Perhaps Brian Kelly should've thrown a towel.

Michigan ran over, around, and past Notre Dame, breaking out their best offensive performance of the year in a steady rain against a top-ten team. Josh Gattis's offense embraced a run-pass distribution that could've raised Bo Schembechler from the grave. Kelly, meanwhile, ran Kelly's offense.

One of these things was a good idea. Michigan's offensive line bludgeoned the Irish front, opening space for backs Hassan Haskins and Zach Charbonnet to accumulate 142 combined yards by halftime. Notre Dame quarterback Ian Book, meanwhile, spent much of his night on the run from Dr. Blitz's angry horde of defenders.

The Wolverines took advantage of a break on their first offensive drive when an Irish player inexplicably tried to recover a blocked Will Hart punt, allowing Dax Hill to jump on the ball and gain 20 yards in the exchange. While that drive would stall out at the two for a Jake Moody chip shot, the offense had begun to set the tone on the ground, and that continued when they got the ball back. The next drive was mean, muscular, and magnificent: eight plays, all runs, for 59 yards, capped by a seven-yard Charbonnet touchdown.

​Cam McGrone (12 tackles) led an overwhelming defensive effort. [Patrick Barron]

The defense forced a three-and-out when Aidan Hutchinson batted down Book's third-down pass. Michigan got right back to it, needing three chunk plays—a Haskins run in which he hurdled a safety, a Patterson third-down throw to Mike Sainristil, and an arc keeper Patterson took 22 yards—to set up another Charbonnet score at the goal line.

Despite trying a fourth down only to be rebuffed by Jordan Glasgow, Notre Dame couldn't break through for the rest of the half. Michigan went into the tunnel with four pass attempts and 34 rushes; the Irish were at 13 and 15, respectively. The Wolverines led, 17-0, and perhaps I'm being too harsh on Kelly for his playcalling, as ND's 15 run plays had netted a grand total of 20 yards.

The game slowed to a halt in the third quarter before infamous referee John O'Neill decided it was time for a signature blunder. Book forced a ball downfield to Chase Claypool into double coverage; Brad Hawkins intercepted the underthrow, only for Khaleke Hudson—who did not so much as touch Claypool—to get hit with defensive pass interference. Five plays later, Book found tight end Cole Kmet all alone on a goal line throwback, and what had been a romp felt like it could turn into a fight, a feeling stoked by the students tossing towels onto the field in protest.

But when Michigan hit back, Notre Dame folded. After a 49-yard run by Haskins, who finished with a game-high 149 yards on 20 carries, Patterson absorbed a hit from Asmar Bilal and got enough mustard on the ball to get it to a sliding Donovan Peoples-Jones in the end zone. A few drives later, the blowout resumed in earnest when Nico Collins pulled down a fade for Patterson's second touchdown pass.

​There was little slowing any of M's running backs. [Fuller]

Tru Wilson and Mike Sainristil would tack on touchdowns, the latter in spectacular jitterbug fashion, to extend the lead out to 45-7 before a perfunctory 14-yard toss from backup Phil Jurkovec to Javon McKinley provided the game's final score.

Michigan needed to show a lot heading into the final stretch of the season, and tonight they checked pretty much all the available boxes. The playcalling matched both the situation and the personnel, with the offense churning away at 6.2 yards per play. The defense was hellacious, erasing the Irish run game and forcing Book into a horrible stat line: 8-for-25 for 73 yards. When faced with a moment of potential crisis, both units stepped up.

The Wolverines are now 6-2 and the team has taken an apparent U-turn since halftime of last week's Penn State game. They can build on this next weekend at Maryland, take their second bye week, and hopefully head into the home stretch of MSU-Indiana-OSU with more confidence and competence than they've shown all year.

[Hit THE JUMP for the box score.]