Warm-ups are done. Preliminary bouts have ended. The margin for error just went from the length of your arm to the depth of your fingerprint.
Michigan emerged from its 42-21 manhandling of Maryland at 5-1 overall and 3-0 in the Big Ten, entering the three-game stretch long regarded as the triple crown of testing for Jim Harbaugh’s crew. Wisconsin and Penn State come to The Big House, sandwiched around a trip to reeling Michigan State.
Michigan players and coaches can’t look at it that way, of course. At least they can’t talk about it that way in public. They’re all about taking down Wisconsin’s Badgers, with their 500-pound, cheese-stuffed offensive linemen and their Ivan Drago-like, I must break you attitude in the run game.
The Wolverines’ job over the next month? Don’t get broken.
“We’re ready,” assured junior quarterback Shea Patterson. “We’re ready to go. We’ll enjoy this win tonight, and prepare for Wisconsin. That’s exactly what we’re going to do. We’ll have a good game plan for them. They’re a great team, and they’re going to be coming in here hungry, ready to play.
“It’s the same thing we do every week. Get in the film room tomorrow and start preparing.”
Patterson looks ready. He gunned three touchdown passes against Maryland, threw for nearly 300 yards and showed off his Homecoming Houdini, escaping a heavy rush several times to make plays.
“He has great peripheral vision, a sensation of knowing where to be in the pocket,” Harbaugh said. “He’s really good when he gets outside the pocket too, really dangerous, throwing on the run, seeing the field or running himself. It’s a real weapon.”
The Wolverines will need all the weapons they can muster, including a defense that snapped the Terrapins more thoroughly than the final stats indicate. The turtles were soup three quarters in, with 87 total yards and quarterbacks who combined for fewer passing yards than Patterson racked up in the first quarter.
Big deal. It’s Maryland.
Right. The same Maryland that took down Texas, 34-29, the Texas that just knocked off No. 7 Oklahoma.
Michigan players heard all week long about their unsatisfactory three-point win at previously 1-2 Northwestern. Then the 1-3 Wildcats went to East Lansing and kneecapped the Spartans. In other words, maybe the ho-hum tune-ups leading to significant showdowns aren’t as yawn-worthy as their earlier billing.
Here’s what we know: Michigan has played one top-10 team so far — and lost. The Wolverines are still quietly kicking themselves over that one, defensive coordinator Don Brown muttering about his crew’s tough start in South Bend, and cornerbacks coach Mike Zordich haunted by plays almost made.
What U-M has accomplished the last couple of weeks certainly isn’t nothing. Just ask the Sooners and the Spartans. But there’s no question, it’s time to shift gears.
“I feel like we’re ready,” junior linebacker Devin Bush insisted. “This was what the whole front of the schedule was about, for us to get ready for these games.”
Truly ready, against Wisconsin, means a faster start and the ability to finish. The Badgers endured their own slipup, at home against BYU, but a road win at Iowa, at night, reveals they’re ready for the fight.
Speaking of fights, anyone dismissing Michigan State out of hand does so at their team’s peril. Hate is a powerful emotion. Mark Dantonio’s crew possesses the motivation to make a Supreme Court confirmation hearing look like Thanksgiving at Mr. Rogers’ place when the Wolverines come to town.
(Sobering Historical Footnote: The last time a Michigan team went to East Lansing and won by 10 or more, it was 1997).
Prediction I: The Spartans are going into Happy Valley next week and getting smoked. That means they come back 3-3, desperate and facing the helmets they despise like no other.
However that one turns out, Michigan finally gets a bye week, before hosting Penn State. Yes, the Penn State that would be undefeated with a win over Ohio State if it hadn’t folded like a pup tent in an F-5 tornado down the stretch.
Prediction II: If Michigan wins two of the next three, it goes into Columbus on Nov. 24 a victory away from reaching its first Big Ten Championship Game in Indianapolis. Winning against the Buckeyes? Well, they’ll cross that bridge over the malodorous, bubbling, liquid fire of the Olentangy when they come to it.
To make that day meaningful as it might be, the Wolverines need to play the best football they’ve played all year, beginning in seven days. Senior tailback Karan Higdon insists they’re ready.
“The biggest thing with this team, this year, is that we’ve been preparing from the start of the season for every team to be a championship team,” Higdon said. “Every game is a championship game.”
It’s never been more true than it is right now.
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