Fourth and Long: The Fight for the Soul of College Football

by Bacon, John U.

  But it also marked Michigan’s fourth year without Paul Bunyan, the big, ugly trophy that goes to the winner of the Michigan–Michigan State game, and Michigan’s seventh year without a Big Ten title. And that, everyone on the small stage said repeatedly, is what they wanted.

  After Michigan’s return to glory in 2011, one reporter asked, were expectations in Ann Arbor the highest ever?

  “I think it’s funny that everyone says that,” Hoke replied in his permanently hoarse voice. “This is Michigan,” he added, using the phrase Dave Brandon had since trademarked. “Those expectations are to win Big Ten championships every year. For people to say expectations are higher—they’ve always been high. That’s why you’re at Michigan—that’s why these guys come to Michigan. They haven’t changed. They’ve never changed.”

  Just minutes into Hoke’s introductory press conference, it was not hard to see why Michigan fans had taken to him so completely. The man knew the maize-and-blue gospel, chapter and verse, and he sang it from the heart.

  “Having lost the Paul Bunyan Trophy four years in a row,” a reporter asked, “has the Michigan State rivalry become more important?”

  “We’ve got three tremendous rivalry games,” Hoke said. “One on a national level [Notre Dame], one on a state level [Michigan State]—an hour apart—and the Ohio rivalry . . . is important,” he said, getting a laugh.

  The players, however, were more willing to admit the Michigan State game had loomed larger with each loss to the Spartans—particularly the previous year’s defeat up in East Lansing. Michigan fell behind early and couldn’t catch up, losing 28–14, with fans giving the offense the most withering criticism of the season.

  “We didn’t come out ready,” Robinson said, “and we didn’t play Michigan football.”

  After saying almost the exact same thing, Lewan added, “Hopefully we can change that this year.”

  “We had a bitter taste after last year’s game,” Kovacs confessed, “and I can still taste it.”

  They were all wise enough to leave out one reason they did not come out ready: when they returned to the locker room after warm-ups, they were surprised to find the athletic department had put gaudy uniforms in their stalls, which required them to change in the ten minutes they usually spent going over their assignments and getting mentally ready. Changing uniforms is a more cumbersome process than you might think, since simply getting a jersey on or off requires the help of the guy next to you to get your shoulder pads off, too. The linemen usually have their knee braces taped, and those have to come off, too—which resulted in equipment managers frantically slicing the original pants just to get them off fast enough.

  Alternative uniforms are Brandon’s idea, not Hoke’s, but the head coach was also smart enough not to mention it. Nor did he mention Brandon’s habit of coming in Sunday mornings to watch the coaches break down film from Saturday’s game, or chest-bumping Hoke’s players on the sidelines after big plays. If President Mary Sue Coleman owed a debt to Brandon for his early and unexpected advocacy, so did Hoke. Neither was likely to speak a discouraging word.

  When another reporter mentioned how close the Wolverines had come to winning their division in 2011 and asked what that showed, Denard Robinson cut him off:

  “It shows us we didn’t accomplish our goals. We want to be the Big Ten champions.”

  How hungry are you?

  “We’re not the Big Ten champs, are we? So we’re still hungry.”

  Another reporter followed up with Hoke: “Why did you say last season wasn’t a success?”

  “Because we didn’t win the Big Ten title.”

  “How do you get over that?”

  “You win it,” Hoke said. He was not smiling.

  • • •

  In the breakout room, Northwestern’s representatives let the press know that these were not your father’s Wildcats.

  Head coach Pat Fitzgerald opened with two points. One, they’d been to four straight bowl games, a first, and the previous year’s senior class had won more games than any other in school history.

  The bad news came next. “Two, because we know how to win, we’re disappointed we haven’t won enough,” Fitzgerald said. He entered the 2012 season with a 40-36 career record, which put him second all-time at Northwestern behind only the 49-45 mark of Lynn “Pappy” Waldorf, who coached the Wildcats from 1935 to 1946.

