Henning: UM turns back clock with old-school power
Ann Arbor — Never was simple winning going to be enough. Not ideally, anyway. And in Ann Arbor, with its past and present football lives reconnecting in giddy fashion this autumn, a football fan can afford to think idyllic thoughts.
Now the Wolverines can get greedy. Go for the annihilation. Break records, on defense, and even on offense, which Jim Harbaugh’s gang did Saturday at Michigan Stadium in all but vaporizing Maryland, 59-3, to keep UM’s record immaculate at 9-0.
Not only are the victories back in bundles. So are those old-time point differentials, gaudy and lopsided, reminiscent of years when teams commandeered by Bo Schembechler, and even later under Bo disciple Lloyd Carr, tended to crank up their heavy machinery and flatten any team that dared traipse into the Big House.
“Credit the players,” said Harbaugh, whose rising record since he repatriated to Ann Arbor is now 19-3. “They’re the ones who play on Saturdays.”
Well, OK. But this is a joint effort at Michigan. And what’s happening on football fields when Michigan suits up is noticeably different from some past regimes.
Consider a team that has won games the past nine weeks by these scores: 63-3, 78-0, 41-8, and Saturday by a merciless 59-3.
It speaks of dominion. And that dominion is a product of doing everything right. Choke off enemy quarterbacks and ball carriers. Swarm to the ball. Make wide receivers feel an artillery-grade hit on the occasional, short-yardage completed pass.
Take the same approach on offense, which the Wolverines did Saturday in savaging the Terrapins and Harbaugh’s old friend and defensive coordinator, D.J. Durkin, who now runs Maryland’s football show.
Rip that visiting defense. No Chamber of Commerce hospitality permitted. Begin a savory turtle stew by tearing heavy chunks of Terrapin flesh by way of the churning legs of De’Veon Smith, Khalid Hill, Jabrill Peppers, Eddie McDoom — whomever.
Then, the lethal stuff. Prove that Michigan is now more than a football team simply reconstructed to win. Confirm that bigger, nastier times in Ann Arbor are back.
Watch a kid named Wilton Speight break UM’s all-time, first-half passing yardage, slashing Maryland’s secondary for 292 yards on all of 13 completions.
Driven to win
There is the difference. There is Harbaugh, the old NFL maestro, now back at work on college terrain, helping make Speight comfortable and dispassionate in hacking a team to pieces.
There is Michigan’s developing difference in 2016. The lightning strikes also have made a comeback.
Never in doubt: Speight, Michigan destroy Maryland
Consider those first-half scoring drives Saturday.
In order: 91 yards in 10 plays; 84 yards in six plays; 80 yards in seven plays; 51 yards in six plays; 61 yards in five plays. All good for a 35-0 lead as 110,626 fans might have wondered if, on a day so sunny and warm (65 degrees), a nap would be at least as much fun as watching Harbaugh’s maulers carry on with a massacre.
Uh, give us the gore, please.
There were enough pained Saturdays in Ann Arbor the past 10 years to not feel as if an occasional slaughter of the innocents is justice.
“We are cruel, but at the same time, we’re not trying to be disrespectful,” said Chase Winovich, the thoughtful defensive end who has been responsible for his share of carnage as Michigan’s defense has turned borderline brutal. “So, you find a balance.”
Michigan, in fact, probably needs for its own good to dispense these drubbings, just as Harbaugh’s guys needed a bit of a grubby win against Michigan State a week earlier. The Spartans got more yardage last week than UM or Harbaugh cared to share, which Winovich and some teammates acknowledged was a factor in Saturday’s Aisle 7 cleanup of the Terrapins.
Display of force
On the flip side, Michigan wanted to show — more for Speight’s and his corps’ confidence — a capacity Saturday to assemble drives that were more like F-16 sorties. They needed to be quick. Destructive. Overwhelming.
That is, if the Wolverines care to zoom next weekend into Iowa City and make Iowa one more of the vanquished. One more checkoff on the road to Columbus and Ohio State, which, while still three weeks away, sits as the team and game most likely to validate or quash Michigan’s championship thoughts.
Speight finished with 362 passing yards and looked again as if he is destined to get better by the Saturday. He does it minus theatrics or illusions. He simply makes plays. He throws a good pass. He uses his head. He defers to his nifty weaponry.
But what makes this team, and Harbaugh’s imprint, even more genuine and indelible, is that nothing is being wasted. There was the tragedy to those earlier years under Brady Hoke and Rich Rodriguez. So little was being realized from teams that, if not elite, had more to give than headaches to fans who wondered how this all happened.
No more. It’s back to what football was under Schembechler and his predecessors, and what it was for most of Carr’s time.
It’s back to being a punishing product. Darned near savage in its ability to get close to optimum energy from personnel and make the lesser-blessed teams of this conference pay a nasty price.
The one-two punches are followed now by three-four socks to the jaw. That’s a lot for any opponent to withstand.
A team at Iowa City, which can handle a fistfight also, is Michigan’s next test in toughness. In Ann Arbor this dreamy football autumn, the tough stuff appears to be in abundance.
Twitter.com/Lynn_Henning