One win won’t fix all of Penn State’s problems but it can certainly make Michigan’s worse, and in a season the Nittany Lions have long wanted to put in the rearview mirror, taking down the Wolverines in the process isn’t a bad way to go.
Of all the stories to come out of Penn State’s 27-17 victory over Michigan on Saturday — a game nobody wanted to watch during a season nobody wants to remember— sending the Wolverines into a further nosedive while pumping water out of Penn State’s own sinking ship may very well turn out to be the most consequential.
‘You know, the thing probably that stands out to me the most is this is the first win at Michigan since 2009,’ coach James Franklin said after the game, his first win in Ann Arbor four tries, and Penn State’s fourth as a program. ‘This has been a hard place to win for a lot of teams for a long time.’
On Michigan’s front there is Jim Harbaugh, seemingly on the verge of unemployment at a school which has longed for the consistent presence in the national conversation it once enjoyed. The Wolverines’ high-level recruiting has made them a worthwhile contender on the list of up-and-coming modern programs to make a run at the playoff, but their annual shortcomings have left those preseason predictions feeling increasingly hollow as Harbaugh’s tenure marches on.
And as Michigan struggles to fill its need at quarterback, opposite that of arch rival Ohio State, the Wolverines feel perpetually stuck in the same almost-but-not-quite purgatory Penn State has found itself in the past five years. Unlike the Nittany Lions, Michigan, of course, is still without a Big Ten title to show for its efforts over that same span.
One might write off the Wolverines’ struggles this season as a matter of 2020’s ability to infect all good things with something bad, but in the bigger picture it has been more the continuation of largely underwhelming data points relative to its lofty expectations.
Enter an 0-5 Penn State team in desperate need of something — anything — to happen to halt a downward spiral threatening to erase much of the program-building work the Nittany Lions had accomplished over the past several years.
For the Nittany Lions, Saturday’s victory could go far toward reversing the program’s course from a free fall into a positive final chapter. Games against Rutgers, Michigan State and a to-be-determined cross-divisional rival offer no Ohio State-sized obstacle to overcome and a victory could prove to be the spark the Nittany Lions needed far more than anything a personnel or scheme change may have provided in the interim.
‘I know, outside looking in [people are] like ‘Why does it mean a lot? It doesn’t really matter you guys 0-5 coming into the game.” defensive tackle PJ Mustipher said postgame. ‘But it means a lot to come into the Big House, and get a victory against a really good team. We haven’t done it in a long time.’
In turn, Franklin and company will hope the Nittany Lions’ victory can eventually be added to the list of wins like that over Indiana in 2004 or a 2016 overtime win against Minnesota, both reversing the course of the program toward historically great seasons.
It’s prudent to pump the brakes with future-casting the Nittany Lions toward greatness for the rest of 2020 and beyond simply because of one win against a bad team. However, it’s not unreasonable to note the smiles and sense of belief that was evident during Penn State’s postgame video conferences. James Franklin, who has otherwise been somewhat forlorn as of late, was the happiest he has been in weeks, and players who have been polite but largely terse in their answers once again smiled when having to think over the game they had just played.
Across a very empty Big House, the same could not be said for Harbaugh and his players, who find themselves facing an uncertain future with an uncertain direction. When it’s all said and done Penn State’s win may not have been the final blow for the Harbaugh tenure in Ann Arbor. In reality he might return, might leave on his own or may have already been en route to a firing.
Whatever the case might be, Penn State only made life harder for a recruiting foe, a divisional rival and the second-biggest threat against the Nittany Lions in the Big Ten East.
While time will tell how the rest of the story unfolds, you could say Penn State got two for the price of one on Saturday. And if you’re only going to win a few games, may as well get the most bang for your buck.
‘There have been things that would have put us in a rut, we would have had a hard time fighting back through that, when it doesn’t feel fair,’ Franklin added. ‘But life isn’t fair. Sometimes you just got to find a way to battle through it. We did that today so it was just great to see. They stood in the corner and they took body blows and head shots, and they kept swinging. I’m really, really proud of the guys.’
