Threat Level Contemplates an Uncertain Future for Michigan Football After a Brutal Loss to Penn State

At a certain point it's probably good to start to ask: is Michigan football still A Thing?

I mean, I know they play games. There are fans, players, coaches. Passes are thrown and tackles are made. Jim Harbaugh makes a trillion dollars in gold bullion to stand on the sidelines with his hands on his hips before wildly gesticulating at the refs about two additional seconds needing to be put back on the clock or whatever.

That all clearly happens, because every week I watch the Wolverines trudge out on the field, perform some kind of weird Ingmar Bergman-y Danse Macabre for three and a half hours, and then I write about why it was dumb. I enjoy this, because it's funny when Michigan plays like crap, but what the hell are those guys actually doing out there? To be A Thing a program has to have a point, or an identity, or... something. Watching Michigan trying to contain Trace McSorley or establish anything on offense was chaos personified, and this far into the Jim Harbaugh Experience you'd expect the Wolverines to look more like Stanford circa 2010 and less like, well, Michigan circa 2014.

This is Michigan's 15th consecutive loss to a ranked opponent on the road. Last win: at Notre Dame in 2006.

— Kyle Rowland (@KyleRowland) October 22, 2017

Yeah, man. You know when Ohio State's last win against a ranked opponent on the road was? Last year. They did it twice.

THREAT LEVEL

Okay, quick aside: Michigan had the second ranked defense according to the S&P+ rankings before their 42-13 blowout loss to Penn State. I know people love their advanced metrics (and so do I), but I've been a skeptic of S&P+ for a while now in part because a lot of what it measures seems pretty arbitrary. Which really only means that it's as fallible as I am; I've been harping about how the Michigan defense has been the saving grace of the team for weeks, and most people before this game would've agreed with ranking Michigan as one of the best defenses in the country.

But that's why the only game that matters is the most recent one. Michigan failed in its one test against an offense with a pulse so far this year, and that's also why Ohio State sitting near or at the top of S&P+ or whatever else doesn't really give me a lot of comfort for Saturday.

Anyway! The Michigan defense got trashed. McSorley was brutally effective with his legs and his arm, and the Nittany Lions racked up over 500 yards of offense against a team that hadn't allowed even 300 yards of offense to any opponent all season.

The offense was actually a little better than expected? Kind of? John O'Korn didn't look abysmal, but my prediction about Karan Higdon came to fruition (tuberition?) as it turned out he was more potato chip than savior, rushing for just 45 yards on 15 carries.

So now what happens? Michigan just lost an important game, again, to a significant conference opponent, again, and aren't really sure what they're good at, again. And truthfully, what's most likely to happen next is that the Wolverines will reel off three straight wins against the likes of Rutgers, Minnesota, and Maryland, until losing their final two against Wisconsin and Ohio State. That'll put them at 8-4 going into a bowl that neither they nor anyone else will be all that excited about, and you know what?

That sucks. I want Michigan to be at least interesting on some level. Either be really good or be really bad, but this kind of malaise is not what the Jim Harbaugh era promised me. If anyone wanted that you could've preserved Brady Hoke in formaldehyde and written a bunch of off-tackle running plays on the side of the tube in sharpie.

Until Michigan either finds an identity or at least an interesting way to lose (what I wouldn't give for a botched punt right about now), our Threat Level Advisory Committee has recommended we drop our status to LOW.