  “I can’t tell you I put one win ahead of the others,” Fitzgerald said, “but I can tell you I’m ticked off about the thirty-six losses.

  “To get to this point is easy. The next steps are the hard part.”

  When a reporter asked Fitzgerald why it had been so tough for Northwestern to win in the past, he replied, “We don’t have time for that conversation. But I can tell you why we’re having success now: great young men, who are unified and willing to work for our goals. Since 1995, Ohio State, Michigan, and Wisconsin are the only schools to win more Big Ten titles. Gary Barnett told us, ‘Expect victory.’ Now, we expect championships.”

  The players picked up the tune from there. Senior offensive lineman Brian Mulroe said, “We haven’t [won a bowl game], and it hurts the seniors.” Junior quarterback sensation Kain Colter, a premed student from Colorado, said, “We all want to be part of something special here, and that means winning a bowl game.”

  Senior linebacker David Nwabuisi was the most direct: “We’ve been to four straight bowl games, but the wins, the records—none of this will matter if we don’t get that bowl win.”

  They were hanging it out there pretty far, setting up an all-or-nothing proposition, and they were every bit as serious as the Buckeyes and Wolverines were about their goals. If you swapped their ties and lapel pins and tweaked the quotes, you’d have a hard time discerning which player went to which school.

  Rivalries and reputations aside, these guys had a lot more in common than not.

  • • •

  No team at the Big Ten Media Days gets ignored. Every Big Ten team is either near a major city or is the biggest deal in its state, so they all get pretty good coverage. But in 2012, Penn State easily got more reporters and more questions than Ohio State, Michigan, and Northwestern combined.

  That expectation initially led O’Brien to decide not to send any players. He didn’t want to bring anyone who might still be on the fence—like Silas Redd, their biggest star—nor subject others to relentless questions about everything from Jerry Sandusky to the NCAA sanctions to Silas Redd’s future.

  But after the players showed up on the practice field for a seven-on-seven scrimmage at six thirty Thursday morning, O’Brien once again trusted his instincts, which had not betrayed him that summer. He found Mauti and told him, “On second thought, if we don’t send any players, we’ll look like we’re hiding out, and that becomes the headline. So, you want to do this?”

  “Helllll, yeah! Let’s do it!”

  “Can you be at the airport in an hour? You got a suit?”

  Mauti was game. Because his suit hadn’t been dry-cleaned recently, he borrowed fellow linebacker Glenn Carson’s, headed to the airport, and joined O’Brien, standout defensive lineman Jordan Hill, a quietly intense leader, and John Urschel, the team brainiac.

  That meant Zordich was staying behind. “At first I was pissed,” he told me, with typical candor. “I should be going! But once Coach explained it to me—‘Z, I need you back in State College, holding it down with Fitz’—it made sense.”

  When I asked Zordich if he was certain O’Brien wasn’t just blowing smoke to appease him, he responded with one of the few dead-serious expressions of our many hours of conversation.

  “Nothing he says is smoke,” Zordich said. “At this point, we have a ridiculous amount of trust in each other.”

  • • •

  O’Brien’s faith was vindicated by the poise his three players demonstrated, starting with the obvious questions about the NCAA sanctions, just three days old. O’Brien gamely pointed out the trustees had already com
e out with a statement about those. “Now it’s time to move forward and turn the page.”

  Fat chance.

  The reporters then focused on the four-year bowl ban. “Nothing against the bowls,” O’Brien said, but “I think about the stadiums in which we play—including ours, with 108,000 people—what bowl game can say that? I’m probably going to get in trouble for this, but coming from the NFL, there’s only one game that matters, and that’s the Super Bowl. Unless you’re in the championship game, how much difference does a bowl game make compared to playing in front of 108,000 people?

  “I understand bowls are an important part of college football, but there are other things to play for.”

  There were also other things to worry about. O’Brien was far more concerned about the NCAA’s cutting Penn State’s scholarships down from twenty-five a year to fifteen, and from a total of eighty-five to sixty-five. Worse, Penn State was not allowed to replace any of the players who quit or transferred.

