Michigan Football: 3 Keys for Wolverines against Penn State
By Adam Childs
The Michigan football team hosts Penn State in a battle of disappointing teams for the 2020 season. What do the Wolverines need to do to keep the Nittany Lions winless?
When the 2020 season started Penn State was ranked in the top five and Michigan football was a fringe Big Ten contender. They both had to get through Ohio State, but there still seemed to be a chance of one of them winning the Big Ten East.
Well, 10 games and just two wins later (both by Michigan), and things look very different as we head into Thanksgiving. The only thing these two teams are thankful for is the fact that they do get to play football, even if it isn’t at a great level this year.
Penn State lost a heartbreaker to Indiana in the first game and hasn’t seemed to recover since. Losses to Ohio State and Iowa aren’t horrible, but a blowout loss to Maryland and a bad loss to Nebraska has put this team on the edge. James Franklin’s seat, believe it or not, is probably hotter than Jim Harbaugh’s right now. The first 0-5 start in the history of the school will do that to you.
Michigan football hasn’t been much better but they are coming off a triple-overtime win against Rutgers where they came back from 17 down.
It may not have been a pretty win, but it was a win nonetheless. Will it springboard the Wolverines into a run in the second half? The jury is still out on that, but what we do know is they have found a pretty good quarterback in Cade McNamara.
McNamara came on in relief of Joe Milton and looked really good in leading the Wolverines to 48 points in the win. It sparked the offense and had the Wolverines at least looking like a competent football team.
This game should be one of the marquee matchups of the weekend, instead, it is looking like a pillow fight, but one the Wolverines need to win. So what do they need to do in order to pick up their third win of the year? We take a look at three keys for Michigan to come out victorious.