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Quick Reactions: Michigan Shows Mettle But Comes Up Empty In Loss At Penn State
• Michigan falls to 1-7 on the road against ranked teams, 0-8 as an underdog and 1-10 against Top 10 teams under Jim Harbaugh. All those records are fact. They also don't tell the complete story of this loss.
For the first time since the 2016 double-overtime heartbreaker at Ohio State, the Wolverines showed they could compete in a road game against a Top 25 team.
After falling behind 21-0, and with a good number of Michigan fans (and we in the media) lowering the curtain on the Maize and Blue for the game, the season, and maybe the Harbaugh era, the Wolverines did something completely unexpected: they played with mettle, demonstrated mental toughness, found rhythm offensively and pushed Penn State to the brink.
It should have been even better. Michigan, led by the finest performance of senior quarterback Shea Patterson's career, had the game-tying touchdown until it didn't … the ball dropped by sophomore wide receiver Ronnie Bell as it hit him square in the chest. An incredibly cruel fate delivered to the fan base, to Patterson and, most especially, to Bell himself, who will likely forever be haunted by his error.
I'm not one for moral victories. A loss gives Michigan two in Big Ten play this season, effectively ending any shot of an East Division title and a spot in Indianapolis (only one two-loss team has made it to Indy in five years of East and West divisions, and that was Wisconsin in the West).
A loss leaves U-M resigned for this year to be about beating rivals and nothing else (which if they did against Notre Dame, Michigan State and, especially, Ohio State would make fans feel a lot better), and in Year 5 of the Harbaugh era, to be out of the Big Ten picture before November is a failure.
But, Michigan might have found something it has been missing since the 2016 season - it might have found courage and strength. It might have found a quarterback and an offensive game plan that makes sense (might being the key word, there were still far too many wasted running plays in the 4th quarter on inside zone when it had not worked all night).
Michigan might have found some hope for the rest of the season. That's not a win, but it's as close as U-M is getting to a victory this week.
• The final stats will show a defense that held Penn State to its lowest total offense all season (283 yards), that limited the Nittany Lions to 4 of 13 third downs, that held PSU to 3.5 yards per carry and held PSU to 5.2 yards per play. Those numbers would suggest the defense and coordinator Don Brown had a good night. They'd be wrong.
Penn State threw four long passes (three for touchdowns) because Brown's stubborn refusal to play primarily man-to-man without safety help returned this week. On both KJ Hamler touchdown catches of 25 and 53 yards, Brown's defense had a safety lined up one-on-one with Hamler - arguably the league's fastest and most dangerous wide receiver - in the slot.
Michigan has an All-American cornerback in senior Lavert Hill. It has one of the best athletes in school history in freshman nickel back Daxton Hill. Instead, redshirt sophomore safety Brad Hawkins and senior safety Josh Metellus were defending Hamler on the two soul-crushing touchdowns.
Two years ago, the Blue and White picked on safeties covering slots and despite Brown vowing he would never allow his defense to get humiliated like it did in 2017 (in a 42-13 loss), he once again put his unit in disadvantageous situations at the worst possible times, and Penn State made U-M pay.
Brown is revered by Harbaugh, and many, including myself, have been offering praise this season, but he has a poor track record in big games, and Saturday night was just another example of Brown's unit dropping the ball.
He's probably never going anywhere as long as Harbaugh is in charge, but the idea that Brown is irreplaceable and one of the best coordinators in college football has simply been disproven over and over again when the games matter the most.
• Patterson's final line is pedestrian: 58.5 percent on 41 attempts, 276 yards without a touchdown, had an interception, finished with a 110.2 passer rating (150.0 is considered average in college football). Like the defense, those numbers don't tell the right story.
First, Patterson suffered from five drops by his receivers. That boosts his completion percentage up to 70.7 percent. He also should have had a touchdown, but Bell let it pass through his fingers. He ran for a score (and 34 yards on the night).
More than that, however, he made plays. On third down (7 for 9 with six first downs). On fourth down (1 for 3, but should have been 2 for 3 if not for Bell's drop). He also ran for two first downs and a touchdown.
He did everything required of a quarterback to beat a Top 10 team, end the underdog record and squash the road narrative.
Patterson has faced incredible scrutiny for his below-average first half, but he had a "gamer" attitude late last week when Illinois closed within three, 28-25, leading Michigan on a 10-play, 79-yard touchdown drive to seal the win. And he had that same look in his eye for four quarters at Penn State.
He should be no one's piñata this week. And if you're still casting all the blame on Patterson then look in the mirror and say to yourself, 'I don't know what the hell I'm talking about.'
• It's a broken record, but officiating was again atrocious. Michigan was on the short end of the two worst calls of the night - a missed pass interference on PSU tight end Pat Freiermuth in which he clearly pushed off for separation on his 17-yard first-quarter touchdown, and an offensive PI called on U-M junior wide receiver Nico Collins, negating a 40-plus-yard reception in the second quarter when the game was 14-0 Nittany Lions.
Had Freiermuth's obvious push off been called, Penn State would have had the ball at the Michigan 32-yard line, 1st-and-25. The Blue and White might have had to settle for a field-goal try.
Two plays after the Collins' call, PSU intercepted Patterson at the U-M 40-yard line and five plays later they were in the end zone for a 21-0 lead.
Those were game-changing calls that both went against Michigan. It's not hard to see a scenario in which Penn State gets three instead of seven in the first quarter and Michigan scores a touchdown after Collins' catch puts the Wolverines in the red zone - U-M was 3 for 4 in the red zone and would have been 4 for 4 if, again, not for the Bell drop.
So suddenly that insurmountable 21-0 lead is 10-7 Penn State at the conclusion of the first half. Quite a different game.
The Maize and Blue battled back and should have tied the game in the final two minutes, but they also shouldn't have had to overcome a 21-point deficit if the officials had just done their job or at the very least had not so spectacularly done a bad job.
• How will Michigan finish? Will they build off this performance offensively? Can Patterson go on a Jake Rudock-like 2015 run to cap his senior season? There's a strong possibility he can if the coaching staff embraces what they found Saturday night - mainly an offense that is better when it's passing first and using freshman ball carriers Zach Charbonnet and Hassan Haskins selectively.
Still, I think the best U-M can achieve is 9-3 with wins over Notre Dame and Michigan State and a loss to the Buckeyes. Be mindful of pesky Indiana too, which is 5-2 and poised to give the Wolverines another tough game in Bloomington.
If Michigan went 9-3 with a loss to Ohio State is that a fireable offense? Probably not, but it will mark another season in which Harbaugh didn't achieve what he was brought to Ann Arbor to do: win Big Ten titles, beat OSU and go to the playoff.
And the fan base would be left with another offseason to ponder whether Harbaugh is the right guy to get the job done or come to accept that 9-3 with an annual loss to the Buckeyes is the ceiling of this program.