  The vacated victories affected the past. The bowl ban affected the present, but to O’Brien, was largely cosmetic. The scholarship sanctions, however, endangered the future of the program. But no one asked about that.

  “Can you give us any update on the Silas Redd situation?”

  “No,” O’Brien said—and nothing more, which got some chuckles.

  But he would tell me that night he was hoping like hell to keep Redd in the fold. Yes, Redd was the most talented player on the team, but O’Brien knew they were relatively deep in the offensive backfield, with Zordich, former receiver Bill Belton, and others ready to step up. O’Brien was most eager to hear Redd say he was staying because that would ensure almost everyone else would, too. While O’Brien sat there taking questions in Chicago, he had no idea what Redd was thinking back at his home in Connecticut—but O’Brien was checking his phone every chance he could, waiting for an update.

  • • •

  O’Brien, arms folded, answered every question with a flat expression until someone asked him why he’d changed his mind about bringing his players with him.

  “I want these guys to hear this answer,” he said. “This has not been the easiest week. A lot of people were asking to go home this weekend. But I asked them to come here because this is a representation of what Penn State is all about.

  “They have a lot of pride in Penn State, in the university, and most important they have a tremendous commitment to each other. What else can you say? You talk about three stand-up guys—tough guys—and fantastic representatives of Penn State, guys who go to class.” He then pointed a thumb to Urschel and finally grinned. “The guy to my left has a 4.0 in math.

  “I’ve obviously been around some pretty good leaders. I told these guys the other day, these are some of the best leaders I’ve ever been around.”

  When it came to goals, the Lions did not talk about winning them all, like Ohio State; they did not talk about taking a Big Ten title, like Michigan; and they certainly did not talk about winning a bowl game, like Northwestern. For Penn State, it was much simpler.

  “The key,” O’Brien said, “is to keep this 2012 team together, and right now . . . we’ve got a bunch of kids back at State College sticking together.”

  As mission statements go, it paled in comparison to the others. But of the four goals, it was surely going to be the toughest to achieve.

  • • •

  After a full day of press conferences on Thursday, and another half day of nonstop interviews on Friday, the event finished with a lunch for over a thousand players, coaches, and fans. While the tables were being cleared, everybody was ready to go home—but no one more so than the people from Penn State.

  On the bus ride to the airport, a spent O’Brien sat next to his wife, Colleen, reading his texts to see if there was any word from State College on players staying or going. Nothing.

  Mauti couldn’t even manage that much activity. “I was completely drained,” he told me. “I was in and out of sleep on the bus until we got to the plane.”

  When they got off the bus, Mauti remembered vividly, O’Brien and he looked like the walking dead. But Athletic Director Dr. Joyner suddenly appeared, joking around with his wife, Carolyn.

  “I honestly didn’t know they were even [in Chicago] until we got off the bus,” Mauti told me. “I hadn’t seen him the entire two days.”

  When the group walked onto the tarmac to retrieve their bags from the cart to put on the plane, Mauti said, “I kind of pulled O-B aside, and I remember saying this specifically, ‘Coach, [Joyner] thinks this is a game. This is all a big joke to him.’ ”

  They climbed wearily onto the small private plane. After Mauti collapsed in the back, he noticed a cooler next to his seat, so he opened it and discovered a couple of cold Budweisers. Mauti is not a big drinker—his father doesn’t drink at all—“but you know what?” he remembered thinking, “This is exactly what I need right now. So I just cracked it open and started drinking it. And O-B looked back and kind of gave me a smile. There was only one person on that plane who deserved a beer more than me, and that was him. But Joyner looked back at me, let’s just say, ‘disapprovingly.’

  “I looked right back. I’m thinking, ‘We’ve been out here fighting for our program all week. We didn’t get one question about football. Not one, the whole time. We were answering nonstop questions about Penn State, about the NCAA, about Sandusky, you name it. And it’s not like he was facing the media—or on his phone all week trying to keep the team together back home.’

