October 21, 2019 — 3B
SportsMonday
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Close isn’t
good enough
for offense
in loss

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Ronnie
Bell stood in the middle of Penn
State’s end zone, Shea Patterson’s
pass floating toward his outstretched
fingertips. A few yards away, Nick
Eubanks started to raise his fists
in celebration, because, somehow,
Michigan’s season had a lifeblood.
The belief emanated for just long
enough to make dreams seem tangible,
something that felt impossible when
Penn State led, 21-0, two quarters
earlier.
Only, like it had been all game,
fleeting hope turned out to be just
that. Bell let the pass slip through his
arms, Eubanks plastered his hands on
his helmet in disbelief and 110,000
white pom-poms rose to the air in
unison.
“That definitely didn’t take away
the fact that (Bell) made a ton of great
plays to put us into that situation,”
Patterson said. “So, we’re just going to
move on.”
The issue is what Michigan moves
on to. The Wolverines’ three biggest
rivals remain on the docket, but the
season and all the goals they carried
into it are gone, a 28-21 loss putting
the final nail on a coffin that’s been
steadily nearing the grave for the past
seven weeks.
On Saturday, for the first time in
more than a month, it felt as if that
course may be reversible. Michigan’s
offense put together its most coherent
performance of the season, behind 276
passing yards from Patterson — the
second-best total of his Wolverines’
career. “I thought the offense did a
lot of really good things tonight,” said
Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh.
As a result, an offense that entered
opposing territory nine total times in
two previous games against ranked
opponents did so eight times against
the Nittany Lions. Yet, those lengthy
drives too often ended without points.
And, at the end, they had just 21 points
and another loss to show for it.
“Of course it’s frustrating,” Ruiz
said. “Like I said before, you can’t harp
on situations like that. You’ve got to
just keep executing, keep doing what
you’ve got to do. That way, the next
time you get in those situations you’ll
score. We were in those situations
a couple times (and) didn’t come up
with a touchdown or any points. But,
you know, it’s on to the next drive.”
To their credit, the Wolverines kept
that mentality throughout.
When their first two trips across
midfield ended in a third-and-1 stuff
and a fourth-down incompletion,
they came back three drives later and
manufactured a eight-play, 75-yard
drive to get on the scoreboard. A
quarter later, they followed a punt
from midfield with a run-heavy,
65-yard touchdown march.
Still, as the final pass fell to the
ground through Bell’s arms, it was
hard to not reflect on an evening of
missed opportunities.
The blame spreads from execution
to decision-making. The execution
part is obvious — Bell’s drop will
forever be the game’s — and maybe
the season’s — defining moment. As
for his decision-making on two punts
from midfield, Harbaugh said, “we
were playing for field position and we
wanted to get the ball — put it inside
the 15- or 10-yard line.” Both times,
Penn State took over possession
outside the 20.
The most confounding decision,
though, came with Michigan facing a
fourth-and-6 from the Nittany Lions’
41 with 51 seconds left in a once-
disastrous first half that sat on the
precipice of rescue. Despite senior
kicker Quinn Nordin — normally
the first choice for long field goals —
being unavailable, Harbaugh pulled
his offense off the field to go for three.
“Thought
we
could
make
it,”
Harbaugh said. “Was right at that
line where we could make it. And it’s
a long field goal, but it was either that
or go for it on the fourth down.”
The kick fell five yards short,
finishing a third fruitless drive into
Penn State territory and setting the
course for the Wolverines’ second
loss.
“It’s just onto the next one,”
Patterson said. “We’ve got a big game
next week.”
As he spoke, the stream of fans
outside
Michigan’s
media
room
drowned him out with chants of “We
are Penn State,” a fitting end to a day
when talk doesn’t matter anymore.

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Jim
Harbaugh’s hands were on his hips.
His sweatshirt creased, the lines
making their way around the back. He
stood near the epicenter of a stadium
that shook and swayed, singing
and cheering in something nearing
delirium, speaking with referees. He
bore a look of exasperation and déjà vu.
The call on the field — that Penn
State made the line to gain — was
confirmed.
Minutes later, as 110,000-plus voices
serenaded him and his Michigan
football team in mocking unison,
Harbaugh threw off his headset and
started to walk towards midfield, a
horde of cameras following. The clock
ticked towards zero and in a game
where the Wolverines had pulled their
way back from the abyss encompassing
the program all the way to fourth-and-
goal at the three-yard line, they lost
anyway, 28-21, to the Nittany Lions.
“We’ve just got to move onto the
next day,” said senior VIPER Khaleke
Hudson. Next to him, Shea Patterson
nodded silently, having been on the
edge of tears for nearly all of a seven-
minute press conference. “We’ve got to
work even harder in practice and we’ve
just got to stay on top of our film work
and keep trusting our guys.”
This is the kind of game Michigan
has gained a reputation for losing
spectacularly under Harbaugh, the
hump he can’t seem to get over.
The game’s first 30 minutes felt like
a bad remake. The Wolverines wasted
a timeout before the game’s first snap.
They got conservative in their decision-
making on offense. They dropped
passes and dropped an interception.
With 10 minutes left in the second
quarter and Penn State leading 14-0,
Patterson, a senior quarterback, got
picked off on a screen pass and the
stadium breathed fire.

