Wolverine Watch: Throwback Game, With A Twist
There was a time when Michigan football physically dominated opponents. That time never seemed farther away than on a gloomy Saturday afternoon at Wisconsin’s Camp Randall Stadium.
This looked more like Michigan-Purdue, circa 1974. Only Michigan was Purdue.
Wisconsin running, crushing the U-M defense in a relentless attack. Michigan answering with turnovers, incompletions and a first-half possession time (6:57) more suited to a junior high mile clocking than 30 minutes of college football.
Ugly. Awful. Impotent.
Toss out all the frustration words available, and they applied in the Wolverines’ 35-14 loss at Camp Randall. Wisconsin did what it wanted, when it wanted.
Michigan head coach Jim Harbaugh found a few words of his own.
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Michigan tried to do something, anything. The Wolverines changed quarterbacks. They varied their defensive looks. They might have even pin-cushioned a Jonathan Taylor voodoo doll to make the Badgers’ Heisman candidate running back miss most of the second quarter with cramps.
Didn’t matter. Taylor still ran for 203 yards on 23 carries.
Michigan’s defenders assured for two weeks they welcomed playing against a “normal” offense, after facing the gimmicks of Middle Tennessee and Army the opening two weeks.
Not this one, they didn’t. They found themselves overwhelmed, over and over again.
Wisconsin took the ball after winning the toss, and why not? They were ready to roll. They went 3 for 3 on fourth-down plays in the first half alone, not even considering a punt.
The Badgers were the unstoppable force, against the jarringly movable object.
“He did a great job of seeing the hole,” senior safety Josh Metellus said of Taylor. “He’s as good as advertised. He’s a great running back, and we weren’t doing a great job of tackling, getting him down, limiting his yards after contact.”
The Badgers set the tone on a crunching, 75-yard touchdown drive to open the game. The Wolverines set their own discordant tone, moments later.
They followed a 68-yard pass play to sophomore wideout Ronnie Bell — accounting for all but 28 of Michigan’s first-half yards — with another crucial mistake.
Set up on Wisconsin’s 7-yard line, junior Ben Mason fumbled the ball away on his first carry of the season. Converted to a defensive tackle, he became U-M’s first DT to fumble inside the 10 since Will Carr in 1996 at Purdue.
In other words, if you wanted to invoke bad memories, this was your game.
All that said, it’s far from a lost season for the Wolverines. Wisconsin might be as good as they looked against U-M. Michigan might not be as bad as it looked at Camp Randall.
Consider …
• The Wolverines played largely without their best running back in freshman Zach Charbonnet. He drew two carries, after a week of rumors regarding him getting nicked up. They were partly true, Harbaugh calling him “limited” against the Badgers.
• Michigan is still working back punt returner and top wideout, junior Donovan Peoples-Jones, although he traveled and caught a touchdown pass after the game was long decided. When the game was still in doubt, he wasn’t a factor.
• Defensive coordinator Don Brown’s defense isn’t likely to face a rushing attack that good again this season.
• When U-M attacked forcefully downfield late, Wisconsin (down two safeties, via targeting) struggled to negate the Wolverines’ big receivers.
That’s cold comfort, in the wake of an avalanche. But when you’re buried alive, the alive part is a big deal.
The job for Harbaugh’s crew is simple: somehow get healthier, tougher, more sound in every way. Results-wise, it doesn’t hurt to be playing Rutgers and Illinois — two of the Big Ten’s worst — in the next three weeks.
But Michigan isn’t ready — or close to it — for a back half of the schedule that includes Penn State, Notre Dame, Maryland, Michigan State and Ohio State.
Harbaugh loves a tough football team that can run the ball. He saw one on Saturday.
It just wasn’t his own.
Asked what he wants this team’s identity to be, Harbaugh said: “To be able to run the ball, to be able to throw the ball both equally effective and efficient. Definitely little things we’ve got to do, and we’ve got to do better.”
And big things. Soon. Badger fans serenaded the Wolverines with a sing-song chant of “OVER-RATED” on multiple occasions. On this day, that point couldn’t be argued.
“It’s a gut check, for sure,” Harbaugh said. “I would say it that way. And you go back to work.”
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