Clenching his jaw, Michigan head football coach Sherrone Moore looked down at his playsheet, which was blank except for a crude crayon drawing of an extremely beefy Kalel Mullings and the word "SMASH" in big, red capital letters.
Stealing a glance across the field, he noticed Lincoln Riley, his USC counterpart, frantically conferring with assistants and flipping through a gargantuan binder. Trying to find something, anything, that could make a dent in the occasionally animate pile of mortar and rebar that is the 2024 Michigan football team.
Moore took a long appraisal of Riley, wunderkind offensive guru, and then glanced back down at his own playsheet. Crayon Kalel smiled up at him, happily holding a football and flashing the peace sign.
Michigan HC Sherrone Moore on beating USC with just 32 passing yards:
— Alejandro Ziga (@ByAZuniga) September 21, 2024
"I love it. It's my dream."
Taking a deep breath, Sherrone Moore now cast his gaze at the clear blue sky above Michigan Stadium, and prepared to set the sport of football back 50 years. "Yep. This is how we win."
DARE TO BE STUPID
And, uh... Michigan did! They welcomed the USC Trojans to the Big Ten by closing their eyes, windmilling their arms, and running around yelling loudly until they eventually punched Lincoln Riley in his face, 27-24.
Michigan did this without their best offensive player, tight end Colston Loveland, and despite wasting critical downs at the end of the game pretending that the forward pass is something they should still believe exists.
They got big time performances from their defensive stars (Will Johnson's side of the field should never be thrown to, ever) and discovered the joys of the offensive equivalent of slamming their heads into a brick wall until it fell over. 322 yards of offense, 290 rushing yards on 46 attempts. And that's it. That's all they did, and that's all they needed.
In all seriousness I have rarely seen a team look less prepared for a major football game than Riley's USC squad seemed against the Wolverines. Part of that, at least offensively, was compounded by half the Trojan offensive line being an absolute sieve and forcing quarterback Miller Moss to run for his life all game, but also it shouldn't have taken them nearly as long as it did to figure out how to stretch Michigan's defense in a meaningful way.
As Michigan took an early 14-0 lead on two huge touchdown runs from Mullings and Donovan Edwards, a lot of questions started going through my mind.
Like: why did it take the USC defense an entire half to figure out that Michigan both can't and won't pass the football? Makes you think! Why did USC abandon their (generally effective) running game, even after it became clear Michigan couldn't move the ball in the second half? Who knows?! Why did USC not feel the need to milk the clock to make Michigan's comeback that much harder? People are asking! Does Lincoln Riley really want "couldn't figure out a way around a Wink Martindale blitz" on his resume? Apparently!
Anyway, USC played like shit. But Michigan, pointedly, did not play like shit.
FAKE IT TIL YOU MAKE IT
Kalel Mullings is pretty obviously Michigan's best option at running back, and if he keeps turning in performances like what he did against USC, he's going to be in contention for the best running back in the conference. 159 yards on just 17 carries, especially in an offense that only trusted its quarterback to pass the ball 12 times for 32 yards, is pretty incredible.
Here's Mullings basically winning the game by himself on a last ditch touchdown drive with just a couple minutes left in regulation:
Now-official starting quarterback Alex Orji did run the ball a fair bit (as expected) but even the few attempts he did get to sling it seemed like a complete waste of time and effort. It is at least a little bit funny that he's still legitimately Michigan's best choice at QB, but before you turn up your nose at this I would remind you of two things: they won, and Ohio State was once very successful with roughly the same formula.
Tresselball had only one requirement: that everyone involved had to earnestly, fervently believe that they existed outside the established mechanical laws of college football. That you could win a lot of games by doing one thing (EXACTLY ONE THING) really well on offense, fielding a good-to-great defense, and resisting the urge to try anything else.
The downside to all of this is that Michigan is going to have to have the intestinal fortitude to be willing and able to win a lot of 17-14 type rock fights going forward, and that's not great news for a team as thin as the Wolverines are.
THREAT LEVEL
With all of that said, I don't think that this is necessarily some kind of program-defining win for the Wolverines or for their new head coach. Michigan is going to have to prove that they're willing to go all in on being the team we saw on Saturday; a team that largely ignores the forward pass, prays Kalel Mullings and Donovan Edwards can run it 30-40 times a game without getting hurt, and opposing offensive coordinators don't bait Martindale into blitzing at the worst possible times.
But if they can? The potential of that is worth a Threat Level of ELEVATED, with the caveat that suddenly the Illinois game in October seems extremely interesting. Next week, though? Well, that's Minnesota, and potentially a lot less interesting. Unless Michigan loses!
