Yeah, I watched Michigan destroy Directional U by several touchdowns on Saturday, and it was one of the most useless, uninformative experiences of my life. In a second I'll do the prerequisite rote recap of stats and significant events, but frankly those numbers and words will tell you nothing beyond the fact that for all intents and purposes, the Michigan that scored 49 this past weekend in their first win of the season is the same team that looked like garbage against Notre Dame.
For the first time in 364 days, a Michigan wide receiver scores a touchdown
— Sports Illustrated (@SInow) September 8, 2018
(via @MichiganOnBTN)pic.twitter.com/f25ZWiqwOo
"Touchdowns! To wide receivers! We've got touchdowns here!"
Michigan sticks at No. 22 in this weeks Coaches Poll.
— Aaron McMann (@AaronMcMann) September 9, 2018
"See? Nobody cares."
The Wolverines also moved up two spots in the AP Poll, but whatever. Next week they'll play SMU, an awful team that they'll smoke as they regain a modicum of national respect for no real reason before losing toooo... Nebraska? Northwestern? Maryland? Maybe! And if they do end up dropping one to any of those teams, Jim Harbaugh should consider his seat officially hot.
THREAT LEVEL
Here's what I want to see out of a hypothetically badass Michigan in a game against a mid-level MAC team: absolute annihilation in most phases of the game.
They came close while running the ball. Karan Higdon went nuts, rushing for 156 yards on just 13 carries, Chris Evans added 89 on only 10, and overall the Wolverines had 308 yards and three touchdowns on the ground. Pretty great!
Michigan's defense was also pretty great, holding Western Michigan to just 208 total yards of offense and only three points.
But these are all things that Michigan is expected to do, and in the salad days of the beginning part of their schedule, the real focus is going to remain on Shea Patterson and his performance. Which was fine. Patterson punched his time card, did his work, and went home, going 12/17 for 125 yards and three passing touchdowns.
The end result was a 49-3 win that was utterly expected, and Michigan gets no brownie points for doing what they're supposed to do.
Syracuse scored 55 points on Western Michigan two weeks ago. The Threat Level remains at GUARDED.
