Michigan 41, Purdue 13: A bar too high?
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Early in the fourth quarter of Michigan’s Saturday night primetime matchup against Purdue, the NBC announcing crew of Todd Blackledge and Noah Eagle decided to assess what we had seen so far in the game to help fill some space after a kickoff by the Wolverines.
Said Eagle, the broadcast’s play-by-play man:
"You kind of take everything that we've seen here today, and it hasn't been a dominant effort necessarily that we expect out of Michigan and what they're capable of. But yet, they still continue to get the job done."
If you were just flipping to the game on at this point, there was no scorebug visible. The two were talking with the backdrop of Michigan and Purdue's logos flanking each side of a "B1G SATURDAY NIGHT" logo (with a giant “presented by DISCOVER” logo tacked onto the bottom for good measure).
After the two volleyed some more back and forth conversation for the next 15-20 seconds to help fill the air, Purdue took the field to start its newest possession. I can only imagine the shock that a new viewer had when that scorebug first appeared, saying “Michigan 34, Purdue 6.”
Forty-five minutes into the game, Michigan held a 28-point lead. If this theoretical new viewer decided to pull up a live box score at this time, they’d probably be all the more confused by the unimpressed commentary. Purdue had a grand total of five first downs at that point of the game (14:18 left in the game). Five! Michigan had more than that before the midway point of the first quarter, and the Wolverines didn’t even get the ball first to start the game.
I guess that’s what life is like at the top is like when you’ve set the bar so high, though. The Wolverines and Boilermakers each swapped touchdowns from that point on and Michigan cruised to a 41-13 win —the team’s 9th win of the season in as many tries, all of which have been by a margin of four or more touchdowns.
It would have actually been a bigger margin of victory, but Purdue scored a 4th down touchdown with 18 seconds to go make the score look a little bit more respectable — and to anger anyone holding a Michigan -32.5 ticket.
Now, was Saturday’s game the most dominant performance we had seen out of Michigan all season long? No. It wasn’t the thoroughly dominant ass-kicking from start to finish that we saw two weeks ago the last time Michigan took the field, a 49-0 drubbing of rival Michigan State. I’d argue the defense looked like its dominant self outside of the garbage-time TD to close the game, but there was a decent-sized chunk in the middle of the game where Michigan’s offense looked as bad as it probably had all season long.
But if a game where J.J. McCarthy throws for 335 yards is “shaky,” where Blake Corum add 3 more TDs to his national-leading rushing TD total is “concerning” and where somehow-not-Biletnikoff-watch-list member Roman Wilson posts a 9-143 line is simply not dominant enough for announcers and prognosticators alike, maybe that says something about the standard Michigan has set for its program in 2023.
The bar as been set so high that a 28-point, never-once-in-doubt-that-this-game-won’t-be-close win over the defending Big Ten West Champs is considered below Michigan Standard. I don’t think anyone else in the country is being graded on a curve that steep. And once you can get over the fact that it’s a little annoying, it’s actually quite a compliment — and quite indicative of where Michigan finds itself now with just three weeks left in the regular season.
Luckily for everyone associated with Michigan’s football program, the style points component of the season is (finally) in the rear view mirror. Whether Michigan wins by 49, 28 or 1 point is pretty irrelevant once it steps into this next stage of the season. And that next stage begins next Saturday in a road matchup against a top-10 foe (yes — another great byproduct of the “style points” component of the season going away means the “let’s whine about Michigan’s schedule” part of the season finally gets the Old Yeller treatment, too). As the Wolverines travel to Happy Valley, and with an edition of The Game that’s already huge on paper but is now even more heightened with sign stealing and private investigators and everything in between thrown into the mix, it’s all about surviving and advancing going forward.
The first 75% of the regular season is complete. Michigan’s scoring differential is north of 300 points. You don’t have to apologize for that success, or try to continually one-up yourself within the restraints of a 60 minute game.
You don’t have to worry about motivation, or fighting off complacency. You’re no longer a victim of the bar you set. At this stage of the season, you’re simply looking to show why that bar has gotten to the heights it currently is — to show why you really are the best college football team in America.
I’m still feeling good about that being the case. But more importantly, the guys in that locker room feel that way, too. And amidst all the distractions surrounding this program over the last few weeks, the team seems laser focused on the task at hand — three-peating as Big Ten Champions and putting itself back in the College Football Playoff.
Let’s dig a little deeper into Saturday’s game…
