Michigan football fandom is at war with itself.
On one side, there is the vast majority of Wolverine fans who realize and acknowledge that there is literally no point in getting unduly excited about anything they see from Michigan football until the corporeal spirit of Fielding Yost hovers over Michigan stadium and poltergeists a folding chair right into C.J. Stroud's face. These fans are correct in believing that happiness is a mirage that can only be made real by upsetting the balance of the universe, and a closer-than-it-looks 38-17 win against the Wisconsin Badgers wasn't it.
On the other, there is a smaller, wronger contingent of Michigan devotees who want to lose their minds about the 2021 edition of Harbaugh's squad, right freaking now, and their first win at Camp Randall since 2001 is exactly the excuse they were looking for. This wasn't just a pretty good victory over a bad Big Ten opponent, this was important! This meant something!
It was a massive win. A blowout win. A resounding win. A statement win. An, uh, ...erotic win.
Well, allow me to spend the next few paragraphs throwing some rock salt on a Michigan Man's Kix cereal, because Saturday wasn't any of that. And especially not that last one, gross.
THE DEFENSE
I usually start on the offensive side of the ball in Threat Level because it's easier to write and I figure that people kind of start skimming by word 300 or so, but I want to emphasize that the Badger offense that Michigan put the clamps on is essentially nonfunctional against any team with some semblance of a defensive line (and, as a side note, should serve as the Spirit of Christmas Yet to Come for the Wolverines).
It's true that Wisconsin has played three tough teams in their four game season thus far, but it is also true that their offensive line is a sieve and quarterback Graham "Possibly The Worst Quarterback In The Big Ten" Mertz was, before his injury, just as bad as he'd been against any team not named Eastern Michigan. Mertz was 8/15 for 115 yards, got sacked a billion times, and as a team the Badgers managed to rush for all of 43 yards on 32 carries.
And look, I'm not actively avoiding trying to give guys like linebacker David Ojabo credit (dude had 2.5 sacks and was Michigan's defensive leader). But it's also probably relevant that before Saturday Wisconsin was averaging just a hair above 4 yards per carry even with the 350+ yards rushing they had against EMU. They were who they are, and Michigan didn't pull back any new curtains.
THE OFFENSE
Cade McNamara is officially not good (he was an extremely pedestrian 17/28 for 197 yards, simultaneously underwhelming and still his best performance of the season so far) and Michigan isn't going to make the leap into Actual Contenderhood until Harbaugh wises up and makes J.J. McCarthy the starter.
You, an Ohio State fan, might be skeptical of this claim, but regular non-crazy football fans don't usually get too invested in changing starting quarterbacks on an undefeated team. In this case your spider-infested lizard brain is correct; McCarthy can wing it in a way that McNamara is incapable of, a necessary quality as teams start to sell out to stop Michigan's rushing attack.
Which Wisconsin did! The Badgers had the nation's best rushing defense before the game, and they continued to have the nation's best rushing defense after the game. Blake Corum and Hassan Haskins combined for 35 carries and 93 yards, also known as the "Lydell Special." This is an eminently stoppable running attack, and the Wolverines scored mainly on the back of Wisconsin incompetence and turnovers, which isn't a crime or anything but also not something I'm particularly impressed by.
THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW (2004)
I'm not sure that I could call myself a Roland Emmerich "fan," but I think I'd call myself a Roland Emmerich "appreciator" in that I enjoy that there's a dude in Hollywood devoted to making his entire oeuvre about planet Earth getting totally wrecked. He's done other movies too (The Patriot, Stonewall, White House Down, 10,000 BC, etc.) but The Day After Tomorrow holds a special place in my heart because among his lengthy list of disaster movies, it is the only one where a Quaid brother goes to extreme lengths to save his family. Wait, no. It isn't! Shit!
Anyway, star Dennis Quaid is basically budget Harrison Ford without the charm, but if you can deal with his schtick The Day After Tomorrow has great special effects and a pretty funny wolf chase scene. I'm a sucker for movies set in the cold and snow, and oh, I just found this out: apparently it's based on a book by legendary radio conspiracy theorist Art Bell?!? Sign me the hell up.
THREAT LEVEL
I promised that I would, so we'll bump this thing up to a relatively tepid ELEVATED, an honor befitting a Wolverine squad that's undefeated as the calendar flips to October. But I need to reiterate that the Wisconsin win wasn't nearly the kind of resume builder that Michigan fans might've hoped it would be at the beginning of the season. Instead, they might have to wait until Halloween and a tilt against Sparty to truly prove themselves. But next up is a Nebraska squad filled with apple vinegar and ethanol, and we'll see how that goes (probably not that different from this week).
