Are the Michigan Wolverines about to finally turn the corner?

Now that we’ve had some time to digest what happened in Happy Vally this past Saturday, it wasn’t that bad of a loss for the Michigan Wolverines.

I mean, any loss in college football is tough to stomach. One single loss can ruin your season if you have aspirations of playing for a National Championship. The Michigan faithful will always say ‘this is Michigan for god sakes’ as former head coach Brady Hoke exclaimed during his time as the Michigan Wolverines head coach.

The Wolverines have looked flat out terrible at times this season. Sure, they can run the football against unranked, much less superior teams, but when it comes to Wisconsin, they were utterly embarrassed. It was a season many thought Jim Harbaugh would take a massive leap as Michigan’s head coach. It’s his fifth year, everyone on the roster is ultimately ‘his’ recruits.

All of Michigan’s ‘big’ games were at home. I use the term ‘big’ very loosely because many people, including myself, didn’t consider Wisconsin or Penn State a big game before the season. I felt the season-defining games to be Michigan State, Notre Dame, and Ohio State, all of which will be played at the Big House in Ann Arbor.

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The Badgers manhandled the Wolverines to the tune of 35-14. The best back in the country, Jonathan Taylor, had about 150 yards in just the first quarter. He was forced to leave the game for quite some time due to an injury, or he could have gone for 400. While that is a bit of an exaggeration, the way Wisconsin was running the football, as crazy as it sounds, it wasn’t out of the realm of possibility.

The Penn State game Saturday looked like it was about to be a blowout early on when PSU jumped out to a three-score lead. Rather than rolling over and playing dead like many canines often do, the Wolverines for the first time this season showed some fight.

It’s a Harbaugh led group that’s played uninspired for much of the season, but Saturday night, the Wolverines clawed back into the football game. Michigan dominated the second half after being invisible for the entire first half.

In fact, Michigan had an opportunity to tie the game late on a fourth-down play when Shea Patterson bought some time sliding in the pocket under pressure delivering a perfect ball to the endzone for Ronnie Bell, who dropped it. It’s unfortunate not only that Bell dropped the tying pass because he’s been the Wolverines’ most reliable pass-catcher all season.

Michigan wouldn’t get the football back, leaving Bell in tears and beside himself on the Michigan Wolverines sideline. Teammates greeted him, but I’m sure nothing could help the empty feeling he was left with.

Remember, Michigan was ranked 16th in the country, with Penn State at home ranked 7th. Penn State should have won the football game according to the polls and did. It sucks to lose, and trust me, no one is more frustrated with the lack of success in Ann Arbor than me, but what can we do? We just have to hope Jimmy can get it right.

Even though the game ended in a loss, it was a loss that we can take some positives from. Michigan didn’t get manhandled for an entire game like in Wisconsin. After falling behind, they found a way to fight back; they didn’t quit. For the first time this season, I was impressed with Shea Patterson throwing the football and his toughness running the ball, especially at the goal line being twisted and turned around all be it with a finger gouging his eye.

Penn State has a very respectable defense, and the Wolverines were able to explode for a season-high 417 yards. Don Brown finally started to call a zone defense behind a bunch of pressure to prevent the crossing routes that have crushed Michigan in recent years. Two vast improvements heading into the match-up with Notre Dame this weekend in Ann Arbor.

The Michigan Wolverines must have shown enough to Vegas as well. The betting line opened with Michigan favored by -2.5 over Notre Dame for Saturday’s prime time matchup. Usually, when it comes to football, the home team automatically gets 3 points. That means Vegas considers Notre Dame as the favorite by a mere half of a point.

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Perhaps the Wolverines are finally about to win a football game against a superior opponent? It would be something Jim Harbaugh has struggled to do.

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