Michigan football improved to 10-0 on Saturday behind monstrous efforts from Blake Corum, J.J. McCarthy and others as the Wolverines edged out the Nittany Lions, 24-15.
Penn State entered the day holding the nation’s top spot for best-rushing defense, but the Michigan running game was having none of it. Blake Corum and Donovan Edwards once again gashed the Nittany Lions’ defense for 227 yards and three touchdowns. Defensively, the Wolverines were equally suffocating, holding Drew Allar to 10-of-22 passing for 70 yards and one touchdown.
Also notably, Michigan finished the matchup with an overall Pro Football Focus grade of 76.1, earning below an 80 for the first time this season (something to be expected against the team’s toughest competition to date).
Here’s a closer look at some of Michigan’s other grades and snap counts.
Offense
J.J. McCarthy – 56 / 74.4
Zak Zinter – 56 / 75.2
Trevor Keegan – 56 / 56.9
Karsen Barnhart – 56 / 48.2
LaDarius Henderson – 56 / 56.3
Drake Nugent – 56 / 65.2
AJ Barner – 44 / 67.9
Roman Wilson – 38 / 55.6
Cornelius Johnson – 38 / 73.4
Blake Corum – 36 / 64.2
Colston Loveland – 34 / 61.7
Donovan Edwards – 22 / 73.5
Max Bredeson – 20 / 63.3
Trente Jones – 17 / 71.7
Myles Hinton – 13 / 72.4
Tyler Morris – 10 / 66.7
Semaj Morgan – 5 / 73.7
Kalel Mullings – 3 / 60.0
Takeaway: The immediate go-to for readers here will be to panic once they see Karsen Barnhart (48.2) and LaDarius Henderson (56.3) riding the bottom of PFF’s offensive grading system for the second week in a row. Barnhart was even given a 0.0 in pass protection after allowing three pressures and giving up a sack on only 10 drop backs for J.J. McCarthy.
Our take? Not to worry. Barnhart was burned on a couple of bull rushes by Penn State’s skillful defensive ends, but Sherrone Moore was able to make quick adjustments with the help of some tight end sets and lean heavily on the run game going forward.
Surprises: McCarthy notched an impressive 74.4 player grade on Saturday despite only throwing for 60 yards on 7-of-8 passing. Aside from his 88 percent completion rate, this is largely attributed to his 34 yards rushing on eight carries, in which a couple of key first downs were attained.
Defense
Will Johnson – 60 / 69.5
Michael Barrett – 58 / 59.2
Mike Sainristil – 57 / 60.5
Junior Colson – 54 / 69.1
Rod Moore – 53 / 62.2
Josh Wallace – 47 / 72.7
Makari Paige – 45 / 64.0
Mason Graham – 43 / 60.8
Jaylen Harrell – 39 / 58.8
Braiden McGregor – 35 / 46.7
Kenneth Grant – 33 / 67.1
Kris Jenkins – 32 / 68.0
Derrick Moore – 31 / 70.9
Josaiah Stewart – 27 / 72.0
Quinten Johnson – 19 / 55.8
Cam Goode – 18 / 63.3
Ernest Hausmann – 17 / 63.2
Rayshaun Benny – 14 / 89.0
Keon Sabb – 11 / 72.1
Surprises: Rayshaun Benny may have only seen rotational action against the Nittany Lions with 14 snaps, but that didn’t slow the big fella down one bit. The reserve defensive tackle had the best grade at of any Wolverine on Saturday with an 89.0. He finished the game with three tackles, including one tackle for loss and a forced fumble that came at a crucial point in the third quarter.