The hype around Michigan football had been dialed up to an eleven after the Wolverines week one mauling of the Minnesota Golden Gophers in Minneapolis to win the Little Brown Jug. 

The articles, videos, and quick hitters flashed like paparazzi bulbs across news outlets, social media, and college football programs everywhere. The Wolverines had a quarterback and the new offense was nasty. The excellent defense from the year before was not rebuilding after losing multiple crucial pieces to graduation and the NFL., it had been reloaded and was ready to make a run at Ohio State and the B1G championship.

But just one week later that edifice has been obliterated, crumbled to dust and washed away in a torrent like some early 20th century damming disaster, after the 13th ranked Wolverines were knocked off at the Big House by what appeared to be an especially vulnerable Michigan State football team.

The blame, as it generally does, went straight to fifth year head coach Jim Harbaugh, who once again was, according to his critics, out-coached, out-foxed, and out-prepared by the Wolverines primary rivals. Harbaugh’s dismal rivalry record dropped to 3-8 against both the Spartans and Buckeyes, including 0-5 against Ohio State, who the Wolverines will play at the end of the season.

After the game, Harbaugh felt inclined to practice a form of extreme ownership, telling the media his team could not get better after what had happened unless and until they truly “owned this loss.”

A beat writer for the Detroit News quoted Harbaugh in a tweet. 

What exactly Harbaugh meant by that, or how he is going to make his players own the loss in a special way, is difficult to know. But the Wolverines are going on the road next Saturday to play a resurgent Indiana Hoosiers team sitting at 2-0 with victories over Penn State and Rutgers, and ranked eighth in the latest ESPN power poll.

It has got late early in Ann Arbor in 2020, and the course of this strange young season will become clearer for the Wolverines after next week’s battle in Bloomington, Indiana.