They both sat down at the podium in a similar mood, muted and relieved to have won.
In the first game of the season, you'll take it how you can get it.
But as they continued to talk about Michigan's new offense following a ho-hum victory over Middle Tennessee State, Shea Patterson and Jim Harbaugh veered down different roads.
Patterson spoke quietly and with a hint of aggravation, frustrated with his own play. His three touchdown passes seemed far from his mind. Instead, Patterson was consumed with a fumble he committed on the first snap of the game and perhaps a few receivers he missed for big plays.
This is an offense that runs through the quarterback's hands; this was a night when Patterson's were a bit sloppy. Time and again, he scolded himself for not setting the right tone.
"Obviously didn't get off to a great start. I have to take care of the football," he said. "A win's a win, but I think everybody in that locker room knows that we didn't live up to our standards."
It would be wrong to say Patterson played poorly. He led the Wolverines on a trio of first-half touchdown drives following his fumble, punctuating each one with a long strike to the end zone. 36 yards to Tarik Black, 28 yards to Nico Collins, 28 yards to Sean McKeon. By halftime, Patterson had nearly 200 yards through the air.
The quick, aggressive tempo that Josh Gattis wants to establish on offense suited his quarterback well.
But the second half left much to be desired. With a chance to put the game away early, Patterson stumbled through his first two drives, twice going down for a loss. He fumbled the second time and was fortunate to recover. His first four throws fell incomplete.
When Michigan came out for its third drive of the third quarter, still leading 27-14, Dylan McCaffrey was in at quarterback. It was mostly McCaffrey's game from there.
Patterson bristled when asked if his erratic play was the reason for McCaffrey's substitution. ("I don't know how to answer that," he said.) Jim Harbaugh said it was a protective measure, as Patterson was dealing with an injury.
"I was keeping a close eye on him. We had some quarterback runs designed there in the third quarter that I preferred to see Dylan running, because I didn't want to make Shea's issue worse," said Harbaugh.
And then Harbaugh praised Patterson for his performance, dousing any potential quarterback controversy. The offense as a whole, said Harbaugh, was "pretty darn good" for its first time out of the garage. The more he spoke about it, the more his voice started to lift.
In the first game of his first season at Michigan ceding control of the offense, Harbaugh was taken by the possibilites that suddenly exist. So many plays. So many looks. Some of them effective, some of them not -- neither Patterson nor McCaffrey needs to be taking snaps at wide receiver -- but the sheer breadth of Gattis' playbook represents an important change.
"I was pleased, really, with the way they operated," Harbaugh said. "I mean, it was a lot. I mentioned to somebody earlier, I don't know how many different plays we ran in the game, but it was a lot. A lot of the offense that we've been practicing we ran, all facets of it. The play action pass, the dropback, the RPOs, the inside zone, the outside zones.
"It was a good amount of offense that got called tonight, so pleased with the way it was executed."
If there was one difference that stood out right away, it was in the way Michigan stretched the field. Gattis wants to get vertical in the passing game, and he knows he has the quarterback and, in particular, the receivers to do it. Even with Donovan Peoples-Jones sidelined Saturday night, the Wolverines' wealth of pass catchers was clear.
Patterson slung it early and often, to the outside and over the middle. His three touchdowns in the first half very well could have been five. While Michigan came back to the ground in the second half, the offense was at its best when the ball was in the air. Gattis called 26 passes versus 16 rushes in the first half, and Michigan had MTSU scrambling.
By the end of the night, six receivers for Michigan caught at least two passes, and that's not counting running back Zach Charbonnet.
"The good thing about the offense and the passing game is everybody's viable on every play. Even the running plays, (there are) viable receivers," Harbaugh said. "I mean, the ball's getting distributed now. It's going to a lot of different places."
These were the good things. There were bad things, too, and Harbaugh didn't avoid them. Some jumbled alignments. A handful of pre-snap penalties. And yes, bouts of carelessness with the football. On a different night against a different opponent, these are the kind of self-inflicted errors that could have cost Michigan dearly.
For Patterson, it seemed to be the lasting impression. He was a happy teammate following the win, but hardly a happy quarterback. He'll have better days than this. For Harbaugh, the first-night glitches were simply part of the process. They receded from view the further he stepped back.
And from there, he liked what he saw.
"Pretty darn good for the first time seeing a new offense," he said. "They've come so far from where it was in the spring to now. Keep trying build on it."
