actual reporting

Jim Harbaugh answered questions from reporters Friday morning
[Fuller]

ATLANTA — The thing about bowl games is that you tend to forget there’s a football game at the end of the week. And once you remember, you tend to struggle trying to pin meaning to it.

 

There are only so many questions and so many storylines after a month without football with a fairly meaningless game as the light at the end of the tunnel. That leads to scenes like Friday morning — Jim Harbaugh and Dan Mullen standing in front of a lavish backdrop with Peach Bowl logos plastered all over the room, some helmets in front of them, a moderator to their left.

 

The press conference was, for lack of a better term, a sham.

 

[After THE JUMP: column]

Shea Patterson will return to Michigan for his senior season
[Fuller]

 ATLANTA — It’s a little past 8 a.m. and Shea Patterson is animated.

 

The topic is a Family Feud-style game Michigan played against Florida last night — one of those promotional things through the Peach Bowl — and Patterson is as excited as he’s been in an interview all year.

 

“Man, it just — it came outta nowhere,” he says. “It came, literally outta nowhere. ... I got panicked. We had four guys left and they had one. And I thought all three — two of them were facing one way and I thought Quinn Rothman was facing that way, too. So I turn him around real quick.

 

“Next thing I know, the dude’s like, ‘Alright kids, round three.’ I’m facing the other way. I’m like, ‘Ok, I’m just gonna take one for the team right here. I’m gonna lose.’ And all three of them go down. And I’m like, ‘Man. I guess I’ll be in this position.’ ”

 

He’s sitting at a table in a hotel ballroom, fielding questions and a looking a little less miserable than he should after waking up at 7:42 and coming straight here. Patterson has cultivated a reputation this season as someone who stays quiet around media — both literally and figuratively. Right now though, this doesn’t seem to be a veneer of amiability. He looks, in a word, comfortable, and given the topic of the day, that fits.

 

[After THE JUMP: some words]

Cesar Ruiz looks excited. Probably because he is excited.
[Upchurch]

By the time Lavert Hill took a one-handed interception into the end zone, ending Wisconsin in every way that didn’t involve a clock hitting zero, every question you had about Michigan coming into a game of this magnitude had already been answered.