But this wasn’t another 35-14
blowout at Wisconsin or another 62-39
shellacking at the hands of Ohio State.
This was a vulnerable Penn State and
a Michigan that seemed to click into
place as the game went along. Where
the Wolverines seemed completely
overmatched in those earlier contests,
Saturday merely felt like a missed
opportunity.
“Made adjustments at halftime.
They were good and I felt like our guys
were not nervous,” Harbaugh said.
“They were playing and executing. It
felt like, just keep going and get this
game won. That was our belief.”
Harbaugh, mostly, fell back on the
same platitudes that have become
commonplace when he gets behind a
microphone. At one point, he brought
up the officiating — a borderline
holding call on Lavert Hill that
extended a Penn State drive at the start
of the fourth quarter and cost Michigan
a decisive seven points, among others.
It’s easy to look at that call on
Hill and gripe. But when KJ Hamler
burned Josh Metellus on a post for a
53-yard score four plays later, it was
— according to Harbaugh — because
Michigan missed a signal, and didn’t
have a safety covering the post as a
result.
When Harbaugh got to Michigan
in 2015, he garnered a reputation for
being so precise and detail-oriented
that even the student managers felt
the heat, needing to tighten up. On
Saturday, when they missed that call
and Hamler waltzed into the end
zone, Harbaugh paced up the sideline,
staring into a sea of white and adjusting
his headset.
This is the closest Michigan has
come to winning a game like this —
a game it wasn’t supposed to win, a
game in which it was on the road as
a touchdown underdog — since 2016,
when Harbaugh still held all the
promise of a savior.
Now, after the Wolverines’ second

loss effectively ended their hopes of
making the College Football Playoff,
winning the Big Ten or even making
the conference title game for the first
time under Harbaugh, there is no
surprise in this program’s identity. As
close as it came to taking that elusive
first step on Saturday, a tectonic shift
has yet to happen. More and more, it
seems like it might never.
For a moment in the fourth quarter,
Michigan was right there on the cusp.
The Wolverines held Penn State under
100 yards in the second half. Their
offense looked like something to be
reckoned with — Patterson leading
drives with authority, the Nittany
Lions struggling to keep up with the
tempo.
“I felt like we kinda found our
groove a little bit,” Patterson said.
“The run game got us in the game, our
receivers made big plays in space.”
“We felt like we had them right in
our hands,” said redshirt freshman
linebacker Cam McGrone. “This is
where we wanted them. We felt we
could force them to do what we wanted
to. We did.”
They got as far as the goal-line, with
two downs to play with. Harbaugh’s
hands were on his knees, his back
hunched forward, when that number
dwindled down to one. He said later
that he wanted a fade in the corner of
the end zone, but Penn State covered
that up.
Instead, Patterson hovered in the
pocket. He saw Ronnie Bell in the
center of the end zone, just past the
goal line. As the football hit Bell’s
hands, Harbaugh’s arms went up, a
palpable expression of relief. As the
ball hit the ground, his arms came
back down. He ran up to Patterson and
said something about getting the ball
back. With two minutes left and three
timeouts, possibilities remained.
In the end, though, it was just more
of the same. For Harbaugh and for his
program.

THEO MACKIE
Daily Sports Editor

ETHAN SEARS
Managing Sports Editor

ALEXANDRIA POMPEI/Daily
Sophomore wide receiver Ronnie Bell dropped a potential game-tying touchdown pass late in Michigan’s 28-21 loss to Penn State.

Penn State
burns ‘M’
with big
plays

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — The
door opened and the noise from outside
streamed in, fans lingering in the bowels
of the stadium, still singing, “We are Penn
State!”
Inside
the
visiting
media
room,
Khaleke Hudson kept talking, his words
juxtaposing the commotion outside.
The senior VIPER spoke of Michigan’s
defense, how it had given up too many
big plays, how that was the difference in a
28-21 loss to Penn State on Saturday night.
“It was nothing that they did,” Hudson
said. “It was not that they outschemed us
or anything, it was just our mistakes that
we made ourselves. Things we knew how
to do. We just messed up.”
The Wolverines committed a few too
many penalties. They didn’t play through
their hips enough. Occasionally, their eyes
landed in the wrong place.
Little things, yes. But Saturday’s game,
especially the first half, was a display of
how easily little things can turn into big
things.
Michigan
outgained
the
Nittany
Lions by almost 150 yards. It had more
first downs and a better third-down
conversion rate. And it handily won the
time of possession battle, with its offense
on the field for over 15 minutes longer
than Penn State’s.
Stats like that usually add up to a win,
but there’s a reason the Nittany Lions
ran so many fewer plays and scored
more points. They had six plays of over
15 yards — including three of their four
touchdowns — with three of those plays
over 30 yards. Chunk plays only take up
a few seconds. Meanwhile, intermittent
offensive struggles, as the Wolverines had
throughout the game, eat up clock.
“Big games like this, you can’t do
anything wrong,” said redshirt freshman
linebacker Cameron McGrone.
He was right. Michigan’s defense, for
the most part, was very good Saturday.
But it wasn’t perfect, and the big plays
burned the Wolverines again and again.
McGrone’s theory was slightly different
than Hudson’s, maintaining that, “it’s not
that we did anything wrong, it was just,
they outplayed us in that play.” Michigan
coach Jim Harbaugh had yet another
explanation.

