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.

