On Monday, amidst a siege of 

questions about the impending clash 
between No. 6 Michigan and No. 8 
Michigan State, Jim Harbaugh largely 
resorted to a tried and true cliché.

“Those 
questions 
just 
answer 

themselves,” 
the 
Michigan 
coach 

repeatedly opined when pressed about 
the game’s importance. 

Harbaugh, albeit blunt, is correct; 

the implications of the game do speak 
for themselves. The winner will not 
only be rewarded with the upper-hand 
in a bitter in-state rivalry but will also 
be solidified as a legitimate College 
Football Playoff contender. Chances of a 
Big Ten Championship, too, grow more 
formidable. 

The loser, by contrast, is kicked to 

the curb, the feel-good mojo from an 
undefeated start all but dashed. 

Harbaugh knows this. And yet, 

despite his terse answers, he did break 
character when asked to articulate what 
a win over the Spartans would mean for 
the Wolverines’ postseason fate:

“It sure would give it a boost,” 

Harbaugh said with a chuckle. “You talk 
about winning the conference, winning 
the National Championship. It’s an 
elimination mindset, a playoff mindset 
at this point. Win this game and it will 
help your chances.” 

The answer speaks volumes about 

Michigan’s rapid ascension back into 
college football’s upper echelon. Just 
ten months ago, the Wolverines were 
wrapping up a disastrous 2-4 season 
amidst a COVID-19 outbreak while 
questions swirled around Harbaugh’s 
future and the general direction of the 
program. 

And now? Well, things have changed. 
“It could really help propel us through 

the rest of the season,” senior offensive 
tackle Ryan Hayes said about a potential 
victory. “We’ve got a few more tough 
games to prepare for. This could help us 
with our momentum and confidence for 
the rest of the season.” 

Hayes is among a contingent of 

Wolverines who are steeped in the 
culture of the rivalry. A Traverse City, 
MI, native, he has watched the game 
and rooted for Michigan since before 
he can remember. The same can be said 
for fifth-year linebacker Josh Ross, who 

hails from Southfield, MI, and watched 
his older brother, James III, lose to 
the Spartans three times during his 
Michigan tenure. 

At the same time, as a collective 

group, the current Wolverines have 
little rivalry experience. Last season, 
amidst the backdrop of a pandemic and 
inside an empty Michigan Stadium, the 
atmosphere was subdued. Michigan 
last visited East Lansing in 2018, when 
Hayes was a freshman who saw no game 
action and didn’t even make the trip. 

Nonetheless, 
fables 
and 
tales 

— everything from the trademark 
physicality to the intensity of the hour-
plus bus ride to Mike Hart’s infamous 
“little brother” quip — have made their 

way around the locker room. 

“There’s definitely been some 

talk about what it means to them,” 
sophomore 
running 
back 
Blake 

Corum said. “For the guys that 
haven’t played the game, the older 
guys will tell them what it’s like and 
what it means.

“… But right now, we’re just locking in 

on film and getting ready.” 

All season, the Wolverines have 

embraced a slogan imparted to them 
by linebackers coach George Helow: 
“nameless, faceless opponents.”

Back in September, for instance, 

sophomore 
receiver 
A.J. 
Henning 

referred to former teammate Giles 
Jackson as a “faceless opponent” ahead 
of the Washington game; while Jackson 

may be a confidant off the field, on it he is 
merely the opposition. 

Now more than ever, in the most 

pivotal game of the season, the refrain 
is applicable. Ross noted that this year’s 
matchup brings “new blood.” 

“It doesn’t matter who you’re going 

against, you’re just gonna give it your all 
and do your job and go get it,” he said.

And that’s why, in advance of 

Michigan State, Michigan is riding the 
same formula that has buoyed them to a 
7-0 start. If they deviate from it? “Lest a 
team be painfully humbled,” Harbaugh 
said. 

Ross added: “When you change how 

you prepare during the season, that’s a 
problem. We’ve been preparing the right 

way every week. This week, it definitely 
has higher stakes, but just attack it the 
same way.” 

Ross conducted his press conference 

with a palpable sense of energy. 
Harbaugh, too, exuded a certain 
eagerness; on two separate occasions, he 
noted his excitement “to get to practice 
and roll.” 

Certainly, the game’s implications 

play a factor in all of that. 

“Everything that we’ve done so far 

this season, going into Michigan State, 
beating them in their stadium, I think it 
would take our season to another level,” 
Corum said. 

As for the alternative? 
Well, 
to 
borrow 
Harbaugh’s 

vernacular, the question answers itself. 

