Michigan sideline reporter and Detroit radio personality Doug Karsch saw the scare up close at Northwestern, and talked about exclusively with TheWolverine.com
Karsch pulled a number of takes from U-M’s 20-17 win, including his observations on…
• Michigan’s slow start in Evanston: “It was kind of weird. The environment at Northwestern is interesting. It’s like a bowl game, in that the fan base is kind of split. It doesn’t feel like a true road game, necessarily, which is nice.
“But it leaves a kind of weird environment down on the field. Both teams’ fans are impacting the play. It should make it easier to go there and play.
“I’m not big on reading into, ‘Oh, they showed no life, there was no fire, there was no emotion.’ I tend to think those things are a product of playing well, as opposed to a pre-determined, ‘We’re going to be fired up.’ But it was kind of a listless sideline.
“But after the fourth-and-one play [a failed Michigan conversion attempt late in the first quarter], [redshirt junior tight end] Zach Gentry was one of the players who came to the sideline and really started letting his teammates know, ‘We’ve got to start picking it up.’
“[Junior quarterback] Shea Patterson, shortly thereafter, started high-fiving every one of his offensive teammates. You could tell he was saying, ‘Okay, it time to go.’
