Siller seals U-M's bowl fate

By PAULA PASCHE
Of The Oakland Press

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Not only did Michigan lose the battle of 2-6 teams against Purdue, the Wolverines saw their bowl dreams — as slim as they were — disappear with a thud.

The Boilermakers, ranked ninth in the Big Ten in total offense entering the game, amassed 522 yards in the 48-42 win over Michigan on a beautiful sunny Saturday. A perfect day for football, unless you were a Wolverine.

Michigan, which has lost five straight for the first time since 1967, will not go to a bowl game for the first time since 1975, as the Wolverines' record dropped to 2-7 and 1-5 in the Big Ten.

Rodriguez mentioned the loss of a bowl trip to his team afterward, even though, as tailback Brandon Minor said, they were all quite aware of the situation.

Obviously not happy, Rodriguez still sees much to play for in the final three weeks of his first season with Michigan, starting next Saturday at Minnesota.

“We go back to work. What do you want me to say? We're going to get up, do the same routine, get up work tomorrow and try to get better,” Rodriguez said. “You want to look at the finality of it all, I've been here 9-10 months, we've had great tradition, we've still got great tradition and we're going to try to uphold it. ... I hope it's the last year we don't go to a bowl game.”

Rodriguez won't point fingers, but a look at the stats and the scoreboard tells the story.

The Michigan defense made Purdue's first-time starting quarterback Justin Siller, who was playing in place of the injured Curtis Painter, look like a veteran. Siller (Orchard Lake St. Mary's) looked shaky at first, but found his groove and finished 21-for-34 passing for 266 yards, three touchdowns and no interceptions. The mobile quarterback, who had played at running back in the first seven games, also carried 15 times for 77 yards and a touchdown.

“He was an athletic quarterback, he made plays for his team. Even when we thought we had him, he popped out and made plays for his team. I give him respect for what he did for his offense today,” Michigan linebacker John Thompson said.

For much of the game, the defense played a Stack 3-3-5, which is what Rodriguez ran at West Virginia. It was a game-time decision, finalized when they discovered Siller was starting and Painter was sitting.

But Michigan's failures came down to a lack of defensive fundamentals.

“(We need to) tackle better, get off the blocks, break to the ball better, tackle better — that will solve a lot of problems,” Rodriguez said.

Tackling — or lack thereof — has been an issue for most of the season.

“It was a new defense for us, we were out there feeling it out, we knew we were going to make mistakes because it was a new defense. But, like I said, we had opportunities to get off the field and when we didn't capitalize on our opportunities they gassed us,” Thompson said.

The Wolverines jumped out to a 14-0 lead after a 45-yard touchdown run by Minor, followed by a 73-yard punt return touchdown by Martavious Odoms. Of course it was early. There was still 10:04 left in the first quarter.

At the half, Michigan held a 28-21 lead.

The offense, with 155 rushing yards from Minor, did its part by putting up 42 points. Quarterback Steve Threet was 9 of 21 for 123 yards and a pair of touchdowns. Michigan had 300 yards of offense, compared to 522 for Purdue.

But the Wolverines' offense watched 37-plus minutes of the game from the sidelines, when the defense couldn't get the Boilermakers off the field. The first half was worse — Michigan possessed the ball for just 9:15.

After three quarters Purdue had 21 first downs while Michigan had just six. Still, late in the game the Wolverines had a chance to win.

Early in the fourth quarter, Minor scampered a dozen yards for a touchdown to tie the game at 35-35.

Then the Boilermakers went to their bag of tricks.

On a fourth-and-8 from their own 32, they ran a fake punt, snapping the ball to linebacker Anthony Heygood, who ran 61 yards to the Michigan 7. It set up a 4-yard touchdown on a pass from Siller to Greg Orton to put Purdue up 42-35.

Michigan drove the ball 68 yards for another Minor touchdown, this one from 1 yard out. The score was 42-42 with 1:20 left.

Then the Boilermakers, on a second-and-7 from Michigan's 32, scored on a hook-and-lateral play that went from Siller to Orton and then to Desmond Tardy, who ran in 28 yards for the touchdown. Purdue's Carson Wiggs missed the extra point, but it wasn't a factor.

There were 27.5 seconds left in the game. Threet threw a Hail Mary pass on the last play of the game to LaTerryal Savoy in the end zone but the Wolverines' prayers weren't answered.

“I was disappointed with the (fake) punt, we kind of anticipated it. We yelled it might be coming because of the alignment, they did a nice job executing,” Rodriguez said. “And the hook and ladder, I don't know if our defense coaches had seen it before (on film), I hadn't. They executed it well.”

It was the story of the game. The Boilermakers (3-6, 1-4), who had lost five straight and had not won a Big Ten game until Saturday, executed. The Wolverines could not stop them.

Rodriguez's message to his team was simple: Today they go back to work.

Finger-pointing is not allowed. More hard work is expected in preparation for the final three games.

“We've got to stick together. We're like a family in there. We've taken some bumps and bruises this year, but that's how it is,” Thompson said.

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