Wisconsin 35, Michigan 14
That felt like a game of a bygone era, and not the one Jim Harbaugh constantly evokes. Michigan lost to Wisconsin in a start-to-finish debacle that'll shake even the most steadfast optimist's confidence in the program, at the very least until they can play on a big stage without getting stunted on.
Nothing went right. For the third straight game, Michigan lost a fumble on their opening drive, this time Ben Mason deep in Badger territory. There was no running game. Dylan McCaffrey replaced an ineffective Shea Patterson at quarterback until getting knocked out of the game by a dirty hit to the head. Wisconsin back Jonathan Taylor hit the century mark before the first quarter ended. Their quarterback, Jack Coan, completed 13 of his 16 pass attempts.
I’m gonna cry after the halftime show #BigNoonKickoff
— Charles Woodson (@CharlesWoodson) September 21, 2019
The rumored walking wounded, Donovan Peoples-Jones and Zach Charbonnet, suited up but made little impact until well into garbage time. Even on the shutout-breaking touchdown, Sean McKeon appeared to hurt his knee after landing in the end zone. A desperation Wolverine touchdown was overturned just before yet another lost fumble.
This was coming off a bye week.
— Ace Anbender (@AceAnbender) September 21, 2019
Okay, I slightly overstated things. The onside kick was lovely, even if it failed to provide the final score with an unearned veneer of respectability. Patterson's pitch to Jon Runyan Jr. provided a much-needed moment of levity. The late eff-it bombs to Nico Collins and Tarik Black provided a blueprint for what this offense should have been doing all along, for the love of all things sacred and holy.
Sorry.
203 yards on 23 carries. [Bryan Fuller]
A disaster of this magnitude brings with it major questions, the most pressing of which is: where is the offense we were promised in the offseason? And there are so many others. How do we distribute the blame for the offense's performance? When (if?) both quarterbacks are healthy, who starts? What the hell happened to the offensive line? What defensive alignment can be effective with this set of personnel? What the hell happened to those guys, too?
When does this stop? If it doesn't, when do we ask The Big Question that it's still too soon to ask no matter what's said on sports talk radio this week?
I certainly don't have the answers. Jim Harbaugh, Josh Gattis, and Don Brown are going to need to come up with some.
[Hit THE JUMP for the box score.]
September 21st, 2019 at 9:05 PM ^
Will Hart was good.....we out punted WS!
September 21st, 2019 at 9:29 PM ^
No one slept with recruits this weekend. In retro ... very sick
September 21st, 2019 at 9:15 PM ^
I'm just confused with this whole thing.
September 21st, 2019 at 9:27 PM ^
The problem is obvious. We got served up the Michigan shell game. Live for the tailgate ... the future is miserable. And expensive.
September 21st, 2019 at 10:05 PM ^
This was Pickett’s Charge. Thanks for the memories, Coach.
September 21st, 2019 at 10:45 PM ^
There are clear signs of a poorly coached team - misalignments, poor run fits, basic OL misses, penalties and turnovers. It really is shocking to see the deterioration since 2016. Some fantastic talent is underutilized (Ruiz, Collins, DPJ, Hill) and they look disorganized frequently.
Only Warde and other insiders can answer the fundamental question: is Harbaugh building a stronger program? It doesn’t look like it, and Harbaugh himself seems muted. The intense, overt, edgy, hyper-competitive coach from 2015 has disappeared. Likewise, the team is missing the intensity and edge to win tough games.
September 21st, 2019 at 11:16 PM ^
Can the mute be taken off? Is the NCAA to blame?
Will this end when Delany retires with his fortune... that Michigan helped him build?
September 22nd, 2019 at 2:15 PM ^
Harbaugh’s mistake seems to be handing over the keys to Gattis. Why would you want your team to lean an entirely new play book? We had a seasoned offense. Collaborate with Gattis and add a few wrinkles. Gattis should be leaning from Harbaugh not vice versa. Bring on a pro-style expert and not a spread offense newbie and maybe we’d be in better shape.
