The first sign of a difference between Hoke and RichRod: Michigan's defense finally showed some improvement. . .not a lot, but at least some progress is being made. Michigan is still too soft against the run, though Hillman did not hurt them as bad as I thought he would. The pass defense was decent, though some of that has to be attributed to the SDSU QB not being as good as advertised (happy feet, and some drops didn't help him either.) How much better the defense will perform in the Big 10 remains to be seen, but RichRod's defenses got worse week-by-week, even against the cupcake non-conference teams--so we do have some slight improvement.
The offense still remains Denard Robinson running the ball, which is troubling. As we saw last year, that won't be enough against the better teams in the Big 10. The passing game mirrors RichRod's defense--no improvement. The passing game is terrible. Michigan gets their punter back next week--they'll need him after the Minnesota game, because they are going to have a lot of 3-and-outs in the Big 10 unless they give up on trying to have Robinson be a pocket passer.
Michigan should beat Minnesota next week to get to 5 - 0, but I can see them losing the last 7 games with their Robinson-run-only offense and mediocre defense.
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