Michigan rolls BYU 31-0, moves to 3-1

After a rocky start at Utah in the season's first week, Michigan fans had some trepidation about the possibilites of coach Jim Harbaugh's first season with the team.

Now, after the fourth game of the season and a game against another team from Utah, that trepidation has been replaced with optimism. The Wolverines throttled BYU 31-0 to move to 3-1 before Big Ten play begins.

All 31 of those points came in the first half. A touchdown run by quarterback Jake Rudock in the first quarter opened the scoring and the Wolverines scored 24 points in the second quarter. The final touchdown was a 17-yard run for Rudock, who simply turned the corner as he ran across the line of scrimmage and had nothing in his way towards the end zone.

BYU, playing its third Power Five opponent on the road in four weeks and a week removed from a 24-23 loss to UCLA, looked a step slow the entire game. The defense was chasing Michigan's offense around during the entire first half and the offense was abysmal. The pass game contributed absolutely nothing. Quarterback Tanner Mangum finished 11-of-27 for 51 yards. The offense had 101 total yards.

It was the first time that BYU had been shut out since 2003. And Michigan's first shutout since 2012.

If there was a downside to the win for Michigan, it was when running back De'Veon Smith limped off the field with a right ankle injury. His ankle got twisted awkwardly as he was tackled in the third quarter and he was later taken to the locker room on a cart. Smith finished with 16 carries for 125 yards and a touchdown. The score came on a 60-yard run.

Smith being out for an extended period of time would slow the Michigan offense. While Rudock played well on Saturday, his effectiveness is maximized by a strong run game. Smith had nearly half of Michigan's total rushing yardage against BYU.

But even without him, Michigan's path to a 10-win season doesn't seem as daunting as it might have three weeks ago. The defense has continued to be stellar and the three ranked teams on Michigan's schedule – Northwestern, Michigan State and Ohio State – all are at home. While many people expected Michigan to be playing spoiler to the latter two teams' title hopes in 2015, the Wolverines could be doing so while being in the top 25 themselves.