September 21st, 2019 at 11:31 PM ^
Oline is pathetic. How do these guys get all big ten honors?
September 22nd, 2019 at 12:27 AM ^
And PFF is often a head scratcher.
September 21st, 2019 at 11:34 PM ^
This entire article is unfortunately total baloney. Michigan has not succeeded under Harbaugh, at least the way we define success. There is no amount of hemming, hawing, or rationalizing that will change that. It is time for a change. Thanks for your contribution, and goodbye Jim. I want to see Michigan post a head coaching position with no greater than a 400k starting salary. We need people who are hungry, not complacent. If 400k and the UM head coaching job is not enough for you, don't bother to apply!
September 21st, 2019 at 11:39 PM ^
The more I think about it... this is why I can't quit on this team, recognizing that everyone has to reach their own decisions for their own reasons.
It could have turned the momentum, instead, the ref call on DPJ was just such weak sauce BS. I guarantee, Bama, Clemson, whoever, OSU, whatever, Georgia, ND, would not have been penalized. Team has to persevere and overcome such BS, I know but who else in CFB would be called and a drive killed, for that?
Then McCaf is headhunted and our team is evidently schooled not to respond. NCAA has taken us out of the game. At this point F NCAA and F everything, let's get down and dirty if we need to!
September 22nd, 2019 at 8:11 AM ^
The DPJ penalty was 15 yards of field position. It was also pass interference on the play and Michigan got the ball 1st and 10. Not a lot of drives are killed by awarding a 1st down.
And that was the good part of your post.
September 22nd, 2019 at 12:35 PM ^
Logged back in to say , your critique of my post is more than fair.
September 22nd, 2019 at 11:28 PM ^
In the 2015 College Football Semifinals, Alabama had a player penalized 15 yards for unsportsmanlike behavior for standing over the kick returner after he tackled him. Up to that point, everything had been going Alabama's way, the announcers were wondering aloud if it was going to be a blowout. Ohio State sprang to life and scored on the ensuing drive.
We have no way of knowing for sure, but after that game, there were Ohio State fans who pointed to that play as the turning point and thought they probably would have lost had it not been called.
Whether that's true or not, you're way off base claiming that those top teams are immune from calls like that.
September 22nd, 2019 at 12:16 AM ^
Michigan got paved. It was ballgame at halftime. IMO, this was the most thorough domination in my 33 years of watching Michigan football. At least in the OSU game last season we had a fighting chance coming into the third quarter. In this game we had no answers to anything Wisconsin was doing. We were lucky Taylor went out for the time he did, otherwise he would've had 300 yards rushing. Embarrassing.
DCaff's head was nearly taken off on a vicious target. I really thought the guys would respond with some spirited play as a sort of payback for that shit. Nope. They were as flat as ever. I hate the lack of emotion. I didn't like DPJ's unsportsmanlike penalty but I appreciated his fire and attitude. Devin Bush had it. Winovich had it. Unfortunately not many on this year's team have it. The passion, heart and GRIT appear to be gone and it's really concerning.
September 22nd, 2019 at 7:29 AM ^
Don't forget that this lack of passion on display now is inseparable from the passion displayed by the numerous departures from the program between this season and last.
This program evokes passion, unfortunately it is the type that sends players elsewhere.
September 22nd, 2019 at 12:22 AM ^
Very well put....where does this team go from here is the true evaluator of our coaching staff....
September 22nd, 2019 at 8:34 AM ^
This looked eerily similar to a Hoke team loss. Even the first play on offense that gained about 60 to Bell was a broken play. Follow that up with a timeout because the play clock was about to run out. Then a Patterson overthrow on sure TD, then a fumble.
This encapsulates pretty much the offense. There is no plan. The "slow huddle" no huddle offense that still snaps ball with under 5 on play clock basically just makes them look completely confused. I feel like every play, players are looking perplexed at sideline waiting for call, then they snap the ball with half the players not really knowing what the plan is. Just look completely tentative.
