Michigan thoroughly dominated Michigan State in a nasty, penalty-filled fistfight in Spartan Stadium, 21-7.
The Spartans couldn’t run the ball. They couldn’t throw it. Their defense spent most of Michigan’s 41:03 time of possession on the field, plenty of it in the MSU end.
All that, and with more than 42 minutes of a rain-soaked afternoon spent, the teams were deadlocked, 7-7.
That’s the kind of day it was, the kind that can maddeningly slip away in one play. Junior quarterback Shea Patterson and sophomore wideout Donovan Peoples-Jones made that play, a 79-yard bomb to give the Wolverines breathing room.
Patterson (14-of-25 passing for 212 yards, two TDs) then engineered a 13-play, 84-yard fourth-quarter drive and Michigan’s defense absolutely suffocated the Spartans all game long.
A day that began with MSU players walking through Michigan’s pregame warmups “clotheslining” a couple of Wolverines and knocking the headphones off another wound up with the home team buried six feet under their own turf.
“Our team never blinked the entire time,” Michigan head coach Jim Harbaugh assured. “They played hard, they played smart. From the pre-game shenanigans, there was no backing down today from our guys from then on.”
The Wolverines (7-1, 5-0 Big Ten) saved their big hits for the field, limiting MSU (4-3, 2-2) to 94 total yards, 15 of them on the ground, and a goose egg (0 for 12) on third-down conversions. In short, Michigan’s defense treated the Spartans like a boa constrictor treats a capybara.
“That’s amazing,” senior safety Tyree Kinnel said. “I feel very accomplished with that stat, as well as my teammates do. That’s very big, when you can shut out a team, 0 for 12, on third down. You can win a lot of big games doing that.”
You can’t win many with your quarterback going 5-of-25 passing for 66 yards, like MSU’s Brian Lewerke did. The Spartans scored only because of a Michigan fumble that gave them the ball seven yards away from paydirt.
Meanwhile, senior tailback Karan Higdon (33 carries for 144 yards), Patterson and Michigan’s receivers eventually cashed in, behind an offensive line up for the fight.
“They dominated,” Higdon said. “They continued to dominate. I said it last week, we’ve got the best O-line in the country, and it’s showing. The proof is in the pudding.”
Michigan cracked the scoreboard first, with perhaps the longest scoring drive in its storied football history. The Wolverines moved from their own 16 to the 45, when threatening weather forced a one-hour, 15-minute delay.
When the skies cleared, it took a Patterson throw off senior receiver Grant Perry’s hands and into those of diving sophomore wideout Nico Collins, 10 yards downfield, to move the chains on a crucial third down. Patterson then connected 25 yards downfield to redshirt sophomore tight end Nick Eubanks.
That set up Patterson’s six-yard TD bullet to a crossing Collins in the back of the end zone. Just five seconds into the second quarter, U-M grabbed a 7-0 lead that felt worth the wait.
“We repped that in preparation week, prepared for it, and the defense did exactly what we wanted,” Collins said. “We came out with a touchdown.”
It didn’t look like the Wolverines would have to wait long for another score, given MSU’s 49 first-half yards. But U-M spent the rest of the half missing more golden opportunities than a panhandler without a pan.
Harbaugh’s crew had MSU bottled up, taking possession on the their own 49, the MSU 43, Michigan’s 42 and the Spartans’ 48. Those four chances resulted in precisely zero points.
The closest the Wolverines came to scoring occurred on the third of those four opportunities. Higdon broke off a 38-yard run, down to the MSU 20. But Michigan State’s defense blunted the drive, and redshirt sophomore placekicker Quinn Nordin’s 36-yard field goal attempt barely got more than head high, scorching harmlessly short and left.
Michigan led at the half, 7-0, enjoying total command in yardage, 170-49, but knowing it could have been smashing the Spartans on the scoreboard as well.
“That was one of the most gritty games I’ve been a part of,” Patterson said. “The defense put us in good situations. They gave us the confidence to stay within ourselves.”
The scores they didn’t convert did not take long to haunt the Wolverines. With Michigan backed deep in its own territory, MSU’s Raequan Williams punched the football out of junior tailback Chris Evans’ hands from behind, linebacker Brandon Bouyer-Randle diving on the ball at the U-M 7.
