Peach Bowl: Michigan’s defense needed to make a statement, and didn’t do it

Sure, they were missing some key pieces, and they lost a few more during the course of the game, but Michigan really needed its defense to step up on Saturday against Florida in the Chick-Fil-A Peach Bowl.

It didn’t happen. And it was both surprising — and disappointing.

No. 7 Michigan gave up 420 yards and several long drives to No. 10 Florida in a surprising — and maddingly familiar — 41-15 loss to a top-10 team. Under Jim Harbaugh, the Wolverines are now 1-9 against top-10 teams after Saturday’s loss in Atlanta. It was the second year in a row that Michigan lost a bowl game to an SEC team.

This one was really ugly.

It was vitally important for Michigan’s defense to play well, because this bowl game gave them the opportunity to lose the stench from the awful performance against Ohio State in its previous game. That was when the “Revenge Tour” came to a crashing halt in a gawd-awful 62-39 loss to their bitter arch-rivals.

We expected a little bit of a drop-off along the defensive line because defensive end Rashan Gary opted to skip the game to focus on the NFL Draft. But Kwity Paye, much like he did during the regular season when Gary was out with a shoulder injury, stepped right in and played great — until he got hurt and was forced to leave the game with a hamstring injury.

We expected a bit more of a drop-off with the linebackers corps with All-American Devin Bush also skipping the game. His absence was evident, and it hurt even worse when outside linebacker Devin Gil left with a hamstring injury, as well. These two groups proved all year that they had plenty of depth, so we still had high expectations on Saturday.

What was really disappointing though was how poorly the secondary played. Florida was able to gash them for several long passing plays, including three of them of 28 yards or more that kept drives alive or led to scores.

Florida, in fact, had seven plays of 28 yards or more on the day. This from an offense that struggled to score for much of the year. The worst example of allowing big plays was early in the fourth quarter, with Michigan trailing 27-13. It was third-and-11, and it looked the Wolverines were going to get the ball back. Instead, Florida running back Lamical Perine ran 53 yards for a score, breaking tackles along the way, to seal the deal.

It was the first time Florida has beaten Michigan after losing the first four meetings, all in the past 16 years. And if the loss to Ohio State changed the narrative about where this Michigan program really is,  then this bowl game loss — by 21 points to what is probably the fourth- or fifth-best team in the SEC — is downright embarrassing.

Remember now, in Florida’s six games this year against teams who were ranked at some point in the season, it scored more than 17 points only once, and averaged only 15 points in this six games.

The Florida offense gashed Michigan for 34!

“Defensively, it was the same story. We didn’t play as well. We had some missed calls, some missed adjustments, and we left some receivers wide open, which we don’t normally do,” Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh said.

“We’re right there to the top, but we need to get over the top. We’re not  there yet. We’ll take what we have and reload into the new season. We’ll keep working to put it over the top.”

Sure, you can give credit to Florida and its first-year coach Dan Mullen. He’s done wonders turning Feleipe Franks into a competent quarterback. Franks has struggled for much of his two years in Gainesville, but the light has certainly come on lately. In his last four games, all wins, he has thrown 8 touchdown passes and no interceptions. That’s saying a lot for someone who had 14 career interceptions coming into the game.

Michigan needed for force turnovers on Saturday — and they didn’t, outside of special teams.

Michigan needed to be sure tacklers on Saturday — and they weren’t.

Michigan, ranked No. 1 in the nation in total defense with a 262-yard average, gave up nearly twice that to an offense that’s not very good.

The back-to-back defensive debacles certainly has to make us reconsider who good this team really is, and how good it can be going forward. Between now and next September, there’s a whole lot of work that needs to be done, by the players and coaches alike. Their last two opponents, Ohio State and Florida, have scored a combined 103 points.

Think about that, 103 points! And in their first EIGHT Big Ten games? Michigan gave up only 102.

This wildly fun season? It sure seems like a distant memory now. That “Revenge Tour” bandwagon bus has certainly crashed along the side of the road somewhere.

Tom Brew

Tom Brew has been a recognized reporter in Big Ten sports for decades. Among other projects, he writes about Big Ten football for Saturday Tradition.