{mosimage}Can Michigan contain Florida and Heisman winner Tim Tebow or will we see a flashback to the Oregon debacle?

When I first saw the spread for the Michigan-Florida game in the 10-point range, I thought it was actually kind of low.

The prospects for a Florida blowout of Michigan seemed high considering how poorly Michigan finished the season, the potential coaching mis-match, and Michigan's lack of health.

But then I began to re-consider after Lloyd Carr announced his retirement and so did a lot of other people. Michigan seemed to have all the motivation in the world on their side for the game and many opinions began to change.

Even College Football News, a notorious anti-Michigan site at least in the eyes of UM fans, picked UM to win the game by a score of 23-20.

But despite some of these positive vibes, I still have a nagging feeling that Michigan might be in a little over their heads here yet again. It's the same feeling I had going into the Oregon game.

While Oregon clearly looked like a better and more confident team heading into the game, Michigan was gaining a lot of support due to the fact that it was such a big game for the program and they were bound to have a lot of bounce in their step after the Appalachain State loss.

I bought into the hype and thought UM was going to win, even though my head told me that Oregon matched up much too well with Michigan in terms of philosophy and scheme and that UM was in deep, deep trouble.

Those thoughts can easily be applied to UM in this matchup with the Gators. Every single weakness Michigan has is ripe with the potential of being exposed by Florida in a big way.

First and foremost is UM's inability to wrap up and tackle people in space. It seems like our DB's always go for the big hit and end up flying past receivers in space and giving up big plays. This is one element of Ohio State's team I've been very jealous of in the past few years. Florida's coaches excel at getting guys like Percy Harvin and Andre Caldwell the ball in open space and that is a scary thing.

Then there's the running quarterback bugaboo. While Tim Tebow doesn't have the side-to-side mobility of guys like Dennis Dixon or Armanti Edwards, he is still an electrifying runner with the power to run over Michigan's average linebacking corps.

Then there's the simple fact that Urban Meyer has to be salivating like a starving wolf watching highlights of UM's soft zone defense on film. He's probably drawing up a bunch of plays to exploit all the holes he sees on film as I write this. Lloyd Carr had a comment on his coaches' show that I thought was partticularly scary: "We need to avoid giving up big plays."

I've always thought that against a spread offense like this you have to take away either the run or the pass and be aggressive in order to dictate the tempo. If you play passive and conservatively on defense, you'll get carved up. It happened twice this year to ASU and Oregon and it was the same thing that happened to Ohio State last year in the title game.

But it seems that Michigan's coaches never learn.

On offense, Michigan would have a better shot if they were to mix in some man-on-man power running plays like they did in the past, because the zone-blocking scheme doesn't look promising against Florida's quick defensive front. Oh, and it would help if UM actually ran some play-action like they did in the past.

Michigan's wide receivers have size and skill advantages on Florida's DB's but Chad Henne might be on his back all day if UM can't get the run going.

Talent-wise, I honestly think Michigan is right up there with Florida. But with Urban Meyer patrolling the Florida sidelines and the game in Orlando, UM is going to be fighting an uphill battle all day long.

Prediction: Florida 38, Michigan 27

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ajwig said:

	HAHA GO GATORS!!! There was only one thing you forgot to put into the equation...the fact that florida's front 7 is the size of Mike Hart. So much for "speed" those big guys at Michigan laid them on their asses, (i.e. Jake Long on that pussy linebacker)
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January 02, 2008
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Gorgonzola said:

	Given your total misread of this game, do you think maybe you ought to consider a different line of work?
	report abuse vote down vote up

January 09, 2008 | url
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