Michigan football: Penn State took shots on social media, chirped at halftime — but 'they didn't talk on the field'
There wasn’t much bulletin board material in the media during the week in the lead-up to No. 5 Michigan Wolverines football‘s top-10 showdown with No. 10 Penn State. Of course, neither team likes each other, and the Nittany Lions — coming off a bye week — have had this game circled since losing at home, 21-17, in 2021.
But the Nittany Lions did do some talking that the general public wasn’t aware of. Some Nittany Lions joined in the chat of a Michigan player’s Instagram live in the days before the contest, according to U-M senior EDGE Mike Morris.
“The whole week, they’ve been Twitter fingers, talking to us on social media,” Morris said postgame. “One of our guys was on live, and they told him, ‘We’re gonna see you … dah, dah, dah, dah dah.’”
The Wolverines chose to hold their response for Saturday, taking social media out of it and handling the feud between the white lines at The Big House.
“We all told each other, they wanna have those Twitter fingers, they wanna talk on social media, OK.”
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Michigan made its point Saturday, dominating the Nittany Lions by every possible measure in a 41-17 win. The Wolverines had 18 first downs to Penn State’s 1 at halftime, but thanks to a 62-yard scramble by PSU quarterback Sean Clifford and a subsequent touchdown run by running back Kaytron Allen, and a pick-six on a tipped ball from U-M sophomore quarterback J.J. McCarthy, the Nittany Lions only trailed 16-14 at the break.
While Michigan was attempting to enter its locker room in the Lloyd Carr tunnel, Penn State players took the chance to block them out and talk smack.
“They started talking,” Morris said of the skirmish.
“I was late to it. I didn’t see what went on,” McCarthy added. “But just from how they were acting emotionally out there, going into the half, and how they were emotionally all game, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was them starting it.”
Michigan proceeded to make a statement in the second half, outscoring PSU by a score of 25-3, continuing to own the trenches and pour it on.
“And then, they didn’t talk on the field,” Morris continued. “They wanted to talk at halftime because they got lucky, but yeah, that’s it.”
“We just finished it,” McCarthy said with a smile.
The manner in which Michigan won was satisfying to both its head coach Jim Harbaugh, and his players. The Wolverines rushed for 418 yards, their most since a 78-0 win over Rutgers in 2016 (481). And that came against what was the nation’s No. 5 rushing defense entering Saturday.
“From the jump. From the first drive,” McCarthy said of when he knew his running game would be able to find success. “Just the way they were moving off the ball, and they weren’t showing us anything we hadn’t seen before.
“The way these guys were running the ball right away and the way these guys were blocking, we just knew it was going to be a dogfight to the end in the trenches. Our guys pulled out in front, for sure.”
On the other side of the ball, outside of Clifford’s 62-yard scamper, Michigan held PSU to 49 rushing yards on 21 carries, and notched 4 tackles for loss, including 2 sacks.
“Like Coach Harbaugh said in the locker room, it’s a butt-kicking in every which way it could be kicked,” McCarthy said. “It was in our house, and we take pride in it. We protect our house. Just being able to do it in the fashion we did was just awesome to see.”
