Schembechler Audio: His final interview
The shocking news of former Michigan football coach Bo Schembechler's passing today has rocked the Wolverine nation. While there were signs Schembechler's health was waning, the old coach continued to make his presence felt. On Firday morning, he appeared on Ann Arbor's WTKA (1050 AM) to talk Michigan-Ohio State. Here is the audio of his final interview …
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On where he got his intensity to spread Michigan football everywhere: "I don't know. I guess I'm just one of those guys that if you're going to do something like coach than you want to win. If you don't want to win, then you're just out there having a good time, not accomplishing anything. I think winning is important. We tried to do everything in our program to give our team a chance to win.
"Don't get me wrong, there are laid back coaches that are highly successful – I'm just not one of them."
On what this Michigan team has to do to beat Ohio State: "Just play their best game, just go out there and play their best game and they'll win. I'm pretty confident in this game. I think we can beat Ohio State.
"There are other little factors in there that concern me and one of them is the field. If that field is as bad as everybody says it is, that presents a problem."
On this Michigan team exemplifying what he wanted his teams to be: "The defense – that's the name of the game. I think the interesting thing to watch in this game is whether the Ohio State offensive line can handle our front seven on defense because I think they're going to have a tough time doing that. If that's the case that keeps us right in the game.
"If our offense can block enough that we get some effective yardage rushing – our little guy has got to get 100 yards or more in this game and I don't think he has done that before [against Ohio State]. Of course he has been hurt. I don't think he's done that in the previous two Ohio State games. We got to get our guy rushing for some yardage and I think we will have to throw the football more than we have."
On Bo advocating for more passing: "You guys all laugh at that. Nobody goes back there to check if we threw back in those days. They remember that one year, that 1971 year when Tommy Slade led us to an 11-0 season and we gained almost all of our yardage rushing the football and scored something like 450 points, some astronomical figure and from then on that was my reputation – that I would never throw the ball. Well, the reason we didn't throw the ball is that we could run it. "