shea patterson pretty good

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FORMATION NOTES: Not a whole lot to note on Michigan's end. Michigan is going legitimately four-wide a lot more often. This is still mostly passing downs but previously there was a tight end on the field all the time; now you have some snaps with 4 WRs.

As for Indiana, you'll have to forgive this week "D form" column, as IU did a ton of late shifting and incessantly blitzed off the corner after lining up in slightly odd ways.

Hint: slot is blitzing, because it is a down. I threw up my hands a bit as the Hoosiers explored new ways to not quite stop Michigan's offense.

SUBSTITUTION NOTES: Patterson the whole way, usual Haskins/Charbonnet split at RB with Wilson coming in from time to time, mostly late. OL the usual, with Hayes getting the last drive and some bonus OL snaps.

McKeon got ~every snap that wasn't four-wide; Eubanks got in for a bit fewer than half the snaps.  Usual Collins/Bell/Black/DPJ rotation at WR with Sainristil poking through as #5; Jackson and Johnson both got a handful of snaps. Ditto Mason.

[After THE JUMP: bombs away]

11/23/2019 – Michigan 39, Indiana 14 – 9-2, 6-2 Big Ten

Indiana waltzing down the field for an opening-drive touchdown was an ominous sign that the trademark Indiana Stupid Game was about to transpire. That feeling was reinforced when Indiana scored again in short order. They kept throwing wide receiver screens to their tight end. Some goofy pass interference calls and Michigan's punter kicking a 24-yarder that was somehow not a shank buttressed the structure further.

By the time Giles Jackson, hearing no whistle after having literally every portion of his body hit the ground, got up to "score" the world's most emphatically overturned touchdown it was a lock. Michigan would be embroiled in another one of those games, the ones which Indiana should win 37% of the time and wins 0% of the time. A traditionally stupid Michigan-Indiana game. Michigan would find itself embroiled in a stupefying conflict until their center went the wrong way in overtime and Michigan scored anyway or Jeremy Gallon racked up receiving yard #369, and then they'd win. I spent much of the first quarter thinking about the one where Indiana went on 15-play touchdown drives, whereupon Denard Robinson would score in two plays and the cycle would repeat. I braced for the kind of win that makes you want to shower afterwards.

This didn't happen. What happened is Indiana stopped doing anything and Michigan scored over and over again. After Indiana's second touchdown the Hoosiers gained 49 yards on their next six drives; by the time they did anything of note Michigan had put up 32 unanswered.

This has been a rarity over the past decade. Since 2009 the only other Michigan-Indiana game that hasn't been in serious doubt in the fourth quarter was the 2014 edition. That was 34-10 because the Hoosiers had to start Zander Diamont (career YPA: 4.6) at QB. Every other IU game over the last decade has been somewhere between pretty uncomfortable and having your nose hairs plucked out one by one by an old man regaling you with tales of his various lesions.

This was the best of any of these Indiana teams, the one Michigan stuffed in a steamer trunk and mailed to Peru.

-------------------------------------------------------

And so here we are. A lot of people are coming out of the woodwork now to say they always believed. This is a lie unless the person in question has also been scammed out of money by a robocall. If you have lost money because a recorded message says They Have Been Trying To Reach You, I believe you. I believe you if you are Raj:

you in October: will Shea Patterson ever complete a pass

me in October: check out this Monte Carlo simulation I programmed showing Michigan having a 0.05% to make the playoff pic.twitter.com/mqdWfIFzXD

— playoff raj (@internetraj) November 25, 2019

Otherwise, no.

Six games ago Michigan was coming off:

• a six-game stretch dating back to last year's Indiana game where they failed to cover the spread by at least 17 points, including horrible blowouts against OSU, Florida, and Wisconsin and a three-point OT win over Army
• Rutger
• a 10-3 win over Iowa in which Michigan gained 267 yards

Michigan's offense sat in the 70s in SP+ a year after finishing 25th and returning pretty much everyone. Jim Harbaugh said something about how his offense was on the verge of clicking that everyone on the internet and off scoffed at. I deleted a sassy quote tweet instead of sending it, not because I disagreed with everyone else but because it was more trouble than it's worth.

Even a couple games later Michigan was coming off a blowout of Illinois that featured an Illini run from 28-0 down to 28-25 and a Penn State game in which Michigan's many, many errors outran a down-to-down pounding. This was progress. It was easy to see but hard to feel. Those games appear vastly different when they're at the tail end of the eight games mentioned above than when they are the start of the final six games of this season.

