8 — Tuesday, September 24, 2019
Sports
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Four parting thoughts from Michigan’s disastrous loss at Wisconsin

Michigan went into Saturday’s 
game against Wisconsin aiming 
to 
make 
a 
statement. 
Well, 
mission accomplished.
Instead of a statement of 
affirmation — that this program 
could win a game in a tough 
environment, against a team 
of equal or better talent — the 
Wolverines 
confirmed 
the 
opposite.
Now forced to pick up the 
pieces from a 35-14 drubbing 
in Madison, Michigan has to 
re-evaluate and re-calibrate. In 
doing so, it left plenty to digest 
about a season suddenly teetering 
on the brink. Here are four 
parting thoughts on a season-
altering weekend and the peril it 
puts this season in.
So 
much 
for 
offensive 
balance
After the game Michigan coach 
Jim Harbaugh was asked what 
he wanted this team’s offensive 
identity to be. He didn’t dare 
utter the phrase that is quickly 
descending into meme territory. 
You know the one. “Quickness 
in open areas,” or something of 
that ilk. Hard to remember at 
this point. His answer, though 
nondescript, spoke to one of this 
team’s many flaws.
“To be able to run the ball, to be 
able to throw the ball,” Harbaugh 
said. “Both equally effective and 
efficient.”
Through 
three 
weeks, 
Harbaugh’s offense — ahem, sorry, 
Josh Gattis’ offense — has been 
neither balanced nor efficient. 
Saturday against Wisconsin, that 
play-calling tilted heavily toward 
the passing attack by a margin of 
42-19. Last week against Army, 
the Wolverines ran the ball 45 
times and threw it 31 times. 
Through 
three 
weeks, 
Michigan is averaging 3.49 yards 
per carry. From a group that was 
supposed to be anchored by an 
experienced, 
sturdy 
offensive 
line and a promising young 
running back, balance should 

be an attainable necessity. And 
yet, both Harbaugh and the 
players lamented the disparity on 
Saturday.
“(The running game is) one 
thing we ran away from and I 
wish we would’ve stayed with 
it,” said senior tight end Nick 
Eubanks after the game.
Making strict judgments off the 
run/pass ratios can be misleading; 
play-calling is often dictated 
by game context, and Michigan 
has allowed a touchdown on the 
opening drive of all three games 
this season. That can throw any 
plan for a loop.
But 
for 
an 
offense 
that 
continues to strive for balance, 
among other things, it’s doing 
little to actually dictate game 
context instead of lay victim to it. 
A 
different 
kind 
of 
quarterback quandry
As 
Saturday’s 
first 
half 
progressed, the murmurs became 

rumblings, rumblings became 
primal screams.
The calls for junior quarterback 
Dylan McCaffrey stemmed more 
for a desperate clamor for change 
of any kind. 
Senior 
quarterback 
Shea 
Patterson continued to display 
carelessness in terms of ball 
security. He missed open reads 
and open receivers. In the third 
quarter, whether via injury or 
ineptitude, he was replaced by 
McCaffrey — only to come back 
in when McCaffrey exited with a 
concussion. Asked to assess their 
play, Harbaugh declined to go 
into specifics.
“Shea was being evaluated at 
halftime, and then we put Dylan 
in to start the second half,” he 
said after the game. “Dylan, he’s 
got a concussion.”
It’s easy to funnel any offensive 
frustrations to one place, and by 
default, the quarterback is often 

the victim of that. Patterson has 
played poorly through three 
weeks, and the quarterback play 
is problematic. Solving those 
issues cannot, and will not, turn 
a floundering offense into a 
thriving one on its own. Those 
two things can be, and are, true. 
In the short term, there’s little 
discussion to be had. McCaffrey 
is potentially recovering from 
his concussion; Patterson will be 
under center next week against 
Rutgers.
In the long term, if these 
issues persist from Patterson, 
it will become harder to ignore 
the validity of those frantic pleas 
from fans.
Keep it simple, stupid
Let’s start with the facts. 
Donovan Peoples-Jones, Tarik 
Black and Nico Collins have 
33 combined targets through 
three weeks. That trio, the most 
talented Michigan has had in 

quite some time, has 19 combined 
catches for 313 yards in that span. 
Saturday, they had one combined 
catch through three quarters, 
until all three made plays in 
garbage time to reiterate the 
following point:
Michigan’s 
misuse 
of 
its 
three best playmakers has been 
inexplicable 
and 
inexcusable. 
It’s an abject failure of coaching. 
Period. 
They have the potential to 
spearhead the best receiving 
corps in the Big Ten. Instead, they 
haven’t been given a chance. 
Eubanks was asked after the 
game about their involvement (or 
lack thereof) in the offense this 
season. He expressed faith in the 
staff to figure it out.
“We all see it on film. And I 
believe the coaches will see it as 
well,” Eubanks said. “And we’ll 
go from there in terms of who 
needs to get the ball and moving 

