The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com SportsMonday Monday, September 23, 2019 — 4B Answers elude Michigan’s offense MADISON — For a fleeting moment on Saturday, as Ronnie Bell streaked across an open field and into an unmanned secondary with only green grass ahead of him, it seemed like everything might be OK. Bell eyed the end zone and all those concerns about senior quarterback Shea Patterson ameliorated. He ran towards it, and the noise around offensive coordinator Josh Gattis dissipated. He got pushed out of bounds at Wisconsin’s 7-yard line and it didn’t matter, because this was speed in space, the kind of up-tempo juggernaut that can go into a place like Madison and throw a defense like the Badgers off their game. Two plays later, Ben Mason fumbled. Wisconsin recovered and the Wolverines snapped out of their haze — falling into an ugly reality that engulfed them for the game’s next 53 minutes. Patterson left the game at halftime after an abominable start. He came back in later on and finished by completing less than half of his passes. Backup quarterback Dylan McCaffrey was lucky not to be intercepted numerous times, then left the game himself with a concussion. Receiver Donovan Peoples-Jones, in his much- anticipated return from injury, got hit with an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty early that took away more yards than his lone catch gained. Collectively, eight rushers combined for 40 yards on 19 carries. Take out the negative-9 yards Jon Runyan Jr. got on an ill-fated Patterson decision under pressure and it balanced out to 49 on 18, or 2.72 per carry. Michigan scored 14 points and had 299 total yards. All 14 of those points came once Wisconsin had gone up 35-0 and 128 of those yards came in the fourth quarter, well after the student section had started to flood out, getting an early start on celebrating a statement win. “We just can’t play like this again, cause we’re gonna get our butts kicked every week,” Runyan said, and it doesn’t take a football expert to see that he’s right. Call it a result of changing schemes — and senior tight end Nick Eubanks did — but the Wolverines had all spring, fall camp, two games and a bye week to get used to Gattis’ offense, which was advertised as simple. At this point, the learning curve is barely a valid excuse. Call it a result of personnel or not having enough talent, but this is a group that returned a senior quarterback, four starters on a good offensive line and three NFL-caliber receivers (all of whom were healthy on Saturday). There’s nothing inherently wrong with that. Call it a result of Gattis, a first-time play caller, walking into a situation in which he may not be ready for and struggling at the first sign of trouble. But the tape of the first two games showed open passes left on the field, and Eubanks alluded Saturday to “things we missed and opportunities we had.” Or you could do what Jim Harbaugh did, and acknowledge that this is not one problem. On every level, Wisconsin was just better, and on every level, Michigan must improve. “We were outplayed,” Harbaugh said. “Out-prepared, outcoached, outplayed.” Patterson has yet to look himself in three games. The offensive line has repeatedly struggled, leaving Patterson out to dry and putting running back Zach Charbonnet into situations where a two-yard gain constitutes success. Those three NFL-caliber receivers — Peoples-Jones, Nico Collins and Tarik Black — combined for three targets and five yards through Michigan’s opening drive of the second half on Saturday. When the Wolverines lined up to punt after that drive, down 28-0, the TV camera cut to Harbaugh uttering an expletive. What else could he do? A couple hours later, a reporter asked Harbaugh about the identity he wants for the offense. “To be able to run the ball, to be able to throw the ball both equally, effective and efficient,” Harbaugh said. “Definitely little things that we gotta do and we gotta do better.” Thus far, all the offense has been able to show is short glimpses of what it could be. Like Bell’s on Saturday, those don’t amount to much in the long run. M ADISON — Ten days ago, Don Brown stood in front of reporters, flashing his trademark energy and easily consumable sound bites to appease an apprehensive fanbase. Amid his playful acts and posi- tive reinforce- ment, the criticism came. Michigan had given up 21 points to a pair of unranked teams at home so the question naturally fol- lowed: How are you going to stop Wisconsin? Brown’s response was not to worry. Sure, Michigan struggled for stretches against a pair of teams that finished 79th and 62nd in yards per game a year ago. But Wisconsin — 31st in that category — ran a familiar offense, so the Wolverines shouldn’t have any trouble stopping them. “I’ve been writing Wiscon- sin cards and I’ve kinda been ‘Woohoowoo!’ because I can whip them out like that!” Brown said at the time. “Because it’s all the stuff our guys know and are comfortable with. And we’ll jump in at a high level, without question.” So, about that. For two and a half quarters Sat- urday afternoon, before the Bad- gers elected in favor of empathy, Michigan had to count any play that didn’t end in a first down as a revelatory success. At that media availability last week, Brown was asked to address the concern that the Wolverines couldn’t handle Wisconsin’s vaunt- ed run game, led by All-American back Jonathan Taylor. Brown’s response: “Bunch of crap.” Wisconsin finished with 57 car- ries for 359 yards and five touch- downs. Where, then, was the prepa- ration that Brown talked about before the game? Ask those on the field and the answer’s clear — not on Michigan’s sideline. When senior safety Josh Metellus was asked how the Wol- verines let Taylor romp for 203 yards, his response, before a pause, was one word: “Scheme.” “They came in with a differ- ent type of scheme than they did last year,” Metellus continued. “… They ran more of a double-counter (guard-tackle) type of scheme, try- ing to get the cutback lanes. Say they’d try to run to the left, we’d overflow it, try to get their cutback through the A-gap or something like that.” Metellus wouldn’t outright say that Michigan failed to adjust, but when you give up five rush- ing touchdowns in the first seven drives, the