2B — November 23, 2015
SportsMonday
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

senior safety Jarrod Wilson 
chased him down at the two-
yard line.

On 3rd-and-goal from the 

two, Hackenberg threw again, 
this time well over the head of 
his intended receiver. That was 
a mistake, too. The Wolverines 
swarmed him and his receivers. 
The drive stalled, and Penn 
State kicked a field goal, never 
to have a chance like that again.

Several statistics separated 

Michigan and Penn State on 
Saturday, but look no further 
than this one: The Wolverines 
won by 12 points. Three times, 
they held the Nittany Lions to 
three instead of seven. There’s 
your ballgame.

It wasn’t a big difference. 

On Penn State’s three field goal 
drives, the Nittany Lions fell 
short of the end zone by a total 
of 13 yards. Add that to two at 
Indiana and one at Minnesota, 
and 16 yards 
could make 
the difference 
between 
playing for 
a Big Ten 
championship 
in two weeks 
or packing 
for a mid-tier 
bowl.

If you 

ask the 
Wolverines, they don’t even 
need 16 yards. All they need is 
an inch.

“It’s just a mindset,” said 

redshirt junior defensive end 
Chris Wormley. “You go out 
there, backs against the wall, 
and you know you have to hold 
them to three points or less.”

For most of the past three 

close games — excluding a 49-16 
rout of Rutgers in the middle — 
Michigan has looked extremely 
beatable. At Minnesota and 
Indiana, lesser opponents 
gashed the Wolverines’ defense 
throughout the game. At Penn 
State, minor mistakes such 
as penalties finally seemed 
destined to cost them.

But in those small situations, 

they take their inch and they 
win the game with it. In 
those small situations, they 

look unbeatable. In the past 
four games, opponents have 
journeyed into the red zone 
17 times and scored 14 times. 
Just two of them have been 
touchdowns.

After the Minnesota game, 

people criticized the Golden 
Gophers for running the ball 
into the teeth of the Michigan 
defense instead of spreading 
the field and trying to make a 
play. After the Indiana game, 
people criticized the Hoosiers 
for spreading the field and 
trying to make a play instead of 
running the ball into the teeth 
of the Michigan defense.

Finally, the Nittany Lions 

tried every which way to get 
into the end zone. They couldn’t 
do it.

You could still argue that 

each of those situations was 
mismanaged, but three of 
these games have passed now. 
Quarterback sneaks, short curl 
routes, wildcat formations, fade 
routes, inside runs, outside 
runs — opponents have tried 

everything. 
When you 
give this 
Michigan 
team an inch, 
you just can’t 
take it away.

Now, 

sometimes the 
Wolverines 
don’t even get 
an inch. The 
touchdown 

they gave up Saturday was on a 
25-yard pass play when redshirt 
freshman safety Jabrill Peppers 
was beaten on a deep route. No. 
3 Ohio State, Michigan’s next 
opponent, has the weapons to 
burn them many, many more 
times than that.

But the Buckeyes would be 

wise not to give Michigan an 
inch to hold. They will likely be 
favored, but the Wolverines can 
earn a major shift in the rivalry. 
Give them an inch, and they just 
might take it a mile.

Lourim can be reached 

at jlourim@umich.edu and 

on Twitter @jakelourim.

LOURIM
From Page 1B

“You know you 

have to hold 
them to three 
points or less.”

For more football updates
Check MichiganDaily.com 
throughout game week

SPORTSMONDAY COLUMN

Harbaugh, Bo and Ohio State

I

t took Jim Harbaugh 
21 seconds to reference 
Bo Schembechler at his 

introductory press conference last 
December. 
He walked 
up to the 
podium and 
apologized 
for his hoarse 
voice. 

Then 

Harbaugh 
talked about 
how he 
tripped on his 
walk into the 
room, saying, “A lesser athlete 
would have gone down,” drawing 
upon Bo Schembechler’s line that 
his heart attack would have killed 
a lesser man.

Being a student of 

Schembechler is so thoroughly 
ingrained into Harbaugh’s being 
that his college coach is a part of 
his everyday life. Not only does 
he work in Schembechler Hall 
and drive past Schembechler’s old 
house daily, but Harbaugh thinks 
about his coach even in what 
otherwise could be mundane 
conversations.

It happened on Michigan’s 

flight to Saturday’s game, when 
former Michigan quarterback Jim 
Breaugh piloted the team’s plane.

“I said, ‘You know what 

Bo would tell you right now?’ 
Harbaugh asked. “ ‘Don’t screw 
it up!’ ”

He even thinks about 

Schembechler’s chief rival, 
former Ohio State coach Woody 
Hayes. One reporter Saturday 
asked Harbaugh about a Hayes 
quote about teams laying eggs 
and not performing in certain 
games. It led to a Harbaugh quip 
about comparing humans and 
chickens, but that wasn’t really 
the interesting part.

Harbaugh insisted the quote 

wasn’t true, that Woody Hayes 
never said it.