through the offense.” 
As 
this 
offense 
searches 
frantically for its identity, it would 
seem prudent to start with its best 
players. As the saying goes, “keep 
it simple, stupid.”
Michigan’s defense has an 
identity crisis of its own
It was hard to tell where this 
defense stood after two weeks. 
It had allowed 21 points against 
a 
meager 
Middle 
Tennessee 
State, but the offense set it up 
for failure. Same for the showing 
against Army, in which it held 
the Black Knights to their lowest 
rushing yardage total since 2015. 
The 
institutional 
framework, 
it seemed, had carried over. 
The defense was not the source 
for concern. While the offense 
overcame the speedbumps of its 
transition, the defense could help 
tread water.
“We finally can play Michigan 
defense, where we can go back 
and run our stuff that we run 
all preseason and all spring 
practice,” Brown said last week. 
“Quite frankly, I’ve been writing 
Wisconsin cards (and) I’m kind 
of: ‘Whew, whew.’ I can whip 
‘em out like that, because it’s 
all the stuff our guys know and 
are comfortable with, and we’ll 
jump in it at a high level without 
question.”
So much for that.
The 
Badgers 
rampaged 
their way to 354 rushing yards. 
Wisconsin 
quarterback 
Jack 
Coan completed 13 of 16 passes, 
and 
with 
comparative 
ease. 
And it wasn’t just that they 
ran 
through 
the 
Michigan 
defense, but how. There were no 
schematic mysteries, no notable 
gameplan mishaps. This was one 
team telling its opponent what 
it planned to do, then shoving it 
right at them anyway. 
For the Wolverines, these are 
problems that aren’t going away. 
The personnel isn’t changing. 
The coaching staff isn’t changing. 
Three weeks in, all Michigan’s 
cards are on the table. 
And it certainly appears Brown 
was bluffing.

MAX MARCOVITCH
Managing Sports Editor

ALLISON ENGKVIST/Daily
The Michigan football team has a bevy of problems to deal with and questions to answer after Saturday’s 35-14 loss to the Badgers in Madison.

Harbaugh shoulders blame, looks 
to correct physicality and hustle

You saw it, and so did Jim 
Harbaugh.
There’s no extra level of 
analysis needed, no added layers 
of expertise necessary. Michigan 
got rocked on Saturday. 
Now it has to deal with the 
fallout.
“Watching the film it was 
pretty obvious to everybody that 
was watching in the entire football 
world, from A to Z, it wasn’t good,” 
Harbaugh said. “It wasn’t good 
enough. Not acceptable.”
It wasn’t one area that proved 
decisive in Wisconsin’s 35-14 
win. It was all of them. Coaching. 
Physicality. Effort. 
On Monday, Harbaugh stood at 
the podium with the demeanor of 
a man ready for introspection.
The scene bore all the makings 
of a normal press conference: 
Harbaugh standing there in a 
sweatshirt and khakis with his 
hands folded, speaking with as 
much of a filter as he can muster 
and giving short responses to 
injury questions. Rarely, though, 
has the Michigan coach been 
as direct as he was Monday 
afternoon.
He took responsibility, and 
so did the players. He said, 
repeatedly, that the performance 
wasn’t acceptable, and that it 
starts with him. He said the 
effort wasn’t there on Saturday, 
giving the requisite cliches about 
believing in his team, with the 
caveat that, in all areas, things 
must improve — no excuses and 
no way around it.
“We 
didn’t 
play 
physical 
enough,” 
Harbaugh 
said. 
“We were out-hustled. I take 
responsibility for that. In any 
ways that we were out-schemed, 
I take responsibility for that. 
It’s my job to make sure we are 
completely sound, in all offenses 
and defenses that we’re running.”
There are no shortage of areas 
to improve, but Harbaugh turned 
the focus to the trenches, on 
both sides of the ball. Wisconsin 
outran Michigan by a margin 

of over 300 yards on Saturday. 
The Badgers overwhelmed the 
Wolverines with size in the run 
game, breaking open holes for 
Jonathan Taylor. The subsequent 
scoring forced Michigan to throw 
the ball on offense. After the 
game and on Monday, offensive 
players talked about how jarring 
it was to have passed 42 times, 
“which is something I haven’t 
seen at Michigan since I’ve been 
here,” fifth-year senior tackle Jon 
Runyan Jr. said.
Strictly 
speaking, 
he’s 
incorrect. 
In 
2015, 
Runyan’s 
freshman year, Michigan hit 
that mark three times and it did 
so in the 2018 Outback Bowl as 
well. But his answer speaks to 
something greater.
Despite Josh Gattis’ promises 
of a vertical passing game, this 
group still wants its identity to 
be rooted on the ground. On 
Saturday, it lost that.
“They took us out of our game 
that we wanted to play,” Runyan 
said. “That’s something we’re 
really not used to, with throwing 
that many times in a game.”
It doesn’t help that senior 
quarterback 
Shea 
Patterson 
seemed to be playing through an 
injury Saturday — Harbaugh said 
Saturday that he was evaluated 
at halftime — and was constantly 
dodging pressure, as Wisconsin 
racked up two sacks and seven 
hurries.
Patterson proved his mettle 
last year, when he threw for 2,600 
yards and had as good a season 

