Wolverines avenge last season's loss, kick away Spartans to reach 8-0

Ann Arbor — Michigan players for the last two weeks talked of nothing but wanting to finally upend Michigan State and celebrate with the Paul Bunyan Trophy.

And now, Paul, is back in Ann Arbor.

The fourth-ranked Wolverines relied on their most productive scorers, kicker Jake Moody and his five field goals, and running back Blake Corum, and a defense that thwarted Michigan State twice on fourth down and added an interception late to win 29-7 before 111,083 Saturday night under the lights at Michigan Stadium.

BOX SCORE: Michigan 29, Michigan State 7

Michigan State, which entered this game as three-touchdown underdogs, had won six of the last 10 meetings in the rivalry, including the last two games. The Spartans’ score came on a 26-yard touchdown reception by Keon Coleman on a pass from Payton Thorne in the first quarter for the Spartans’ only lead in the game.

Michigan is 8-0, 5-0 Big Ten and avenged its lone regular-season loss last season with the win over Michigan State, which drops to 3-5, 1-4.

But in the aftermath, there was an ugly scene in the Michigan Stadium tunnel. Reporters captured video of what appeared to be a number of Michigan State players surrounding one Michigan player, who appeared to be defensive back Ja’Den McBurrows. The MSU players appeared to punch and kick the Michigan player.

Melissa Overton, deputy police chief of UM police, said in a text to The Detroit News that the department is reviewing the video footage and investigating the incident along with MSU police. Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh said in the post-game news conference that two Michigan players were “assaulted” but did not identify them.

“I mean, one of our players has a nasal injury, could be a broken nose,” Harbaugh said. “Just very unfortunate.”

Michigan athletic director Warde Manuel briefly joined Harbaugh at the news conference and said he had spoken with Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren, who was in attendance at the game.

“What happened after the game is completely unacceptable,” Manuel said. “This is not what a rivalry should be about, and it's not how it should be remembered. We won on the field … and for that to happen is unacceptable.”

Michigan players after the game said they didn’t know about the incident to comment on it. Instead, they wanted to talk about the game.

Corum now has 1,078 yards this season after gaining 177 yards on a career-high 33 attempts. He scored on a 4-yard touchdown run in the fourth quarter and caught a 2-yard pass in the second quarter. Quarterback J.J. McCarthy was 15-of-25 for 167 yards.

But it was Moody, the reigning Lou Groza Award winner as the nation’s top kicker, who kept the Wolverines churning, particularly when they’d stall in the red zone. Moody was 5-for-5 on field goal attempts including a career-best 54-yarder in the fourth quarter to build a 22-7 lead.

This was another labored effort in the red zone for Michigan, which entered the game tied for 18^th nationally in red-zone touchdown percentage (66.7%). Three times the Wolverines reached the red zone, inside the Spartans’ 20-yard line, and three times were fortunate to come away with field goals from Moody of 22, 25 and 33 yards.

Corum and quarterback J.J. McCarthy said the team has to improve its red-zone production.

“You know, we got the win,” Corum said. “You want to win. If you win by one point, you win by one. You just want to win. So yeah, I would say we got out of it what we wanted to, but we got to score. I want to blow them out, and it should have been a blowout.

“But I'm not gonna make no excuses, man, we got to get better at the red zone. And we will. That’s what's so good about this team -- when we see something bad, we fix it so we’re gonna go back to the table, and we're gonna work on red zone.”

Moody saved his best for last with the 54-yard field goal and he had a 39-yarder. He was one shy of his record six field goals made against Indiana in 2018. Moody was 5-of-5 on field goal attempts.

The Wolverines led 13-7 at halftime after a fumble and two red-zone trips that resulted in field goals.

The defense, though, stopped Michigan State twice on fourth down. The Spartans went for it with 7:01 left in the first quarter but running back Elijah Collins was stopped short by Mazi Smith and Makari Paige. In the second quarter, after back-to-back receptions of 27 and 22 yards, respectively, by Coleman, the Spartans faced 4^th-and-1 at the Michigan 5-yard line. After an MSU timeout with 7:35 left, running back Jalen Berger was thrown for a 2-yard loss by linebacker Junior Colson and Michael Barrett to give Michigan the ball on downs.

“We had all-out blitz pressure, and we were able to get home from the edges and get them stopped in the backfield,” Harbaugh said. “Those were critical stops, turnover on downs twice in the first half, especially when they got inside of our 10-yard line and came away with no points. The stops throughout the game, really the key to the game, was the way our defense played on third down especially. Just an outstanding job by our defense.”

Michigan held Michigan State to two three-and-outs to start the second half, and on the Spartans’ next possession, there was a mishandled punt for a 21-yard loss. That gave Michigan the ball at the MSU 8-yard line and two plays later, Corum scored. Rod Moore got his third interception of the season with just more than four minutes left in the game to seal the win.

The Wolverines held Michigan State to 63 second-half yards, including 51 on one play. Michigan State was credited with minus-18 yards rushing in the second half and was 0-for-5 on third down. For the game the Spartans were 2-of-11 on third down.

Michigan State’s highlight was Coleman, who finished with 155 yards on five catches, including the 51-yard reception. Thorne was 17-of-30 for 215 yards and took two sacks, including one by Braiden McGregor.

"I say, hey, just give them credit," MSU Coach Mel Tucker, who is 2-1 against the Wolverines, said. "They beat us today. They played better football than us today. And we didn't get it done. So give them credit. Let's get ready to move on to the next one."

achengelis@detroitnews.com

Twitter: @chengelis