The man is a historian of 

sorts on the Michigan-Ohio 
State rivalry. Last winter, in the 
days before Harbaugh’s hiring 
at Michigan, Chase Beeler, an 
offensive lineman who played 
for Harbaugh at Stanford, said 
Harbaugh had “an extreme 
reverence” for Schembechler. 

Beeler remembered sitting 

with Harbaugh and his father, 
Jack, one night in 2009. Jim 
and Jack went back and forth 
discussing how much they 
admired Schembechler and 
Hayes, particularly how they 
brought out the greatness in one 
another. 

When Harbaugh was hired, 

this was the expectation for 
him and Ohio State coach Urban 
Meyer. They would battle as 

the head coaches of Michigan 
and Ohio State every year in the 
last week of November for the 
foreseeable future, two of the best 
coaches in the country fighting for 
Big Ten and national supremacy.

Schembechler came to 

Michigan from Miami (Ohio) at 
a time when the Buckeyes had 
taken seven of nine games from 
the Wolverines. Michigan was 
overmatched, particularly in 1968, 
the year before Schembechler 
arrived. Schembechler once 
called his first 10 games against 
Ohio State, the ones known as 
the 10-Year War, the 10 favorite 
games he ever coached against 
the Buckeyes. He bested Hayes 
in those games — the Wolverines 
went 5-4-1.

Harbaugh will get his first 

chance to begin that sort of legacy 
against Urban Meyer on Saturday.

The immediate implications 

of the upcoming game are 
now diminished. The average 
Michigan fan was devastated 
by Ohio State’s loss to Michigan 
State on Saturday. The wildest 
Harbaugh fantasy, the one of 
him coming to Ann Arbor and 
immediately leading Michigan to 
a conference championship, was 
all but shattered.

But think back to that day 

when he was hired. In all of your 
giddiness, was the first thing you 
thought about the possibility 
of Michigan winning a Big Ten 
championship? Or was it the idea 
that the Wolverines, finally, after 
losing 10 out of 11 games to their 
bitter rival down South, had a 

coach who could fight back, one 
whose team wouldn’t just get 
geared up to play the Buckeyes, 
but actually beat them?

Saturday won’t be about a Big 

Ten title, a trip to Indianapolis 
or the right to play Iowa. But you 
know darn well that Michigan 
doesn’t need to beat Iowa to 
show, once and for all, that it’s 
back.

“Right now, Ohio State and 

Michigan State are ahead of 
us,” said Michigan announcer 
Dan Dierdorf, who played on 
Schembechler’s first team, in 
August. “We can’t talk about 
national titles. We can’t talk 
about winning the Big Ten. What 
we have to do, job No. 1, is to 
become competitive with your 
chief rivals, and that’s Michigan 

State and Ohio State, and those 
are the two teams that have to 
be front and center in everything 
we do.”

Harbaugh won’t admit to that 

last statement. Publicly, he has 
always been focused on the task 
ahead for his team, abstaining 
from guarantees and absolutes 
like the one he made during his 
playing career about his team 
defeating Ohio State in 1986. But 
Schembechler, the man Harbaugh 
considers a profound influence 
on his life, was always thinking 
about the Buckeyes. He prepared 
his teams for them all year round, 
even when they didn’t know it.

Exactly how Harbaugh has 

prepared his team behind closed 
doors is unclear. But any way 
you look at it, Saturday will be 
the culmination of a year’s work. 
It started, as Michigan players 
love to say, with four-hour spring 
practices. Like Schembechler did, 
Harbaugh made his team buy in 
completely and unconditionally. 
Senior linebacker James Ross, 
who played for Brady Hoke for 
three years, said Saturday that 
anyone on Michigan’s team would 
run through a brick wall for 
Harbaugh.

Schembechler’s first team 

would have done the same for 
him. The group pulled off a 
massive upset of Ohio State in 
1969. Entering the game, the 
adversary was considered to be 
the greatest college football team 
of all time, but Schembechler had 
his team ready.

If Michigan wins this weekend, 

it wouldn’t even be considered an 
enormous surprise. Ohio State is 
ranked eighth in this week’s AP 
Poll, and the Wolverines are 12th.

But to say this edition of The 

Game doesn’t matter? You’d be 
dead wrong.

Cohen can be reached 

at maxac@umich.edu or on 

Twitter @MaxACohen.

LUNA ANNA ARCHEY/Daily

Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh has taken life lessons from his old coach, Bo Schembechler, and he will take them into his first game against Ohio State on Saturday.

MAX
COHEN

Five Things We Learned

By JAKE LOURIM

Managing Sports Editor

For the second straight week, 

the 
Michigan 
football 
team 

went on the road, played in an 
emotionally charged atmosphere 
and took care of business.

As with Indiana last week, 

this 
opponent 
presented 

challenges: Penn State’s noisy 
crowd, 
quarterback 
Christian 

Hackenberg 
and 
a 
physical 

defensive line.

But the 12th-ranked Wolverines 

solved all of them. They escaped 
with another victory, setting up 
this week’s rivalry clash with 
Ohio State at Michigan Stadium.

Here are five things we learned 

Saturday:

1. The defensive line will be fine 

without Ryan Glasgow.