Two plays later, Lewerke pitched to tailback LJ Scott, who tossed on the reverse to wideout Darrell Stewart Jr. He then lobbed to a wide-open Lewerke, who had released to his right into the end zone.
At 7-7 just 3:48 into the second half, with rain beginning to pour down again, the sense of foreboding proved palpable for the drenched in maize and blue. An MSU fumble on a punt, recovered by Michigan fifth-year senior running back Joe Hewlett, set the Wolverines up on the Michigan State 46.
The Wolverines advanced it to the 30, then Higdon fumbled it back, MSU linebacker Tyriq Thompson diving on the ball at the State 23.
Then came the thunderbolt.
Patterson dropped back on first down at his own 21, letting the football fly through a steady rain. Sophomore wideout Donovan Peoples-Jones turned MSU cornerback Tre Person into a person on a milk carton, making the grab down the sideline and shaking off the tackle attempt.
Peoples-Jones sprinted the rest of the 79-yard touchdown sojourn, stunning the drenched crowd and staking the Wolverines to a 14-7 lead with 2:24 left in the third quarter.
“Donovan in one-on-one coverage? Good luck with that,” Patterson said. “I just threw it out to him and he made a helluva play after that.”
“It was the most perfect pass he’s delivered,” Peoples-Jones said. “The rest was just what we’ve been practicing — being a tough runner, somebody who is hard to take out. That’s just a testament to the guys I’m always around.”
The Wolverines then proved they could go the long road, on a 13-play, 84-yard touchdown drive to take full control with 10:21 left, 21-7. This drive almost never got underway at all.
On a second-down scramble from his own 16, Patterson threw into heavy traffic, the ball tumbling dangerously up into the air. But redshirt junior tight end Zach Gentry scrambled to pull it down for a 16-yard gain.
Patterson took over from there, keeping on a crucial fourth-and-two from the MSU 42. He raced off the edge for 11, did the same three plays later and gave to sophomore fullback Ben Mason for a power-plunge five-yard touchdown up the middle.
“He’s a great player,” Harbaugh said of Patterson. “I love him as a competitor, love his talent. He just keeps amping it up as the game goes on. He embraces all the pressure situations and just pours it out there on the field, really pours his heart and soul into playing the game. Just the ultimate respect for him, the way he plays, who he is, how he competes. Competes like a maniac. I love it.”
Harbaugh and his team love jumping into their bye week unblemished in the Big Ten, on a seven-game win streak. The fact that they left a trail of Spartans gaining more ground on the trudge back to the locker room than they had all day didn’t hurt, either.
Five Best Players Of The Game
1. Junior quarterback Shea Patterson — Patterson once again ran the show, and despite some bog-downs in great field position in the first half, he guided the Wolverines to a win. He never threw an interception, and his 79-yard strike to Donovan Peoples-Jones put the Wolverines over the top.
2. Fifth-year senior defensive end Chase Winovich — Winovich and his endless effort represent an entire defense that will inhabit MSU quarterback Brian Lewerke’s nightmares for a while. Winovich posted three quarterback hurries, half a tackle for loss among four stops and kept constant pressure on an offense going nowhere.
3. Senior tailback Karan Higdon — Higdon proved a workhorse on a soggy field, rushing for nearly 10 times more yards (144) than the Spartans did as a team (15). Higdon carried 33 times and assured that in a battle of attrition, MSU wanted no part of Michigan.
4. Redshirt sophomore linebacker Josh Uche — Uche is another Wolverine who kept the heat on, posting a pair of sacks. Michigan’s pass rushers never let Lewerke get comfortable, and a 20-percent completion rate confirmed it.
5. Sophomore wideout Donovan Peoples-Jones — Peoples-Jones made just one catch, in addition to his punt return work. But that one grab broke Michigan State’s back, the 79-yard home run ball breaking a 7-7 tie and putting the Wolverines in control the rest of the way.
---
• Talk about this article inside The Fort
• Subscribe to our podcast on iTunes
• Learn more about our print and digital publication, The Wolverine
• Follow us on Twitter: @TheWolverineMag, @BSB_Wolverine, @JB_ Wolverine, @AustinFox42, @Balas_Wolverine, @DrewCHallett and @Qb9Adam.
• Like us on Facebook
