on the line, the front seven couldn’t get any pressure on Troy Smith and gave up the fateful drive.
Carr-o-meter
Lloyd Carr appeared to have tears in his eyes as he faced the media to discuss his team’s disappointing loss. Even though he was frustrated that Michigan couldn’t get the run game going and gave up yet another game-winning drive at the last minute, Carr had nothing but love for his players. He’s made it clear throughout the season that he really enjoys coaching this group of Wolverines, and their late-season turnaround surely made the ride more exciting. But it would have been nice if Carr could’ve turned that love into a couple more wins.
Hypemeter
This is the game we had been waiting for all season long, and you guys come up with your best performance of the year. But it could’ve been better. You were there on time and cheered for most of the game, but the last two Ohio State possessions didn’t have nearly enough noise. Not terrible, though. People in the Maize Rage were boners, coming up with the brilliant idea of organizing a Blue Out instead of a Maize Out. The color blue is nice. It’s great, in fact. But maize actually stands out. It’s bold, it’s loud and it’s better. A lot of people participated, but it wasn’t that intimidating.
Rush Yards
Straight up depressing. Running on fumes. That’s the only way to describe the Wolverines’ rushing attack. Mike Hart was not playing at even close to 100 percent, and the offensive line was also banged up. Those two elements played a huge role in the offense coming up way short in the rushing department. But let’s give credit where credit is due: The Ohio State defense is the best unit Michigan has faced this season. The Buckeyes’ linebackers plugged holes and flew to the ball, stifling the ground game despite the fact that Bobby Carpenter got hurt on the first series of the game.