Former Michigan assistant coach Jerry Hanlon served as an honorary captain for the Michigan State game. Now, he talks about the frustrations of that evening, and more.
Hanlon takes on the issues regarding Michigan's offense, and talks about what he'd like to see done better with the Wolverines moving on to play at Indiana Saturday.
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• Serving as an honorary captain for the MSU game: "It was a great honor. I'm just sorry that being out there didn't produce a better effort. I thought we could have had a chance to win that football game. We didn't get the job done, and I felt a little bad about that.
"But it's a great honor to be considered someone worthy to be out on that field with that team, and I just wish it would have turned out a little bit differently. I still enjoyed the evening.
"The night before, a lot of former players came back, and I had a chance to visit with them. If there's one thing an old coach looks forward to, it's to see his old players come back and have a chance to see that they're doing pretty well. I had a chance to do that this weekend."
• Michigan not getting over the top against Michigan State or in rivalry games lately: "It's very disappointing, the loss to Michigan State. Not having success in your two biggest rivalries — Ohio State and Michigan State — it kind of leaves a bad taste for all the fans and everybody who has a great interest in Michigan.
"While it's hard to suffer through those games, believe me, it's not time to give up on this team or their coaches. There are things they need to correct and improve on, but the [building] blocks are there. There are things that can be worked on.
"I've been through this before. Everything is going along smoothly, and they're patting you on the back, and you lose a football game and they all turn around and they're not patting you on the back. They're kicking you, you know where.
"It can happen very, very quickly, but I just want our fans to understand, this is not the end of the season. It's a very critical part of our season, but it's surely not the end of our season, if we're going to go on from here."
Michigan's offensive struggles: "We've got to find our identity. I don't think we have an identity right now. By that, I mean I'm not sure we know what we've basing our offense on. Are we going to develop a running attack, so we can enhance our ability to throw the football, or are we going to develop a passing attack to set up our running ability?
"Right now, we seem to be just picking and choosing at random. I don't know if we have a real effective, working type of offense. You can do that, you can pick and choose if things are going well. But if they don't go well, it's pretty hard to determine what the problem is.
"We've got to determine what we're going to do with our offense, and then set our minds to get something done along those lines, so we know exactly what we're trying to do. If it doesn't [work], you'll know why it's not happening.
"Let's face it — this is a critical part of our season right now. We have two away games, played in hostile stadiums, against two pretty good opponents. Indiana is coming up, and they're one of the most improved teams in the Big Ten. They're always a threat when you play them down there.
"Then you're going to have to go over and play in Happy Valley, and if anybody's ever been there, they know that's a heck of a place to try and win a football game. We'd better get ourselves prepared."
• A lesson learned at Indiana: "I remember this like it was yesterday. Ellie Mallory, who was Bill's wife, was a very good friend of mine. I went to their wedding, we were classmates at Miami, and she is one of the most wonderful ladies you'd ever want to meet.
"She'd come and say something after the game, make sure she'd say hello to me. I'll never forget, after losing that [1987] football game, I was standing outside and Ellie came over to say hello to me. I was in a very foul mood, and I wasn't very respectful to anybody, let alone to her.
"She just kind of looked at me and said, 'You know, how do you think I felt all those other times, and I still was at least a little bit cordial to you.' I looked at her and said, 'Ellie, I'm sorry, I know what you mean.'
"She taught me right then and there, I don't care what you do, if you lose a football game, you continue to have your friendships and you continue to be cordial to people you know you should be. That was a great lesson for me.
"I hope, even after this game, if I see a Michigan Stater, and he's a friend of mine, I'm going to make sure I don't hold anything against him that I felt about that football game. I hope our friends out there do the same thing."
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