3. Michigan must win huge against a bad Penn State team
Michigan is 2-3 with its victories coming against a 2-3 Minnesota team and a 1-4 Rutgers team. Its losses? They have come to 1-3 Michigan State, 4-1 Indiana, and 2-1 Wisconsin. Outside of the Spartans, Michigan has only beaten teams with a losing record. Michigan now takes on a winless Penn State team, and it can’t win another triple-overtime thriller. It has to win huge.
The Wolverines are better than their 2-3 record, and they know that. While it took three overtimes to beat Rutgers, it got the job done. The game shouldn’t have taken that long to decide, but Michigan must find an answer for some of the problems that made it so. The Wolverines can hammer out those issues with a week of preparation, and no better team to display them against a lifeless Penn State team.
Michigan needs to win this game by a lot, and it should. If it struggles and has to rely on a game-winning field goal or a defensive stop to hold off the Nittany Lions, the team learned nothing after beating Rutgers.
It has only been able to beat teams with losing records this season, and while winning is important, how many points it wins by shows the Wolverines’ progress.