What they're saying after Michigan's 52-10 win at Minnesota

The Michigan Wolverines moved to 6-0 on Saturday night with a 52-10 win over Minnesota and put together their most dominant showing of the season to this point. The squad is starting to hit its stride and is entrenching itself as a national title contender.

The performance drew plenty of reaction from local and national voices. Here is a sampling of what prominent outlets were saying after Michigan’s blowout win.

Ryan Van Bergen, TheWolverine.com postgame

Wolverine TV podcast: Postgame reactions to 52-10 blowout win at Minnesota
”I think you’re seeing the improvement week to week, and that’s something that when we had these first three ‘preseason’ games that we had, we weren’t sure if we were seeing any improvement because we weren’t seeing big disparities on the scoreboard or huge explosive numbers in the stats column.”

“Two road wins in a row back-to-back and going into Minnesota in a night game environment, playing four good quarters of football. Were there some things that we needed to clean up? Sure. But I think we made some really good halftime adjustments to attack them in ways that they, I mean, you got to give PJ Fleck and their staff some credit. They came out with their best game plan and executed it probably the best that they could minus the turnovers, especially the one early, but they were just outmatched. Michigan showed tonight more than anything that at all 11 positions and even their backups were solid. And we’ve got more depth than we’ve ever had.

“I thought you saw that a lot more this week on display, especially when it came to the defensive line. On defense, we finally have everybody healthy, so you can kind of see what the mechanism is like when you have all personnel units ready to roll. This is what you want to see. We could easily be sitting here tonight talking about, ‘Oh, my God, how did we escape that?’ Thank God. We could be that team. But that’s not what this team is. And they just seem to get better week in and week out. They’ve just shown that sign of maturity that you were hoping to see. So things are getting pretty exciting as we get midway through the season.”

Chris Balas, The Wolverine

Michigan 52, Minnesota 10: Notes, quotes, and observations 
“I wish there was a way to know you’re in the good old days before you’ve actually left them.” Those words were spoken during one of the last scenes of the finale of a well-known sitcom, more proof that you can find profound truths just about anywhere. 

Having that prescience often comes with experience, so after several decades watching Michigan football, we’re here to offer some advice after a 52-10 U-M win at Minnesota— these are (again) the good old days of Michigan football, so enjoy them. The program is in a really, really good place, and Saturday night was just more evidence. When you can get a group of elite athletes to buy into roles in this era of NIL, the transfer portal, etc. … well, it takes a special guy to make that happen, one of the reasons we and others have been advocating so hard to ensure head coach Jim Harbaugh stays in Ann Arbor on a new deal. 

As we’ve seen post-Lloyd Carr, there are no guarantees. It can feel like it sometimes when it’s good, though. And the Harbaugh era is approaching the 1970s and 1980s in the machine-like precision in which Michigan is dismantling teams, to the point that it’s almost boring at times. 

You can take it for granted, like we did at times in the 52-something blowouts of the Gophers back in the 1980s when fans threw toilet paper rolls following touchdowns, or later in the decade when it became marshmallows. But nothing is assured. And while it’s not perfect and yeah, there’s room for improvement, this is pretty damn good. You could see on Harbaugh’s face in the postgame press conference that he knew it, too. 

Scott Bell, The Scott Bell Newsletter

Quick reaction: Michigan 52, Minnesota 10
Last week, I talked about the difficulty in having enough fodder for critical content in the aftermath of a 38-point road victory in Big Ten play.

One week later, Michigan was back on the road again. Instead of a 38-point road win, though, this time Michigan walked away with a 42-point victory — giving the Wolverines more of the style points they were criticized for not having through the first four weeks of the season.

Don’t worry. I’m sure there will be something else that pundits can pivot to when it comes to not giving Michigan the credit it deserves.

Michigan leaves Minneapolis with more than just a sixth win and some bowl eligibility, though. The Wolverines are also leaving with the Little Brown Jug — one of college football’s most storied trophies, and one that has been in possession of the Wolverines ever since Jim Harbaugh returned to Ann Arbor to lead the program.

