8 — Tuesday, October 22, 2019
Sports
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Franz Wagner out 4-6 
weeks with wrist injury

Michigan freshman wing 
Franz Wagner will miss the 
next four-to-six weeks with 
a non-surgical fracture to his 
right wrist, according to a 
Michigan spokesperson.
“While this is an unfortunate 
situation for Franz, we know 
he will make his return as 
soon as he is able,” Michigan 
coach Juwan Howard said in a 
statement. “We have the finest 
medical staff and trainers at 
Michigan so we know he is in 
good hands.”
While Wagner is expected 
to make a full recovery, the 
news comes at a particularly 
poor time for the Wolverines. 
Wagner 
was 
expected 
to 
bring immediate offense to a 
Michigan team that lost Ignas 
Brazdeikis, Jordan Poole and 
Charles Matthews, a trio that 
combined for over half of 
the team’s scoring last year, 
to early departures in the 
offseason. Now, it becomes 
crucial to make sure the wrist 
fracture doesn’t become a 
lingering injury capable of 
limiting 
Wagner’s 
shooting 
abilities 
throughout 
the 
season.
At 
6-foot-8, 
Wagner 
provides a rare combination 
of size and skill for a player 
capable of creating his own 
shot. At Big Ten Media Day on 
Oct. 2, Howard lauded such 
abilities.
“Franz is talented,” Howard 
said. “Franz is a big, huge 
pickup for us. In my opinion, 
if Franz lived in the U.S. he’d 
be the equivalent of what 
today’s players are rated five-
star — he’s that good. And to 
be almost 6-foot-9 at a wing 
position, he has a high IQ. He’s 
tough, he’s skilled. He can put 
the ball on the floor, create his 
own shot, and he’s not afraid 
to dunk on you.
“One thing I did not mention 
which I should’ve mentioned 
first was he’s an underrated 

defender. We all talk about his 
skill level offensively, but the 
guy can defend. He wants to 
defend, and that’s the beauty 
of Franz. He’s going to be a 
pro.”
If the timetable holds, it 
appears the Wolverines will 
be 
without 
their 
highly-
touted 
freshman 
until 
sometime around the team’s 
trip to Atlantis during the 
week 
of 
Thanksgiving. 
Wagner’s return would be a 
crucial boost with potential 
matchups against teams like 
North Carolina, Alabama and 
Gonzaga.

MEN’S BASKETBALL

DANIEL DASH
Daily Sports Writer

FRANZ WAGNER

at Alba Berlin (stats per Real GM)

50.9
FG%

38.4
3P%

13.0
MPG

5.6
PPG

S

moke still drifted over 
the field at Beaver Sta-
dium, a remnant of the 
pregame fireworks show. Fans 
clad all in white raised their 
pom-poms in unison, scream-
ing as Penn 
State play-
ers gestured 
to get even 
louder. 
Amidst the 
commotion, 
Michigan 
took the field.
Before 
running a 
single play, 
the Wolver-
ines took a timeout, and every-
one who’d seen Michigan play 
a game in the past five years 
said, “Here we go again.”
This team is known for going 
on the road and playing scared, 
and on that front, coach Jim 
Harbaugh is guilty until prov-
en innocent.
In previous games, that’s 
manifested itself in the team 
completely crumbling after 
allowing an early score — like 
at Wisconsin, when it was 35-0 
by halftime after the Badgers 
scored on their first posses-
sion.
But that’s not what hap-
pened Saturday, at least not 
quite.
This time, the players did 
about as much as you could’ve 
asked for after a slow start. 
Instead, it was Harbaugh and 
offensive coordinator Josh 
Gattis who panicked.
The Wolverines put together 
a first drive that was surpris-
ingly good. Junior wide receiv-
ers Nico Collins and Tarik 
Black each had a catch — Col-
lins’ for 17 yards and Black’s 
for seven. Senior quarterback 
Shea Patterson kept the ball 
himself on a read for two more 
after criticism he hadn’t done 
so enough.
Michigan stared the white-
out right in the face and drove 

