“We’re in somebody else’s house. I love it. That’s when the fans get the craziest. That’s the environment everybody wants to perform in. It’s cool. We’ll step away from here and cause some havoc in somebody else’s house.”
— Junior defensive end Rashan Gary
Michigan put itself in position to once again cause havoc, by getting its own house in order. Just ask Scott Frost. He can attest better than anyone to the resurgence of Jim Harbaugh’s team.
“The game was over at halftime,” the Nebraska head coach said of Michigan’s 56-10 pummeling of his crew on Saturday.
“Our whole team needs to see right now what it takes to play at that level. We weren’t ready to play at that level today.”
Twelve months earlier, neither was Michigan.
Again, beating 2018 Nebraska isn’t beating Ohio State. The ‘Huskers haven’t experienced their last game this year in which the red of their jerseys seeps into their faces.
But this is about Michigan and obvious progress made. Dial it back to the four-games-in point from 2017, and there’s simply no doubt.
This team is 3-1, that team was 4-0. The advantage for the latter ends there, like a sprinter winning the opening 30 yards of a marathon.
On Sept. 23, 2017, quarterback Wilton Speight lay on the Ross-Ade Stadium turf, his back fractured. He’d never play another snap of the football for the Wolverines.
When they carted him out, they also carried away any chance for his team to compete for the Big Ten title. Speight led a 40-points-per-game offense a year earlier, and took the Wolverines within a scarlet-tinted call in Ohio Stadium of the Big Ten championship game and the playoff.
His successors in 2017 took Michigan to 25.2 points per game and more interceptions (10) than touchdown passes (nine). They connected on 53.2 percent of their passes, in an offense that scored 10, 13, 10, 20 and 19 in the losses that were to follow.
Four games in this year, junior transfer QB Shea Patterson is completing 70.1 percent of his throws, 18th best in the nation. He’s guiding an offense averaging 41.8 per game, yet bearing the humbling reminder of its 17-point production in Michigan’s only loss. His backup, redshirt freshman Dylan McCaffrey, is better now than any option in 2017.
Patterson is enjoying his own renaissance, transported from a 2017 injury and the NCAA-clouded mess that was Ole Miss to an opportunity to win big in The Big House.
“For Shea to end up where he is, running out of that tunnel, from where he was — with a knee brace and no communication with his former offensive coordinator — it’s almost a miracle,” noted Sean Patterson, Shea’s dad.
There’s way more than a new quarterback, to be sure. There’s a new offensive line coach, overseeing a group growing by the week. There’s a former Alabama offensive coordinator, coaching wide receivers who grew up immensely from their freshman to their sophomore seasons.
There’s a first-year tight ends boss who has his charges not only catching the ball, but blocking at a high level to clear the way for a so-far effective run game.
There’s a defense stingy as expected (14.2 points surrendered on average), and special teams that have returned a punt and a kickoff for touchdowns, average more than 50 yards per punt and are capable of connecting from 50 yards or more on field goals.
“All three phases of the game, I feel like we’re improving,” Gary said. “It’s a great feeling, sitting back and watching the game, playing in the game. It’s a feeling I haven’t had in a while.”
Gary seemed almost taken aback when asked about Michigan’s ability to adjust to what teams are doing offensively. He’d rather dictate, like the Wolverines did in making Nebraska quarterback Adrian Martinez run for his life.
“Our defensive model is, we have to go out and play our ball, to the point that the offense needs to adjust to what we’re doing,” Gary said. “It’s having that type of mindset, going out there and forcing the offense to have to check down plays, because they see what we’re in.
“That’s what we want. If we keep playing like we’re playing, it’s going to be a great year, no matter who we go against.”
The biggest tests remain ahead, although the triple threat of Wisconsin, Michigan State and Penn State doesn’t look nearly as daunting on the field as it did on paper coming into the season. Meanwhile, the Wolverines simply feature more weapons to fire than they did a year ago, once the tough games arrive.
“The leadership they have, with Coach Harbaugh, Coach [Don] Brown, Coach [Greg] Mattison has been there forever … you just see something different in their eyes,” the elder Patterson pointed out. “It’s like, okay, we’ll build. I think the sky is the limit for this team.
“They’re a team that you’re not going to want to play in November. They’ve got a great opportunity ahead of them.”
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