16 — Wednesday, December 2, 2020 Sports The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com Erratic quarterback play hurts Wolverines Run defense collapses in Penn State loss Don Brown looked down, then back up. His lips pursed as his mask sat below his chin. Penn State quarterback Will Levis was in the end zone celebrating. Brown was left to watch and wonder. About what was next after the final Nittany Lions touchdown to seal a 27-17 Michigan loss. About how to fix a defense that again showed porous holes. And surely, about his job security. The Levis touchdown run made up two of the 254 Penn State rushing yards on the day — all without Journey Brown or Noah Cain, its two top running backs coming into the season. Keyvone Lee finished with 134 yards, quarterback Sean Clifford with 73 — including a 28-yard touchdown on a quarterback draw. To add to the humiliation, it’s the Nittany Lions’ first win of the year. To further add to the humiliation, it’s not even the worst performance of the year for the Wolverines’ run defense. That honor still goes to Wisconsin’s 341 yards on the ground two weeks ago. Much of Penn State’s came because of the same problems — setting an edge and missing tackles. After the loss to the Badgers, Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh talked of evaluating all facets of the program and changing what needed to be changed. He said Saturday they put in two new schemes to help set the edge better. “A lot of the plays today weren’t initial edge plays,” Harbaugh said. “They started inside and the back was able to find the crease on the edge. And we either folded in or we didn’t make the tackle on the edge or a combination of things.” From the first drive of the game — a 75-yard march down the field that featured 39 rushing yards — to the last, on which a Lee cut to the outside got him 23 yards and sealed the game, Penn State seemed to get whatever it wanted on the ground. Either Michigan couldn’t get to the ball carrier or Michigan couldn’t tackle the ball carrier. It was the latest in a line of disappointing defensive performances, and will add fuel to the fire for those calling for Brown’s head. Amid a flurry of cliche and saying he needed to watch the film, junior defensive end Taylor Upshaw offered this when asked if there were any adjustments made during the game. “We just gotta be there,” he said. “So I don’t know how to answer that. I think that’s a coach Brown answer.” The tackling, at least, should be simple, Upshaw said. It’s something they’ve been doing their whole lives as football players. “It’s just something you’ve gotta do,” he said. But they didn’t. And Harbaugh, a coach renowned for his attention to detail and intensity, who kept his team on the field for practice when the Big Ten cancelled football and Michigan released a statement halting all athletic activities in March, was left lamenting a lack of fundamentals. “I feel like sometimes we’re tackling a little too high and leaving our feet a little too early,” he said. “Timing of the tackle, wrapping and getting our man on the ground.” To open his press conference following Michigan’s drop to 2-4, Harbaugh was asked if his approach had changed since 2016, when the program seemed on the cusp of being a national contender. The hiring of Brown — a process that started when D.J. Durkin left to become head coach at Maryland, Harbaugh looked up who ran the No. 1 defense in the country the prior year, saw Brown’s name and got moving — is a quintessential example. But on Saturday, a Penn State offense in the throes of its worst season in nearly two decades ran the ball down the throat of Brown’s defense for 60 minutes, and the distance from 2016 and national relevance and yearly appearances among the top five defenses looked further than Brown’s stare. DANIEL DASH Daily Sports Editor ETHAN SEARS Managing Sports Editor ALEC COHEN/Daily Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh described his team’s mood as disappointing after Saturday’s 27-17 loss to formerly winless Penn State. When halftime ended Saturday afternoon and Michigan’s players gathered around their position coaches, Jim Harbaugh stood by Cade McNamara. The sophomore quarterback had missed two second-quarter drives with a shoulder injury, but he was still the Wolverines’ path to reversing their 17-7 deficit and Harbaugh knew it. McNamara, though, represented more than that. He was Harbaugh’s only chance to lend a semblance of positivity to a season that careens toward new lows with each passing week. Then his shoulder tightened back up, Harbaugh re-inserted Joe Milton and the Wolverines scored just 10 second-half points. With a 27-17 loss to a previously winless Penn State team, Michigan fell to 2-4. And in the end, this week’s iteration of Harbaugh’s calamitous Year Six looked just like the others. When the Nittany Lions sealed their win with a final third-down conversion, the only sound on Michigan’s sideline was a player slamming his plastic water bottle against a metal bench. “No one wants to lose a game,” junior defensive lineman Taylor Upshaw said. “So it’s frustrating, of course.” This year, losing has happened at the highest rate since 2008, when Michigan finished 3-9. The Wolverines’ four losses are already the second-highest total of the Harbaugh era. In his previous five years in Ann Arbor, Harbaugh hadn’t hit that mark before Week 12. It made sense, then, when Harbaugh’s frustration reached a boiling point Saturday. This was the Wolverines’ opportunity to build off momentum from a come- from-behind, triple-overtime win over Rutgers last weekend. That it came against a winless opponent should have provided Harbaugh with the perfect opportunity to reverse this season’s course. Instead, Michigan only sunk further into the depths of despair. The loudest cheers from Harbaugh’s sideline in the second half came on Penn State penalties. When freshman receiver A.J. Henning leapt over a Nittany Lions’ defender to make a highlight-reel catch, Harbaugh had