On the surface, this game had the calling cards of an all-too-familiar script: missed opportunities, bad weather, field-flipping penalties, drive-killing turnovers, and another honest-to-goodness trash tornado. At some point any Michigan fan watching had to have seen a flag thrown or a ball popped into the air or a hot dog wrapper violently whipped back and forth against a sky that matches the concrete ring around the Spartan Stadium field and felt their stomach drop. And yet the goal posts in East Lansing are still standing, which means they’re going to be shifted for the next year in living rooms and bars and dining room tables across the state.

There is one unassailable fact, one thing completely immune to the shifting of said goal posts, and it’s that Michigan’s defense is really damn good. There has been a great deal of talk this week about ghosts around these parts—that talk carried into the game until about the three-minute mark in the third quarter—but the one who was apparently seeing them today was Brian Lewerke. Michigan State’s offensive line had trouble keeping Michigan’s defensive tackles from pushing through the middle, but the near-constant pressure came from the edges. Chase Winovich, Josh Uche, and Kwity Paye ate the lunch of Michigan State’s tackles; late in the third quarter, Cole Chewins decided to cut block Chase Winovich on 2nd and 10. Winovich was credited with three QB hurries on the day, Paye with one, and Uche with two sacks. My notes show about three times as many instances of QB pressure as the official stats; the presence of near constant mortal danger makes it less surprising that Lewerke was throwing seemingly everything that was targeted moderate or long out of bounds.

[Hit THE JUMP for incredible photos that I tried to put some words with]

Of course, the coverage also played a significant role in Lewerke’s throws past the chalk. Michigan recorded one PBU and zero interceptions, as Lewerke made the smart choice to wing the ball wide and live to play another down instead of forcing it into vanishingly small windows.

Michigan State’s lone points on the day came after a nearly disastrous two-drive sequence for Michigan. Leading 7-0 after halftime, Michigan fans took to Twitter to lament their missed first half opportunities within seconds of the second-half kickoff. Chase Winovich was flagged for a personal foul on the first play of the half, then Devin Bush followed suit with a personal foul of his own on the next play. The defense regained its composure and forced Lewerke into an out-of-bounds throw, an incompletion, another throw out of bounds, and a Wildcat speed option on which Winovich erased the gap the ballcarrier wanted and Paye made the stop. Even so, Michigan ceded field position at a time they could ill afford to do so.

It took three plays for that to come back to bite Michigan. A Higdon carry sans blocks lost two yards, then Shea Patterson put a ball too high for Nico Collins on the outside. A draw to Chris Evans on 3rd-and-12 ended with Raequan Williams ripping the ball out and Michigan State recovering the fumble at Michigan’s seven-yard line. Michigan State ran a variant of the now infamous Philly Special, with Lewerke receiving the snap then flipping to Scott who tossed the ball to Darrell Stewart as he jetted through the backfield and then threw to Lewerke in the end zone.

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[Bryan Fuller]

From there, it took Michigan’s offense three drives to respond. Michigan’s offense left at least seven (a missed pull by Patterson that like would have likely been a touchdown had he kept it) and possibly 14 (Donovan Peoples-Jones got open in the end zone on a second-quarter 3rd-and-3 that saw Patterson take a sack after taking too long to decide between DPJ high and McKeon low) on the field in the first half, but it only took one play for them to pull ahead in the third quarter. Patterson lined up in the shotgun on Michigan’s first snap of their 12th drive, looked right, hitched once, and delivered a perfect ball down the right sideline to Peoples-Jones, who had two steps on Tre Person upon reception; a missed attempt at a diving tackle left Peoples-Jones all alone for 42 of his 79-yard run to the house.

Michigan’s next drive also ended in a touchdown after 13 plays and 84 yards. The second play of said drive was a would-be incompletion that popped into the air only to be snagged by Zach Gentry for a fresh set of downs and a fresh perspective on Michigan’s luck of late in the rivalry. Karan Higdon kept the drive moving, as 33 of his 144 yards and six of his 19 carries helped set up an 11-yard mid-drive Patterson keep (!) on 4th-and-2. The drive ended with an excellent seal by Juwann Bushell-Beatty to open a five-yard lane for Ben Mason to paydirt; Bushell-Beatty was rolled up on after the play, and though he walked off under his own power he did not return to the game, instead being spelled by Andrew Stueber.

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[Patrick Barron]

The second stop on Michigan’s Revenge Tour went through the kinds of mechanical failures pessimists might expect before a big show, but this group recovered at a time where past teams have not. Michigan’s defense allowed 15 rushing yards and 79 passing yards, forcing State to go 0-for-12 on third down and 0-for-1 on fourth. Their offense put up 212 passing yards and 183 rushing yards on what was previously the nation’s most efficient run defense. Karan Higdon said State didn’t want to play them and again said his offensive line is the best in the nation, and Chase Winovich called State Little Brother in a postgame interview. This group talks, then they back it up.