into the Nittany Lions’ territo-
ry. For a minute, it looked like 
an offense that maybe really 
was hitting its stride.
It was fourth-and-1 from 
Penn State’s 47, the perfect 
time to be bold. The Wolver-
ines could’ve sent a message 
that their pregame jitters 
were over, that the narratives 
weren’t true this time, that 
they were here to win.
Instead, the punt team came 
on the field.
“We were playing for field 
position, and we wanted to get 
the ball put inside the 15 or 
10-yard line,” Harbaugh said. 
“Unfortunately, it went into 
the end zone.”
Playing for field position can 
be a legitimate strategy, but it’s 
one you use when you’re play-
ing a team like Iowa, one that 
struggles to string big plays 
together. It’s what you do with 

a game you expect to be a 10-3 
slog.
Anyone who thought that 
was where Saturday’s game 
was headed was deluding 
themselves. Penn State runs 
a pro-spread offense and has 
a playmaking receiver in KJ 
Hamler, who has at least one 
catch of 20-plus yards in every 
game this season. On Saturday 
alone, the Nittany Lions hit 
six plays for 15 or more yards. 
Against a team that moves the 
ball like that, field position 
doesn’t mean a lick.
Statistically, fourth-and-1 
conversion rates are pretty 
high — Michigan did it itself 
with a Patterson quarterback 
sneak in the fourth quarter. A 
2017 Football Study Hall report 
concluded that in college foot-
ball, with just one yard to gain, 
it’s better to go for it than punt 
anywhere past a team’s own 43.

But decisions like this aren’t 
just about the analytics. Har-
baugh’s been preaching all sea-
son that the offense was better 
than anyone had seen. Going 
for it would’ve been a manifes-
tation of everything he’s been 
saying. Last week against the 
Illini, he did just that, convert-
ing a fourth-and-2 quarterback 
run in the fourth quarter that 
turned into a touchdown.
“We all knew that we want-
ed to get the first down and 
end the game on our terms,” 
Bell said of the Illinois game. It 
follows that Michigan would’ve 
wanted to start a game on its 
own terms, too.
One playcalling decision 
probably wouldn’t have been 
make-or-break, and the truth 
is, the Wolverines probably 
wouldn’t have scored a touch-
down on that first drive. But 
at the end of the first half — 

after they had found the end 
zone and cut the deficit to two 
scores — Harbaugh opted to try 
a 58-yard field goal with Jake 
Moody instead of going for it 
on fourth-and-6. (He missed). 
Then, in the third quarter, Pat-
terson appeared visibly frus-
trated when Harbaugh opted to 
punt on fourth-and-3 from the 
50. (Michigan scored a touch-
down on its next possession.)
“Thought we could make it,” 
Harbaugh said of the field goal 
attempt after the game. “Right 
at that line where we could 
make it and it’s a long field 
goal. It was that or go for it on 
fourth down, so we decided to 
kick the field goal.”
Yes, it was fourth-and-6. 
But Moody, while gener-
ally reliable, has never made 
a field goal longer than 48 
yards. If the Wolverines were 
still playing for field posi-

tion, kicking was probably the 
riskiest choice — and without 
the upside of rejuvenating the 
offense’s confidence.
In his Monday press con-
ference, Harbaugh extolled 
Patterson’s virtues, calling 
his performance against Penn 
State “heroic” and reaffirming 
that he’d seen that potential all 
season.
“He’s excited about it, being 
in that atmosphere and playing 
that type of game,” Harbaugh 
said. “You could sense it from 
everything about him.”
And after Patterson had his 
best game of the season in the 
toughest possible environment, 
it was easy to believe. Except 
that, on the sidelines of Beaver 
Stadium, Harbaugh didn’t act 
like a coach who could sense 
Patterson’s enthusiasm.
Instead, he acted like a 
coach who was scared, who 
was doing damage control 
before there was any damage 
to speak of.
There is, of course, blame 
to go around for Saturday. 
The defense gave up too many 
big plays. Bell wasn’t the only 
wideout with a crucial drop. 
Patterson threw a costly 
interception on a screen pass 
attempt.
But on a day when the 
offense bucked the trend and 
fought back, a day when it 
showed that — at least after a 
shaky beginning — it wasn’t 
scared, Harbaugh seemed 
to abandon the trust he’d so 
steadfastly preached.
Sure, Michigan didn’t make 
the most of its chances until it 
was too late. But facing his best 
opportunity yet for the elusive 
big road win, Harbaugh didn’t 
give his team nearly enough of 
them.
Maybe he was the one rat-
tled by the lights.

Gerson can be reached at 

amgerson@umich.edu or on 

Twitter @aria_gerson.