‘Elimination mindset’: Michigan embracing 

high stakes ahead of MSU showdown

After a career of setbacks, D.J. Turner 

shines in starting role

EMMA MATI/Daily 

After a promising early career at Michigan, D.J. Turner has come into his own this season, making a key inter-
ception against Northwestern.

JARED GREENSPAN
Daily Sports Editor

Before this season, D.J. Turner 

had always been on the precipice.

Over the last few years, 

Turner’s name had been tossed 
around as a breakout candidate 
during the Michigan football 
team’s spring practices. Jim 
Harbaugh praised the young 
cornerback’s progress as an 
early enrollee and freshman in 
2019, but an injury sidelined him 
for much of the year. Turner 
made his first appearance in the 
secondary during the pandemic-
shortened 2020 season, though 
most of his action came on special 
teams once again.

But this season, the former 

three-star recruit is living up to 
the praise he’s collected for years. 
Through 
seven 
appearances, 

the junior has tallied 11 tackles, 
an interception and a pass 
breakup while holding his own in 
coverage.

“My sense is he’s always been 

great,” Harbaugh said Monday. 
“He’s always kind of been right 
there as a starting player and then 
had a setback … where he was 
working through something that 
slows him down. But he always 
battled right back. It’s great to see 
him peaking at a great time.”

During 
Saturday’s 

33-7 win over Northwestern, 
Turner’s late interception put 
an exclamation point on the 
Wolverines’ victory. After a pass 
to the sideline was tipped three 
times, Turner snagged it and took 
it the other direction, putting a 
circus pick on Michigan’s season 
highlight reel in the process.

Turner earned his first career 

start at No. 2 cornerback on 
Saturday over senior Gemon 
Green, who usually lines up 
opposite senior Vincent Gray 
to round out the Wolverines’ 
cornerback tandem. He played a 
career-high 43 snaps, earning a 
team-best 78.7 coverage grade on 
Pro Football Focus.

“He’s been battling the whole 

season,” junior safety Daxton 
Hill said Saturday. “This season, 
before the season, the spring. This 
has been a long year for him, and 
I’m proud of him for stepping up, 
making plays and helping out the 
defense.”

Prior to the interception, it 

was clear the Wildcats were 
making a conscious effort to 
target Turner. Northwestern 
quarterback 
Ryan 
Hilinksi 

threw his way multiple times in 
the first half but backed off after 
Turner blew up a screen pass in 
the backfield.

From start to finish, the strong 

performance caught Harbaugh’s 
eye.

“I thought he had a great 

game,” Harbaugh said Monday. 
“The interception, I think it’s one 
of the best I’ve seen all season 
in college football. Also really 
impressed with his physicality. 
He made some big tackles in the 
game, a tackle for loss (on) one of 
the screens Northwestern had 
run. Two of our guys had taken a 
bad angle and the ball got out, but 
he took a great angle, came from 
the other side of the field. He’s 
playing really good football. Great 
to see.”

As a recruit, Turner committed 

to Michigan just three days after 
taking his official visit to Ann 
Arbor. Hosted by linebacker Josh 
Ross, Turner’s visit sealed the 
deal ahead of his college pledge. 
Now a fifth-year senior, Ross has 
watched Turner grow from his 
initial arrival on campus.

So, it was only fitting that 

Ross became his lead blocker 
after his interception on Saturday.

“That’s a guy that always 

attacks everything the right 
way, works hard,” Ross said. “As 
I opened up from my drop and 
broke over and saw him get that 
tipped pick, I was just so happy 
for him. It was an amazing play 
and he’s going to continue to do 
big things for us and our defense.”

DANIEL DASH

Daily Sports Editor

EMMA MATI/Daily 

Going into this weekend against No. 8 Michigan State, the stakes are, as Jim Harbaugh 
knows, incredibly high.

Four years ago, I got an 

email from the Michigan State 
admissions office. Two weeks 
after I had applied, I had been 
accepted. 
At 

the 
moment, 

going to East 
Lansing wasn’t 
really on my 
radar. I applied 
because 
it 

was fun — my 
senior year of 
high 
school, 

I got into the 
bad 
habit 
of 

getting drunk and applying to 
bad schools for the validation.

As the year went on, though, 

I started seriously consider-
ing going to Michigan State. 
It seemed like a half-decent 
option, and hey, at some level, 
it’s about what you make out 
of your education and not the 

quality of the education itself.

I wouldn’t be a student jour-

nalist if I went to Michigan 
State. I wouldn’t have covered 
women’s basketball or gone 
to Omaha to cover the men’s 
College World Series if I went 
there. I’m a computer science 
major, not a journalism major, 
and I’ve never been interested 
in a career in journalism.

