The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com Sports Thursday, September 19, 2019 — 5A Classifieds Call: #734-418-4115 Email: dailydisplay@gmail.com Faculty couple seeking jr., sr., or grad student as study helper for 19-year- old dyslexic daughter. 2-3 days/week, max 10 hours, $15/hour, flexible schedule. Email tareid458@gmail.com By Jeffrey Wechsler ©2019 Tribune Content Agency, LLC 09/19/19 Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis 09/19/19 ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE: Release Date: Thursday, September 19, 2019 ACROSS 1 Barista’s concoction 6 Domino dots 10 Rotating rod 14 Construction rod 15 Square __ 16 Skirt with a flounce 17 Tall display of dishwashing liquid? 19 MiG developer 20 Wee 21 Soy sauce taste 22 Sleuth of radio, movies and TV 23 Sitcom star from Melmac 25 Sticker 27 Global donation of dishwashing liquid? 32 Set in a golf bag 34 TV exec Arledge 35 Barcelona bear 36 Short dog, for short 37 Or so 38 1956 crisis site 39 Chest-beating beast 40 Darts 41 Slow, to Ravel 42 Rock band’s preferred dishwashing liquid? 45 “Supergirl” actor Jon 46 It can be thin but not fat 47 Glance through 48 Goaded, with “on” 52 Seed used in smoothies 56 “O brawling love! O loving __!”: Romeo 57 Using dishwashing liquid in the shower? 59 “__ that a lot” 60 One likely to snap 61 Spree 62 Like everything in a she shed 63 Ballpark figure 64 Aconcagua’s range DOWN 1 Pram pusher 2 Son of Leah 3 Black, to a bard 4 Zero, quaintly 5 Martini specification 6 Dance with a queen 7 Captain Kirk’s home state 8 Common greeting card content 9 Far from soothing 10 Masonry finish 11 Bully 12 “Everything’s ready to go!” 13 Chance at the spinner 18 Clump of dune grass 24 Fleur-de-__ 26 Baa ma 27 One whose work is laughable 28 Heavenly path 29 Gear bit 30 Word with hot or dog 31 Zonk out 32 Tablet with Air, Pro and Mini models 33 Update the look of, as a product 37 Like some bistros 38 1957 Coasters chart-topper with the refrain “Gonna find her” 40 Opponent 41 Fragrant chain 43 MLB team with Mr. and Mrs. mascots 44 Duchamp genre 47 __ Tzu 49 Trusted advisor 50 Pesky bug 51 Goes back 53 Rear 54 “Picnic” playwright 55 Forever 58 Placeholder abbr. HELP WANTED S aturday presents a pivot point in this Michigan football season. It’s not a season-defining one. The Wolverines can lose on Saturday and still accom- plish all their intend- ed goals. On the converse, they can win on Saturday and still fail to reach those same goals. It is the archetype of game Jim Harbaugh has yet to win and needs to start winning, plain and simple. Which begs the question that, on the surface, might seem hyperbolic: Would a win against Wisconsin on Saturday be the best victory of the Harbaugh era? Substitute any words in that sentence — “most impressive,” “most meaningful”, “most impactful” — and you can have an entirely different conversa- tion. But would it be the best? That is highly determinant on, you know, how the game actually plays out. Would a 30-point drubbing over the Badgers be far more impres- sive than a squeaker? Maybe, maybe not. Does is matter how the rest of Wisconsin’s season plays out? Sure. But, in the interest of can- dor, this is a question that speaks far more to Harbaugh’s teams’ shortcomings rather than this one specific game. Michigan will go to Madison having been an underdog in seven games in the Harbaugh era; it has lost all seven. The Wolverines have yet to beat a ranked opponent on the road in his tenure. Their only win over a top-10 team in that span came against Wisconsin at home in a game they were favored by nearly a touchdown. The most impressive wins of the Harbaugh era are, in some order, as follows: — A 32-23 win at Michigan State in 2016 against a group that would eventually flounder to 3-9 on the season. — A 21-7 win over the 24th- ranked Spartans last year, which teetered in the balance until the Shea Patterson/Don- ovan Peoples-Jones 79-yard touchdown. — A 49-10 romp of Penn State in 2016. — A 41-7 blowout over the 14th-ranked Nittany Lions in what eventually amounted to a down year for Penn State. — A 14-7 win over No. 8 Wisconsin in 2016, otherwise known as The Jourdan Lewis Interception Game. — A 38-13 win over the 15th- ranked Badgers last year. — A 41-7 win over Florida in the 2015 Citrus Bowl that set the table for the 2016 team to hit the ground running. And that’s really it. The success of this year, as with any year now, will be largely determinant on whether or not there’s a Big Ten Title. That’s the only bar worth discussing right now. And Michigan cannot win those until they start winning these types of games. The Wolverines haven’t won in Madison since 2001, which is a stat that has been repeated all week, but ignores they’ve only played four such contests in that span. One that holds more weight? The last time Michigan went on the road and beat a top-15 team was… Sep- tember 16, 2006 at No. 2 Notre Dame under head coach Lloyd Carr. They’re 0-14 in such games since. That context helps bring us back to the Harbaugh era writ large, toiling still in this really-good-but-not-great sta- sis that regularly seems on the verge of a next step. That was supposed to come against Ohio State in 2016, but fell literal