Michigan Football: Wolverines Really Want An 11th Win
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Not many Michigan football teams have won 11 games, but the 2018 squad has a chance.
The Wolverines are 10-2 heading into Saturday’s Peach Bowl matchup against Florida, and many of them brought up the importance of adding one more when interviewed Wednesday in Atlanta.
“I haven’t won eleven games. I don’t remember the last time Michigan has,” senior receiver Grant Perry said. “I know Coach [Jim] Harbaugh has been saying we would be like the seventh or eighth team to win eleven games in Michigan history, so that is the goal right now.”
It’s been nine, actually, and four of them came between 1901 and 1905. The last team to do it was the 2011 squad. That team went 11-2 in head coach Brady Hoke’s first season.
Before that, the 2006 team won its first 11 games before falling to Ohio State and USC to close the year.
“At the end of the day, we're going for something that Michigan football hasn't done in a pretty long time, in a lot of years, and that's win 11 games,” sophomore linebacker Josh Ross said. “That's one thing we're priding ourselves on.
“So this game is huge. We want to win that 11th game and want to be great. This is really big for our football team. We're ready to go.”
They’ll have to do it without four of their starters. Senior running back Karan Higdon and fifth-year senior offensive tackle Juwann Bushell-Beatty have chosen not to play on offense, while juniors Devin Bush and Rashan Gary will sit from the defense.
Junior defensive tackle Carlo Kemp said the guys who do take the field in maize and blue will be ready to play, adding it counts for both this year and next.
“This game is how you send your seniors out. Some of the guys are fifth years and have been on the team for five years, and this is how you send them out right,” he said. “Some of the guys are going to start training for the draft, and for some of the guys this will be the last game they ever play in. It is giving them the opportunity to end their college career on the right note.
“You can’t take this game away from them once you win it and you bring that positivity into the next season when you go into winter workouts, go into spring ball, camp and then your 2019 season. It’s just building that next success for next year.”
NOTES
• Florida’s defense is 12thin the country in pass defense, and they got Michigan’s attention on film with their athleticism.
“They're good. They're rowdy,” junior running back Chris Evans, expected to start in place of Higdon, said. “They talk a lot. They go hard to the whistle. They have a high motor and they're going to make you pay every chance they get, so you’ve got to take advantage of it.”
“They’re athletic,” Perry added. “They fly around. Their corners are good; safeties are good. They have a good linebacker; their D-line is good, as well. It’s going to be a good game.”
• Evans had a solid year backing up Higdon, but he’s still learning. Getting upfield rather than dancing has been a point of emphasis for him over the last few weeks.
“One thing [Higdon] told me is once you get a lot of carries, you've got to start taking it more vertical,” he said. “When I get the ball, I try to do with it what I can because I'm thinking about the big picture.
He said, ‘if there's only three in there, get three. Don't be trying to look for something else and then get tackled in the backfield.’
“So that's something that I'm trying to emulate in my game from him, and something he's been talking to me about.”
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