Jim Harbaugh, Shea Patterson and the rest of the Michigan offense caught plenty of grief for an underwhelming performance against Notre Dame on the opening weekend of the season. The Wolverines looked as anemic as they did in 2017.

Last Saturday, things looked much better for the Wolverines offensively. Patterson had three touchdown passes, Karan Higdon rushed for over 150 yards and Michigan posted 49 points in a blowout win over Western Michigan. It was the type of showing fans hoped to see a week earlier against the Fighting Irish.

Coming off his first win as Michigan’s quarterback, Patterson made a Wednesday morning appearance on the Jamie and Stoney Show on 97.1 The Ticket. The quarterback was asked about the criticism he received after the first week of the season, and he responded with a clear message to fans of the Maize and Blue.

“Everybody just needs to relax a little bit,” Patterson said. “It was our first game and we lost by a touchdown at Notre Dame against a very good team, especially the first game of the season. We’re just going to continue to keep getting better and fight every week.”

Patterson continued to say that he and his teammates refused to be defined by the first game of the year and plan to use the loss to Notre Dame as motivation moving forward.

“You can do one or two things after a tough loss like that,” Patterson said. “You can think about it the whole week and let it carry over to the next game or put it behind you and get better. We came in on Sunday watching the film and getting better and practicing hard all week and it paid off.”

In his first two games with Michigan, Patterson has completed 32-of-47 passes for 352 yards, three touchdowns and an interception. Though he had just 12 completions against Western Michigan, Patterson made several impressive throws throughout the contest.

The Wolverines have one final non-conference game against SMU on Saturday before opening B1G play against Nebraska.