2B — November 12, 2018
SportsMonday
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Another Daily road trip
T

he Daily’s sports sec-
tion 
takes 
road trips.
It’s oddly 
part of our 
identity.
And 
they’re not 
normal road 
trips, where 
you stop 
at a hotel 
and take it 
easy. We’re talking through-
the-night-for-10-hours-back-
from-New-York road trips. The 
type of road trips where you 
get done writing after a game 
and immediately get in a car, 
because there’s class or a paper 
to make the next day.
We wouldn’t do it if we 
didn’t have to, but the budget is 
tight, and we apparently don’t 
have any alumni at Boeing who 
want to donate a plane.
So we drive. And when we 
get to games, the adult sports 
writers shake their heads and 
laugh at our efforts.
That’s especially the case for 
a trip like last weekend’s, when 
the football beat drove to Pis-
cataway to cover No. 4 Michi-
gan’s game against Rutgers.
About 20 hours on the road 
for a game that was all-but-
predetermined.
But The Daily’s sports sec-
tion prides itself on covering 
things in person. So, Mark Cal-
cagno, Max Marcovitch, Ethan 
Wolfe and I — along with the 
two photographers: Alec Cohen 
and Ruchita Iyer — crammed 
in a rental Dodge Caravan and 
took off around 10 a.m. Friday 
morning. An experienced crew, 
the trip to Rye, N.Y., — where 
we were staying the night with 
another Daily writer’s parents 
— went off without a hitch.
We stopped once for gas at 
a small station in rural Penn-
sylvania, where the attendant 
pumped our gas for us and 
told us to “just use the ladies’ 

room,” while we were waiting 
in line for the restroom. The 
local newspaper, The Prog-
ress, had stories 
about selfie sta-
tions and leaf 
pickup opera-
tions on the 
front page.
That was 
pretty much it 
until Rye, but 
the daytime 
drives aren’t the 
interesting ones 
anyway.
We had a 
hot dinner and a good night’s 
sleep, woke up, watched the 
Wolverines beat up the Scarlet 
Knights for a few hours, then 

wrote our stories and got back 
on the road, just over 24 hours 
after we had gotten off it.
Mark started 
and took the 
first tank of gas, 
filling back up 
at another rural 
Pennsylvania 
station around 
3:30 a.m. Sun-
day. From there, 
I took over.
By this point, 
I’ve developed 
a reputation 
for driving the 
graveyard shift on road trips. 
The next morning I regret 
it very much, but during the 
drive and with the help of too 

much caffeine, I honestly don’t 
mind it. There’s something 
peaceful about it, and if any-
body’s going to 
fall asleep and 
crash into a 
ditch, it might 
as well be the 
Managing 
Sports Editor.
More than the 
actual driving, 
though, I think 
the affinity for 
these road trips 
stem from what 
you learn about 
the people in the car with you, 
and the memories that result 
from that.
If we didn’t take these road 

trips, I wouldn’t have memo-
ries of Mark’s lead foot, Max’s 
inability to steer smoothly 
through a turn 
or Ethan’s crip-
pling carsick-
ness. More 
formatively, I 
wouldn’t have 
the countless 
inside jokes to 
fondly look back 
fondly on.
It seems 
weird that these 
things come 
to mind for 
me before the events that we 
actually covered. I’ve covered 
Jordan Poole’s buzzer beater 
and a Final Four and football 