When you run a no-huddle the idea is you confuse the defense because of the speed/efficiancy at which you are calling plays. Instead, the defense has the advantage because they are still snapping the ball with 2 or 3 seconds on the play clock so our players are just as confused.
It is amazing to me the coaches can feel comfortable walking into the game with that plan. Behind closed doors the players have to be thinking "WTF is going on here?"
September 22nd, 2019 at 9:38 AM ^
Thanks, Ace for the commentary. You ended it with many more questions than answers. I too have many more questions about this team's performance in 2019 and where it's headed.
Can this team recover vs Rutgers and blow them out? We shall see.
September 22nd, 2019 at 10:41 AM ^
Well, they’re way better than the 2008 team.
September 22nd, 2019 at 10:42 AM ^
Are they?
September 22nd, 2019 at 11:03 AM ^
I remember when Harbaugh was hired and someone commented that he would wear his welcome out in Ann Arbor by year 5. Well, it’s year 5 and let’s see what has happened.
1- lots of media attention from climbing up trees, recruit sleepovers, and jabbing at Urban Meyer after he retires of course.
2- A nice fabric softener commercial so his khakis stay soft.
3- Revolving door for coaches and coordinators.
4- Luxury European vacations each spring. Where are we going this Spring?
5- 0-5 against OSU. Go ahead and count this year
6- Players leaving. There will be more this Spring.
Have I left anything out?
September 22nd, 2019 at 1:10 PM ^
I'm afraid that this program has developed a culture of losing, similar to the Lions. You can change the faces, but the culture gets passed on like a contagious disease and it only takes a complete tear down to get a resolution.
September 22nd, 2019 at 1:59 PM ^
Can we all agree the spread is not a Michigan thing. Let’s drop this experiment before we end up struggling to go 6-6. We like pro style man-ball. Good RB’s, FB’s and TE’s. Ball control, winning the time of possession battle. The spread sucks with short drives even if you score and a fatigued defense. Harbaugh wasn’t brought here to run the spread. He fell into the trap our old AD Martin fell into, namely that we need to run the spread to beat OSU because that’s what they run. That’s BS. Pro style saves your QB from injuries. At this rate we’ll be lucky to have Joe Milton healthy for “The Game”
September 22nd, 2019 at 3:01 PM ^
I do find it odd that Harbaugh's response to last year's shellacking by OSU was to revamp the offense rather than the exposed defense.
Harbaugh's offense is perfectly fine. The only tinkering they needed to do was throw more to the big 3 wide-outs and less to the tight ends.
September 22nd, 2019 at 4:47 PM ^
What spread? It’s not read option, it’s not air raid. Hard to even classify it let alone change it.
Why would we wish for man ball with our running back situation?
i’d opt for the offense that Lloyd Carr ironically ran in his last game as Michigan’s coach. But shit, I can’t believe they’ll do anything but dither.
Better yet, ask the kids what they want to run, the coaches clearly have no idea what to do.
September 22nd, 2019 at 6:00 PM ^
I don't know why this is yet to be talked about, but you need a running qb to run an effective spread. Shea and Dylan are not built to be running qbs.
September 22nd, 2019 at 7:08 PM ^
We haven't placed a RB in the NFL since Hart and he had an eh NFL career as more of a specialty back. Compare that to sParty, Wisky, psu, and ohio in the last few years.
September 22nd, 2019 at 11:15 PM ^
There is no statistically significant correlation between running QBs and injuries. They get injured at the same rate as pro-style QBs, both in college and in the pros. (Not that it matters, but the not-statistically significant correlation is that running QBs get injured less often, not more often, which frankly I don't have any trouble believing: dropping back to pass and being blind-sided seems way more scary to me than seeing everything in front of you and being able to choose whether to slide, dive, run out of bounds, etc.)
September 22nd, 2019 at 3:34 PM ^
I found myself wishing for the lightning that was forecasted.
September 22nd, 2019 at 9:33 PM ^
He has got to go!
All this other crap being said is pointless.
He will never get it done a UofM!
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