implication is clear. In the Wisconsin locker room, candor was in greater supply. “We knew the pressures that were coming,” said Badgers left tackle Cole Van Lanen. “We watched a lot of film and we got to shut those things down early so they stopped running them and then they’re getting a lot of base defense.” All of this, about the defense that’s regarded as the hallmark of the Jim Harbaugh-Don Brown era. The defense that’s ranked top three nationally in yards allowed per game since Harbaugh arrived in 2015, sure. But also the defense that has played 10 games at top-20 teams or home vs. top-10 teams under Don Brown and given up an average of 31.9 points. So when the Wolverines describe this as an uncharacteristic perfor- mance, they’re not wrong, they’re just off by 3.1 points. Still, there’s optimism in the Michigan locker room. “You look at the defense, we have a lot of good guys,” said sophomore defensive end Aidan Hutchinson. Hutchinson isn’t wrong. He’s one of those good guys, a disrup- tive force whether he lines up at tackle or end. Josh Uche and Kwity Paye are dynamic threats off the end. Lavert Hill and Josh Metellus are NFL players in the secondary. Running down the roster, though, misses the point. No one on this defense is a likely first round pick. You know who was? Jabrill Peppers, Taco Charlton, Devin Bush and Rashan Gary. Jourdan Lewis, Delano Hill, Chase Winovich and David Long were all selected in the first three rounds. And yet, all of those players have walked out the doors of Schem- bechler Hall without a win against Ohio State or in a New Years’ Six bowl. They walked out without even notching a top-20 road win, members of a defense that failed to hold up its end of the bargain when it mattered most. So, with Michigan down 28-0 after two quarters and yet another big-game loss looming, what was Don Brown’s message? “We treated the game 0-0 at halftime,” Hutchinson said. Not with this defense. Mackie can be reached at tmackie@ umich.edu or on Twitter @theo_mackie. ETHAN SEARS Managing Sports Editor We knew the pressures that were coming. ... We got to shut those things down early. ALEXIS RANKIN/Daily Defensive coordinator Don Brown’s unit gave up 359 rushing yards in an embarrassing performance against the Badgers on Saturday, ALLISON ENGKVIST/Daily Wisconsin running back Jonathan Taylor rushed for 203 yards against a listless Michigan defense in Wisconsin’s 35-14 win. Identity makes difference for Badgers MADISON — No matter who you asked, there was a phrase that reverberated through the Wisconsin press room Saturday afternoon. “We just played Wisconsin football.” There’s a very specific style the Badgers are known for. It’s physical, bruising football, with a stout running game, a steady stream of overpowering offensive linemen and a lockdown defense. Done right, every opponent slowly has the life sucked out of it. For years, they haven’t deviated, and there’s a reason: it works. It certainly worked Saturday. The linemen opened up gaping holes for Jonathan Taylor to burst through. Wisconsin ran three times as much as Michigan and gained 319 more yards on the ground. The defense pitched a shutout through the third quarter and wound up with a blowout, 35-14. As the Wolverines were on the other side of the stadium, talking about how they didn’t yet have an identity, the Badgers made one thing clear: they know exactly who they are. Last year, in a 38-13 Michigan win, the Wolverines did their thing and it showed. This time, it was Wisconsin’s turn to return the favor. “Last year is not who we was,” said Wisconsin safety Reggie Pearson. “And coming in this year, every opponent that we get, break them down from first quarter to fourth.” This was a team assured of itself from beginning to end, a team that noticed from the first drive — when the Badgers went for it on fourth down at their own 34 — that the guys on the other side weren’t quite the same way. Back on Tuesday, senior quarterback Shea Patterson tried to make people feel the same way about Michigan. “We’re gonna go out there and make a statement,” he said, and Wisconsin was listening. The Badgers had something of their own to say. Linebacker Chris Orr told his team about Patterson’s proclamation all week, preparing to give him a test he didn’t see coming. When asked after the game who made a statement, Orr’s response went without saying: “We did.” “We were just trying to make a statement that we were gonna dominate in the line of scrimmage up front and you prepare for that,” Taylor said. “You know coming in here, the University of Wisconsin, they’re gonna run the ball.” Wisconsin proved that what Patterson had so confidently said was just a bunch of empty words, that you can’t make a statement without knowing exactly what that statement is going to be. After the Badgers converted that first fourth down, they marched down the field, bludgeoning the Wolverines’ defense with Taylor, scoring a touchdown and eating clock. Wisconsin put Michigan on watch, showed the Wolverines this was its identity. Then it went back to that, again and again. When Taylor went down with cramps in the second quarter, it didn’t matter. There were other running backs waiting in the wings, and Michigan couldn’t stop them, either. The Badgers went all-in on their offensive line, sometimes putting seven or eight linemen in on short yardage, daring the Wolverines to stop the run and knowing they wouldn’t. The defense knew it could force an offense to be one- dimensional, and it did that, too. This time, it was by stopping the run and forcing Michigan to pass, knowing that on third- and fourth-and-long, it could only do so much. Wisconsin fans chanted “overrated” two separate times, knowing fully that the Wolverines weren’t what they said they were. But the Badgers like to think it was more than just that. “I’m sure people would say that Michigan lost the game instead of us winning the game, so we don’t care about that,” Orr said. “We’re gonna have the same goal next week and the week after that until the end of the season, just dominating whoever we line up against.” Michigan didn’t have an identity Saturday. Wisconsin did. The difference has never been more clear. ARIA GERSON Daily Sports Editor Jumped Michigan outplayed in all facets, loses 35-14 THEO MACKIE