Despite a sluggish start, Michigan Football moved to 4-0 on the year and 1-0 in the Big Ten. Here are the three biggest takeaways from the Wolverines’ win.
The Michigan Wolverines continued their hot start to the 2017 season as they defeated the Purdue Boilermakers in an early season Big Ten season test in West Lafayette by a score of 28-10.
Despite moving to 4-0 and an undefeated mark, there are still several question marks surrounding the Wolverines. Following an impressive victory to start the year against the Florida Gators, the Wolverines looked nonchalant in their wins against Cincinnati and Air Force.
In their first true road test against the Boilermakers the Wolverines again started slow, facing a 10-7 deficit at halftime. With just five returning starters total from a year ago, the Wolverines welcomed in a prestigious recruiting class, and thus a high-ranking from the college football pollsters. Currently sitting at the No. 8 team in the country, they don’t have a dominant win yet this year. Instead, the Wolverines have seen closer games than the final scores have indicated.
Michigan will enter a bye week 1-0 in the Big Ten and this comes at a perfect time with their arch-rival Michigan State looming in their next game. At first glance, Michigan’s Big Ten schedule showed a nice tune-up game before they entered the gauntlet that is their conference slate, but Purdue has surprised some people- taking Louisville down to the final possessions and blowing out SEC opponent Missouri on the road.
A 28-10 victory over the Boilermakers might not seem all that impressive, especially when trailing at the half, but the Wolverines now sit at 4-0 on the young year and have one of several challenging conference road games done and over with.
There are still a lot of coming questions surrounding both the Wolverines and Boilermakers, but the first Big Ten game of the year for each team might have cleared up a few things. Here are three takeaways from the Wolverines’ 28-10 victory in West Lafayette.