Michigan Football: 3 ways Wolverines win, one way they lose to MSU

Shea Patterson must play better

In case you missed it, Shea Patterson hasn’t been playing up to par this season. There isn’t a game you can look to that would even be considered a mild success. In just two games, Shea has completed over 60% of his passes, and he has yet to hit the 300-yard mark. It’s not pretty.

The games have been won on the backs of Zach Charbonnet and the breakout star Hassan Haskins, which is ironic because Tru Wilson was the announced starter and Hassan Haskins wasn’t even on the radar at the start of the year.

Zach rushed 33 times when Army came to town, and Hassan has two 100-plus yard performances in the last four weeks. The philosophy has turned to run centric, an offense that was supposed to change under the new offensive coordinator Josh Gattis.

Whether the scheme has changed because of the underperforming Patterson, or whether the plays were overcomplicated and simply didn’t work, the key to victory is an accurate and mistake-free Shea Patterson.

He has to outperform the Shea of old for the Wolverines to beat the Spartans.

“Each game, Shea’s getting better and better,” said receiver Nico Collins. “During the season, he had a couple turnovers and he learned from turnovers. That’s hard. We want Shea back right now. He’s the quarterback and we all trust in Shea. He believes in us.”

Arguably, he hasn’t, but that’s not what’s important. Shea has to be the guy to beat Michigan State.