STATE COLLEGE, Pa.—For Michigan, an unprecedented week ended with a football game that was actually quite precedented in the end.
Michigan beat Penn State 24–15, the third time in a row the Wolverines have done so. For the Nittany Lions, it seems like the millionth time in a row that they have lost a game to a Big Ten East rival in this type of situation: falling short with massive hype and the eyes of the college football world watching.
The maize and blue woke up today not knowing who would be their head coach as the Jim Harbaugh saga rages on. The Big Ten suspended Harbaugh for the rest of the regular season less than 24 hours before kickoff; whether that suspension will stick will be decided in a court hearing on Friday. A legal Hail Mary in the form of a temporary restraining order fell short, and Michigan found out after they arrived at Beaver Stadium that offensive line coach and offensive coordinator Sherrone Moore would be acting head coach for the second time this season. But this was not Bowling Green, this was Penn State … and this wasn’t a self-imposed suspension, it was—as far as Michigan is concerned—one onerously imposed by a conference commissioner who has overreached. When it was over, Moore was fiery on the field with tears streaming down his face, hugging multiple of his offensive linemen and soaking in his second win as a head coach.
“I think it was just built up, just thinking about our players and how hard they’ve worked through all this craziness and all the situations that are going on—how hard they have worked and the realization coming to fruition and watching it come to fruition against a great football team,” Moore said while sporting a “Michigan vs. Everybody” t-shirt. “That football team is really good … they’re as elite as they come. For us to come in this environment to come in here and win was huge.”
If that shirt wasn’t already Michigan’s ethos, it most certainly is now. You may think Moore was crying crocodile tears, and you may roll your eyes at Michigan’s dramatic media statements and legal threats, but a consistent theme with high-level athletes is manufacturing adversity, whether it’s valid in the eyes of the viewing public or not. Michael Jordan wasn’t actually cut from his high school basketball team. No rational person would have picked last year’s Georgia’s team to go 7-5. But to keep stoking the fire of competition at a high level, slights the size of mole hills are turned into mountains.
For Michigan, the source of this entire sign stealing scandal was one of their own—putting aside the debate about Harbaugh’s culpability—but do you really think the football team is having some nuanced debate about what Harbaugh knew and when he knew it in team meetings?
They used the common catch-all term adversity to rev themselves up to go play their biggest game of the year so far. Then, the Big Ten handed the Wolverines a steaming plate of motivation on a silver platter the moment the they touched down in State College. It’s not why they won, but it certainly didn’t hurt. Teams have edges; you hate it if you’re not a Michigan fan, and you love it if you are.
With multiple members of the team posting “bet” in unison, you can see how they churned anger into fuel before the game, and lived out the embodiment of Harbaugh football in how they bludgeoned Penn State during it.
“Obviously, the news and everything that happened, it pissed off a lot of guys,” offensive lineman Trevor Keegan said. “We didn’t want to dwell on it, so it was kinda just joking around at dinner like should we [post] it? Yeah sure, it was nothing out of the ordinary, it was just to get our minds off of what was actually going on, so it was pretty cool.”
According to ESPN stats and info, Michigan ran the ball on its last 30 plays of the game before two game-ending kneeldowns. It’s Michigan’s longest such streak of consecutive rushing attempts over the last 20 seasons, and the longest streak by a non-service academy since 2018. Blake Corum wore the proof on his face after the game, which looked more like that of a prizefighter after 12 rounds than a running back. It was a fitting tribute to Harbaugh, who players Facetimed from the locker room after the game.
Richard Johnson/Sports Illustrated
Moore referred to it as a playoff game in the end, and that, more than anything crystalizes where Michigan and Penn State are. The Wolverines have it all to play for, and the Nittany Lions do not—at least not enough to satiate a fanbase that so desperately wants to claw out of third place in its division. These programs remain in the same state. Penn State performs right up until the moment the heat turns up, and Michigan is one of the flames that cooks them. Consider how this one effectively ended. A fourth-and-ball game play in retrospect given what came after it:
Michigan played man coverage and a ball fell haplessly to the turf. Rewind the clock two years ago in this same stadium and the situation was shockingly similar:
Fourth down, man coverage and a dud. Today, Michigan scored a touchdown after that to make it a two-possession game and put it out of reach. Two years ago, they never gave the ball back and kneeled out a victory. The result, frustratingly, is the same for Penn State. The main difference? Who wasn’t on the sideline for this one.
