Wolverine Watch: It's A Fight To The Finish For Michigan
Guarantees – especially manufactured guarantees — don’t win football games.
Fierce-finishing teams do. That’s why Michigan enters Ohio Stadium on Saturday ready to register the biggest check mark yet on the Revenge Tour.
The No. 4 Wolverines (10-1 overall, 8-0 Big Ten) invade The Snake Pit against the No. 10 Buckeyes (10-1, 7-1) with everything on the line — an outright Big Ten East title, a trip to the conference championship game and a shot at the College Football Playoff. They stand as good a chance as they’ve encountered under Jim Harbaugh to get it done, because they’ve learned to finish.
Just ask Wisconsin. Or Michigan State. Or Penn State. The Wolverines love to say they’re built for four quarters, and they’ve backed it up. They wear teams down and gradually squeeze the life out of them.
“The difference this year is, we’re in those games and we’re finishing strong, believing in each other,” senior safety and captain Tyree Kinnel said. “Just finish the game. Every game we’ve played these last couple of years has been very winnable.”
This one will be as well. But words won’t win it. That’s why the little sideshow tossed in on Monday of Ohio State week goes quickly into the unfortunate distraction bin.
A reporter challenged senior captain and running back Karan Higdon to match his coach’s long-ago guarantee about a win at Ohio State.
Demur, and you’re charged with lacking confidence in your team. Take the bait, and you’ve got a room full of dutiful scribes electronically firing off every word.
Higdon — supremely confident in his teammates and himself — opted for the latter.
“Yeah, I do,” he said. “I do. That’s how I feel. I believe firmly in my brothers, this team and this coaching staff. As a captain, I’ll take that stand. Why not?”
Hardly a spear-in-the-ground, bellicosity-infused shout, but a manufactured “guarantee” nonetheless. And what does it mean?
Precisely zero.
What, are Urban Meyer and the Buckeyes suddenly going to prepare more maniacally to take down the Wolverines, due to Higdon’s prompted defiance? Are OSU boosters going to dig deep and pay a higher bounty for a win, thanks to the engineered impudence?
Are scarlet and gray grannies magically going to grow additional middle fingers to thrust into the air when Michigan busses roll by? Are most of the 104,944 long-haul truckers in “The Shoe” going to go with Skol in one cheek and Copenhagen in the other, to show they really dislike the Wolverines now?
Michigan knows what it’s in for, all verbiage aside.
“Everybody hates you there,” junior captain and guard Ben Bredeson assured. “You’re getting flipped off by just about everybody on the way in. It just gets you ready for what’s about to happen in the stadium, too … it’s fun. It’s an electric environment.”
“You feel the hate,” fellow captain and junior linebacker Devin Bush Jr. added. “You feel the rivalry. Once we’re in that stadium, you know why the game is at that magnitude. You can feel it from their fans, from their sideline … I like it.”
Moments before Higdon said what he did, Bush matter-of-factly delivered an unprompted assessment even more forthright, one that went largely unnoticed.
“It would mean everything for us and for our season,” he said, regarding conquering the Buckeyes. “We haven’t beaten them in a while. That’s something we really want to do, and that’s something we’re going to do.”
Michigan didn’t beat Ohio State in 1986 because “Jimmy shot off his mouth,” as then-assistant coach Jerry Hanlon recalls Bo Schembechler putting it. They won it because “Jimmy” connected on 19 of 29 passes for 261 yards. They won it because tailback Jamie Morris, behind a fearsome offensive line, ran away for 210 yards, 150 of them in the second half.
They won it, 26-24, because OSU placekicker Matt Frantz hooked a 45-yard field goal attempt just left with a minute to play.
Michigan finished. Ohio State didn't. All the words in the world couldn’t alter those actions in this dramatic crucible, once (and once again) the most gripping 60 minutes in sport.
Two years ago in Ohio Stadium, the Buckeyes finished (with a little adjudication assistance). Michigan didn’t.
“For one game to decide it all, that hurts,” junior defensive lineman Carlo Kemp said. “We’re in the same spot, two years later. This game decides a lot for us. It’s our whole season.”
Talk is cheap. To a man, Michigan stands invested in changing the ending with actions.
“We didn’t finish,” Bush recalled. “We’ve got another opportunity to go in there, and I believe we’re going to finish the job.”
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