Michigan Football: Wolverines Bury The Badgers, 38-13
Michigan entered the gut-check portion of its schedule with the perfect response — an evisceration of No. 15 Wisconsin.
The Wolverines’ 38-13 home rout of the Badgers settled over The Big House crowd like melting provolone on the finest Wisconsin beef. With millions looking on and ESPN’s GameDay on hand, U-M didn’t just beat the Badgers.
The Wolverines beat them down.
“We knew coming into this game that everything was ahead of us,” junior quarterback Shea Patterson said. “We control our own destiny. It was a huge win for us tonight. It was a statement game. We came out and gave it to them. We didn’t just win. We dominated them. We came out here and made a statement.”
Michigan (6-1 overall, 4-0 Big Ten) out-gained the Badgers (4-2, 2-1), 444-283 yards. They out-rushed the team that holds the ground game more hallowed than a good gouda, 320-183. They also turned Wisconsin quarterback Alex Hornibrook’s evening into a nightmare.
Hornibrook went a miserable 7-of-20 passing, tossing a pair of interceptions, including a clincher of a pick-six early in the fourth quarter. He threw for 25 yards when the game was in doubt, before tacking on 75 more in the meaningless final moments.
In contrast, his counterpart owned the night.
Michigan junior quarterback Shea Patterson lit up the stadium and the crowd, going 14-of-21 passing for 124 yards, but masterfully commanding a quarterback running game that went wild.
Patterson rushed for 90 yards and one touchdown, busting off an 81-yarder along the way. That challenged even senior tailback Karan Higdon’s 19-carry, 105-yard, one-TD night.
As dominant efforts go, this looked like Wolverines-lambs, rather than Badgers.
“Their record is 15-1 on the road since Paul [Chryst] has been there. They just do a tremendous job coaching,” head coach Jim Harbaugh said. “Defensively, they give up 14 points on average when they’re on the road. Again, they do a tremendous job. They’re a tough, physical team, and I think our guys responded well tonight.”
Michigan whiffed on an early opportunity, driving from its own 22 down to the Wisconsin 23. The drive stalled, and redshirt sophomore placekicker Quinn Nordin shoved a 41-yard field goal attempt right, only his second miss on the season.
Soon enough, Patterson took matters into his own hands. Faking a handoff against a pinched-in Wisconsin defense, Patterson kept the ball, bolted to his left toward the eastern sideline, and raced away 81 yards to the Badgers’ 5. Only a determined sprint by Wisconsin cornerback Rachad Wildgoose kept Patterson from an 86-yard TD.
“That was surprising,” Patterson said. “I didn’t know it was going to open up that way. I kind of ran out of gas at the 5-yard line … That was an adrenaline rush. When it actually happens and there’s nobody in front of you, it’s exciting.”
That Wildgoose chase ended with Patterson knocked out of bounds, but two plays later, Higdon smashed up the middle on a two-yard touchdown. Patterson’s legs put the Wolverines on top, 7-0, just 1:27 into the second quarter, but the lightning bolt served only to ignite the Badgers.
They answered four plays later, wideout Kendrick Pryor scoring on an end-around from 33 yards out. Taylor’s 23-yard run directly preceded the touchdown sprint, capping a 71-yard drive in 2:07.
Nordin put the Wolverines back on top, banging through a 42-yard field goal with 4:12 remaining in the half. Patterson’s 29-yard toss to redshirt sophomore tight end Nick Eubanks — lonelier than a salad salesman among Badgers’ offensive linemen — set up the score.
The Wolverines then forced a potentially crushing mistake, junior cornerback David Long leaping to tip a pass that junior safety Josh Metellus picked off. Metellus raced back 31 yards with the interception, setting Michigan’s offense up at the Badgers’ 15.
Wisconsin’s defense, though, didn’t surrender a yard, forcing a pair of incompletions. That brought on Nordin, who drilled a 33-yard field goal to make it 13-7 with 3:11 left in the half.
