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Michigan Football Finally Beat Michigan State, Could Have Been Bad
What’s important is that Michigan football finally got a win over Michigan State and moved to 8-0. Still, there were some late concerns for the Wolverines.
Bottom line, Michigan football finally got the best of the Michigan State Spartans on Saturday, a rare occasion in recent history.
But as it looked like the Wolverines were well on their way to a comfortable win, Michigan State started finding the plays it needed on offense, while Michigan was all the sudden unable to move the ball.
Had the Spartans not botched an unnecessary two-point attempt with one second to play and given Michigan an extra two points after Jabrill Peppers’ return, this very well could have been a five-point win. That’s significant because the Wolverines were up 30-10 after a field goal early in the fourth quarter.
Thanks to penalties and a general lapse on offense for Michigan, the Spartans came storming back and turned it into a game again.
Here’s what Michigan’s second half looked like on offense: interception, field goal, punt, punt, punt. It was almost terribly reminiscent of last season’s meeting in which the Wolverines struggled to put away a game it had in its hands.
Here’s something to consider to make this even scarier: Michigan State left three scores on the field in the red zone in the second half. One of the stops was a goal line stand just past the halfway point of the third quarter. The second was a missed field goal, and then Peppers sacked Brian Lewerke with 1:46 to play.
It isn’t difficult to imagine Michigan State converting just one of those missed opportunities, creating a drastically different situation. Instead, it was just a few nerves in a game we didn’t think was actually a game.
I’m not one to dog on a win, but Michigan missed a golden opportunity to bury the Spartans. Instead, it was Michigan State finding a way back and turning the final minutes into something almost crazy.
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