Wolverine Watch: The Horror Show Unfolds
Devastating. Horrific. Unimaginable. Michigan’s worst nightmare came shockingly true in the Nightmare Off Farm Lane.
The Wolverines killed off the Spartans, time after time, just like in the horror movies. But the monsters kept bursting through the sod at Spartan Stadium, an eyeball hanging down onto a cheek, grinning wickedly.
In the end, Michigan left the door open, just a crack, even after building a 30-14 lead. MSU rammed a machete through, pried the door open and proceeded to cut U-M’s heart out on Halloween weekend, 37-33.
There have been some crushing games play out for the Wolverines on MSU’s shock-ridden soil. But this one brought back echoes of Spartan Bob in sheer emotional upheaval. Twenty years from now, it will be remembered, and reviled by anyone in maize and blue.
“This one stings, for sure, but we’ve got to be able to bounce back,” redshirt freshman quarterback Cade McNamara said afterward. “We can’t let this game define our season.”
He’s right, of course. At 7-1, 4-1 in the Big Ten, nothing is off the table for Michigan. But 8-0, 5-0, would have kept them in control of everything.
And 8-0, 5-0 is precisely what they ought to be.
Don’t think so? Try these numbers. McNamara went 28-of-44 passing for 383 yards and two touchdowns. He dominated at times, in arguably his best performance in a Michigan uniform, given the opponent, the setting and the stakes.
Anyone wanting to revisit the argument over whether freshman QB J.J. McCarthy should be running the team right now needs to zip it and pump the brakes. McCarthy fumbled twice in the closing moments, and lost one was the one MSU put in the end zone to win the game.
That’s not a shot at the rookie — just facts. He’s going to be a fabulous quarterback for the Wolverines down the road. But McNamara was the man for the moment, and Jim Harbaugh seemed to indicate he was unavailable — “He was working through something …” — when McCarthy and freshman running back Blake Corum let a late exchange tumble to the turf at the U-M 41, sharpening the final dagger.
Even that shouldn’t have made the difference. When you out-gain an opponent in their house 552-395, out-pass them 406-196, play to a draw in the turnover battle, avoid any sacks and run 82 offensive plays to 66 by the opposition, you win. Period.
Only the Wolverines didn’t.
“We had the momentum, things were going our way,” junior defensive end Aidan Hutchinson said. “We just couldn’t capitalize, completely, on that momentum like we’d like to.”
Instead, when they built that daunting 30-14 edge with 6:47 left in the third quarter, they didn’t get out of the haunted house. They hid behind the chain saws.
Then came the unkindest cuts of all.
Two MSU touchdowns, both followed by two-point conversions, knotted things up with 12:29 to play, and the howling horde in Spartan Stadium could sense a kill coming.
MSU tailback Kenneth Walker III wielded the biggest Grim Reaper scythe, cutting through U-M’s defense for 197 yards and a shocking five touchdowns on the ground.
The Wolverines fought back with the redshirt junior placekicker Jake Moody’s go-ahead field goal with 9:20 left, but Michigan’s only lost fumble wound up sealing the deal.
It shouldn’t have, given two remaining U-M drives into MSU territory. But one ended when sophomore wideout Cornelius Johnson got raked by an MSU defender on a fourth-down pass, without a whistle.
“That last play, I thought it was a P.I. [pass interference], honestly,” McNamara said. “We had a quick-game concept called. The guy that I’m reading flew to the flat. He actually just hit C.J., and I was throwing to C.J., so I don’t know how that wasn’t called.”
It capped a spooky pattern on a five-couch-alarm day in East Lansing. As it was, the replay official re-ran nearly everything but the coin toss, and there was no two-way street. He rehabbed MSU fortunes more than drug clinics tidied up Charlie Sheen.
Among the overturns: a Hutchinson touchdown on an MSU fumble in its own end zone, an MSU starting cornerback resurrected from a targeting call and a chains-moving catch. The clutch-and-grab on Johnson? It never even made it to the replay official, who thus couldn’t ignore it.
Harbaugh stayed mum afterward, saying he’d spoken his mind on the field. Just as well. Under a reworked contract, he didn’t need a $10,000 hit to the wallet.
But Michigan surely didn’t need a loss. And it shouldn’t have absorbed one. All but forgotten in the end was an unbelievable afternoon by East Lansing native Andrel Anthony, a freshman receiver who made six catches for 155 yards and two touchdowns.
Anthony’s 93-yarder right out of the gate shocked the Spartans, and Anthony enjoyed catching company, junior tight end Erick All snagging 10 receptions for 98 yards.
And for all the home cadaver cooking, the Wolverines didn’t help themselves any. Corum dropped a swing pass that might have gone for a touchdown. Anthony himself drew a holding call that likely turned a touchdown into a field goal.
And Michigan’s defense found itself in too much of a Hitchcockian Frenzy, scrambling to get set on defensive personnel switches.
“That’s fair to say,” Hutchinson said, when asked if late substitutions posed a problem. “They got two touchdowns off of it, so that’s an area where we have to improve.”
All isn’t lost, but this one is lost. They’ll never forget what one Michigan-connected observer described as “the most winnable game I’ve ever seen them lose.”
That says it all. Stings? Oh yeah. Like a running chainsaw to the shins.
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