Big Ten Reading Room: Michigan has oodles of 'O,' a dearth of 'D'

Michigan beat Indiana at Bloomington, 42-35. But the unease about Michigan's defense has only grown as the season has progressed.

From this Detroit Free Press story:

Michigan (5-0, 1-0 Big Ten), which has now given up 21 or more points in four of its five games this season, allowed 568 yards of total offense -- including 480 yards passing -- in its 42-35 victory over the Hoosiers. Those 480 yards, produced by Indiana quarterback Ben Chappell, were the most ever given up by a Wolverines defense. ...

The Hoosiers had 35 first downs to Michigan's 15. They ran 98 offensive plays to the Wolverines' 45. They held the ball for 41 minutes, 47 seconds to only 18:13 for Michigan.

Ouchie. Michigan is 102nd in the nation in total defense. How do you think that will play once the Wolverines start playing the better Big Ten teams, like Michigan State Saturday and Iowa the week after?

Of course, when you have Denard Robinson playing quarterback ...

This Free Press story tells the statistical tale of the superb sophomore:

By game's end, he had 494 yards of offense (277 passing, 217 rushing), five touchdowns (three passing and two rushing) and became the first player in FBS/Division I history with two 200-yard rushing, 200-yard passing games.

In the fifth start of his career.

ESPN College Football Live presented a stat Saturday night that offers a bit more perspective: Only six players accumulated over 1,000 passing yards and 900 rushing yards last season. Robinson has 1,008 passing yards and 905 rushing yards in just five games. In addition, he now has the top three total offense games in U-M history, four of the top 11 and played less than a quarter in the other game (vs. Bowling Green).

Adam Rittenberg said it very well on his Big Ten blog for ESPN.com.

Some folks will relish the day when Robinson looks human. They might be waiting a while.

For now, he's putting on a scintillating display. If you don't watch, you're missing out.

Terry Hutchens of the Indianapolis Star thinks Indiana will bear watching the rest of the season, too. This was included in his notes from the Michigan-Hoosiers game:

The 35 points that Indiana scored Saturday will be much more the norm than anything else. This team is going to score a lot of points, Ben Chappell is going to put up big, big numbers throwing the ball, and those receivers are all going to have big seasons. And most of the teams IU plays are not going to have a Denard Robinson.

Saturday's Michigan State-Michigan game will be of interest to college football fans in 50 states. But you can probably guess the one where it matters most. Chris Solari of the Lansing State Journal had a good lede on this Sunday story.

Consider every fan's, every player's, every sports talking head in the state's dreams fulfilled.

Michigan State. Michigan. Undefeated and facing each other.

The Spartans' 34-24 win over Wisconsin Saturday was no fluke, that's for sure.

Solari wrote: In setting up the first perfect-record meeting with U-M since 1999, the Spartans' offense overmatched Wisconsin for 444 yards and their defense held reigning Big Ten Offensive Player of the Year John Clay to less than 100 yards on the ground and the Badgers as a team to fewer than 300 total yards. Offensive coordinator Don Treadwell showed plenty of bravado with his play-calling, and his defensive counterpart, Pat Narduzzi, crafted one of his best games in both schematics and execution.

Ohio State wasn't overwhelming in its 24-13 win at Illinois, but a conference road win is a conference road win.

Doug Lesmerises of the Cleveland Plain-Dealer had no problem with OSU Coach Jim Tressel's second-half decision-making. In this story, Lesmerises wrote:

Jim Tressel may have come off as even more conservative Saturday, but he didn't have much choice. There's a difference between doing what you have to do to win in the moment and working on things the next week that you didn't like. So the Buckeyes survived in a 24-13 win over Illinois, and now they have to adjust.

Minnesota, meanwhile, lost again

. This time it was 29-28, to Northwestern. That's four losses in a row for the Gophers, all at home. Jim Souhan of the Minneapolis Star Tribune wrote this:

The two-minute drill offers the clearest window into a football operation. It requires intelligent preparation, cohesiveness, verbal and nonverbal communication, and spur-of-the-moment creativity. It is football's intelligence test.

What we saw in the last two minutes on Saturday was bad play-calling and worse time management, leaving a senior quarterback angrily gesturing to his sideline.

The two-minute drill should be a coach's Showtime. Instead, the Gophers gave us Slowtime. ...

To recap: The Gophers burned 65 seconds and one of their timeouts while running three plays for 8 yards.

Seventy-five miles northwest of Minneapolis,

a crowd of 16,421 watched St. Thomas beat host St. John's in another 1-point game, 27-26. The Division III crowd was larger than three FBS crowds on Saturday.