as any Michigan quarterback has 
in the last decade. But against 
Wisconsin, he alternated between 
running for his life and looking 
lost.
“We have to do a better job 
of protecting the quarterback,” 
Harbaugh said. “Have to give him 
time to make throws, make reads. 
Do what he’s capable of doing, he’s 
a very good player.”
On Saturday, tight end Nick 
Eubanks said that the offense 
dwelled on their early errors, in 
particular Ben Mason’s fumble 
near the goal-line. Harbaugh 
didn’t reject the premise outright 
on Monday, but he refused to take 
it as an excuse.
If that bled into effort, it’s 
correctable, but also as indicting 
as anything Michigan did on 
Saturday.
“Effort’s something that can’t 
be coached it’s kind of a personal 
business decision you make,” 
Runyan said. “... Looking back 
on the film, not trying to call 
out anyone, but I feel like there 
were some plays where the effort 
could’ve been better. 
“I think along with effort 
comes execution. Guys aren’t 
going to trot on the field being like, 
‘I’m probably only going to give 
60% of effort this play.’ No one’s 
thinking that. They were able to 
exploit those matchups and get to 
where they wanted to get.”
Acknowledging those errors 
is the first step. Now it’s on 
Harbaugh 
and 
Michigan 
to 
correct them.

ETHAN SEARS
Managing Sports Editor

Wolverines hoping to rebound

Jordan Glasgow remembers 
his first tough loss at Michigan 
— the infamous “trouble with 
the snap” play that doomed the 
Wolverines against Michigan 
State his freshman year. But 
they didn’t let it stick with 
them, winning their next four 
games — including three on the 
road — before losing to Ohio 
State to finish 9-3. Michigan 
capped it all off with a win in 
the Citrus Bowl.
Last year, the Wolverines did 
something similar, dropping 
their opener at Notre Dame 
before ripping off a 10-game 
winning streak to finish 10-2 
with a loss to the Buckeyes and 
a berth in the Peach Bowl.
Neither 
of 
those 
things 
guarantee that Michigan will 
do the same this year. After 
all, 
the 
Wolverines 
looked 
much worse against Wisconsin 
on Saturday than they did in 
their 
previous 
early-season 
losses. But Michigan players 
still remember that they’ve 
rebounded before, and going 
forward, the only thing left 
to do is believe they can do it 
again.
“There have been a lot of 
tough losses since I’ve been 
here and I don’t think we’ve let 
any of those losses really define 
us,” 
said 
fifth-year 
senior 
linebacker Jordan Glasgow. “ 
… I feel like we can go on to be 
a successful team and we can 
improve going forward.”
The 
Wolverines 
pointed 
out again and again Monday 
that all their goals are still 
ahead of them. Every Big Ten 
East 
winner 
since 
division 
realignment in 2014 has had 
at least one loss, and losing to 
a West team like Wisconsin 
means that it could still hold 
the 
head-to-head 
tiebreaker 
against other East foes. And 
Michigan will enter the easiest 
part of its schedule: home 
games with Rutgers and No. 14 
Iowa and a road trip to Illinois.
Those games could provide a 
good opportunity to get back on 
track, but could is the operative 

word. The Wolverines have 
shown little cohesion so far, 
and they’ve struggled to handle 
in-game adversity. There are 
multiple areas that need fixing, 
from run blocking to turnovers 
to defensive line play. But 
there’s now plenty of the bad 
stuff on film for Michigan to 
learn from. The trick now is to 
stay mentally strong enough to 
not get discouraged.
“I’m kinda looking at this 
loss as a learning moment,” 
said fifth-year senior offensive 
lineman Jon Runyan. “I’ve had 
some hard losses here, this 
one is early on in the season. 
It’s against a Big Ten West 
opponent. Everything we want 
is still ahead of us.
“We can’t lose another game. 
It’s tough losing a game in the 
Big Ten already, but we’ve got 
everything ahead of us. Can’t 
dwell on this too much or we’re 
not gonna be moving forward.”
Runyan 
noted 
how 
the 
Badgers were able to dictate 

what 
the 
Wolverines 
did 
offensively, forcing them to 
throw the ball way more than 
they were comfortable with. 
Against the Scarlet Knights, the 
first item on Runyan’s agenda 
is to force Rutgers’ defense to 
react to Michigan’s offense, 
rather than the other way 
around.
But after the Wolverines 
are done with their film study, 
there’s no reason to dwell on 
Wisconsin anymore. If there’s 
any hope of still reaching the 
goals they constantly speak of, 
they’ll have to keep that game 
in the past and just keep moving 
forward.
“It 
was 
a 
bad 
day 
for 
Michigan,” 
said 
Michigan 
coach Jim Harbaugh. “And I 
don’t want that to turn into two 
losses, don’t let one loss turn 
into two. ... This week (is) the 
most important. Win the next 
game, come back to work and 
make sure it doesn’t happen 
again.”

ARIA GERSON
Daily Sports Editor

ALEXIS RANKIN/Daily
Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh took the blame for Saturday’s loss.

ALLISON ENGKVIST/Daily
Jordan Glasgow is drawing on past losses in his response to Saturday’s.

