Football Saturday, October 4, 2019
8B

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In the last week, it’s come 
from captains Khaleke Hudson, 
Ben Bredeson and Carlo Kemp, 
but it’s also come from Josh Uche 
and Jordan Glasgow and anyone 
else who’s had a chance to speak 
to the media.
“It’s not a single person’s 
effort, it’s everybody’s effort,” 

Uche said. “You don’t even have 
to be a senior, just everyone 
stepping up, keeping the morale 
up and keeping the energy up. 
This is a team, this isn’t an 
individual thing, this is a team 
effort.”
Bredeson — one of those 
senior leaders at the heart of this 
team’s identity — said, “It’s more 
stabilizing everything. Khaleke, 

Carlo and I, we’ve been here a 
while, we’ve seen the ebbs and 
flows of the season so just trying 
to maintain and control things.”
They’ve seen a season-opening 
loss, last year at Notre Dame — 
something that’s been repeated 
ad nauseam since Wisconsin — 
and a lifeless 8-5 season in 2017. 
What they haven’t seen is a start 
quite like this, with an utter 

embarrassment just three games 
in.
Before 
2016, 
neither 
had 
McSorley, then in his first year as 
a starter.
“At that time, we had only had 
one Big Ten loss so we knew, 
again, anything could happen 
in that conference,” McSorley 
said. “So we just wanted to come 
out and be competitive and win 
games and focus on us, not worry 
about all the other things that 
would have to happen.”
That’s a lot easier to say now, 
from his spot on the Baltimore 
Ravens’ 53-man roster, than it 
would have been amid the fire 
of September 2016. But the point 
remains — everything was ahead 
of Penn State, just as it is for 
Michigan now.
They escaped an overtime 
win 
at 
Minnesota 
the 
next 
week, before an uninspiring win 
over Maryland took them into a 
matchup with No. 2 Ohio State at 
4-2.
“It was honestly just (a chance 
to show people who we were),” 
McSorley said. “Just another 
opportunity 
to 
go 
out 
and 
compete and show who we were. 
That’s the kinda group of guys we 
had, just prideful, competitive 
dudes that wanted to go out and 
win games.”

All these years later, Harbaugh 
called 
Michigan’s 
upcoming 
game against No. 14 Iowa a chance 
to turn good performances into 
a “trend.” According to Kemp, 
it’s the Wolverines’ opportunity 
to show they can “perform on 
Saturdays.”
Of course, Iowa isn’t Ohio State 
— even if Harbaugh carries a 
.000 winning percentage against 
both. 
Beating 
the 
Hawkeyes 
won’t be the sort of afternoon 
fans remember years later, like 
Penn State’s eventual 24-21 win 
over the Buckeyes.
What it would be is the same 
type of confidence boost that the 
Nittany Lions got from that win. 
As McSorley puts it, a sense they 
could “compete with anyone” 
— something they carried into a 
nine-game win streak.
“That was one of those times 
where you almost had to do it and 
see it to be able to know exactly 
what it felt like,” McSorley said. 
“And then once you got it, you 
were able to repeat it over and 
over again in the coming weeks 
and games.”
For Michigan, those coming 
weeks and games will bring 
tougher tests than Iowa. The 
2019 iteration of Penn State is one 
of them. The 2016 iteration can 
show them how to get through it.

From Page 7B

FILE PHOTO/Daily
Former Penn State quarterback Trace McSorley led the Nittany Lions back from a 2-2 start in 2016 to the Big Ten title.

