Michigan Football: 3 Things to watch for Wolverines vs Penn State

Michigan football is taking on Penn State Saturday and here are three things to watch for the Wolverines against the Nittany Lions.

Following a nail-biting win over Rutgers last Saturday, Michigan football will be back in the Big House this week taking on a familiar face — Penn State.

The Nittany Lions and Wolverines have their own interesting rivalry. It’s not Ohio State-Michigan or even Michigan-Michigan State, but the two programs have been fighting it out in the Big Ten East for years and often battle it out for recruits too.

This year’s game was expected have big implications in the division race as both Michigan football and Penn State seemed like challengers to Ohio State, however, the Wolverines are 2-3 and Penn State enters 0-5.

Yet, when James Franklin and Jim Harbaugh get together, it’s always interesting and looking ahead to Saturday’s matchup, here are three things to watch:

Who starts at quarterback?

For Michigan, it seems pretty clear that Cade McNamara will be the starter Saturday after throwing for 260 yards and accounting for five touchdowns in 2.5 quarters of play.

Not only did McNamara put up big numbers, he was clutch and engineered three second-half touchdown drives, as well as two more in overtime. He didn’t make a ton of wow throws but he was accurate and got the ball into the hands of playmakers.

There was also a noticeable spark when McNamara came off the bench and we’ll see if that continues this week.

As for Penn State, the Nittany Lions have already played and started two different quarterbacks this season in Sean Clifford and Will Levis but the offense is averaging just 24 points per game so it hasn’t really worked.

We shall see what happens but whichever team can figure things out at quarterback on Saturday is going to have a good chance at winning the game.