Birk's Eye View: Tate Forcier wasn't alone in struggling vs. Penn State

Michigan quarterback Tate Forcier celebrates with running back Brandon Minor after a first-quarter touchdown on Saturday against Penn State. (Photo: Melanie Maxwell | AnnArbor.com)

The true freshman was 13-of-30 passing for 140 yards in Saturday’s 35-10 loss to Penn State, and he is completing less than 50 percent of his attempts (49-of-102) with four interceptions in Big Ten games.

“I want to play the way I’m capable of playing,” Forcier said. “I want people to expect me to play the way I played in the first part of the season.”

While Michigan (5-3, 1-3) shredded the first four defenses it faced (Western Michigan, Notre Dame, Eastern Michigan, Indiana) for an average of 37.5 points, Forcier never put up huge numbers.

He has two 200-yard passing games this year, against Notre Dame and Michigan State, and he has taken a pounding running Rich Rodriguez’s spread offense. He sprained his throwing shoulder in the Indiana win and suffered a mild concussion two weeks later in a loss to Iowa.

Left tackle Mark Ortmann made waves last week when he said Forcier “needs to just understand that he doesn’t need to scramble, he can sit in the pocket and he’ll be fine.”

Forcier looked panicked at times again Saturday. He took five sacks and brought the first on himself late in the first quarter, when he didn’t give a pass play time to develop and stepped into the teeth of an oncoming rush.

But Michigan’s offensive struggles Saturday weren’t entirely his fault. After a dominating 11-play, 70-yard opening drive, the Wolverines fell out of rhythm thanks in part to injuries to starters David Molk (knee) and Martavious Odoms (ankle).

Michigan went three-and-out on its second drive, but Odoms' replacement, Kelvin Grady, dropped a would-be first down on third-and-six play. Forcier’s pass was low and he missed Grady one play earlier along the sideline, but Grady should have caught the ball.

Forcier caused his own problems on Michigan’s third drive, walking into a sack and nearly throwing an interception when he looked past a Penn State defender, but the second quarter was more of the same.

Third-string slot receiver Roy Roundtree missed a block on a designed quarterback sweep, then David Moosman, Molk’s fill-in, missed another on a Penn State sack.

Denard Robinson was intercepted on Michigan’s next series, and after two penalties left the Wolverines with third-and-16 on their own 2, Moosman snapped a ball out of the end zone for a safety when Forcier wasn’t ready.

Penn State scored a play later to take a 19-7 lead, and Michigan never recovered against the best defense in the Big Ten.

Bowl watch - Trending: Champs Sports Michigan still needs one win to become bowl eligible, and there’s a good chance the Wolverines get it this week against the Big Ten’s worst team, Illinois (though I’m worried about what Arrelious Benn will do to Michigan’s secondary).

Unless things fall apart, Iowa, Penn State and Ohio State are ticketed for the Big Ten’s Jan. 1 bowls, though it’s certainly possible both Iowa and Penn State make BCS games (Iowa to the Rose as a one-loss Big Ten champ, Penn State to the Fiesta or Sugar as an at-large).

That leaves Michigan jockeying with five-win teams Wisconsin and Northwestern and four-win Minnesota and Michigan State for bowl position.

Wisconsin has the most favorable schedule of the group and should be next in the bowl pecking order (Alamo), but Northwestern’s not winning more than six games and MSU and Minnesota play this week in Minneapolis. Purdue (3-5) also has a chance at six wins. The Boilermakers might need to beat Michigan next month to qualify for a bowl.

The Spartans are the wild card having already beaten Michigan. Both teams could conceivably finish anywhere between 6-6 and 8-4, leaving reps from the Champs Sports and Insight bowls (with a little help from Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany, who abhors jumping teams in the selection process) to pick between the teams.

Don’t go making any reservations based off my gut feeling with a month to play, but the percentages say Michigan’s in line for Orlando and the Champs Sports Bowl right now.

I’ll update the bowl watch every Sunday from here out. And before you ask, if it’s not a Jan. 1 game, I’d prefer to spend late December in the Arizona desert.

Notes, quotes and leftovers • Don’t discount how big it was for Penn State to answer Michigan’s opening drive with a touchdown of its own. The Nittany Lions needed just four plays to go 63 yards, tie the game at 7 and wrest momentum away from the Wolverines.

“That hurt,” defensive end Brandon Graham said. “You want to take their spirit right away, and it just didn’t happen that way.”

• Graham, by the way, gets better every time I see him. He blocked and recovered a punt Saturday, had a half sack (though he should have got credit for the full one) and 3 1/2 tackles for loss. In four October games, he has 5 1/2 sacks, 23 tackles, a forced fumble and a touchdown on a blocked punt return, amazing production for one of the country’s best defensive ends.

• A penalty should have negated Robinson’s second-quarter interception. Replays showed that a 12th Penn State defender was trotting off the field just as Michigan snapped the ball. It doesn’t excuse the poor read, but officials missed the call.

• Rodriguez worried aloud about Penn State defensive tackle Jared Odrick all week, and for good reason.

Odrick single-handedly caused Michigan’s safety in the second quarter. He blew up a running play on first down (when Ortmann was called for a hold that was declined); got Ortmann to false start on second down, then blew by him as Forcier was forced to throw a pass away; and on third down, Moosman’s quick snap came as he rushed to block down on the 6-foot-5, 296-pound senior.

• Final word from Rodriguez, on Michigan losing three straight Big Ten games: “We don’t talk about it as three straight, we talk about it as this one. And this one should hurt for a day, and then after Monday we watch the film and we move on to the next one. Nobody will point fingers and nobody will go sideways or anything in the program. We’ll all keep plugging forward. We just got a lot of work to do, starting with the coaching staff, and move on from there.”

Dave Birkett covers University of Michigan football for AnnArbor.com. He can be reached by phone at 734-623-2552 or by e-mail at davidbirkett@annarbor.com. Follow him on Twitter @davebirkett.