Michigan football goes from practically perfect to facing stumbling Minnesota

LINCOLN, Neb. — Free Press sports writer Tony Garcia looks back at what happened during Michigan football's 45-7 win over Nebraska and what's ahead for the Wolverines in their second straight road game on Oct. 6 at Minnesota.

3 things we learned

Depth on display: Michigan will likely have about a dozen All-Big Ten players at season's end, but Saturday showed the Wolverines' depth. At running back, that was Kalel Mullings. The linebacker-turned-tailback ran five times for 43 yards, including a 20-yard touchdown on his first carry. Meanwhile, 10 players caught a pass, including AJ Barner — whose 26 yards more than doubled his total as a Wolverine — Darrius Clemons — whose 28 yards were a career high — and Peyton O'Leary — who had the first touchdown catch of his career. That score came from Jayden Denegal for his first career touchdown pass. On the offensive line, the group did nearly a full line change in the fourth quarter, with only first-time starter LaDarius Henderson staying on; Gio El Hadi, Greg Crippen, Jeff Persi and Trente Jones paved the way for 15 rushes for a respectable 60 yards in garbage time. On the other side of the ball, Keon Sabb started for Rod Moore at safety and tied for a game-high five tackles. That was tied with edge Josaiah Stewart, a Coastal Carolina transfer who also had the first two sacks of his U-M career.

Short-yardage success: Much of U-M's success came because of its ability to dominate the trenches. In the ground game, nobody impressed more than Mullings. After his TD, Mullings took carries on third-and-1, third-and-2, third-and-4 and fourth-and-1 and picked up first downs on each. Blake Corum, meanwhile, ran 16 times for 71 yards and a touchdown and thrived on short downs (mostly). He converted his first third-and-1 on the opening drive, then, after he was stuffed on a third-and-3, he powered for a gain of 2 on fourth-and-1. His longest run of the day (15 yards) came on second-and-1 in the third quarter. Then, after he picked up 8 yards on second-and-2 from the 11, he needed just two tries from 3 yards out to pick up his ninth TD this season. On the other side, Nebraska was rarely in short down-and-distances. The Huskers ran for 3 yards on third-and-4 on their second drive of the game, and quarterback Heinrich Haarberg was stuffed on fourth-and-1 on the next play. The Huskers had just two more plays needing fewer than 4 yards: a second-and-3 incompletion to end the first half and picking up a first down on second-and-2 in the fourth quarter.

Another group that travels well: The Wolverines answered the questions about how they would travel, decisively, playing about as close to perfect as it gets: No turnovers or penalties. Michigan's defense played perhaps its best game of the season as it nearly became the first team since Arizona State in 1996 to shut out Nebraska; a 74-yard touchdown run late in the fourth spoiled that attempt at history. Still it was a dominant effort as the Wolverines controlled the ball for more than 38 minutes.

MICHIGAN FOOTBALL REPORT CARD: Essentially perfect marks after beatdown of Nebraska

Next up: Minnesota Golden Gophers

Matchup: No. 2 Michigan (5-0, 1-0 Big Ten) vs. Minnesota (3-2, 1-1).

Kickoff: 7:30 p.m. Saturday; Huntington Bank Stadium, Minneapolis.

TV/radio: NBC; WXYT-FM (97.1), WTKA-AM (1050).

Line: Wolverines by 17½.

Know the foe

Minnesota was expected to be one of the contenders in the Big Ten West — "contender" being a relative term — but it doesn't look like the Gophers will be even that after struggling to three wins in September.

In its opener, P.J. Fleck's squad trailed Nebraska for more than 57 minutes before stealing a season-opening victory with 10 unanswered points. After beating Eastern Michigan in Week 2, the Gophers dropped two in a row: an understandable, albeit lopsided, loss at North Carolina followed by a Week 4 debacle against Northwestern, in which they blew a 21-point fourth quarter lead — again, to Northwestern — and lost in overtime.

On Saturday, Minnesota didn't look much better against Louisiana, falling behind in the first half. But the second half began with 21 straight points, resulting in a 35-24 win. That was without Darius Taylor, a freshman out of Walled Lake Western, who missed the contest with an injury after he winning Big Ten Freshman of the Week three weeks in a row.

To compensate, the Gophers' ground game relied on four players with at least 10 carries: Zach Evans had a team-high 15 carries for 85 yards and a TD, Bryce Wiliams ran 15 times for 53 yard and a TD, Western Michigan transfer Sean Tyler ran 10 times for 47 yards and quarterback Athan Kaliakmanis had 10 attempts, albeit for just 17 yards and a touchdown. In all, Minnesota ran 50 times for 201 yards, slightly better than its pregame average of 191.2 yards, tied for No. 38 in the country.

Kaliakmanis was respectable through the air, completing 12 of 14 passes for 146 yards, two TDs and one interception. On the season, he's 59-for-107 (54.1%) for 599 yards, three touchdowns and three interceptions.

The defense also appeared to improve Saturday. After giving up at least 30 points in consecutive weeks, the Gophers struggled in the first half, allowing conversions on four of six third-down attempts and allowing seven plays of at least 15 yards. In the third quarter, however, Minnesota held Louisiana to 1-for-5 on third downs.

The Gophers aren't going to beat themselves. They've committed just 14 penalties for 141 yards over five games, including one 15-yarder on Saturday, and they're plus-four in turnovers.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan football faces another run-heavy squad in Minnesota