{"id":2820,"date":"2025-09-21T22:49:05","date_gmt":"2025-09-21T22:49:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/2025\/09\/21\/michigan-beat-nebraska-the-way-it-needed-to-on-the-ground\/"},"modified":"2025-09-21T22:49:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-21T22:49:07","slug":"michigan-beat-nebraska-the-way-it-needed-to-on-the-ground","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/2025\/09\/21\/michigan-beat-nebraska-the-way-it-needed-to-on-the-ground\/","title":{"rendered":"Michigan beat Nebraska the way it needed to, on the ground"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>LINCOLN \u2014 Going into Saturday\u2019s matchup, Nebraska <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ncaa.com\/stats\/football\/fbs\/current\/team\/695\">boasted<\/a> the No. 1 pass defense in the country. With a developing freshman quarterback and an offense still trying to get its bearings in the pass game, the No. 21 Michigan football team knew it needed support from its backfield to get the job done.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Both junior running back Justice Haynes and sophomore running back Jordan Marshall delivered the necessary performances. On top of that, Bryce Underwood continued upon his stellar Week 3 rushing performance against <a href=\"https:\/\/www.michigandaily.com\/sports\/football\/bryce-underwood-displays-all-dimensions-in-no-23-michigans-63-3-win-over-central-michigan\/\">Central Michigan<\/a> with another 61 yards with his legs against the Cornhuskers.<\/p>\n<p>The Wolverines took <a href=\"https:\/\/www.michigandaily.com\/sports\/football\/michigan-relies-on-big-plays-in-big-ten-opener-versus-nebraska-30-27\/\">down<\/a> Nebraska exactly the way they needed to. Knowing the outcome wouldn\u2019t be contingent on the passing game, Michigan established the run game early. By the end of the first half, the Wolverines had 152 yards on the ground \u2014 highlighted by Haynes\u2019 75-yard score with 1:51 left in the half.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe has good vision, and he has excellent acceleration,\u201d Michigan interim coach Biff Poggi said. \u201cWe\u2019ve played at some really good places with good fast secondary players, (Nebraska) and Oklahoma. He has finishing speed.\u201d<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-1    \">\n<style><![CDATA[@media ( min-width: 300px ){.newspack_global_ad.scaip-1{min-height: 250px;}}@media ( min-width: 728px ){.newspack_global_ad.scaip-1{min-height: 90px;}}]]><\/style>\n<\/aside>\n<p>Haynes continued his streak of games with 100 or more yards to four with 149 yards, and Marshall tallied 80 of his own. But what was the biggest indicator of success was the Wolverines\u2019 combined 8.7 yards per carry as the team.<\/p>\n<p>Some of the major outliers included Haynes\u2019 75-yard, Marshall\u2019s 54-yard touchdown and Underwood\u2019s 37-yard touchdown runs, all having a major impact on the game. Although those large runs certainly impacted the yards per carry, Michigan\u2019s near nine-minute drive in the fourth quarter with 16 plays \u2014 10 of which were runs \u2014 also played a huge factor.<\/p>\n<p>In that game-clinching drive that led to senior kicker Domnic <a href=\"https:\/\/www.michigandaily.com\/sports\/football\/the-implications-of-dominic-zvadas-missed-field-goal\/\">Zvada<\/a> hitting a 21-yard chip shot, the offensive line created holes, the Wolverines\u2019 backs broke tackles and Underwood took design runs to make it a two-possession game with under four minutes to go. Haynes had 39 of his rushing yards and 16 receiving yards on that drive alone.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs an offensive line, we\u2019re just doing our job and trying to open up running lines for the running backs and obviously Justice, he\u2019s just doing his thing,\u201d graduate offensive lineman Greg Crippen said. \u201cIt\u2019s been really pretty impressive.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>All three impact players in the running game \u2014 Haynes, Marshall and Underwood \u2014 had a touchdown on the ground. Combined between all three of them, the Wolverines finished with 286 rushing yards compared to the Cornhuskers\u2019 measly 43. But it was the overall tenacity and drive of the entire offense that allowed Michigan to dominate the trenches.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-2    \">\n<style><![CDATA[@media ( min-width: 300px ){.newspack_global_ad.scaip-2{min-height: 250px;}}@media ( min-width: 728px ){.newspack_global_ad.scaip-2{min-height: 90px;}}]]><\/style>\n<\/aside>\n<p>\u201cIf you were to look at the tape last year and then you look at the tape this year, it\u2019s significantly better,\u201d Poggi said. \u201cThat\u2019s a young group and we have injuries there, but I thought (offensive line coach Grant Newsome) did a great job and I thought those kids played their hearts out.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Michigan knew it needed to establish the run game and break off big runs \u2014 and it did. Using Haynes as their most reliable back, putting in Marshall as a steady No. 2 and getting Underwood going with his legs, the Wolverines both won the ground game and also ran away with their first win in Big Ten play.<\/p>\n<aside>\n<div class=\"newspack-popup-container newspack-popup hidden  newspack-inline-popup      \" role=\"button\" tabindex=\"0\" style=\"background-color:#FFFFFF;color:#000\" id=\"id_162162\" data-segments=\"\" data-frequency=\"0,0,0,month\">\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">Please consider donating to The Michigan Daily<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<p><h3 class=\"jp-relatedposts-headline\"><em>Related articles<\/em><\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>LINCOLN \u2014 Going into Saturday\u2019s matchup, Nebraska boasted the No. 1 pass defense in the country. With a developing freshman quarterback and an offense still trying to get its bearings in the pass game, the No. 21 Michigan football team knew it needed support from its backfield to get the job done.\u00a0 Both junior running [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2821,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[1550,1994,222,1411,2976],"class_list":{"0":"post-2820","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-beat","9":"tag-ground","10":"tag-michigan","11":"tag-nebraska","12":"tag-needed"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2820","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2820"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2820\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2822,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2820\/revisions\/2822"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2821"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2820"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2820"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}