Being a fan of Michigan football in 2024 is like stepping in poop.
First of all, no one outside of the farming industry ever thinks that they're going to actually step in poop; it's always some surprising, temporarily devastating occurrence that catches people off guard, especially if they're still experiencing a sugar high from winning a national championship or something. Michigan fans definitely should've realized that going through the subsequent offseason was like skipping through a field of cow pies, but that's not really a failure unique to them.
The second thing about stepping in poop is that it always takes much longer to get off your shoe than you think it will. It'd be one thing if you could just go "ah heck, poop!" and then kick at some grass and you're fine. Instead, it always gets stuck in the crevasses of your sole, specially designed by the good folks at Adidas for maximum grip when walking down a carpeted hallway at your office or whatever. Like a bad football team, eventually you clean things up, but not after an inordinate amount of time trying to figure out the least gross method of doing so.
And finally, even once you've successfully gotten rid of the poop, you're still convinced everything smells like poop. And maybe it does smell like poop. Maybe you missed a spot, and you're just going to be a gross poop person forever.
Or maybe you're paranoid. Maybe, even after winning a rivalry game that you absolutely had to win or the fanbase was going to explode, you still detect poopyness when none exists. But does it?!
Also there was a fight and your starting running back may or may not have stomped on a dude. We've caught Michigan at a transitional time, okay?
Fight after the Michigan State at Michigan game. There will be repercussions. Mullings looked to be heavily involved. Not good for either team#Michigan #MichiganState pic.twitter.com/jkLzRt8BGz
— CFB Saturday Slate w/ Mick N Bus (@CFB_SatSlate) October 27, 2024
THINGS DO NOT GET WORSE
What's funny to me is that last week I posited that maybe Michigan wasn't all that terrible on offense, and maybe they were starting to figure out a way forward to win a couple of games in the second half of the 2024 season.
I doubt many Michigan fans would've agreed to that in the wake of their loss to Illinois, and if I had told your average Wolverine that Sparty was going to outgain them by nearly 100 yards and hold running backs Donovan Edwards and Kalel Mullings to 42 yards on 22 carries (yes, really), they really wouldn't have agreed to that but here we are: talking about a 24-17 win over Michigan State.
Oh, and Sherrone Moore changed starting quarterbacks for the fourth time this season. Davis Warren was put back in at the last second and didn't actively try to sabotage the Wolverines by giving the football a little smooch and hand it to the closest Spartan defender, but he also wasn't good, per se. But he wasn't bad!
Michigan won by not making the mistakes that Michigan state did; no turnovers, no penalties, and a creative use of Alex Orji in the running game that paid off just enough to sustain some critical touchdown drives. The real turning point of the game come just after the half when the Wolverines, already leading 9-7, put together an 11 play, 75 yard touchdown drive that took momentum for good, sort of (we'll get to that).
Donovan Edwards with the TD PASS @UMichFootball extends its lead pic.twitter.com/rHla6D3aFX
— FOX College Football (@CFBONFOX) October 27, 2024
Donovan Edwards added that tricky touchdown pass to seal the deal, although it's really only tricky if you consider a Michigan running back an ostensibly worse passer than the Michigan quarterbacks, which... debatable.
Anyway, many Wolverine fans are firmly back on the "maybe we're not so bad after all" train, and here I am, ready to derail it.
YEAH, YOU MISSED A SPOT
Last week I cautioned against thinking that Michigan had fallen into some netherrealm where Noob Saibot bops them over the head for eternity, and this week I'm going to do the opposite of that.
Well okay. Not the exact opposite; the Wolverines are a solidly C-tier Big Ten football team with B-tier aspirations. But it's also true that Michigan State running back Nate Carter ran for almost 120 yards against a defensive line with at least three guys who will be NFL starters next year. It's also also true that Michigan's running backs were straight up awful in the first two quarters, and if quarterback Aidan Chiles doesn't turn the ball over, Sparty is leading going into halftime.
And probably my favorite sequence was near the end of the game, after the Wolverines and Spartans had traded touchdowns to make it 24-17, when Michigan had a chance to salt the game away with a field goal or even a couple of first downs.
Result? Mullings run for one yard, Mullings run for no gain, Warren incompletion, 25 yard punt. Hell yeah.
Chiles then guided Michigan State to the Wolverine 16 yard line before turning the ball over on downs, so: yeesh. An anemic Sparty team with like two decent offensive players very nearly took over a game that Michigan was trying incredibly hard to win.
That's bad! The poop is still there!
THREAT LEVEL
The one tiny kernel of an idea about football that I've managed to cobble together in this box of assorted broken Christmas ornaments that I call a brain, is that college football teams are best when they have a clear identity.
Be really, really good at just one thing consistently, and it doesn't really matter if you're only kind of okay at everything else. Because that one thing will get you over the hump at least 75% of the time.
Michigan's problem is that throughout this season, they've never been consistently good at anything. Pass defense has been an issue, and when that feels like it's contained, Carter goes for 6.2 yards a pop on the ground. Mullings is great until he's terrible. Defensive coordinator Wink Martindale calls a great game until he says screw it and throws in a zero blitz on like second down for no reason. The offense strings together three and out after three and out before inexplicably marching down the field for six. And so on.
Ohio State's problem relative to that (other than an offensive line made of gerbil bedding and that trick where you breathe on a coin and stick it to your forehead) is that they found themselves in the exact same position against Nebraska that I just mentioned the Wolverines found themselves in against Sparty: needing a drive to seal a victory, the Buckeyes went Judkins run for one yard, Judkins run for zero yards, Henderson for a loss of seven, 45 yard punt.
So who knows? Maybe last weekend was a tipping point in more ways than one. The Threat Level continues to be GUARDED.
Header photo: Rick Osentoski-Imagn Images