Seniors grappling with reset goals after PSU loss

Ben 
Bredeson 
situated 
himself at the center of a media 
scrum Monday afternoon, an 
expressionless look plastered to his 
face beneath a low-riding trucker 
hat.
The first question was as simple 
as it was predictable: What are 
your goals for the rest of season? 
Implicit in the question was that 
the goals Michigan carried into the 
season — win the Big Ten and make 
the College Football Playoff, at a 
minimum — are bust, evaporated 
in the familiar pitfall of road losses 
to ranked teams.
Bredeson, a captain and one 
of Michigan’s unofficial senior 
spokesmen, 
stared 
into 
the 
surrounding cameras and provided 
the diplomatic answer.
“We’re just taking it week by 
week,” Bredeson said. “We can’t 
control anything other than our 
own play so just focusing on that is 
the next step.”
Minutes later, defensive tackle 
Carlo Kemp — another one of those 
captains and spokesmen — echoed 

Bredeson. “Yes, we lost, but you 
gotta remember, this wasn’t our 
last game of the year,” Kemp said 
“This isn’t, ‘Alright, we’re done, 
let’s start packing up.’ ”
Neither will say it, because that 
would undermine the significance 
of the season’s final five games, but 
both know their senior seasons 
will end without achieving their 
ultimate goals. 
Bredeson chose the Wolverines 
despite 
offers 
from 
Alabama, 
Oklahoma and Ohio State. Kemp 
could have gone to Notre Dame or 
Wisconsin, calling Michigan an 
opportunity to play “top-caliber 
football” when he committed. Yet, 
both will finish their collegiate 
careers without an appearance in 
the Big Ten championship game 
or College Football Playoff, unless 
Kemp successfully petitions for a 
retroactive redshirt.
Those goals — repeated ad 
nauseam through the offseason 
— are so entrenched in the 
Wolverines’ 
self-identity 
that 
redshirt 
freshman 
linebacker 
Cam McGrone promised a Big Ten 
championship game rematch with 
Wisconsin after last month’s 35-14 

loss in Madison. “I know when 
we see them again, we’re going 
to smack them in the mouth,” 
McGrone said at the time.
That 
same 
week, 
VIPER 
Khaleke Hudson — another senior 
captain often paraded in front of 
the media — was more cautious, 
but still delivered a message of 
confidence rooted in controlling 
their own destiny. “We still are able 
to reach our goals that we had for 
the whole season,” Hudson said.
Not anymore.
Now, the only mention of 
expectations is to dismiss them. 
“Win our next game, that’s our 
goal,” Jim Harbaugh said, when 
asked how he defines a successful 
season.
“Expectations, those are just 
outcomes,” Kemp said. “And you 
start focusing on expectations, like 
‘we were supposed to do this, we 
were supposed to do that’ — none 
of that really matters.” 
The message stands in direct 
contrast to everything that was said 
all offseason, through Wisconsin’s 
rout and up to Saturday night’s 
28-21 loss to Penn State.
That loss, featuring a spirited 

fight back from a 21-0 deficit, 
proved Michigan with its latest 
reason for optimism. Built into 
that optimism is that whatever the 
Wolverines do over the next five 
weeks carries into next year — for 
everyone except the seniors.
It’s why Bredeson, Kemp and the 
rest of those seniors have turned 
to using their experience to help 
keep Michigan’s underclassmen 
grounded.
“Worrying 
about 
Big 
Ten 

championship, 
National 

Championship, really the only 
thing you can control is the next 
game,” Bredeson said. “So just 
trying to help them see that and see 
there’s still a lot of great things that 
we can attain this season.”
Asked whether that’s hard to 
grapple with as a senior, when 
winning those championships was 
the goal he brought to Michigan, 
Bredeson called it “part of being 
a teammate” and reaffirmed his 
focus on this week’s game against 
Notre Dame.
“You can’t let two losses take 
your season,” Bredeson said.
Take your season, no. Take your 
goals, well, that’s unavoidable.

Coaching scared

ARIA
GERSON

ALEXANDRIA POMPEI/Daily
Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh made several questionable decisions on fourth downs during Michigan’s 28-21 loss at Penn State on Saturday night.

THEO MACKIE
Daily Sports Editor

ALEXANDRIA POMPEI/Daily
Senior guard Ben Bredeson is trying to focus on the next game after Michigan’s second loss all but ended its chances of reaching its goals on the season.