A U-M defensive stop and 26-yard punt return by sophomore wideout Donovan Peoples-Jones gave Nordin one more first-half shot, but his 54-yard attempt hooked left as the half ended.
Michigan might have missed opportunities in the first half, but it cashed in a big one on the opening possession of the second half — with some help. Wisconsin appeared to have the Wolverines stopped on their 10-play, 75-yard touchdown drive, but a roughing-the-snapper penalty on a punt moved the chains and injected life into U-M at the Badgers’ 41.
From there, Higdon broke off a 25-yard run, and Patterson wound up finishing off the march with another deft fake and keep off the right side. He raced in from seven yards out for the TD, then gunned a two-point conversion pass to sophomore wideout Nico Collins.
Just like that, the Wolverines led, 21-7, 4:39 into the second half.
“Karan went over 90-some yards in the second half, did a great job, got some cracks, fit through them and finished with some effective runs,” Harbaugh said. “The guys up front, they were really on their assignments the entire night and very physical.”
Meanwhile, Michigan’s defense pitched a third-quarter shutout, allowing only two first downs. Through three quarters, Hornibrook managed all of 25 yards through the air.
The Wolverines then began out-Badgering the Badgers, pounding away on the ground during an 11-play, 63-yard drive to set up Nordin’s 35-yard field goal. With 11:36 remaining, the Wolverines led, 24-7, and Michigan Stadium looked like a rock concert, phone lights held aloft in celebration.
A louder one followed moments later, junior cornerback Lavert Hill hauling down a short Hornibrook toss one-handed and bolting 21 yards into the end zone. The exclamation point pick-six buried the Badgers with 9:55 left.
“We’ve been a dominant defense all year, and that’s what we do,” junior linebacker Josh Uche said. “It’s our MO.”
Redshirt freshman quarterback Dylan McCaffrey then showed Patterson isn’t the only U-M QB with some wheels. He pulled back a fake handoff, tucked the ball away and out-sprinted the entire Wisconsin defense down the eastern sideline, racing 44 yards for a touchdown to add insult to Wisconsin’s impotence.
“They had an angle on Dylan, and he was off,” Harbaugh said. “It felt like he wasn’t going to be caught.”
Wisconsin desperately scrambled up a touchdown on Hornibrook’s three-yard toss to A.J. Taylor with 3:47 left, followed by a failed two-point conversion. By then, the bus was well past warmed up.
The Wolverines, meanwhile, were rolling on.
“Every game is a statement victory,” Uche said. “It’s win or go home from here on out till the championship, so we have to win every game. We don’t listen to the public. We listen to what’s in our facilities and what our coaches tell us.”
Five Best Players Of The Game
1. Junior quarterback Shea Patterson — The added wrinkle of Patterson’s threat to run changed the game, well beyond just his 81-yard bolt. He also connected on 67 percent of his passes, didn’t turn the ball over and ran the show on a big stage brilliantly.
2. Senior tailback Karan Higdon — Higdon — with a big tip of the cap to what he calls the best offensive line in the nation — won the battle of tailbacks, with 105 yards and a touchdown compared to Wisconsin’s Jonathan Taylor's 101 yards with no TD. Enough said.
3. Junior safety Josh Metellus — Metellus paced a dominant defensive effort with five tackles and one of Michigan’s two interceptions, blunting a Badgers' drive and setting up U-M in Wisconsin territory.
4. Junior cornerback Lavert Hill — Hill’s 21-yard pick-six off Wisconsin quarterback Alex Hornibrook put the capper on an awful night for the beleaguered Badgers’ quarterback, who was Pro Football Focus' highest-rated Big Ten signal-caller after six weeks. Hill played lockdown defense on a nearly non-existent Wisconsin passing game and made Hornibrook pay when he hung one over the middle.
5. Redshirt sophomore placekicker Quinn Nordin — Yes, Nordin missed a couple of field goals, although one was a 54-yarder and a near-miss at that. He still booted three of them through, and was the difference in a six-point Michigan lead at halftime and a tie game.
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