It’s hard to believe the muff heard ’round the college football world was a month ago. Michigan, then the team that lost with four of a kind Kings that day, now suddenly keeps winning with a pair of 10s, at best.
Most are probably surprised Michigan is here … an Ohio State win at home over Michigan State from controlling their own destiny to a Big Ten championship ticket in Jim Harbaugh’s first season at head coach after an exhausting 48-41 win over continually self-immolating Indiana.
In ways, Michigan is doing it with smoke and mirrors, several of which were shattered by Indiana running back Jordan Howard, who rumbled for 239 yards, that number alone being almost three times what the Wolverines had given up as a team on average this season. That mark was third best in the nation.
Surely, missing DT Ryan Glasgow hurt, but at one point, the Hoosiers ran the ball 15 consecutive times and managed to roll up two touchdowns and were just over two yards from a third. Indiana and their overpowering offensive line basically spent the entire second half saying: we’re going to run the ball down your throat, and you’re going to sit there and watch us do it.
Against statistically, one of the nation’s most stout defenses, the Hoosiers punted all of twice.
This comes two weeks after outlasting Minnesota on the road after a review pulled a touchdown back on the 1-yard-line and the Wolverines stood tall with a little help from Minnesota tripping over their own clock management shoe laces.
This was a tale of two programs in distinctly different places. IU rolled up Michigan on a day when probably 35 percent of their home crowd was in the road maize and blue. You sort of knew they were there to stay after Michigan went up 21-9 with just under 5 minutes left in the second quarter.
IU bolted right down the field with a touchdown, en route to what would be an 8-point halftime deficit. IU just couldn’t help themselves, in the end. Sometimes, you’re snake bitten because you’re snake bitten. Sometimes, you poke the snake with a stick.
Unless IU squeezes out two road wins to close the season (certainly possible), the Kevin Wilson tenure will very possibly be earmarked by sketchy defense and almost-upsets.
To wit, the Hoosiers have not defeated a ranked team at home since 2006.
Part of that was because they went away from the Jordan Howard Express the last two plays. One was a designed run by quarterback Nate Sudfeld. The second a game-ending pass to crestfallen Mitchell Paige as the ball hit the turf and Michigan half-celebrated.
Why Howard doesn’t get one of those shots to bring it home is beyond thought. It can’t be a simple, “we saw the way they were lining up.” UM had spent the better part of the day lining up knowing the ball was going to Howard and being powerless to stop it.
Michigan, on the other hand, has figured out ways to win after figuring out the most impossible way to lose. It won’t be a highlight reel play, but that same punter that dropped the ball against Michigan State may have saved the game for the Wolverines.
Earlier in the game, a low snap doomed a 42-yard field goal as Blake O’Neill was unable to wrap it up in time for Kenny Allen to kick it cleanly. The extra point to tie it and send it into overtime was a badly snapped ball again, in the same vein. O’Neill corralled it just in time to get a boot for Allen, who narrowly put the Wolverines into overtime.
No one will remember that play, but he was, in no small part, a hero here.
All is not gumdrops and smiles though for Michigan. They’ve regressed as the season has gone on, a once dominating defense bludgeoned by Minnesota and now IU. The tackling has gotten sloppier. The edge setting has been spotty. The running game has not been as road grating.
The passing game has been markedly better, specifically Jake Rudock’s decision making and deep ball throwing. Jehu Chesson has been the primary beneficiary, going for 208 and four scores today including one with two seconds left to help send it to OT.
Still, the Wolverines’ players, all of whom came to Michigan to be the hunted late in the season, find themselves for the first time actually in that position.
They’ll stay on the road for another senior day, this one in decidedly more raucous Happy Valley against Penn State. If they’ve learned how to win over these last three weeks, now is where it would have to pay off. Michigan isn’t getting better on a weekly basis. Maybe it’s pressure. Maybe it’s being banged up. Maybe it’s some of both.
And so it goes … two programs at polar opposite ends of the spectrum, one playing too well to lose but still doing it, the other playing too poor to win but finding a way on one singular set of downs.
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