inches short. It was supposed to happen in 2017 before that washed away in the pouring rain against Michigan State — sending the rest of the season flooding away with it. It was supposed to happen in Colum- bus again last year, where the Wolverines entered roughly a 4-point favorite over an uncharacteristically vulner- able Buckeyes side. We all know how that ended. A win Saturday wouldn’t quite be a program-altering moment like those would have been. It’s hard to say just how good this Wisconsin team is right now. Two wins by a com- bined 110-0 certainly hint it’s a strong group. Sample size and quality of opponent make it such that we just don’t know. There are also, as has been well-documented, questions about whether this Michigan team is ready. The shine is off the new offense, and there’s little shot at emerging victori- ous without taking a step for- ward on that side of the ball. The defense has looked up to snuff early on, but those two performances came against a Conference USA team and a triple-option side the Wolver- ines had all summer to prepare for. Going to Madison, stymy- ing perhaps the best rushing attack in the nation, overcom- ing offensive speed bumps and leaving with a win would be a whole different animal. To make a long story short: Harbaugh has yet to win a game at Michigan he wasn’t supposed to win. It is the cen- tral, most-pressing criticism of the era. As a result, he’s never won a Big Ten Title and he’s never brought his team to the College Football Playoff. His team can’t do anything to alter the latter point on Saturday. But in order to get there, they have to remedy the former point. Here’s another chance. Marcovitch can be reached at maxmarco@umich.edu or on Twitter @Max_Marcovitch. Ryan Hayes and the luxury of sitting Mike Zordich laughed. “My secret?” he asked. “I don’t know if I have a secret.” Zordich, Michigan’s cornerbacks coach, had been asked about the program’s seemingly never-ending churn of NFL-caliber players at the position he coaches. After another year of losing a starter, David Long, to the league, the Wolverines seem just fine. Ambry Thomas has slotted in perfectly, and even when it seemed like Thomas would miss time with colitis, they were fine anyway — Vincent Gray, in his first extended time, has played like a veteran. The biggest secret Zordich may have lies in plain sight, on Michigan’s 247Sports page. Since 2013 — two years before Zordich or Jim Harbaugh got hired — the Wolverines have recruited the position to near perfection. Besides the transition class between Brady Hoke and Harbaugh, when they didn’t take a corner, Michigan’s record of getting corners to the next level since then is almost 100 percent. Jourdan Lewis and Jabrill Peppers are established players in the league. Brandon Watson and Channing Stribling have gotten practice squad opportunities. Long was a third-round pick last April, and Lavert Hill will almost certainly get his shot this April. That encompasses every Michigan class of cornerbacks from 2013-16; the three classes since are still enrolled. There’s an extent to which that’s a self-fulfilling cycle — young players come in, sit and learn from the older guys and by the time those older guys go to the NFL, the young ones are ready to go. Now that Long and Watson are gone, Thomas and Gray stepped right into their place. “Just about everybody that plays corner ends up being really good here,” Harbaugh said Monday, “goes on to be pro players.” That’s the kind of cycle every position coach dreams of, which brings us to the offensive line, a position where Michigan has been as far away from that cycle as can be over the Harbaugh era. Young players benefit from sitting and learning, and their development gets hindered from getting thrown into the fire too early. Nowhere is that more true than the offensive line — a fact that Michigan exemplified for the first few years of Harbaugh’s tenure, and a cycle it’s finally starting to break. When the Wolverines were struggling to recruit elite offensive linemen — Cesar Ruiz is the only current starter from a five-man 2017 class — guys had to play before they were ready. When that happened in 2017, Michigan ranked 117th in adjusted sack rate with two of its quarterbacks suffering injuries. The Wolverines endured that slog so they could get to now. The guys who couldn’t hack it that year — Ruiz, Runyan, Bredeson and Onwenu among them — are now integral starters on a line that came into this year as a point of confidence. Talk about a new scheme all you want. Experience goes a long way. When Michigan nets a talented recruit now, it has the luxury of sitting him. When Ryan Hayes, a redshirt freshman, had to play the season’s first two games against Middle Tennessee and Army, there were no alarm bells to sound. Hayes is the kind of recruit who needed developing, a high school tight end with a wide base and weight to gain. In an ideal world he wouldn’t have played this year at all, but his development seems to have come faster than normal. He acquitted himself well in those first two games, enough that offensive line coach Ed Warinner said he’ll probably play some snaps against Wisconsin even with Runyan back from injury. That’s fine and