Michigan State 28, Michigan 14

It turns out that I was correct to worry about what would happen when Michigan finally played a good team. What happened in this case was that they lost to Michigan State up in East Lansing by two touchdowns. This annarbor.com piece does a good job of explaining why.

This game illustrates the downside to setting up a schedule with mostly very easy games at the front: it leads to a sort of nominal win-loss illusion that affects not just poll voters but also, I think the players and coaches. On other hand, Michigan is already bowl eligible. There are tradeoffs everywhere.