games at Notre Dame Stadium, 
Spartan Stadium and now, 
Highpoint.com Stadium.
Come to think of it, it’s 
weird trying to describe any 
of these personal memories 
shared between a few people. 
Perhaps this column was much 
better in theory than it was 
in practice, but in the dead of 
night, with nobody else on the 
road and me clinging to my 
sanity and the steering wheel 
at the same time, I pondered 
why we do these drives in the 
first place.
Then I looked in the rear-
view mirror, at Mark leaning 
on top of Max, both trying 
to get a few hours of sleep. I 
looked at Ethan, valiantly stay-
ing awake with me and singing 
along to the words. I saw Alec 
and Ruchita in the backseat, 
falling in and out of sleep 
but along for the ride. I hope 
they’ll remember these dumb 
trips affectionately like I do.
Anyways, it’s better than 
any exaggerated conclusions 
I could have tried to draw 
from the football game, which 
ultimately went as planned 
and told us nothing we didn’t 
already know.
We got back to Ann Arbor 
after the sun had already risen. 
I dropped off Mark then Max 
then Ethan. As I pulled up to 
Alec and Ruchita’s apartment 
building, Ethan texted me that 
he forgot his aux cord in the 
car. It’s a good thing he did, 
because I didn’t know how to 
end this column at that time.
But after Alec and Ruchita 
got out of the car and I was by 
myself again, “Comfortably 
Numb” by Pink Floyd came on 
shuffle.
I can’t explain, you would 
not understand, sings Roger 
Waters.

Persak can be reached 

at mdpers@umich.edu, on 

Twitter at @MikeDPersak or 

on Venmo at @Mike-Persak.

ALEC COHEN/Daily
The Michigan Daily’s football beat drove 10 hours to Piscataway for Michigan’s game against Rutgers on Saturday, their longest road trip of the season.

Michigan beats Rutgers, 42-7

PISCATAWAY — For a 
fleeting moment, HighPoint.
com stadium broke out into 
riotous cheers.
With 39 seconds left in 
the first quarter, Rutgers 
running back Isaih Pacheco 
found a gaping hole through 
the teeth of the No. 4 
Michigan 
football 
team’s 
No.1-ranked defense — an 
accomplishment of its own. 
Then he kept running, past 
a 
flat-footed 
secondary 
and into the endzone for 
an 80-yard touchdown and 
the longest rush since the 
Scarlet Knights joined the 
Big Ten in 2014.
“The immediate response 
is we’ve been through a lot 
worse,” said junior defensive 
end 
Rashan 
Gary. 
“One 
touchdown is not gonna hurt 
us. We’ve got to get back to 
playing football.
“And that’s what we did.”
The 
moment 
— 
an 
explosion 
of 
excitement 
from 
fans 
who 
rarely 
experience it — faded. It 
was 
never 
Rutgers’ 
(0-7 
Big Ten, 1-9 overall) night, 
nor 
was 
it 
supposed 
to 
be. The Wolverines (7-0, 
9-1) eventually settled in 
and cruised to a 42-7 win, 
spearheaded 
by 
junior 
quarterback Shea Patterson, 
who 
finished 
18-for-27 
for 260 yards and three 
touchdowns.
“That was a really tough 
night to throw the ball.” said 
coach Jim Harbaugh about 
the playing conditions. “… 
He made some throws that 
were just unbelievable. Put 
it in the right spot, with the 
wind blowing and swirling.”
Before Pacheco’s score, 
senior running back Karan 
Higdon found paydirt first 
on a drive featuring five 
different ball carriers to give 
Michigan the early lead.
On the drive following 
the 
80-yard 
touchdown, 
Higdon scored again from 
one yard out. Both of the 
Wolverines’ 
touchdowns 

