It was a whirlwind 24 hours for the Michigan football coaches and players. It was announced Jim Harbaugh was suspended while the team was en route to State College to play Penn State and the team found out after they landed the plane. The next morning, there was a belief Harbaugh would still get to coach against the Nittany Lions, but once again, it was announced once the players were in the stadium that Harbaugh’s TRO hearing would be delayed. Offensive coordinator Sherrone Moore would not only be the O-line coach and OC, but he would also be the acting head coach.

The Wolverines came out on offense and sputtered. Michigan ran five plays in the first drive and just three plays in the second before punting on both of them. The Penn State pass rush looked to be too much for the Wolverines’ offensive line with how strong the Edge rushers were and with how blitz-happy defensive coordinator Manny Diaz is.

But Michigan started to scheme up some bubble screens to Semaj Morgan, get J.J. McCarthy outside of the pocket to find Coslton Loveland and Cornelius Johnson, and Moore would call some gutsy run plays on third-and-long when PSU blitzed to gain some confidence on the ground.

Michigan took a 14-9 lead entering halftime and the entire Michigan offense as we all knew it changed on a flip of a dime — the Wolverines went full service-academy on the then-second ranked Penn State rush defense.

J.J. McCarthy would not attempt another pass in the second half. In fact, his last attempt came at 7:41 left in the second quarter. Sherrone Moore would dial up 32 consecutive run plays to defeat the Nittany Lions — in Happy Valley.

It was bizarre, a Michigan team that has leaned on its Heisman-contending quarterback all season, to not attempt a single pass in the second half. After the game, Sherrone Moore met with reporters and he gave credit to Blake Corum and Donovan Edwards. He said sometimes you might have to throw the ball in order to win, and sometimes running the football gives you the best chance.

“We got two of the best backs in the country,” said Moore. “At the end of the day, we do whatever it takes to win. Sometimes it’s throwing the ball, sometimes it’s running the ball. We’re going to do whatever we can in that game. We thought as we got into the game, obviously, the run game became a priority and our guys up front really asserted themselves to be dominant. Those guys ran super hard, I was really excited about that.”

Just this week, running backs coach Mike Hart told reporters he thought the run game was just a couple of inches or a broken tackle away from hitting its stride. And that’s exactly what happened.

Edwards has two 22-yard runs and finished with 52 yards and a score. While Corum erupted for 145 yards and two scores. Corum had a 44-yard run and a 30-yard run against the PSU defense.

“Blake and Dono, it was positive gain after positive gain,” stated Moore. “I would say sometimes those three and fours turn into 15, 16 and, all of a sudden, it’s a 40-yarder. That’s what it was. It came to fruition. As far as upfront, man, I’m proud of those guys up front. They’ve taken a lot of ridicule and saying we haven’t ran the ball well or done this. They really asserted themselves this week in practice. I think you can tell they took a lot of pride in it. Adding 7 offensive lineman thing was a little wrinkle that we kind of had for a while. Decided that this would be the game to do it. Myles and Trente came in there for some significant snaps and did a really good job for us.”

According to Corum, Michigan went into the locker room at halftime and told itself it would dominate in the trenches in the second half. That’s exactly what the Wolverines did. Michigan ran the ball for 117 yards in the second half and only allowed 57 yards on the ground to Penn State.

“Yeah … 32 straight runs,” Corum said. “Going into halftime, we said up front, we were going to dominate. I just kept preaching to them just keep pushing man, just fight, fight, fight. We’re gonna run hard and something’s gonna break soon, and that’s what happened. So I’m so proud of the offensive line, the tight ends, receivers, (McCarthy) and Dono and myself and everyone else. It was just a great, great win.”

Regardless of what’s being said by the players or the coaches, the Harbaugh saga and how everything has been handled has to be somewhat of a distraction. But Michigan went into hostile territory and continues to show it can beat any team in a variety of ways. Even if the Wolverines need to go service-academy style.