Jim Harbaugh's first-half FG decision vs. Ohio State confounded Twitter
It kind of makes sense, but it also really doesn't.
When you’re football team is playing catchup, sometimes the correct answer is to just take whatever points you can get and settle for a field goal, rather than no points. But sometimes, depending on where in the game you’re at and what the score is, deciding not to go for it can be a little puzzling.
That’s what happened Saturday in the Ohio State-Michigan game, and college football Twitter had some questions. And a few jokes.
After some incredibly costly mistakes — including Michigan being offsides as Ohio State was about to punt late in the second quarter — the Wolverines were trailing, 28-13, and at 4th-and-goal on the Buckeyes’ five-yard line with only 19 seconds left in the half. Their offense was looking pretty good against the nation’s best defense, putting up 285 first-half yards, 250 of them through the air thanks to quarterback Shea Patterson.
But instead of going for it, Jim Harbaugh sent kicker Quinn Nordin for a fairly meaningless field goal, and Michigan went into halftime down, 28-16.
Again, it’s important to take what you can get against a team like Ohio State, which entered Saturday’s game leading the nation in points against, yards allowed and yards per play. But all that 23-yard field goal did was cut the Wolverines’ deficit from 15 points to 12, which is obviously still a two-possession game.
Regardless of what Michigan and Harbaugh’s reasoning for the field goal was, college football Twitter didn’t really understand the decision. And Michigan fans were far from thrilled.
Michigan’s biggest mistake of the game so far wasn’t the fumble or jumping offsides.
It’s kicking the field goal. Go for the TD, play to win. Kicking field goals will get you nowhere against Ohio State
— Tannenbaum Tom
(@tomrahme9) November 30, 2019
Update: Michigan kicked a field goal late in the third quarter that had people asking the same questions.