FootballSaturday, October 4, 2019
6B
If Michigan wants to move forward, it can start this week
T
here’s a kind of routine to
this by now.
Michigan goes on the
road and loses to a better team. It
comes back home and spends the
next week talking about a refo-
cused energy. It beats up on a bad
team or two, calming things down
before the next
real opponent
comes into
town. Still, the
initial loss casts
a pall.
From there,
it goes one of
two ways. Last
season, Michi-
gan ripped
off 10 straight
wins, including
three over good teams, riding the
streak into Columbus as the bruise
left by the initial loss faded. In
2017, it metastasized and Michigan
went 8-4 in the regular season, the
worst year of the Harbaugh era.
Those are the two directions
this season can head towards,
starting Saturday.
The phrase “measuring stick”
has gotten some play ahead of
Michigan’s matchup with Iowa.
It’s a sympathetic framing. In real-
ity, the measuring stick was two
weeks ago in Madison, and the
Badgers blew the doors off Michi-
gan. Until proven otherwise, that’s
the lens through which this season
will be viewed.
But the Wolverines don’t have a
chance to beat a good team on the
road this week. Ohio State won’t
roll through until late November.
Michigan can’t absolve the woes
of the Harbaugh era on Saturday,
but it has a chance to beat Iowa at
home, and that’s a task unto itself.
Iowa, as has been pointed out in
kinder terms by many this week, is
a poor man’s Wisconsin. The two
teams play a similar style of grind-
it-out, classic Big Ten football. The
Badgers do a better version of it.
That game was on the road, this
one is at home.
Call Saturday a barometer of
sorts if you wish. Certainly, it’s a
chance for Michigan to make the
same mistake twice.
Special teams coordinator
Chris Partridge, more than any
other coach or player who spoke
to media this week, painted a vivid
picture of a program that picked
itself up off the mat after getting
embarrassed two weeks ago.
“Everybody responded. Every
single person in this building
responded,” Partridge said. “That’s
not common when you get beat
like that in a game.”
As for Harbaugh, the man at the
center of the storm?
“Unbelievable how he handled
the team and the coaches that
week,” Partridge said. “It was just
like a clinic, I felt.”
That’s fine and good. A 52-0
beatdown of Rutgers last Saturday
surely helped out Michigan’s confi-
dence and started its recuperation
from Wisconsin. It didn’t finish
that recuperation, though, and it
proves nothing if the Wolverines
can’t follow up.
The looming reality of this sea-
son still remains: every game left
on the schedule is either against a
ranked team or on the road. The
Scarlet Knights were the last hur-
rah for empty blowouts. The next
eight games are as strong a test as
Michigan has faced under Har-
baugh.
This week is likely the best shot
the Wolverines have this year of
knocking off one of those ranked
teams and a game they absolutely
must win to keep any semblance
of optimism for their season. That
doesn’t mean it’s a gimme.
An offensive line that struggled
against Wisconsin and is likely to
be missing its best blocking tight
end, Sean McKeon, will need to
figure out how to block star edge
rusher AJ Epenesa. The run game
averaged less than 3.5 yards per
carry against Rutgers — that won’t
cut it against Iowa, or most of the
opponents left on the schedule.
Josh Gattis standing on the
sideline is a nice cosmetic change.
Michigan’s offense looked truly
improved last week, but it’s
impossible not to against Rut-
gers. Saturday will start to tell us
whether it actually means any-
thing.
“If you play two really good
games in a row, that would be
a trend in my mind,” Harbaugh
said. “Three or more, a habit.”
In Harbaugh parlance, more
than that might form a callus.
That would be an uphill task given
the schedule. It’s also what was
expected of Michigan before the
season. Beating Rutgers by 52
does as little to change the goal-
posts as losing to Wisconsin by 21.
But on Saturday, Michigan
could get a little closer to its initial
goal. It has yet to change, if you
ask some players.
“We know that we’re gonna see
(Wisconsin) again in my home-
town, for the Big Ten champion-
ship,” sophomore linebacker Cam
McGrone said after the Rutgers
win. “I don’t really mind hearing
it, cause I know when we see them
again, we’re gonna smack ‘em in
the mouth.”
Ben Bredeson, a senior guard
and, more importantly, a captain,
kept things more diplomatic.
“We’re just focused on Iowa
and not trying to make a state-
ment for a game that happened
two weeks ago,” he said this week
when asked a baiting question
about Wisconsin.
Michigan can say it’s moved on
from the loss two weeks ago. For
the rest of us, that process can
start with a win this week.
Sears can be reached at
searseth@umich.edu or on
Twitter @ethan_sears.
ETHAN
SEARS
RUCHITA IYER/Daily
The Michigan offense will be put to the test on Saturday, looking to prove its progress since the loss at Wisconsin.