to turn towards a group of players sitting on the bench and tell them to stand up and cheer. “It’s tough to be in this position, it’s not what we imagined,” senior right tackle Andrew Stueber said. “As an older guy on the team, you really gotta keep everybody up.” For stretches in Saturday’s second half, the Wolverines did that. When junior running back Hassan Haskins cut the deficit to 20-17, he was met with fist bumps and butt slaps. A similar reaction met Upshaw after his third- quarter sack. Far more common, though, was the familiar intersection of frustration and dejection. Harbaugh’s calm demeanor evaporated for good when the Nittany Lions converted a second- and-6 and third-and-7 deep in Michigan territory to restore their 10-point lead, waving his arms and yelling angrily after each. “We gotta tackle better,” Harbaugh said. “There’s too many missed tackles.” A drive later, his frustration culminated when Haskins and Milton were stuffed short of first downs on consecutive plays, just outside field goal range. “You’re down there on the field, you don’t really know for sure (about the spots),” Harbaugh said. “But getting the tackles on the short yardage and just being able to get a yard when you need it offensively. … Our inability to do that and their ability to do that was critical in the game.” After Milton’s stop, Harbaugh lowered his mask, screaming at the field judge to bring out the chains and double-check his spot. The official complied, proving that, once again, Michigan had come up short. The same rang true again moments later on the defensive side. This time, Harbaugh had no fire left in him. All he could do was yell out one word and look up at the south scoreboard for a replay. What he said was obscured by his mask and fake crowd noise, but it takes no great leap of faith to assume it may have been four letters. “I’m very competitive and want to win,” Harbaugh said. “And hate losing.” This year, that’s happened far too often for his liking. On Saturday, it happened against a winless team, seven days after a win that seemed to reverse momentum. So after the game, when Harbaugh was asked to sum up his team’s mood, he could only offer up one word. “Disappointing.” Yet again. THEO MACKIE Managing Sports Editor PLEASE CLAP Frustrations mount for Harbaugh’s team in loss to previously winless Penn State When Cade McNamara led a 17-point comeback against Rutgers last week, it appeared the Michigan football team had found its answer at quarterback. After an underwhelming two- week stretch for junior quarterback Joe Milton, McNamara did everything necessary to secure the Wolverines’ starting job, and Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh gave it to him against a winless Penn State team on Saturday. But in a 27-17 loss to the Nittany Lions, the Wolverines were doomed by erratic play from both Milton and McNamara. Throughout the game, Michigan’s quarterbacks failed to capitalize on the team’s performance on the ground. The Wolverines racked up 108 rushing yards in the first half alone, which should’ve set their passing game up for success. “It makes the (offensive) line not play harder, but play with more confidence maybe,” senior offensive lineman Andrew Stueber said. “… The defense starts getting more worried about the run game so they start bringing down some safeties, so it kind of just opened up the offense as a whole.” But the opposite was true. Michigan was reluctant to throw the ball downfield for much of the afternoon, leaving much to be desired. A good portion of that can be attributed to the shot McNamara took on the team’s second possession, which sent him to the locker room with a shoulder injury and forced Milton onto the field. The same accuracy struggles that sent Milton to the bench against the Scarlet Knights and Wisconsin continued on Saturday. After a 21-yard completion on his first attempt, Milton’s next two throws were way off the mark. One sailed over a receiver’s head, while the other bounced a few yards in front of his target. Harbaugh turned back to McNamara after two Milton- led series resulted in zero points. McNamara completed his first four passes on the Wolverines’ opening drive prior to the injury, but when he returned from the locker room, the effects of his shoulder pain were clear. He completed only one pass longer than 15 yards in the second half. Without the gunslinger mentality that powered Michigan past Rutgers, he struggled to put together scoring drives. He finished 12-of-25 passing with just 91 yards and no touchdowns — a far cry from his performance last week, when he completed 27-of-36 passes for 260 yards and accounted for five total touchdowns. As the game progressed, McNamara’s shoulder worsened. When the Wolverines needed a score to make it a one-possession game with eight minutes left, McNamara opened the drive with five consecutive incompletions. Sandwiched between them was a strip sack, though a penalty prevented the turnover from standing. By the midway point of the fourth quarter, Harbaugh had seen enough. He opted to roll with Milton in the game’s final minutes. “Cade, really gutty performance to come back, but the shoulder did start to tighten up,” Harbaugh said. “I could see it. He was doing everything he could to stay in the game, but I just felt like that was tightening up and causing (pain). I felt like going to Joe was the best option for us. I can tell you this: Cade was doing everything he possibly could to rally the team and to play on when (his shoulder) was tightening up on him. That was the reason.” But by then, it didn’t matter who was under center. The Wolverines had already proved themselves incapable of taking advantage of run-game success to stretch the field vertically. Playcalling became predictable, and a comeback wasn’t in the cards for an offense juggling an injured quarterback and an inaccurate one. A week after it seemed Michigan had solved its quarterback woes, Saturday left the team with more questions than answers at the position.