Shea Patterson wasn’t anywhere near Happy Valley a year ago. He didn’t get sacked once, much less seven times.
He didn’t absorb a single hit. He didn’t hear one derisive barb from the stands. He never witnessed the Nittany Lions tack on a gratuitous, mocking, extra seven points with four seconds remaining in a 42-13 win over Michigan.
He still wanted to destroy James Franklin’s team.
The Wolverines did, all right, piling up a 42-0 lead before Penn State scrambled seven last-seconds points Saturday evening. This time it wasn’t about embarrassing the Wolverines. The Nittany Lions were dodging a donut, after a humble pie serving delivered via a spoon-equipped jackhammer.
Patterson insisted if the Wolverines saw any chance to run up the score, they’d pursue it.
“I get it from the brotherhood that we have here,” Patterson assured. “We’re so close to all these guys, and that’s why we’re so successful right now. Just to know they did that to my brothers, it’s personal, and it gives me that much more motivation to get back at them.”
They got back, and got ahead. Penn State entered Michigan Stadium two plays away from being undefeated. They left decleated, their delusions of a season-reviving upset traded in for checking projections of Jacksonville, Fla., weather in late December.
“It was personal from the start,” assured senior tailback Karan Higdon, who ran for 132 yards — more than Penn State accumulated as a team prior to their final drive.
“We jumped out and wanted to make sure we turned the intensity way up. There was no coming back from that. We did a great job of that, all game.”
They methodically and dynamically crushed the Nittany Lions, from a 90-yard touchdown drive to a 62-yard pick-six by fifth-year senior cornerback Brandon Watson. They turned another team’s rushing attack into a rumor, and another quarterback into an animated bull’s eye.
Fifth-year senior Chase Winovich, adorned in his postgame Revenge Tour T-shirt, insisted it didn’t take long to predict the Nittany Lie-Down.
Asked if he felt Penn State wearing out as the game went on, he responded bluntly.
“I sensed them wearing out from the first series,” Winovich said. “At Notre Dame, it took us a quarter, before the defense was feeling confident. The defense was confident after the first series.
“That’s the feeling we had, and the results showed. I was smiling on the inside after the first series, with how our defense was versus their match-ups.”
The head coach sounded almost put off by questions about whether Michigan’s latest payback was personal.
“Yeah, these are personal,” Jim Harbaugh assured. “You want to strive for happiness, elation. You want to win. You want our guys to play well, and they did tonight.
“They were really impressive from start to finish, all sides of the ball. That was a really impressive Michigan football team out there tonight, and I’m really proud of them. Put an exclamation point with how proud I am of them.”
Penn State isn’t used to this. The Nittany Lions have led in the fourth quarter in 30 of their last 32 games. The two exceptions? Two years ago, in Michigan’s 49-10 steamrolling of an eventual Rose Bowl squad, and this one.
Michigan’s making it personal with everybody these days. The Wolverines are combining strong coaching, exceptional talent and all the edge of their cornered namesake.
They heard Wisconsin might wear them down, like the Badgers did a year ago at Camp Randall. They went out into the Ann Arbor night bearing Badger pelts.
Motivation against Michigan State? That’s like needing motivation to wheel on the kid sitting behind you on the bus and incessantly flicking your ear, and to flatten his nose.
Penn State’s Beaver Stadium insolence a year ago provided more than enough fuel for the motivational fire this week.
Next? The Wolverines will somehow find a way to be insulted by Rutgers’ mere existence — not an unreasonable stance, to be sure.
Indiana? Bob Knight’s ’76 Hoosiers knocked off the Wolverines in the NCAA title game, and some U-M grandfathers are still salty about it. Knight isn’t the biggest Indiana fan anymore, so he might be willing to do a pregame guest taunt in the Michigan locker room.
Ohio State? Enough said…
Winovich assured there will be no worries about a motivational dropoff following the Revenge Tour big three over the past month. Fans will be touting this crew as a Playoff team — and they might be right.
“It doesn’t matter what they say,” Winovich insisted. “Trust me. Our coaches will do a great job when we come in Monday and Tuesday, and we’ll feel like we’re the most average defense in the country. There’s no problem with feeling like we’re too confident come Tuesday.”
There will be problems for Michigan opponents in the weeks to come. It’s all personal.
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