The Victors

Saturday, 5 October 2013
(№ 19) Michigan 42-13 Minnesota
5-0, Big Ten 1-0

The Little Brown Jug, the oldest rivalry trophy in college football, will remain in Ann Arbor for another year, & the valiant Wolverines prevailed on Homecoming (every home team should win their homecoming game); those are two grand reasons to celebrate. Woot! Quarterback Devin Gardner was also less monumentally dreadful than he had been in the previous two games, against Akron & U.Conn., & that too is a reason for, if not celebration, at least good cheer. Alas, that's pretty much the end of the good news. The game was much closer, the contest much tighter, than one would glean from a casual glance at the score. The luckless Golden Gophers aren't a very good football club, but they gave the valiant Wolverines nearly everything Michigan could handle. Gardner was still hesitant & panicky when pressured, & his passes were frequently inaccurate, though not as disastrously so as in September. The receiving corps did an excellent job of helping to rebuild the shaky Gardner's shattered confidence, coming back to catch a number of badly under thrown balls. The defense showed flashes of dominant brilliance & flashes of absolute ineptitude; better clubs, those to be faced deeper in the Big Ten season, will slash the valiant Wolverines' pass defense for scores & scores of both yards & points, unless there is rapid & radical improvement by the secondary. The interception for a touchdown—referred to, to my great annoyance, as a "pick six"—in the dying seconds of the game notwithstanding, the best defensive play was a broken up touchdown pass in the fourth quarter; the Minnesota receiver was in position & their quarterback threw the ball well, but defensive back Raymon Taylor did a magnificent job of getting his hand on the ball & knocking it away. If that is a sign of things to come, rapid & radical improvement might just be possible.

I would be grateful just for the win, except that we are supposed to be "back," we are supposed to be Michigan again, a club that expects to dispatch lesser opponents with a minimum of effort & drama. The days of being grateful for a win, any win, are supposed to be behind us. Still, I suppose I should be glad for the very first game Gardner has started in which he did not throw an interception, did not account for a single turnover; strike that, given the near-disasters against Akron & U.Conn., I am glad for Gardner's first turnover-free game. He still doesn't deserve to wear Tom Harmon's number, 98, & the valiant Wolverines don't deserve to be ranked in the Top 25, much less № 19 (№ 18 in the new A.P. poll released Sunday night), but there is hope that September's duo of near-upsets might yet become just amusing footnotes to a successful 2013 campaign.

Next: On the road, against the fearsome Nittany Lions of Penn State.

Go Blue!