Nicole Auerbach, The Athletic

Auerbach has Michigan in her top 10 after Week 6
The funniest thing about the Wolverines is that they can thoroughly dominate a game from start to finish and the stat sheet won’t necessarily show that. Perhaps the nicer way to say that is this team is so deep and so balanced, it’s hard to figure out who broke open a game and when. In Saturday’s 52-10 win over Minnesota, no Michigan receiver racked up more than 90 yards. No Michigan running back had more than nine carries. Even quarterback J.J. McCarthy, who rushed for two touchdowns and threw another, didn’t put up overwhelming numbers: 14 of 20 passing for 219 yards to go along with four carries for 17 yards. Obviously, McCarthy accounted for massively meaningful yardage. But a glance at the box score wouldn’t reveal his impact on this game.

None of this bothers Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh. I suspect that he likes it, actually. The man played 73 of the 74 players he brought to Minneapolis, getting almost everybody on the travel roster snaps in a conference game on the road. This is the second consecutive complete game we’ve seen from Michigan, and Saturday’s impressive performance still doesn’t even seem close to this team’s ceiling.

Stewart Mandel, The Athletic

Mandel’s Final Thoughts: Oklahoma and Texas are SEC ready … but is it ready for them?
Michigan (6-0, 3-0 Big Ten), which crushed Minnesota 52-10 on Saturday, has reached the midpoint of its season having outscored its opponents by an average margin of 37-7. We knew the Wolverines’ defense would be very good, but it’s also notable how Michigan is unleashing QB J.J. McCarthy. His passer rating has jumped from 155.0 to 188.5, his completion percentage from 64.6 to 77.6. Those numbers will normalize once the Wolverines start facing better competition, but, that still might not be for a while. Their next three games are against 2-3 Indiana, 2-3 Michigan State and 2-4 Purdue.

What do all these Big Ten schools do with all that TV money? Not win football games, apparently.

Heather Dinich, ESPN.com

College football after Week 6: Teams with a case for No. 1
Best win: Uhhhh … Saturday at Minnesota? Sept. 30 at Nebraska? Sept. 23 against … Rutgers?!

Case for No. 1: The team, the team, the team! Michigan appears to be a CFP team — again. J.J. McCarthy looks like the best quarterback in the Big Ten. The defense seems capable of shutting down Ohio State’s top playmakers. Michigan is a well-coached, is fundamentally sound and has outplayed every opponent on its schedule. They consistently limit turnovers and penalties, which some other contenders have struggled to do.

Case against: The schedule, the schedule, the schedule. It’s literally the only drawback to Michigan right now. Four straight home games. No ranked opponents. No Power 5 nonconference opponents. Rutgers and UNLV are the only opponents over .500. Michigan simply hasn’t been tested yet while other contenders have, and that won’t change until November. If Michigan wins the Big Ten East again, it will contend for the playoff. But it’s hard to make a strong case for the Wolverines as the No. 1 team in October.

ESPN.com staff on its playoff picture

College Football Playoff picks after Week 6
Andrea Adelson: 1. Georgia 2. Michigan 3. Florida State 4. Washington
Blake Baumgartner: 1. Georgia 2. Michigan 3. Florida State 4. Washington
Kyle Bonagura: 1. Georgia 2. Washington 3. Michigan 4. Florida State
Bill Connelly: 1. Michigan 2. Washington 3. Georgia 4. Oklahoma
Heather Dinich: 1. Georgia 2. Florida State 3. Washington 4. Oklahoma
David Hale: 1. Georgia 2. Florida State 3. Ohio State 4. Oregon
Chris Low: 1. Georgia 2. Michigan 3. Washington 4. Oklahoma
Harry Lyles Jr.: 1. Georgia 2. Washington 3. Michigan 4. Oklahoma
Ryan McGee: 1. Georgia 2. Washington 3. Ohio State 4. Oklahoma
Adam Rittenberg: 1. Georgia 2. Michigan 3. Florida State 4. Washington
Alex Scarborough: 1. Georgia 2. Michigan 3. Florida State 4. Washington
Mark Schlabach: 1. Georgia 2. Michigan 3. Washington 4. Florida State
Paolo Uggetti: 1. Georgia 2. Washington 3. Michigan 4. Florida State
Tom VanHaaren: 1. Georgia 2. Michigan 3. Florida State 4. Washington
Dave Wilson: 1. Georgia 2. Michigan 3. Florida State 4. Washington

Chip Patterson, CBS Sports

Tomorrow’s Top 25 Today: Oklahoma’s Red River Rivalry win has Sooners surging up college football rankings
2. Michigan (2): The loss of Texas first-place votes will likely help Michigan’s standing in the rankings, especially after a 52-10 win at Minnesota, but we’re not projecting that it will be enough to jump Georgia for No. 1.