Michigan 6, Air Force 15

I predicted Michigan could win this game. That resoundingly did not happen. Let’s look at why.

Tempo Free

From the official box score, a look at the tempo-free stats:

Michigan managed to out-possess the Falcons (the first opponent against whom they’ve pulled off that feat), which is a step in the positive direction. Unfortunately, the offense was mostly inept, and the defense was wholly inept.

The offense was slightly better than it was during the Denver game, but the defense was a new season-worst – against an offense that’s not expected to be nearly as powerful as some of the others that the Wolverines have seen and will see this year (North Carolina might break an offensive record).

Michigan need to slow the game down, obviously, and hasn’t had success so far, thanks in large part to turnovers…

Notes

Speaking of turnovers, Michigan committed 14. That’s bad. Willie Steenland was the primary culprit, with four of them on him.

HOWEVA, Steenland was also one of Michigan’s leading scorers with two goals. Only fellow midfielder Alex Vasileff outscored him with two goals and an assist – one of only two for Michigan – for three total points.

Greiner did another solid job on faceoffs, though he wasn’t as exceptional as he had been against Chase Cararro the previous day. His wing play was again mediocre, although Trevor Yealy moved out to one of the wings, which should improve that going forward.

The Michigan defense gave up an astounding efficiency number to Air Force – surprising, given the 15 turnovers committed by the Falcons. Keith Dreyer (3G, 4A), Erik Smith (5A) and Mike Crampton (2G, 2A) led the way for them.

Michigan’s bugaboo – at least what started their slide in the game after a 3-0 lead – was the silly penalty committed (see JP postgame quote below). Once Air Force quickly leveled the game with two man-up goals and an even-strength tally, the momentum was gone and Air Force took over the game in the second and third quarters. I thought at least one of those first two penalties – both slashes – was super-dubious, but that’s no reason to give up nine straight goals, either.

14 Air Force assists on 15 goals. That’s scary. As you’ll see below from JP, that’s partly due to the Wolverines’ style of play (itself a result of a talent disparity, to a degree), and partly just a good offensive day for the Falcons.

Quotes

From Michigan coach John Paul:

“There were a lot of things we were doing well in the first quarter. For us, ultimately it’s about limiting total possessions in the game. In the first quarter we did that, in the rest of the game we didn’t. During their run, we didn’t: they were scoring a lot of those goals in 30-second spans.”

“For us, it’s every little lapse. Whenever we get off track of what we really need to do to be successful, every one of those lapses, We pay for. That’s just the team we have right now, and we’ve got to start fixing some of those lapses.”

“[After building a 3-0 lead], we promptly went out, rushed something offensively, rushed a shot on man-up, got a penalty, and that’s what I’m talked about. Suddenly we were out of our rhythm and not doing the things we needed to do that gave them some momentum.”

“We rode better in the fourth quarter than we did the whole game. There are some signs there that we did things better as the game went on. There were also things that we didn’t execute well. But I thought we kept believing and the guys kept fighting, even when the game was out reach, the vibe on the sideline was positive. It was ‘Let’s keep getting after this.'”

“The way that we’re playing right now, we’re going to slide a lot, and when you slide a lot, and when you slide as early as we’re sliding, you’re gonna leave stuff open on the backside, so it’s all about recovering. When you’re playing that way, you’re not going to see unassisted goals, because we’re always sliding.”

“The second half our offenses really struggled to find the looks we wanted. They made some saves, and we started turning the ball over. We weren’t turning the ball over in the first half, second half we were.”

Elsewhere

Official site recap from Michigan and one from Air Force. GLS game story. Official box score.

Up Next

Michigan has another two-game weekend, and they have a very short turnaround in the week in between, as well. They’ll head down to Florida over spring break, and on Friday they take on Jacksonville at 3:00 p.m. EST.

After yet another short turnaround, they play Mercer at noon EST on Sunday.