ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Following the No. 7 Michigan football team's 24-21 win over Army on Saturday, Wolverines coach Jim Harbaugh met with reporters to discuss the game. See what he had to say below.

On his team coming a couple plays away from losing

Well first, like I told the team, that’s how you fight. That’s how you scratch and claw, and both teams did that. Very impressed with both squads. Our team, the way they hung in there and their courage, their resilience and their sharpness of mind, that seems to be at a little bit higher level this year with this ball club, and happy about that.

Sometimes you’ve got to fight like that. Football fight.

On the Wolverines' defense

I can talk about the defense and their play the entire game. That was a gem of a defensive performance, no doubt about it. You can talk about the last play, that last defensive series, just the entire football game. We made mistakes offensively; penalties, turnovers and turnovers on downs that the defense was not in the best position. But they played great. The defense on the goal line was huge, a big play in the game. Aidan Hutchinson sack on the last play of the game, huge, causing the turnover.

It was really great play. Josh Uche really had a great game, it may not show up in the stat line, because a lot of times he was knocking people back. He wasn’t getting paid for it, someone else was making the tackle, but he was doing a great job. Kwity Paye I thought had an excellent game as well. Carlo Kemp had some big stops in the middle. Josh Ross fought, Josh Metellus played really well, a lot of guys just played great. Don Brown did a great job preparing, called a great game. Called a great play on the last play of the game, got home, got the turnover, got the win.

On if Michigan committed an intentional false start to set up the fake punt

We saw what punt coverage they were in, what punt block they were in, we called the alert. On the next play they ran the same … to answer your question the false start was not on purpose.

On Aidan Hutchinson and if he won the game ball

He might have just kept it from the last play of the game, but I did see him carrying the ball. Yeah, a great performance by him and all the other guys I mentioned. He had sweated through his entire uniform and looked like he just played a football game that was a heck of a fight. Very proud of him, big hug afterwards.

On the kicking rotation

We were still alternating today. Big kick by Jake Moody today, in overtime, big clutch kick in the second overtime. Was the difference in the game.

On the turnovers

The first fumble, we missed a protection. The backs were so good last week in the pass protection. And this week we missed a protection up the middle, that got chalked on the sideline, and then Shea got a little loose with the ball that caused that fumble, that was the first one.

Shea’s second fumble, came on a corner blitz, and our running back didn’t see it and got stripped. So I don’t know how much of that really has to do with new offensive stuff. The play where Ben fumbled, I think he fumbled right away. Guy got a helmet on the ball. So maybe some more live tackling in practice this week with our running backs, those kind of hits, can have some more practice on that.

On the Metellus fumble return that was called back.

Yeah I was told I couldn’t challenge that, that it wasn’t a challengeable play.

On going for it on two fourth downs instead of kicking field goals

Our analytics had it that the best thing to do if we got in that situation, fourth-and-three, from that distance, was to go for it. It ended up being fourth-and-2, and we didn’t convert. Same with the second one, that was another fourth-and-2, and the analytics told us to go for it, and we didn’t make it again.

On what led to short-yardage struggles

What led to it? They had a better defense call than we executed our offensive play.

On Shea Patterson potentially being dinged up and not running on option plays

He ran a couple. He was better. He was able to work through what he had and felt 100 percent for the game.

The read was not there for the quarterback to pull it.

On his message to Shea after two more turnovers

You can’t get that loose with the ball. The first one was his, the second one was a missed protection with the running back.

On Jon Runyan Jr.’s injury

Jon was just really on the verge of being ready to play. He could have played, but there was … he looked good in practice, but we just felt like we would give him another week to make sure this isn’t something that’s a season ongoing problem.

On if he’ll start at Wisconsin over Ryan Hayes

Can I say that now? Most likely. That’s why we held him out again this week, so he could get it fully healed, not put him out there mostly healed. Ryan had a good game, too. From what I saw he had a good game.

On Zach Charbonnet’s workload

I just really felt like we had to lean on Zach today. Ben fumbled, and we had another that missed the protection there, we just felt like we had to go with Zach. But more than we wanted to. So this next week, it’s going to be something — the next two weeks really — getting that next back that we can get in there and really trust and play well. We’ll evaluate next week to get another back in there, because that’s tough. Tough duty going a whole game on a hot day.

But you’ve got to give the kid a lot of credit. The kid rose to the occasion. Had to be tired, but did a hack of a job in my opinion.

On leaning on the run and not being as aggressive

I thought our pass protection was really good. At times, I felt like we had a long time back there in the pocket. Some of the big third-down conversions were by pass. Ronnie Bell, seemed like every one of his, I think, seven catches for 81 yards, were big catches. Shea had time to throw, and I thought the protection was good in that sense.

That was the play that was called. We could go into every game, ‘Why didn’t you pass? You ran and it didn’t work so you should have passed.’ I could do this for every game of football. ‘Oh, you passed, you should have run.’

On if he feels like his team continuing to improve

Some good. Not as much as we would have like. And we’ll keep grinding in that department. Just getting it more well-oiled, that’s it.