But it turned out Harbaugh was right: Michigan was close to clicking on offense. Since he said that Michigan's been held under 38 points once, by Penn State. That game featured one Michigan drive end on a blatant uncalled PI, a second go in the tank after Nico Collins had a 45-yard catch wiped out by a horrible OPI, and a drop in the endzone that would have tied it. That was a 417 yard performance that should have been closer to 500.

Every other game has been a hamblasting, culminating in a game where Shea Patterson was undeniably elite. The offense has climbed all the way to 26th in SP+, with legions of Michigan fans badgering Bill Connelly to run the numbers after Iowa to see where this version of Michigan lands.

The looming cliff this weekend looks like it has handholds for the first time. Not many, and perilously spaced. But Ohio State is no longer a blank, unscalable wall of steel.

[After THE JUMP: thrown it to Nico]

Today presented many of the requisite elements for a Stupid Indiana Game. The dreary, cold weather eventually turned to snow. The officiating could be described as uneven. Michigan's coaches screwed up the end of the first half, again. The ESPN broadcast was barely paying attention to the game, which didn't impact the outcome but added to the potential distress. And, of course, there was the presence of one of the better football teams in IU history.

The Hoosiers even struck first. After IU took the opening kickoff, quarterback Peyton Ramsey led a methodical ten-play, 75 yard drive capped by a one-yard Stevie Scott touchdown dive. Shea Patterson hit right back, finding Giles Jackson out of the backfield for a 50-yard wheel route before connecting with Ronnie Bell from six yards out for the sophomore receiver's first touchdown catch of the season.

​DPJ's touchdown featured ludicrous body control. [Bryan Fuller]

That's when the game threatened to go off the Bloomington rails. Daxton Hill, starting in place of the injured Brad Hawkins at safety, intercepted a Ramsey pass greatly impacted by both Carlo Kemp and Aidan Hutchinson. With a chance to take an early lead, however, Michigan went backwards, and Patterson took an intentional grounding on third and 20. Will Hart's ensuing punt traveled only 31 yards. Seven plays later, Ramsey sneaked into the end zone for a 14-7 Indiana lead.

In past years, or even earlier this season, this becomes a campy horror movie of a football game, with Michigan narrowly yet predictably surviving in the end. Instead, the carnage was limited to the Wolverines tearing Indiana's secondary limb-from-limb.

Donovan Peoples-Jones knotted the game with a remarkable diving grab after Patterson had failed to complete two should-be touchdown passes earlier in the drive. A few drives later, Patterson completed all three of his throws to Nico Collins, who finished the drive with an unguardable 29-yard fade for the go-ahead score. After some strange end-of-half decisions, Michigan took a 21-14 lead into the locker room.

please be 100% next week [Fuller]

The third quarter was everything Michigan fans have wanted to see. They came out aggressive, with a 41-yard bomb to Peoples-Jones setting up a short Quinn Nordin field goal. The defense got the ball back when Mike Dwumfour shot a gap on fourth-and-one, drawing a holding flag and forcing a punt. Two plays later, Collins snagged a post route, made a safety miss, and outran the IU defense for a 76-yard touchdown. Dylan McCaffrey ran in a two-point conversion to make it 32-14. Why and how? No idea. ESPN missed the play and never showed a replay.

Any chance at a silly finish evaporated at the end of the quarter. Josh Uche, who'd been dominant off the edge all afternoon, beat his blocker clean for the pass-rush hat trick of a sack-strip-recovery on Ramsey. On the very next play, Patterson found Collins running free in the end zone, and a conventional extra point gave us the game's final score of 39-14.

The fourth quarter passed without incident beyond an injury scare to Uche, who went down with an apparent leg injury but walked off under his own power. At the time of publication, there wasn't an update on him, though Michigan made him available to the media after the game, which is a very good sign.

didn't catch him [Barron]

The numbers look very, very nice. Patterson threw for 366 yards and five touchdowns on 32 attempts with one late, meaningless interception. Collins pulled in six of his seven targets for 165 yards and three TDs; the lone incomplete target should've been another long touchdown. Peoples-Jones added five receptions for 73 yards and a score. Michigan's rushers were chipping along at around five yards per carry before short-yardage and garbage-time carries took that down to 3.9 on a day the ground game took a back seat. Indiana scored on two of their first three drives; their next six full drives went for a total of 50 yards.

Next week is The Game. A juggernaut Ohio State squad, arguably the best team in the country and perhaps even recent Buckeyes history, will take the field at Michigan Stadium. An upset felt like an impossible dream mere weeks ago. Now, with Patterson dealing downfield to his incredibly talented group of receivers, there's a real glimmer of hope.

[Hit THE JUMP for the box score.]