good. It’s also beside the point. “Playing tight end and running routes is not like playing O-Line,” Warinner said. “Playing O-Line at Michigan. So just learning and high repetition of the techniques and the calls and the job description and the work ethic and the culture and all that. “Cause that’s different. Being a grinder offensive lineman is different than being a skill guy. That’s a whole different culture, a whole different way of life, a whole different way of practicing. And, so I think it just took time.” It took Hayes a season, and it can take longer than that. Now, Michigan has the luxury of waiting. York, Beecher ready for challenge Last October, Cam York and Johnny Beecher took the ice at Yost Ice Arena for the first time. The U.S. National Team Development Program’s U18 squad faced the Wolverines in an exhibition, and both were in the starting lineup for the USNTDP. York tallied an assist as his team defeated Michigan, 6-3. Just under a year later, York and Beecher are back at Yost — this time, as freshmen for the Wolverines. The duo took different paths to Michigan, but both are expected to hit the ground running and contribute right away. In this year’s NHL Entry Draft, York was drafted No. 14 overall by the Philadelphia Flyers and Beecher went No. 30 overall to the Boston Bruins. “(They’re) obviously bright spots,” said associate head coach Bill Muckalt. “We’re excited about them. I think they’re both going to add a lot to our team.” When York came to Yost in October, he didn’t know that he’d be returning to Ann Arbor the following year. At the time, he was committed to Boston College, but when then-associate head coach Greg Brown left the Eagles to be an assistant coach in the NHL, York began to reconsider his decision. For Michigan’s coaching staff, York’s decommitment was an opportunity to go after a highly- ranked prospect and a player who could be in the pipeline behind former defenseman Quinn Hughes. “We knew he’s obviously a high-end offensive player and someone that (former assistant coach Brian Wiseman) and I and (coach Mel Pearson) really were interested in,” Muckalt said. “We discussed and we thought, ‘You know, he’s probably the best player on the board at that position.’ We were excited to try to recruit him.” And when York’s team came to play the Wolverines, the crowd at Yost sealed the decision. “I think that was kind of the cherry on top,” York told The Daily last December. “That’s what kind of sold me, for sure. Just the atmosphere of that place and just the way that Michigan fans support their team. It’s a special place.” Muckalt and Pearson knew Hughes was likely going to depart for the Vancouver Canucks — the team that drafted him No. 7 overall in 2018 — after his sophomore season, and York stood out as an offensive-minded defenseman who could fill that spot on the left side for the Wolverines. In 63 games with the USNTDP in the 2018-19 season, York tallied 14 goals and added 51 assists for a total of 65 points — a single-season program record for a blueliner. “No question,” Muckalt said when asked if York could replace Hughes. “I think with his vision and his offensive instincts, I think it’ll be a — I don’t want to put any pressure on him, but I think it’ll be a smooth transition.” While York just decided nine months ago to commit to the Wolverines, Beecher has known for years that Michigan was his future home. The Wolverines first reached out to Beecher during his sophomore year at the Salisbury School in Salisbury, Conn. In that initial contact, though, Beecher learned that then-coach Red Berenson would likely be retiring at the end of the season, so he decided to wait and see who the new coach was before he went further in the process. When Pearson was hired, he and Wiseman paid a visit to Beecher and he was sold. Through two successful years at the USNTDP, Beecher’s commitment never wavered. Now that he’s on campus, the coaching staff is hopeful that he’ll continue to grow as a player and realize his potential. “(Beecher has high-level) skating ability and he can shoot the puck,” Muckalt said. “I think he’s going to be a tremendous asset in a lot of areas, and I think he’s just scratching the surface of the player that he can become.” For the talented duo, the biggest challenge in adjusting to college hockey will be joining a team that had a difficult season last year. Michigan won just 13 of its 36 games last season, while the USNTDP squad won 47 of 63. But Beecher is clearly ready for the challenge of turning around a struggling team. “I think the energy is really high in the locker room right now,” Beecher said. “And I think everybody’s excited. I mean, we know the talent that we have, and I think we’re all pretty eager to get started. I think it’s going to be a great season. Can’t wait for the first game to come.” Harbaugh’s best win? MAX MARCOVITCH NATALIE STEPHENS/Daily Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh has yet to win a game of Saturday’s magnitude. ETHAN SERS Managing Sports Editor ALEXIS RANKIN/Daily Redshirt freshman tackle Ryan Hayes benefitted from sitting a year. BAILEY JOHNSON Daily Sports Writer ALEC COHEN/Daily Freshman forward Johnny Beecher was drafted by the Bruins this spring.