Keys to the Game: Michigan football at Indiana

Michigan travels to Indiana as a two-touchdown underdog, an unbelievable (but so believable) spread for two teams heading in opposite directions — at least for this year. 

RELATED: Staff predictions: Michigan football at Indiana

The Hoosiers did the portal right to help get where they are, but make no mistake — this is a good, fundamentally sound, well-coached football team. They tackle well, each man handles his responsibility, and head coach Curt Cignetti gets the most out of his talent. It helps, too, to have a very good quarterback in Kurtis Rourke who can pick defenses apart. 

“[Cignetti] has done an unbelievable job with what he’s done with his team,” Michigan head coach Sherrone Moore said this week. “They play disciplined. They play fast. They play physical. Offensively, they do a really good job of spreading you out, and by doing things and keeping it simple for their players and making it difficult for your defense. 

“Defensively, they just play great team defense and try to make you make a mistake.”

Michigan has limited those in the last few weeks, anyway, but it’s going to take great communication, a better running game, and good decision making from quarterback Davis Warren to replicate that on the road. No turnovers is an obvious key to victory, so we won’t go into more detail there … here are three other keys to a potential, yet improbable Michigan win Saturday in Bloomington:

Michigan Key No. 1: Break tendency on offense

It’s often fan cliché to say, “they’re so predictable on offense!” But we thought we sensed a trend after the Wolverines lost to Oregon. We were going to research it, but Scott Bell did the lifting before we could get to it. Here’s what he found about U-M’s second down tendencies: 

If you followed during the Oregon game, I was complaining about Michigan's predictable "throw an incompletion on 1st down, follow it up with a run on 2nd & 10" formula. I decided to take a deep dive and see just how common it is.

The verdict: 16 straight runs in that situation. pic.twitter.com/57oP2BJv3q

— Scott Bell (@sbell021) November 5, 2024

Now to be fair, several of those plays still worked. At the same time, they’ve got to mix it up. Without going into too much detail (we’ll share more in tomorrow’s Inside the Fort), Oregon was well-prepared (to say the least) with what Michigan was going to run offensively. Michigan State seemed to be, too, perhaps one of the reasons U-M running back Kalel Mullings has had so much trouble finding room the last few weeks. 

The play callers need to be better here. At the same time, the guys up front do, too. The offensive line play last week was pretty much unacceptable, and it’s going to be hard to do anything offensively if those guys aren’t doing their jobs. 

Key No. 2: Be better defensively on third down  

Good luck with this one. Both Michigan State and Oregon had very good success against this Wolverines defense on third down, and Indiana will follow suit unless something changes. Last week was a challenge without starting corners Will Johnson and Jyaire Hill, of course, and we would bet on at least one being out Saturday. 

Overall, though, they’ve got to find a way to get more pressure and get off the field. Indiana is No. 7 offensively in third-down conversion percentage, over 50 percent. Michigan is 110th in the country in allowing nearly 44 percent conversions on third down, way too high, and they’ll have to contend with an RPO-heavy offense this week.

“Oregon is a really good team who was ranked just like IU is … high on third down,” defensive coordinator Wink Martindale said. “So, there are some space plays that we just missed, and we’ve got to find some different ways to affect the quarterback. 

“But that’s hard to do when you’re down men and everything else. That’s going to be a challenge for us this week.”

It will be a long day for the defense if they aren’t up to it.

Michigan Key No. 3: Hold the Hoosiers to field goals instead of touchdowns

This was a key last week, too, and it didn’t work out so well. The Wolverines are going to give up some yardage — this Indiana team puts up points on everyone — but if they can keep the Hoosiers out of the end zone and do enough offensively, they could hang around a bit. As we saw against Michigan State, you can lose the yardage battle but still win the game if you don’t allow teams to finish.

Michigan has to get the run game going, too, to shorten the game, but again — pick the spots.

The breakdown: Michigan football at Indiana

Forget the name on the front of the jersey and what it’s represented for almost all your life (bad football). This team is well-coached and legit, even if it has yet to play a good football team. The Hoosiers have enough playmakers on offense and work extremely well together as a team on both sides of the ball — great chemistry, fundamentally sound. 

Player for player, Michigan might have more talent. The Wolverines will absolutely have the best three or four players on the field from an overall prospect standpoint when it comes to next level, even if corner Will Johnson doesn’t play (and he probably won’t). But IU has much more on the line, and this U-M team is fragile. 

Look for Indiana to keep its win streak alive … and we wouldn’t doubt if they covered the two-touchdown spread, as well.