After last week’s game at 

Indiana, what was originally one 
of the strengths of the team looked 
like a glaring weakness. The 
Hoosiers rolled over Michigan for 
307 rushing yards and 41 points 
before falling in double overtime.

The 
culprit, 
it 
appeared, 

was the loss of redshirt junior 
nose tackle Ryan Glasgow, who 
injured his pectoral muscle the 
week before against Rutgers. 
With Glasgow out for the season, 
the future looked bleak. The 
Wolverines needed to be better on 
the defensive front at Penn State, 
and they were.

Against the run, they stifled 

Penn State running back Saquon 
Barkley, 
who 
managed 
just 

68 yards on 15 carries — even 
though one of those carries went 
for 56 yards. Michigan’s biggest 
stands came on its first series and 
second-to-last series. Both times, 
the Wolverines held the Nittany 
Lions to only a field goal inside the 
10-yard line.

But 
their 
biggest 
impact 

was in the passing game. They 
sacked Penn State’s Christian 
Hackenberg 
four 
times 
and 

hurried 
him 
plenty 
more, 

disrupting the aerial attack and 
making it nearly impossible for 
the Nittany Lions to come back. 
Michigan faces an even tougher 

test next week against Ohio State, 
but the resurgence in this area 
bodes well for the rivalry game 
Saturday.

2. Michigan’s penalties are an 

issue.

Some were unambiguous, such 

as the Wolverines’ four offside 
and two false start penalties. 
Some were controversial, such as 
redshirt freshman safety Jabrill 
Peppers’ pass interference, after 
which 
Michigan 
coach 
Jim 

Harbaugh angrily threw off his 
hat and coat.

The Wolverines have had a 

significant problem with penalties 
in the past two weeks. Saturday, 
they committed 13 for 117 yards, 
giving Penn State six of its 14 first 
downs. Michigan dominated in 
many facets, but its miscues kept 
the Nittany Lions in the game for 
too long.

The most fixable issue is 

the four offside penalties from 
jumping the snap early. That 
might solve itself Saturday in 
front of a home crowd after two 
straight road games. At any rate, 
the Wolverines can’t afford to give 
Ohio State free yards.

3. The running game still has 

some things to work out.

Those things have seemed 

trivial over the past three weeks. 
Fifth-year 
senior 
quarterback 

Jake Rudock’s emergence has 
made everyone forget about the 
running game. The Wolverines 
haven’t needed it.

But 
Michigan 
needs 
to 

re-establish the ground game 
soon. 
Junior 
running 
back 

De’Veon Smith was the leading 
rusher Saturday with just 39 yards 
on 13 carries. Redshirt junior 
wide 
receiver 
Jehu 
Chesson 

was second, despite getting only 
one carry. The Wolverines are 
now tied for 81st in the country 
in rushing with 161.4 yards per 
game.

No Michigan running back 

has hit the 100-yard mark since 
September, and the road doesn’t 
get any easier: At 30th in the 
country, Ohio State’s rush defense 

will give the Wolverines another 
tough test.

4. College football guarantees 

nothing.

When the Wolverines walked 

off the field Saturday, the stage 
seemed set. A contingent of 
Michigan fans greeted the team 
at the tunnel after the game. Some 
chanted “BEAT OHIO.” All that 
had to happen to set up a winner-
take-all showdown for the Big Ten 
East next week was Ohio State 
beating Michigan State later that 
day.

But in college football, all that 

has to happen rarely does. With 
quarterback Connor Cook injured 
and not playing, the Spartans 
rolled into Columbus and knocked 
off the Buckeyes, 17-14, on a game-
winning field goal as time expired.

So, Michigan and Ohio State 

will play their normal rivalry game 
Saturday at Michigan Stadium. 
Either could still make the Big 
Ten Championship against Iowa. 
But they’ll need some help: Penn 
State will have to upset Michigan 
State in East Lansing.

Who knows? Maybe that will 

happen too. Nothing is ever 
certain.

5. BOLD PREDICTION: Jake 

Rudock will throw for 400 
yards against Ohio State.

The days of Rudock playing 

against Indiana-caliber defenses 
are over. While he might not 
reach the milestone as easily as 
he did two weeks ago against 
the Hoosiers, he will have his 
chances.

The Buckeyes will provide 

more opposition, but they will 
also put up points, perhaps 
forcing 
Michigan 
to 
pass 

for most of the game. And 
if 
the 
Wolverines’ 
running 

game continues to struggle, it 
will give Rudock even more 
opportunities. Each of the past 
two Michigan-Ohio State games 
have been shootouts, and the 
Wolverines’ passing game has 
produced in both.

This year, the unit has never 

looked better. Rudock is the first 
quarterback in Michigan history 
to throw for more than 250 yards 
in three straight games. He’s 
clicking with each of his three 
top receivers — redshirt junior 
wideouts 
Jehu 
Chesson 
and 

Amara Darboh and junior tight 
end Jake Butt. Expect the group 
to have a big day this weekend.

ALLISON FARRAND/Daily

Jake Rudock threw for more than 250 yards for the third straight game Saturday.

