Air Force Players To Watch

Coming into Week 2, Michigan has a matchup against Air Force. As we saw in game 1 against Alabama, the Michigan defense can be run on. TJ Yeldon alone hurt Michigan with just 11 carries. Granted, that was Alabama, and not Air Force, but if the Michigan defense continues to miss tackles, the whole team will be in for a long game. Here's 3 players to watch out for, and contain:

1. Cody Getz--Air Force is becoming well known for their rushing prowess, and last week Getz proved to be no different. He carried the ball 17 times for over 200 yards and three scores. There were other players that contributed to a team total of 484 yards rushing, and Getz had almost half of that. I wouldn't be surprised if Getz reached at least 150 yards, and his teammate Connor Dietz is just as lethal. Michigan will need a big contribution from the interior line (that's you Will Campbell) to slow them down, but with the tackling jobs I saw against Alabama, I'm not counting on it.

2. Connor Dietz--With all the rushing yards piling up, and Dietz contributing 74 of them, he did not need to pass it much. However, he was still a sturdy 8-of-11 for 142 yards. Those aren't stellar numbers but they didn't need to be. If the run game is shut down by Michigan, then Dietz might still be able to contribute with his arm.

3. Falcons defense--There are not many defensive standouts for the Falcons. They lost a good portion of their secondary and linebackers last season. Chris Miller and Stephon Watts show to be the kind of players to step in and take charge in the defensive backfield and freshman Connor Healy might be plugging in the middle of the line, hopefully to contain Michigan's offense. Watch out for Watts however...he might me the last stopgap against Toussaint and Robinson breaking open a long play.

Air Force doesn't have major stars. Maybe they think they don't need any, but it is a service academy first, not a football school. The rest of the offense is filled with no-hyped players and the defense isn't exactly Alabama's either. The stat of 484 rushing yards is almost misleading when you see they played Idaho State last week, an FCS team. Yet, that FCS school did put up 21 points on the Falcons and for some reason (because they knew they could) Air Force went 4-for-4 on 4th downs. If Air Force hopes to have any change against Michigan, they will keep Michigan's defense on the field by sustaining long, clock-eating drives to try to keep the score low. I don't see that happening. As I pointed earlier, Getz and Dietz could amass more than 200 yards rushing. That's my call and I'm sticking to it.