This is by David Jones of PennLive, as good a beat writer as there is.

I cannot remember…a football moment flukier than Penn State’s 17-16 lead at Michigan two minutes into the third quarter. It was wholly undeserved and ripe to be erased.

I’ve seen crazy things happen in every sort of athletic realm. But had the Nittany Lions held that lead and won this game, you could’ve just broken down the sets and rolled up the backdrop right there. I’d have known it was some sort of grand illusion created by scriptwriters and cinematographers and not flesh-and-blood athletes.

But smoke and mirrors have no place in football. Deception has its place. Misdirection and influence are useful. They will not win you games of the sort they held at Michigan Stadium on Saturday.

…Above all sports, football doesn’t lie. Not for a full game. And this game could only fib for 32 minutes before the truth emerged in a big bold decree – Michigan 41, Penn State 17.

That score was misleading. It should’ve been much worse.
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Michigan is playing…[at] a level above that which Penn State under James Franklin has yet achieved.

I once believed Franklin had a larger plan, that he was playing a longer game, one in which spreading the field on offense and winning with speed on defense would eventually be melded with strength and stability in the trenches. But that final component has never arrived.
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Sometimes in sports, the statistics do the lying. But not in this football game. Michigan only stopped itself, Penn State never had much of a hand in it. And when the Wolverines concentrated on running the football, they ran over the Lions.

The stat figures never told a mistruth, even when the score did. When PSU led by a point, Michigan led in ground yards 168-72, in first downs 18-3, in possession 24 minutes to 8.

And so, even when the Nittany Lions enjoyed a scoreboard advantage, an inevitability hung over the game like the stacked jury it was. Michigan was dominating scrimmage both when it had the ball and when it didn’t. …
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At the half, Michigan had run a staggering 50 plays to Penn State’s 14.
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…by its first possession of the third quarter, Michigan was an irresistible force that could not be denied. Once Edwards blasted a sweep over a wiped-out right side, he had only those lonely DBs to beat. That 67-yard run was the end of the big lie the scoreboard had been telling. …and the Wolverines delivered the verdict that football justice demanded.
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I have not mentioned Sean Clifford to this point and that is by design. The narrative pre-determined by a sizable faction of Penn State followers is that the 6th-year quarterback is somehow the dysfunctional part in what otherwise could be a smoothly running offensive machine.

That is so far from the truth, and yet it has become a sort of accepted gospel. …

Anyway, Clifford cannot dictate that Penn State’s receivers run faster to spread the defense vertically. Neither can he block for freshman running backs Nick Singleton and Kaytron Allen who were overwhelmed by the maize-n-blue wall that engulfed them at every attempt…

Clifford’s stats will be cited as further evidence of his mediocrity – 7-of-19 for 120 yards. But they were skewed heavily by down-and-distance and the pressure of Michigan’s front defenders. He was neither great nor awful. But he also wasn’t the difference in the game…

Finally, there was a moment midway in the third quarter when Clifford made a play that could’ve gotten the Lions improbably back in the game. You cannot throw a ball any better than the looping 4th/6 toss he attempted to Parker Washington that slipped through the lunging wideout’s hands. It was a really tough pass, over a snugly guarding defender, but Clifford made it. Would’ve been a tough catch, too. It could’ve given the Lions a first down at the Michigan 20, down just 24-17. But Washington didn’t hang on.

Honestly, even if the Lions take it in from there and tie the contest 24-24, it only keeps them breathing a little longer. It doesn’t change the irrevocable dynamics of this game.

They were revealed on the very next play when Corum went blasting up the middle untouched for 61 yards to finally pull the plug on a contest that seemed on life support for its entirety. The only fluke was that it was concealed as a competitive game for as long as it was.