The Wolverine: Covering University of Michigan Football and Sports
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/603303
MICHIGAN FOOTBALL started playing. The team that won got to play the next game, and if you lost, you'd go to the side and pick a new team. "The goal was to play all the way to lunch. You didn't want to miss out on any games. To me, when you're in a playoff situation, you're going to play more games if you win. If you don't win, you've got to watch." The analogy isn't perfect, since Har- baugh wouldn't get to go pick a new team if the Wolverines dropped one of their final two contests. But the point he made focused on there being more avail- able to his team if it kept winning. That's what he stressed in the fi- nal stretch of the 2015 regular sea- son. "We're in that kind of situation," he said. "If we win, we get to keep play- ing after the next two games. If we don't, we don't. We watch. "That would be the opportunity to play in the [Big Ten] championship game and the playoffs. It's limited in college football. They have a four- team playoff for the national cham- pionship in college football, which is unlike any other sport in college athletics that I'm aware of." Whether Harbaugh becomes a vo- cal advocate for an expanded college football playoff system remains to be seen. For now, he's keeping his focus on what the Wolverines need to do to have a chance in the games in front of them. As for the playoffs, he noted, they've been put in place by the NCAA, and that's a start. "At least we have one," he said. "They have it on a limited basis. In the I-AA subdivision, they have a 16-team playoff. I think if we looked at bas- ketball, hockey, all the other sports in college, there's a playoff. "I personally love a playoff type of situation. You win, you get to keep playing." Of course, one l o c a l r e s i d e n t noted that un- like at Pattengill, Michigan needed s o m e o n e e l s e to win on the other court. In other words, Ohio State needed to take down Michigan State to set up a game in which the Wolverines could knock off the Buckeyes and play in the Big Ten title game. He asked if Harbaugh would thus be rooting for the Buckeyes to beat the Spartans in their showdown in Columbus, the week before OSU comes to Michigan. Harbaugh grinned, and responded: "There was only one court at Patten- gill." ❏ 2015 MICHIGAN FOOTBALL SCHEDULE Date Opponent (TV) Time (ET) Sept. 3 at Utah (FS1) L, 24-17 Sept. 12 Oregon State (ABC) W, 35-7 Sept. 19 UNLV (BTN) W, 28-7 Sept. 26 BYU (ABC/ESPN) W, 31-0 Oct. 3 at Maryland (BTN) W, 28-0 Oct. 10 Northwestern (BTN) W, 38-0 Oct. 17 Michigan State (ESPN) L, 27-23 Oct. 31 at Minnesota (ESPN) W, 29-26 Nov. 7 Rutgers (BTN) W, 49-16 Nov. 14 at Indiana (ABC) W, 48-41 (2OT) Nov. 21 at Penn State (ABC) 12:00 pm Nov. 28 Ohio State (TBA) 12:00 pm