Threat Level Suddenly Finds Itself on the Wrong Side of Schadenfreude As Michigan Takes Care of Business

By Johnny Ginter on November 6, 2017 at 7:25 pm
Michigan running back Karan Higdon
© Raj Mehta-USA TODAY Sports
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It was wet in Ann Arbor on Saturday night. I watched approximately 2% of Michigan's 33-10 victory against Minnesota, (you know... because I was pissed) so I didn't get to enjoy a truly gross slogfest between one team that's kinda bad and one team that might finally be kinda good.

Also, dammit, this is awesome. Partly because it's not Neil "stab myself in the eyes with unsharpened pencils" Diamond.

This was probably a little bit of a catharsis game for the Wolverines as they were able to beat a team they absolutely should've beaten. No, their quarterback isn't great, but he's not going to be outright terrible (mostly because he's not going to be asked to do much for the rest of the season), and as long as an emerging running game can look cool and the defense can look competent, Michigan fans are cool with it.

And look, ultimately Michigan is sitting at 7-2 overall and 4-2 in the Big Ten. As fun as it is to dunk on them for playing the Battle of Wits from The Princess Bride all season (but with quarterbacks instead of iocane powder), if they win out and there's other Big Ten East weirdness involving a Penn State collapse, they could somehow find themselves in the championship game. Man that would suck.

THREAT LEVEL

ELEVATED!

Brandon Peters, who was asked to do essentially nothing in some really ridiculous environmental conditions, did okay. He threw for a touchdown and didn't turn the ball over, which at this point is a gold star performance from a Michigan QB.

The real story offensively is the running game. Karan Higdon and Chris Evans combined for nearly 400 yards of rushing, with Higdon rolling up 200 and Evans getting 191, but the really insane part of this is that they combined for 19 carries. That's not a typo or a misprint, these two guys averaged over 20 yards per carry and had four touchdowns between them. I have zero faith that this can be replicated for the rest of the season, but holy hell you've got to stand up and take notice of something like that.

So if we're talking about the threat that Michigan poses to the Buckeyes, their general improvement since kicking John O'Korn to the curb is noteworthy enough to merit bumping them up a bit. But they're only half of the equation.

Ohio State should not have lost to Iowa, but they did. It's not just that the Hawkeyes, who were nearly three touchdown underdogs, dismantled the Buckeyes in an incredibly embarrassing way, it's that seemingly all the had to do to win was copy Oklahoma's gameplan of chucking it over the heads of the linebackers, and then running the ball when said linebackers backed off.

Even if J.T. Barrett has a great game in Iowa City, Ohio State still very possibly loses on Saturday night, and if things don't get fixed, next Saturday too. That should worry any fan decked out in scarlet and gray, and because of that, I've been advised to raise the Threat Level to ELEVATED.

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