In the first half, he said, the Wolverines
got burned on one particular play — the
slot-fade route. That play worked to
perfection on a 25-yard touchdown to
star receiver KJ Hamler on third down in
the second quarter. Michigan adjusted in
the second half, but there, it was another
mistake that cost it. Whether it was
poor coaching, a lack of focus or being
rattled by the raucous whiteout crowd,
the Wolverines missed their defensive
playcall.
With one minute left in the third
quarter and the Nittany Lions on first
down from Michigan’s 47, the Wolverines
lined up in cover-zero, with senior safety
Josh Metellus the lone player assigned to
Hamler.
Hamler ran a post route straight past
Metellus, caught Clifford’s pass in stride
and motored into the end zone. The play
put Penn State up by two scores and ended
up being the deciding touchdown.
And while the play seemed to be on
Metellus for his lack of speed, he shouldn’t
have been in that position in the first
place. According to Harbaugh, the players
missed a hand signal that would have told
them the correct formation to be in.
“Didn’t get a call in there, KJ on a
safety, and it was a huge play,” Harbaugh
said. “(We) didn’t have the right defense,
and the play was a good call, so we didn’t
have a post safety.”
So in the end, it didn’t matter that
Michigan gained 417 yards to the Nittany
Lions’ 283. It didn’t matter that the
defense had a good showing the rest of
the night, with five tackles for loss and six
three-and-outs.
All it took were a few missed
assignments that turned into big plays,
and that was all Penn State needed to send
its fans home singing along to Zombie
Nation.
“This game was just down to who made
the big plays,” McGrone said. “And you see
who won.”

ARIA GERSON
Daily Sports Editor

White Flag

Harbaugh gets close, but comes up short again in a big spot

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Shea
Patterson stifled tears, his faded eye
black running down a solemn face.
Beneath the table where Patterson sat,
stains from Beaver Stadium’s green
grass covered his once-white uniform,
the product of a day when he did
everything he could for Michigan.
Criticized for not going through his
reads, being too tentative to scramble
and missing open receivers, Patterson
excelled in those aspects in Saturday’s
28-21 loss to Penn State, finishing with
a season-high 276 yards on 24-of-41
passing.
For the Wolverines, it’s the type of
performance they envisioned when
Patterson transferred from Ole Miss
two years ago with the billing of a
can’t-miss quarterback prospect who
would get Jim Harbaugh over the
hump. Twenty games later, that hump
remains pervasive as Patterson enters
the final stretch of his Michigan career
with a 15-5 record, but void of the lofty
goals he carried to Ann Arbor.
After Saturday night, that’s the
juxtaposition Michigan has to live

with.
“I was just proud of our guys and the
defense held them to one touchdown in
a real tight second half,” Patterson said.
“I just love the way our offense fought
back.”
Patterson, so often a microcosm of
Michigan’s offense, stood at the center
of that turnaround.
When the Wolverines went down
21-0 midway through the second
quarter, it was Patterson’s interception
— his one glaring mistake all game —
that put Penn State in prime position
for its third touchdown. As Patterson
walked off the field, he cast a familiarly
frustrated figure, his right hand
planted on his hip as Harbaugh gave
him a condoling pat on the helmet.
Patterson seemed to be heading
toward
a
similarly
uninspired
performance to his 14-of-32 showing
against Wisconsin a month ago. Behind
him, Michigan was on its own march
to a repeat of that day in Madison,
with the game seemingly over before
halftime.
Only this time, it wasn’t.
“It didn’t (go off the rails early),
but our guys play with great effort
and great character,” Harbaugh said.
“Yeah. Made adjustments at halftime.

They were good and I felt like our guys
were not nervous. They were playing
and executing.”
On his first throw after the
interception, Patterson found Nico
Collins on a 30-yard gain, part of a
season-high 89-yard game for Collins.
Amid a season in which he’s drawn
criticism for not targeting Collins,
Donovan Peoples-Jones and Tarik
Black, Patterson found the trio for 14
completions on 22 tries Saturday. Seven
plays after Collins took the Wolverines
into Penn State territory, Michigan
found paydirt for the first time.
“I thought the offense did a lot of
really good things tonight,” Harbaugh
said.
“The
offensive
line,
pass
protection was really good. Thought
Shea had a really good night throwing
the football.”
The rest of the evening was more
of the same for Patterson, who
constructed seven drives into Penn
State territory. The problem: only
three ended in points, sending the
Wolverines to a loss that ended every
tangible goal they carried into the
season.

In loss, Patterson flashes brilliance

Read more online at
michigandaily.com

THEO MACKIE
Daily Sports Editor

This game was
just down to
who made the
big plays.