Old School

It's fitting this game was played on the same weekend most Americans turn back their clocks, for that's exactly what the Wolverines did on Saturday. Playing a style that looks very familiar.

If we learned anything new in Michigan's 38-7 road win at Maryland it's the following: speed in space is dead, but Har-ball lives.

Most modern college football programs can't beat anybody with just 331 total yards of offense, but when Jim Harbaugh has his way the Wolverines can win by 31 points that way. With superior special teams, not turning it over and limiting mistakes, and then letting Don Brown's relentless defense do its thing.

Sure, it helps when your opponent is the unraveling Terrapins, who were essentially the away team for their own homecoming, thanks to all the blue in the stands. Still, that tried and true recipe has won a lot of games for Harbaugh at Michigan. Which is why he returned to his happy place to save a season, that just a few weeks ago looked like it could be fortunate to finish 7-5 or 8-4.

Now the Wolverines seem likely to finish 9-3 at worst.

It's clear now whatever Michigan was attempting to do offensively with new coordinator Josh Gattis at the start of the season is dead as a door nail -- at least as far as 2019 is concerned. Maryland has one of the worst pass defenses in all of college football, yet the Wolverines passed on testing their mettle most of the afternoon. That isn't an accident, just like it wasn't just the weather last week against Notre Dame, either.

If there was ever a game to give Shea Patterson and those supposedly stud receivers some layups to build some confidence and pad some of their pedestrian stats, this was it. Instead, Michigan has clearly made the decision to take the game out of Patterson's hands as much as possible. Turning the former 5-star into a glorified game-manager. And if you watched Patterson inexplicably throw several inaccurate balls on Saturday, despite facing little pressure, you can't really blame them for making that call.

This is not going to be the balanced and explosive offense we had hoped for, which Michigan hoped for as well. That's why Gattis was brought here, not to gain a paltry 331 yards against arguably the worst defense in the Big Ten in Week 10.

We'll never know why, because we're not at practices or fall/spring camps. All we have to go by is what we actually see on game days. And in ideal weather conditions against the most vulnerable opponent it will see the rest of the season, what we saw was Michigan simply wasn't interested in airing it out.

With a defense playing as well as Don Brown's right now, it makes a lot of sense to keep it conservative and avoid the implosions we saw throughout the first half of the season. Especially when guys are still dropping balls, and receivers are still running routes short of the sticks on third down. Both of which we saw Saturday.

Speed in space just never took, so Harbaugh took the Wolverines back to what's worked about 75% of the time the past five years. Of course, it's that other 25% of results this season was supposed to finally solve. And it still can, it just won't be with Patterson making an assault on the record-books, or those big-play receivers running free, as we expected/hoped.

Thus, your view of this game and this team comes down to whether you believe the fifth time is the charm. That this year, after he failed the first four attempts with this old school formula, Harbaugh can finally beat the space age Buckeyes.

Given this appears to be the best version of Ohio State that Harbaugh has faced yet, I personally have my doubts. But I've been wrong plenty, and would love to be wrong here. Because that's what this season is really all about now.

Starting with Saturday, Michigan is basically playing the Buckeyes the rest of the way. With each game before Ohio State arrives in Ann Arbor measured by the question "would this effort win The Game?"

This one would not.

For example, Mike Locksley demonstrated why he has a pathetic 6-36 career head coaching record at the start of the second half. After perplexing the Wolverines with some stall-ball and averaging about four yards per rush, which resulted in two quality possessions that made it into the red zone, Locksley mysteriously abandoned both after halftime. Throwing three straight incompletions and handing the Wolverines the momentum the rest of the way.

Ryan Day isn't making that kind of mistake at the end of the month. He's not handing Michigan any momentum, he's going to make Michigan take it away. It's highly unlikely a mediocre 5.3 yards-per-play, like the Wolverines had against lowly Maryland, is going to threaten Ohio State whatsoever. Unless the Michigan defense delivers a heroic performance, which it might. But that's what it would take to beat the Buckeyes playing this way.

However, when you were very fortunate to survive five-loss Army, and you're out of the Big Ten race before the November stretch drive, you have a season to save first. That's your prime directive long before you get to November 30th. To his credit, Harbaugh looks like he's done that.

Now we wait to see if it's finally good enough to win The Game that matters most.

HAIL! 〽️ pic.twitter.com/JAfjMphTTn
— Michigan Football (@UMichFootball) November 2, 2019