Maybe Threat Level should upgrade to a biweekly column (no, don't) because at this point every New Thing that comes out about the Michigan sign-stealing scandal has been replaced within 48-72 hours with a dumber, funnier New Thing that makes it difficult to summarize in a 700 word missive every Monday.
Like, the jokes about Connor Stalions allegedly running a used vacuum chop shop out of his Ann Arbor residence and Blake Corum's name appearing on business records with Stalions essentially write themselves (something something Michigan's running game sucking something whatever I'll workshop it later), but then a few days later Michigan belatedly responds to the Big Ten with the whiniest Dear John letter they could muster, Tony Petitti and the Big Ten responds to that by suspending Harbaugh for three games (kind of), and then Michigan files for a temporary restraining order to prevent the punishment from happening, and then it turns out that the squabbles of one unruly football program and its parent institution isn't worth getting out of bed early on a weekend to local judges, so the whole thing gets pushed back another week.
The end result of all of this drama was Jim Harbaugh getting waylaid on the tarmac for at least the Penn State game, Michigan spending the better part of a week feeling sorrier for themselves than any other program in the history of college football, and James Franklin doing absolutely jack shit to figure out how to exploit any of this.
THE GAME
For one half, Michigan's 24-15 win against the Nittany Lions was something resembling football. Quarterbacks attempted to pass, there was some weird/stupid risk-taking on the part of Penn State, Donovan Edwards actually had some productive running plays, and so was sort of fun and interesting to watch! With Michigan taking the lead 14-9 going into the locker rooms, you'd be forgiven if you were at least a little excited about the prospect of another 30 minutes of two pretty evenly matched teams trying to see who could go over the top first.
And everyone fell over the event horizon and collapsed Happy Valley into a dense, inescapable football singularity.
J.J. McCarthy attempted a pass once, maybe twice (it's hard to tell, I blacked out around the time the Wolverines went mega jumbo and brought in two tight ends) in the second half against Penn State, as interim coach and offensive coordinator Sherrone Moore opted instead to run the ball over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over until causality kicked in and Blake Corum (26 carries, 145 yards) eventually scored a touchdown in the fourth quarter to salt away the game.
There's a certain segment of Michigan fandom who put "Manball Aficionado" on their LinkedIn bio and think that what Moore did was badass, but these people are dumb and wrong. During the most critical part of the game, the Wolverines sandwiched three-and-outs between a drive that only managed a single first down because of a penalty. My favorite sequence was Corum rushing for zero yards, eight yards, and then zero yards before a spasm of sanity necessitated a 40 yard punt.
An opposing team with even an average offense might've put them on their heels. Penn State does not possess that.
James Franklin just fired offensive coordinator Mike Yurcich, which I'm sure is of great relief to a fanbase that's watched Franklin compile a 1-12 record against top 10 teams in his time at Penn State. On Saturday, quarterback Drew Allar was lost in the weeds again (10/22 for 70 yards), but it never felt like Michigan was particularly dominant on defense as much as it seemed as if the Nittany Lions were a team made up of rugby players who stayed up the previous night trying to learn the rules of football for the first time.
Franklin and company made one baffling choice after another, including going for it on a critical fourth down on their own half of the field when a punt would've kept them in the game, in an exact copy of the same dumbass decision they made against Ohio State. They lost to Michigan because of utterly inept coaching, not because of particularly noticeable talent disparity, and that has got to hurt.
CONNOR STALIONS DRAMATIC REENACTMENT OF THE WEEK
THREAT LEVEL
Moore never asked McCarthy to throw the ball in the second half largely because he saw what the Penn State defensive ends were doing to his offensive tackles. The charitable interpretation of this realization is that Moore was confident that his defense had Penn State on lockdown and didn't have to worry about scoring points, but I'm not that nice: despite Franklin's utter incompetence, Michigan's lead in the second half would've benefitted more from actual points scored, not betting that the other team would fail too.
In my opinion, Moore never pressed the issue because for the first time all season, the Wolverines were playing a team that could make McCarthy pay dearly for scrambling out of the pocket. That this freaked Michigan out so much that they completely abandoned the pass for an entire half of football indicates that, despite whatever goofy performative stuff the Wolverines did after the game, there are some cracks in that aura of invincibility that one of the teams left on their schedule might be able to exploit.
But hey: it's a big time road win against a top 10 opponent. The Wolverines weren't dominant, but I'm sure dumb-as-rocks 24-15 slugfests are exactly the kind of resume builder needed to convince NBC or whoever to give them the equivalent of the $60 million payout they'll sacrifice once they go independent, and then we'll all be sorry!
The Threat Level continues to be SEVERE, but given how the last month has played out, the next two weeks might be even more ridiculous. We'll see if the meter can handle it.
