ANN ARBOR, Mich. — You always hear about the physical part of the game, but there’s just no place for this.

Near the end of the game in Happy Valley, when Michigan cut the Penn State lead to 7 for the final time, the Wolverines did so on a gritty touchdown by QB Shea Patterson, who kept the ball, making his way into a pile of bodies comprised of players from both teams.

To see him cross the goal line was somewhat incomprehensible, given the amount of players battling for the line of scrimmage, but there was something afoul, according to the Michigan players.

As senior left tackle Jon Runyan Jr. tells it, it’s a testament to Patterson’s toughness and why the team has his back.

“Shea played lights out in that game,” Runyan said. “I love his composure, his leadership.

“Even on the touchdown (when) he had the QB sneak, I can’t believe it, but we were down there, we were in the pile – I wasn’t in it – but Shea was getting his eyes gouged out in the scrum over there. And he was still fighting away, even though people were digging his eyes. Came to the sidelines with tears all in his eyes, because it was ridiculous that people were trying to gouge his eyes out.

“But he kept fighting for us. And we appreciate it. Awesome leader. We’ll do whatever we can to protect him, because we know he has the ability to make those plays.”

On Tuesday evening, Patterson confirmed this series of events, flatly saying, yes — the Nittany Lions were literally clawing at his eyes, and yes — it was intentional.

“Yeah, a little bit – that was not fun at all,” “They had me for a good 10 seconds in there. I don’t even know. I was trying to reach the ball across the plane, and for a good while, I was screaming for my life for a second. Yeah, wasn’t too happy about that.

“Anything you can do to help (your team) win, right?”

The ruling on the field was a touchdown, but there was no way it could be confirmed or reversed, given how congested the play was at the goal line.

You always hear stories about how tough those football pile-ons can be, and Patterson says this was on another level.

“I’ve never been in a pile as violent as that one,” Patterson said. “Got the touchdown, but that wasn’t fun.

“Dude had his index finger in my eye, in my eye socket, for about, like I said, about 10 seconds. Yeah, that wasn’t good.”

“I’ve heard of ankle-twisting, but I hadn’t really heard much about eye-gouging,” Runyan said. “It’s kind of ridiculous, unfair. That scrum lasted a good 30 seconds and guys weren’t coming off. Shea and Ben Mason kept trying to push their feet to get the ball across the line. It’s something I’ve never seen before. I guess it’s something they felt they needed to do to get an edge. It’s kind of ridiculous, but it’s whatever. The refs couldn’t see it because it was at the bottom of the pile.”

Given the situation, there could be no penalties or anything like that, because the referees had no way of seeing the violence taking place underneath the pile, where Patterson was with the ball.

But when he got up out of the scrum, the officials did check on him. Again, though, not much they could do about a penalty that was literally impossible to detect.

“The refs came up to me and asked if I was alright,” Patterson said. “’Yeah, yeah, I’m good. Just almost got my eye ripped out of my socket.’ I guess that’s just part of football.

“It was a little blurry for a second. It was a little blurry, I’m not gonna lie. But it didn’t last too long.”