Joel Klatt has seen Michigan football twice this year, and has seen Indiana twice as well, and he's not really sure what to expect when the Hoosiers travel to Ann Arbor to face a resurgent Wolverines team expected to name freshman Tommy Carr as the new starting quarterback. And Klatt will be seeing each team for the third time this season when IU comes to The Big House.

On his podcast, Klatt broke down what he's expecting from the game on Saturday, and noted that it's a fantastic matchup for multiple reasons, particularly with the Indiana offense going up against the Michigan defense.

"Big Noon Saturday is going to be in Ann Arbor, Michigan, as Indiana comes to town to face the Wolverines," Klatt said. "So Indiana, off a loss, their 22-game win streak snapped. Curt Cignetti now trying to regroup for the first time since losing that playoff game to Notre Dame all the way back in 2024. And they're going to be facing a Michigan team that was able to play well in the second half, even though they replaced their quarterback and got a win over Penn State in a game that they had to win. We all know it.

"I think this is a fascinating game and not just because I'm calling it; I'm fascinated by this game because I don't think there's a huge difference in play between Michigan's defense and Ohio State's defense. And we just saw Ohio State's defense play pretty well against Indiana and challenged them in areas to force Hoover to make great throws, in particular late in the game. And now here's this Michigan defense, and they're No. 1 in the country in yards per play allowed. And they're going to have a similar style where they're going to be aggressive up front, try to stop the run, play a lot of man coverage on the outside, challenge Becker and Marsh, force Hoover to make tight-window throws. So in a lot of ways, I think it'll be an extension for the Indiana offense of what they were having to do against Ohio State a week ago. I do just find that fascinating.

"And in particular with the backdrop of the run game for Indiana, kind of the first time in the Cignetti era struggling a little bit. You look up at their run game, and in back-to-back games, they've been under 75 yards in both of those games. (. . .)

"But the run game for me is big because Indiana always wants to run the football first. I talk about this a lot. Remember, it's a building block offense. They want to run the football, and in order to get to the RPOs, then to get to the action pass. And they were forced into a drop-back game, and good thing Hoover's so experienced because he was able to excel in a drop-back game. And he threw some really, really great balls on Saturday, like Becker in particular. In one-on-one situations, he'll have to do it again in this game. Michigan's very good on defense, very good on defense. They will make it very difficult on Indiana to just control the game on the ground. It'll be tight-man coverage on the outside. I think it's going to be difficult for Indiana to just kind of run away from this Michigan team."

While that's perhaps the more fun matchup, how the Wolverine defense fares against the Hoosier offense, the big question mark comes with the new-look Michigan offense against the stout Indiana defense.

Klatt isn't really sure what to expect, but given how much the offense changed when Carr came in, it could be the elixir that the maize and blue have been searching for through six games this season.

"Then the question comes like, well, what happens when Michigan has the ball? And that's when we just kind of, everybody throws their arms up. I don't know. Kyle Whittingham won't even tell us who's starting this weekend. Now, come on, it's gotta be Tommy Carr, right? Like, right. Obviously the production in the second half was so vastly different that you've got to give your defense, which is an excellent defense, the best possible chance to impact the game to a greater degree, which is to have at least a serviceable offense and the production in the second half with the three touchdowns. So granted, there was some short fields in there, and they took advantage of some things. There's no doubt, but I think it's going to be Tommy Carr. We'll see if both of them play. I don't know. I've got no Intel on this. I haven't talked with the coaching staff about it. So I am blind like the rest of you.

"I've got to think that it's Tommy Carr -- got to think it's (him). And by the way, what a challenge for him. How about your first start being against the defending national champs? That's a difficult defense to face a lot going on with Bryant Haines, his defense up front, the secondary, the way that they disguise coverage, the aggressive nature of the way that they twist and stunt with their front seven. That would be quite a challenge for Carr or Underwood.

"But the one thing that Michigan was able to get to was a more direct downhill run game. You'll remember a couple of weeks ago, heading into the bye week after the Minnesota loss, I did a long video about having to run more downhill and more direct and less side-to-side and horizontal run game for Michigan. Well, lo and behold, that's exactly what happened against Penn State. If you look up at it, the Michigan percentage of runs that were up the middle between the guards and center. So, like directly up the middle, I'm not even talking about between the tackle. See, I would take between the tackle, but this is like directly up the middle. In the first five games, 15% of their rushes went up the middle against Penn State; 45%. So they definitely did a better job of getting more downhill and more direct in the run game. And I think that that allowed them to have success. You finally saw some explosive runs out of their backs because Kuzdzal, Hiter, both of those guys had a couple of explosive runs in this game. Maybe it's the Penn State defense who also struggled against a run game against Northwestern who ran for like a million yards. So maybe that's the case. This is certainly going to be a different challenge against Indiana, but you know, I think that that's at least a movement that that creates more success for Michigan moving forward.

"My biggest question would be for Michigan. Can you win the game by driving the football in the Indiana defense? I don't know about that. I think that they're going to need to create some short fields, create some special teams opportunities in order to get an advantage over that Indiana defense, which I still think is outstanding."

Michigan and Indiana are set to kick off at 12:10 p.m. EDT at The Big House, with Fox having the broadcast and Klatt on the call as the color commentator.