Michigan Wolverines football head coach Jim Harbaugh met the media Monday to give his take on a number of topics. We give our own on several of his responses, in News & Views format:
NEWS: Michigan got the short end of the stick on several calls at Penn State, including a defensive pass interference not called on a first-quarter throw to Tarik Black, a no-call on an offensive pass interference on a first-quarter PSU touchdown and the phantom offensive pass interference on Nico Collins in the second quarter.
HARBAUGH: “There were some, definitely. You have the human reaction of what your human reactions are and sometimes it's not fair. I've said for a long time, the only fair is the county fair.
“Respect it. You can be disappointed sometimes. We looked at those, make no excuse and move onward.”
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VIEWS: Two of those calls erased likely field goals, at the least, for U-M, and the offensive PI not called on PSU could have resulted in a field goal attempt instead of a touchdown.
Any one of those could well have made it a different game. Instead, it was too much to overcome given the plethora of other mistakes, including blown coverages and dropped passes.
No, officiating didn’t cost the Wolverines the game, and there have been contests in this series in which the Nittany Lions felt they got the short end of the stick. This time around, though, U-M deserved a better fate. The fact that the Wolverines still could have won — they were a dropped touchdown pass from sending it to overtime — shows just how much this game was there for the taking.
Both the Wolverines and conference officials need to be better.
