And junior quarterback Shea Patterson went 14-of-25 for 212 yards and two touchdowns, while running eight times for 24 yards. Overall, the Wolverines’ offense totaled 395 yards compared to MSU’s 94 and won the possession battle, 41:03 to 18:57.

"I thought we gave a little too much in the first half," coach Mark Dantonio said. "I thought we shut them down a little bit, put some pressure on the quarterback, made it difficult to run."

The Spartan defense was exhausted, which defensive coordinator Mike Tressel said is testament to playing until the game ends.

“You want to have an empty tank at the end of the game,” Tressel said. “We expect them to put everything out on the field, and both sides of the ball on this football team expect to do whatever it takes to win a football game, so it's disappointing. We did talk about fighting until it read zeroes on the clock, and I think our guys did that. We need to do whatever it takes on every side of every phase to win this football game.”

Tressel’s ideology is passed down to his players, naturally including senior safety Khari Willis, who said he only looks at what the defense can control.

“They made some plays on us,” Willis said. “For some of them we were in position, some of them we weren’t. And I feel like they created some separation which made it harder for us.”

The Wolverines did, with Patterson throwing his second touchdown to wide receiver Donovan Peoples-Jones for 79 yards to make it 14-7 with 2:24 left in the third quarter, beating cornerback Tre Person. 

“Donovan one-on-one coverage, good luck with that,” Patterson said. “He made a hell of a play after the catch.”

Unlike MSU’s offense, U-M kept its defense off the field for a majority of the game, which Patterson credited to the offense’s confidence.

“I think when you do have those long drives, well one, you keep your defense off the field and give them time to rest; another, it gets you in a rhythm offensively and getting comfortable and it gives you momentum,” Patterson said.

The Spartans’ defense, however, were able to force two fumbles in the third quarter. 

The first one forced by defensive tackle Raequan Williams on running back Chris Evans, and recovered by linebacker Brandon Bouyer-Randle on U-M’s 7-yard line. The fumble led to MSU’s lone touchdown of the afternoon — a 4-yard pass from wide receiver Darrell Stewart Jr. to quarterback Brian Lewerke.

The second, a botched handoff from Patterson to Higdon, which was recovered by linebacker Tyriq Thompson with 6:40 left in the third.

But linebacker Joe Bachie said the defense could have turned one of those fumbles directly into a score — especially with the defense being on the field as long as it was.

“It gets difficult,” said Bachie, who tied for a team-high 10 tackles. “But defensively, we had a couple of turnovers, there were a couple of balls in the air, it just wasn't rolling our way today.  Maybe one of those tipped passes goes our way, the game's different.  Or one of those fumbles turns into a scoop and score, it's a different game.”

Tressel said the goal coming into this week, and every week, was to hold the opposing team to 17 or less points. And this week, it slightly changed.

“This particular week, our goal was to hold them to less points than our offense scored, and we weren't able to do that,” Tressel said.

But no matter how you put it, the defense will defend its offense and say it needs to get better, because football is a team sport.

“One of the things we love about this is football team is that it's one football team,” Tressel said. “It's not anything other than 120 guys as one. I don't feel like there's any situations where if we're playing poorly, the offense gets frustrated, or if the offense isn't playing well the defense is getting frustrated. These are great kids, 120 guys as one, love them for that.”