could 
have 
materialized 
into longer scores, but wind 
and dropped passes kept its 
longest play to 16 yards.
That 
was 
until 
the 
5:07 mark in the second 
quarter. 
Secondary 
miscommunication allowed 
sophomore 
wide 
receiver 
Nico 
Collins 
to 
streak 
unchecked 
and 
open 
for 
an easy 36-yard toss from 
Patterson to bring a 21-7 lead 
into halftime.
“It was like, the (defensive 
back) passed me off and it 
was one-on-one with the 
safeties in the middle of the 
field, so I thought ‘I’ve got 
a chance to make this play,’ 
” Collins said. “And once he 
passed me off I’m like, ‘It’s 
just me back here, the safety 
is nowhere near here,’ and I 
got the ball.”
Rutgers, meanwhile, met 
expectations of mediocrity 
in the first 30 minutes: no 
sacks 
or 
tackles-for-loss, 
cornerback 
confusion, 
a 
shanked punt, zero first-
half passing yards despite 
two 
completions 
and 
so 
on. 
But 
the 
infrequent 
chunk yardage plays and 
sluggishness from Michigan 
were 
enough 
to 
warrant 
praise from Collins.
“They came out and they 
were ready to play,” Collins 
said. “They had nothing to 
lose so they came out there 
with a little chip on their 
shoulder and try to beat us. 
… They came out with their 
A-game.”
Then 
the 
second 
half 
happened. Both teams and 
fanbases probably wish it 
hadn’t.
Already 
without 
safety Josh Metellus and 
cornerback Lavert Hill to 
respective soft tissue and 
head injuries according to 
Harbaugh, 
the 
Michigan 
defense saw linemen Kwity 
Paye and Josh Uche leave the 
field in pain.
And in terms of on-field 
excitement, it was few and 
far between.
Sparked by a reaching, 
21-yard catch by tight end 

Zach Gentry on third down, 
Michigan 
kept 
its 
first 
drive of the half alive. It 
culminated with Patterson, 
given all day to throw, toying 
with the Rutgers defense 
on a broken play to find 
Oliver Martin for a 16-yard 
touchdown.
“The pocket awareness, 
finding where the quiet spot 
is — he looked as good as he’s 
ever looked tonight in the 
pocket,” Harbaugh said of 
Patterson. “Not panicking, 
moving suddenly, getting to 
the quiet spot.”
The Scarlet Knights ran 
a trick reverse pass later in 
the quarter which landed 
into the arms of backup 
quarterback 
Giovanni 
Rescigno for 17 yards.
Then 
Rutgers 
fumbled 
the ball away the next play. 
Then it punted the following 
series. Then it punted again.
Between 
these 
series, 
the Wolverines found the 
endzone off a 10-yard, back 
shoulder fade to Collins and 
a 61-yard run up the middle 
by Chris Evans.
“It 
was 
a 
one-on-one 
matchup,” Collins said of his 
second 
touchdown. 
“Shea 
just trusted me to make 
a play and that’s what we 
did. We like the matchup, 
and we’re gonna take that 
chance.”
A runaway win was hardly 
out of the question, even if 
the result and gameplay was 
uninspiring. 
The 
defense 
allowed 
just 
59 
passing 
yards, but 193 rushing yards. 
The 
offense 
dropped 
42 
points on the road, but was 
hardly reminiscent of the 
78-0 victory from 2016.
Lessons from the game 
can 
be 
interpreted 
any 
which way, but one thing 
still stands — Michigan just 
had to get through this game 
as it awaits its next big test 
at the end of the season in 
Ohio State.
“I feel like we need to stop 
coming out slow, but we still 
got the win,” Collins said.
It’s the perfect explanation 
of Saturday’s game.

The Michigan Daily Top 10 Poll 

Each week, Daily sports staffers fill out ballots, with first-place votes 
receiving 10 points, second-place votes receiving nine and so on. 

1. Alabama: “If you wanna crown ‘em, then crown their ass!” - Dennis 
Green

2. Clemson: Trevor Lawrence has two first names.

3. Notre Dame: Ian Book? What a nerd.

4. Michigan: Not even Rob Ash could stop this team.

5. Georgia: All this effort to get smoked by Bama in the SEC Champion-
ship.

6. Oklahoma: Sooner rather than later, imo.

7. West Virginia: Will Grier would be a household name if he had be-
come a Vine star like his brother

8. Washington State: Every single fraternity in the world has a kid with a 
name like Gardner Minshew, and they all have that moustache. 

9. UCF: Back-to-back national championships soon cometh.

10. Ohio State: Definitely DON’T check Zach Smith’s Twitter timeline.

ETHAN WOLFE
Daily Sports Writer

MIKE
PERSAK

And they’re not 

normal road 

trips, where you 

stop at a hotel...

We got back to 

Ann Arbor after 

the sun had 

already risen.