Every year in these dueling 

columns, the State News writer 
comes out and exclaims, “We’re 
better than you because we 
have a journalism school.” They 
even started the jabs a little 
early this year, so I imagine this 
dig will make up most of their 
column, with Adam Schefter at 
the center of it.

First off, Michigan did have 

a journalism program when 
Schefter 
went 
here. 
Luck-

ily, your alumni were quick to 

help you on that point. He also 
went to Medill for grad school. 
Perhaps he learned to send his 
stories to the subject for edits 
in a class similar to JRN 200, 
“Writing and Reporting News,” 
in a J-School.

Or maybe he learned it in 

a class similar to JRN 317, 
“Sports Journalism.” Or JRN 
418, “Advanced Sports Report-
ing.” Two very valuable classes 
for your staff members to take, 
since they don’t seem to do 
much decent sports journalism 
for the State News.

You do realize that Michigan 

State has a field hockey team, 
right? You’ve written three sto-
ries about the team since 2017. 

I get it, you have a small staff. 

I’m actually impressed that you 
have enough people to cover 
men’s and women’s soccer reg-
ularly, as well as volleyball. I’m 

happy to see that you’ve come 
out of the pandemic with a big-
ger staff, eager to cover as much 
as possible.

Yet since The Daily allows 

any “riff raff off the street” to 
write for us, while the State 
News is competitive and its 
members go through the rigor-
ous academic course load con-
sisting of the classes “Advanced 
Reporting” and “Journalism 
History,” you’d think the sports 
you do write about would have 
high-quality articles.

If that were true, then why 

do sentences like this, “Tucker 
is free to leave if he wants if he 
is offered something that he 
deems as undeniable,” make the 
cut? And how come you don’t 
know the difference between 
an em dash (—) and hyphen 
(-), leading to this monstrously 
confusing sentence, “Cole said 
the development of the unit 
on sheer repetition-and the 
blind hope that it’ll work-and 
is optimistic production from 
their two power-play units will 
continue to trend in the right 
direction.”

But I get it, editing is hard. 

You can see that in all your 
past Dueling Columns, when 

for some reason you thought 
it was okay to publish this line 
in 2014: “Outside of sports, our 
parties are louder, our women 
are prettier.” Or publish this in 
2013: “Like the females in Ann 
Arbor, the past isn’t as glam-
orous when you take a longer 
look.”

The State News’ shortcom-

ings don’t stop with just your 
editing skills: Your website 
blows up the images to the point 
where they’re grainier than one 
of your agriculture labs. When I 
showed one of the photos to our 
assistant photo editors with no 
context, she just said, “Is there 
anything better than that? It’s 
not very interesting.” 

And when I showed the photo 

and quote to one of our manag-
ing photo editors, she said the 
assistant editor was being very, 
incredibly nice. I’ll save you 
from hearing the rest of her 
quote because I’m not sure your 
inferiority complex can take it.

But your website’s prob-

lems go even further than that. 
When you load an article, you 
see a Dune ad. Right beneath an 
even larger ad. Once you scroll 
down, you finally get to the 
article. 

Great, an ad with an arti-

cle attached to it. Just what I 
wanted to read. Even our old 
website, which you creatively 
attacked year after year after 
year, wasn’t that bad. By the 
way, did you see who won an 
online Pacemaker this year?

It’s cute that you’re finally 

practicing for the game. Maybe 
your #MarginalGains will get 
you to the point where you lose 
8-1, instead of 8-0. Maybe you 
won’t have to weather accu-
sations of not trying. Maybe 
you’ll still get that keg for sim-
ply scoring on us. Maybe you’ll 
actually tweet a story from 
your sports account, some-
thing you haven’t done since 
Oct. 8. 

On Friday, when we beat you 

for the 16th time in a row in a 
touch football game one of your 
past editors said “quite honest-
ly, I couldn’t care less about,” it 
won’t be because we have any 
riff-raff from the street on our 
staff. 

It’ll be because we’re better 

than you — at journalism and 
touch football.

Managing Sports Editor Kent 

Schwartz can be reached on 
Twitter at @nottherealkent.

BECCA MAHON/Daily 

With a 16-year losing streak and copious typos, The State News continues to prove touch football skills directly correlate 
to ability to produce a newspaper.

Dueling Columns: The Michigan Daily vs. The State News

KENT

SCHWARTZ

 

MICHIGAN VS MICHIGAN STATE 

Wolverines Welcome! 

Saturday 

Opens 
@ 10 am 

Friday 
Opens 
@ Noon 

Largest Bar – Biggest Party 

Over 40 TVs To Watch The Game 

Voted #1 Bar In E. Lansing 

$1 Jello Shots Game Day 

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com 
Sports
Wednesday, October 27, 2021 — 11

