Paul Bunyan will always be a man on the move. But he’s thinking hard about rebuilding a log cabin in Ann Arbor.
The Paul Bunyan Trophy never even pulled on his traveling boots Saturday afternoon at Michigan Stadium. Jim Harbaugh’s Wolverines (8-2, 5-2 Big Ten) took the lumberjack’s ax to Mark Dantonio’s Spartans, chopping Michigan State (4-6, 2-5) up in a 44-10 bludgeoning.
You name it, the Wolverines owned it on this afternoon. If Dantonio is developing any bunions on his feet, he probably left those in The Big House as well.
Michigan rolled to 467 total yards of offense against MSU’s 220, riding senior quarterback Shea Patterson’s best day in a Michigan uniform to an overwhelming win.
Patterson threw for 384 yards and four touchdowns, completing 24 of 33 throws and carving up an MSU defense purported to be very good. Patterson connected nine times with sophomore Ronnie Bell for 150 yards, and spread his completions around to nine different targets.
While Patterson carved an early Thanksgiving turkey, Michigan’s defense gobbled up quarterback Brian Lewerke and the Spartans. Lewerke went 17-of-30 passing for 166 yards, one touchdown, two interceptions and three sacks, frequently running away for an opportunity to play next week.
U-M outrushed the Spartans, 83-54, but it was Patterson’s arm that buried MSU beneath a massive pile of wood chips.
“It was pretty cool,” Harbaugh said. “Somebody told me he broke a record for the most passing yards by a Michigan quarterback in a Michigan State game — 384. The old record was 285, by Tom Brady.
“[To break the record] by 99 yards — I’d call that a whale of a game. That’s a heck of a game by the kid.
“He was really sharp in every way — seeing the field, making the throws … Everything, really.”
It proved an equally tough defeat for the Spartans, who now need to win their final two games to make a bowl.
Some said this was MSU’s Super Bowl. If so, the Spartans can relate to the Denver Broncos, who lost Super Bowl XXIV, 55-10, to the San Francisco 49ers.
“Credit Michigan,” MSU coach Mark Dantonio said. “They played extremely well on defense and offense. I talked about them having shock. We had to play with that same type of shock and explosiveness.”
On this day, the only shock and explosiveness displayed by the Spartans involved the Wile E. Coyote variety.
The Spartans actually struck first, going 60 yards in nine plays for a touchdown with 1:48 remaining in the first quarter. After Lewerke moved the chains on a key fourth-and-one keeper, he gunned a 36-yard pass down the left hash to Cody White.
A replay put the initially called touchdown back at the 1, but Lewerke then floated a throw to uncovered fullback Max Rosenthal for the TD. Michigan thus trailed for the first time since the Penn State game nearly a month earlier, 7-0.
The Wolverines struck back immediately, going 68 yards in seven plays for the tying score. Completions of 15, seven, eight and 18 yards by Patterson — boosted by the obligatory late hit on a toss to junior wideout Donovan Peoples-Jones (four catches, 48 yards) by MSU defensive back Shakur Brown — set Michigan up at the Spartans’ 3.
Redshirt freshman tailback Hassan Haskins and the U-M offensive line took it from there, Haskins blasting in from a yard out on a second straight direct snap. At 14:29 of the second quarter, the showdown stood dead even.
The Wolverine then put together one of the best drives of the season — 98 yards in 12 plays, capped by redshirt junior tight end Nick Eubanks’ five-yard touchdown grab.
Backed up to his own 2, Patterson moved out of the shadow of his own goalposts with a third-down, chains-moving throw to Peoples-Jones. Patterson then connected with Bell on a scrambling 18-yarder, following his own 15-yard keeper.
“Every time we take the field, we’re trying to score,” Patterson said. “The mindset going into that drive was to go down and score, no matter where we were on the field.”
The senior QB ultimately gunned the touchdown pass, and with MSU managing only 40 second-quarter yards, the next opportunity wasn’t far away.
U-M took advantage, Patterson firing a 42-yard sideline bomb to Bell to set up redshirt junior Quinn Nordin’s 28-yard field goal 15 seconds prior to intermission.
Heading in up 17-7, the Wolverines knew they faced plenty of work remaining.
They took almost no time to strap the hard hats back on.
“With how they’ve played and how we’ve been playing, we knew we could do it,” senior safety Josh Metellus said. “It doesn’t have to be close. If you execute the right way, every play or the majority, you can win by big margins like this. We’ve focused on executing these past two weeks, and it showed today.”
Following junior cornerback Ambry Thomas’ sideline interception off Lewerke, Patterson immediately struck back. He tossed a 19-yard swing pass to senior tight end Sean McKeon, sprung by Bell’s devastating block.
Patterson then hit Bell for 20 and Peoples-Jones for the final 19, the latter sweeping along the western sideline into the south end zone for the score to make it 24-7. Some 27:40 remained in the game, but the Spartans were absorbing the tip of the spear.
MSU’s Matt Coughlin got three back on a 35-yard field goal with 6:43 left in the third quarter. Nordin offset it precisely 4:30 later, knocking through a 27-yarder after Patterson throws of 27 yards to both redshirt sophomore wideout Tarik Black and McKeon set it up.
Michigan’s special teams then lent a big hand to the rout. Senior viper Khaleke Hudson coiled and struck, fighting off a block to fly in and block a MSU punt. That effort set the Wolverines up on MSU’s 22, and Patterson drove the spear home on the very next play.
He unleashed a throw down the middle to junior wideout Nico Collins. The lanky receiver enjoyed full leverage, leaving MSU’s defensive back a snowball’s chance in a pizza oven of knocking it away.
“We had a big blocked punt, multiple turnovers, Ambry on the pick,” Patterson said. “They’re always big time. They showed up today, put us in good positions, and we capitalized.”
At 34-10 and with 14:46 to play, it was all over but the cheap shots.
There were plenty of those, but the Wolverines kept rolling. An interception by senior cornerback Lavert Hill set up Nordin’s 33-yard field goal, with 10:12 remaining.
Then, just to pour a canister of Morton’s finest into an already gaping wound, Patterson flipped a toss to freshman wideout Cornelius Johnson for a 39-yard touchdown with 2:33 left. The Spartans were as far from the rookie as they are from respectability this season, leaving Johnson steaming away and leaving the Spartans themselves steaming.
“We wanted to go out there and score as many points as we could,” Patterson said. “That play was designed to end like that.”
So was the game, as far as the Wolverines were concerned. They tucked Paul away for another year, and noted his growing comfort in a place that served as his primary home for a good long while.
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