2006 Week 1

In Saturday's season opener, the Michigan Wolverines dominated in all facets of the game and rolled to an easy 51-14 victory over the visiting Vanderbilt Commodores. The Wolverines piled up 501 yards of total offense, led by junior RB Mike Hart, who gained 160 rushing yards despite resting for the entire second half. Hart scored 3 touchdowns on just 13 carries. His backups--sophomore Kevin Grady, freshman Brandon Minor, and senior Jerome Jackson--combined for 125 yards in the second half.

"I'm thrilled with the way we played," said first-year Michigan coach Mike Geiger after the game. "We've made it pretty clear that Michigan football revolves around controlling the ground game, and we were able to do just that while still generating some big plays. There's definitely some room for improvement before next week--we had some protection issues that made the passing game run a little less smoothly than we'd like, and Vanderbilt caught our defense snoozing a couple of times--but we're off to a good start."

Michigan benefitted from a quick-strike offense--three of their first four touchdown drives took less than 40 seconds and featured scoring plays longer than 25 yards. Hart accounted for two of those long plays, scoring on a 28-yard run midway through the first quarter and a 61-yard run just over a minute later. The third such score came with 3:00 left in the second quarter, when junior QB Chad Henne found sophomore WR Mario Manningham for a 41-yard touchdown that gave Michigan a 31-7 lead. The Wolverines went the entire game without punting, with the offense turning the ball over twice--once on a Henne interception, and once on a failed fourth down conversion attempt late in the game.

Henne finished with 184 yards on 10 of 22 passing, throwing one touchdown and one interception. Both he and backup Jason Forcier spread the ball around--ten different Wolverines caught passes, with junior WR Adrian Arrington leading the team with 3 catches for 78 yards.

The Michigan defense allowed a couple of big plays--Hart's first two touchdown runs were sandwiched around an 80-yard pass from Vanderbilt's Chris Nickson to WR Earl Bennett--but turned in a solid overall effort, forcing three turnovers and holding the Commodores to 213 total yards. The Wolverines were particularly effective against the run, holding Vanderbilt to just 62 yards on 32 carries--less than 2 yards per rush. Redshirt senior MLB David Harris led the defense with seven tackles, three of which came in the Vanderbilt backfield.