Moments before Michigan’s football season began Saturday, coach Jim Harbaugh was excitedly banging the shoulder pads of Wilton Speight, his newly starting quarterback.
And after Speight’s first pass, Harbaugh likely wanted to bang on something else.
But this is why you open against Hawaii, a team that would have been overmatched if it had walked across the street to Michigan Stadium, let alone having flown 19,000 miles in little over a week, thanks to its season opener in Australia.
So when Speight, on U-M’s first offensive play, threw a floater too late and too soft toward tight end Jake Butt — and it was picked off by Hawaii’s Damien Packer — nobody panicked.