  “So my look back was, ‘You don’t like this? Do something about it.’ ”

  Mauti stared right back at Joyner and slurped his beer. After a while, the staring contest ended when Joyner turned around.

  Before the plane touched down back in State College, Michael Mauti, for one, had concluded that whatever they would need to make it through that season, it was not going to come from their interim athletic director.

  CHAPTER 6

  NIGHT OF THE LETTERMEN

  O’Brien’s letter to the eleven hundred lettermen started hitting their mailboxes on Friday, July 27, when he was still at the Big Ten Media Days in Chicago. He had no idea what to expect, but by Monday, July 30, the lettermen made it clear they were with him. Almost every one of them sent some word of encouragement, and fully half confirmed they would find a way to get to State College to support the team Tuesday night.

  “Man, five hundred guys showed up!” O’Brien said. “The airport was packed with private jets. Some of these guys have done pretty well. It was a scene, man. Amazing.”

  He met the lettermen in the Holuba indoor practice facility, where they sat in rows of seats on the artificial field, before the players arrived. He had a speech prepared, but once he saw all the lettermen together, he threw it out. He thanked them for coming—underscoring how impressive their dedication was—then he got to the point. “These guys don’t care about the Freeh Report. They don’t care about the NCAA sanctions. They don’t care about who you think should have been named the head coach, either. I’m the head coach, and you’re just going to have to accept that.”

  If any of the lettermen thought the little-known head coach lacked backbone, that notion was quickly dismissed that night.

  “We all have to realize why we’re in the position we’re in,” O’Brien told them, hitting one of his most repeated points. “We’ve got to stop arguing about that, and keep moving forward.”

  With that in mind, O’Brien laid out why he’d asked them all there: to reach the players by speaking to the traditions of the program that had defined it for decades.

  What the players did need to hear, O’Brien told them, “is what only you know: what it’s like to play in the great games, in this great stadium, against the Buckeyes and the Badgers and the Wolverines. About what it’s like to graduate from Penn State. About what you learned here, and what it means to you now, when you look back.

  “That is what they need to hear.”

  “I
t’s funny,” recalled Spider Caldwell, one of the few people left who knew almost everyone in the building that night, “he talked to them like they were his football players—guys like Jack Ham and Todd Blackledge and Franco Harris, guys who are older than him—and you could see them glued to him. ‘Yes, sir! This is the Penn State coach talking!’ Their ‘player mode’ kicked into high gear.”

  The unheralded O’Brien seemed to have them. But that wasn’t the point of the evening. The question remained, would the lettermen reach the players and vindicate all the effort executing this night required?

  • • •

  O’Brien asked Lydell Mitchell, Franco Harris, Matt Millen, Todd Blackledge, Jack Ham, and some lesser-known players who had become great successes in business to speak to the team. All the talks were fast and fiery, delivered by strong speakers who spoke from the heart.

  Most agreed the most powerful speaker was the last one, Matt Millen—who is as hated by Detroit Lions fans as he is beloved by the Penn State faithful. “Forget about what you lost,” he told them. “This is what you have. I can only promise you, you will have a brotherhood. You may not realize it now, but that’s worth more than anything.”

  “All those lettermen, they had the benefit of hindsight,” Zordich said. “That’s why they wanted to talk to the kids thinking about leaving. Look, those guys who were thinking about leaving had good reason: they wanted to win games and play in bowls, not deal with all this crap. But they’re so young they don’t realize the impact they can have on this place and the history here. The lettermen were there to tell them about that, how it looks when you’re fifty.”

  There were a number of ovations that night, but when Millen finished the last speech, the players jumped to their feet and cheered for a solid minute.

  “After that,” Craig Fitzgerald said, “we all told the lettermen, if someone doesn’t want to stay after this, they weren’t Penn State guys in the first place.”

  • • •

  By just about any measure, the night was a remarkable success—for O’Brien with the lettermen, and for the lettermen with the current players. O’Brien’s gamble had paid off handsomely.