* * *
At practice, members of Michigan’s football royalty lined the field to watch, including Dave Brandon, Bill Martin and his wife, Sally, and a dozen or more former players. Like most teams today, Michigan hits only on Tuesdays, and even then it’s mostly pushing and shoving. But on this day, you could hear the pads smack, each hit packing more punch.
After practice, Rodriguez told his team, “Turn around and look at that stadium. The Big House. We’re going to have the biggest crowd ever, and they’re going to be the loudest ever.
“Next time we hit someone, they’ll be wearing green.
“‘Michigan’ on three.”
Robinson led the quarterbacks in their postpractice chest bump—Forcier joining them—then showered, reached behind the equipment manager’s counter to grab a fresh pair of Twin City socks, and headed to the training room for yet more treatment.
It was 6:49, and Denard Robinson had been on the go for twelve hours. He would not be heading home for another four.
Phil Johnson, who was putting in a fourteen-hour day himself, gave Robinson different knee pads to try on, two sizes bigger than normal. Wasn’t he afraid the big black rubber pad would let the Spartans know which knee to hit?
Robinson laughed. “They already know. The girl at lunch knew!”
Junior Hemingway walked by, then stopped. “Damn,” he said, “your knee looks like a balloon.”
Next, more ultrasound. “Congratulations!” Phil said, gliding the applicator around Denard’s knee. “It’s twins!”
The pulsed ultrasound was not to see what was inside Robinson’s knee but to generate cavitation, Johnson explained. “Sound waves go in, open the cellular membrane, and, with some joint movement, fluid gets jostled out. Then when you elevate the knee, they hope the fluid leaves the area.”
All told, over the course of three sessions lasting three and a half hours, Denard Robinson received the following treatments:
• Kenisio tape, twice
• Cold tub, twice
• Big pool workout
• Stationary bike
• Dead lift, single leg, with thirty-five pounds
• Body weight squats
• Quad sets, four times
• Short arc quad
• Pivot board, clockwise and counterclockwise
• Electric stimulation, three times
• Inter-X, twice
• Low-level laser therapy, three times
• Pulsed ultrasound, twice
• Elevation, three times, twenty minutes each
• Recovery pants, tight spandex
• Electric stimulation at home
“That’s all?” Johnson said, when I read back the list. “I’m disappointed. That’s not enough.”
* * *
At 7:30, Robinson sat down with a few teammates in the Commons for some dinner and conversation. In less than an hour, Robinson ate:
• Two biscuits
• One big scoop of rice
• Sixteen chicken wings
• Two Gatorades
• Two caramel cheesecakes
All told, Robinson consumed well over four thousand calories that day—without a Barwis workout—which ranked him among the lightest eaters on the team.
After dinner the coaches, naturally, analyzed more film. First they watched that day’s practice, then they watched Michigan State. Rodriguez was largely pleased with the practice, with one snag: On one play Roy Roundtree got wide open on an X-route, but Robinson overthrew him. That was normally an easy toss, which Robinson’s overthrow converted into an easy interception.
“That was the first time I saw a bad throw out of him in weeks,” Rodriguez said, but he thought he knew the reason: Robinson was not putting full pressure on his swollen left knee, which forced him to put more weight on his back right foot, which in turn caused him to throw floaters, higher than he wanted. And that explained why Robinson had just spent three and a half hours in treatment that day, and would do it again the next.
Thanks to Michigan’s paranoia over violating its self-imposed limitations on hours, probably no major team’s players saw less film in 2009 and 2010 than did the Wolverines. But on this night, there were players watching film in just about every room on the second floor of Schembechler Hall. If this game didn’t go their way, it wouldn’t be for lack of preparation—which is not something they could claim the year before.
In the team meeting room, Denard Robinson, Vincent Smith, Junior Hemingway, and Darryl Stonum hunkered down to watch the big screen.
“They’re not bad,” Stonum said, referring to State’s defense.
Robinson agreed. “They’re gonna play ball, man.”
When they put on the tape of last year’s game, however, they were struck mainly by how badly they had played.
On one play, in Michigan State territory, Forcier had virtually every receiver open—Stonum up top and Odoms and Roundtree straight down the hashmarks, all available for touchdown passes—yet threw to Carlos Brown in the left flat, who had not yet turned around. The pass skipped harmlessly past him.
“Oh, my goodness,” Robinson said. “No one was not open!”
After the play, the nearest Spartan ran up to Brown and started trash talking, prompting the viewers to start laughing.
“Man, he didn’t make no play!” Stonum said.
“That guy’s woofing on every play,” Smith added. “Even when we just drop it.”
The last offensive play of the game, when Michigan needed to get 5 yards for a first down or 9 for a touchdown to take the lead in overtime, might have been worse. On the screen, Forcier ignores his checkoffs and telegraphs his pass to Odoms running across the end zone. The State defender actually grabs Odoms’s jersey, pulling him back, then jumps ahead to tip the ball to a teammate for the game-ending interception. But that’s not what these guys noticed.
“On that play he’s supposed to look to Darryl, then to Koger, then to Tay,” Robinson said. “But he just locked in on Tay right away. And they could see it. Then he throws off his back foot.”
They watched it again. “Look at that gap,” Smith said, pointing to a hole on Forcier’s right side. “Could’ve run for a first down, too.”
“Only needed 5,” Robinson agreed. “Not 9.”
They watched the ball fall into the hands of the Spartans for the fifth time.
“And therrre she gooooes,” Stonum said.
“Wah-wawwww,” Smith sounded.
Whether it was the NCAA interviews that had started that week in 2009, or the pressure of a big rivalry game, or just youth and inexperience, or simply a bad performance at a bad time is impossible to say. But looking back at that 2009 game, it was obvious to the players just how badly they had played. They agreed with their coach: That was their worst performance.
“Man, that’s my only fumble since I’ve been here,” Stonum said.
“Greg [Mathews] was wide open,” Hemingway said, “and Tate doesn’t throw it.”
“Man, we played so bad in this game,” Stonum said, “and we still almost won it.”
“Whenever we go three-and-out, it’s because we stopped ourselves,” Robinson said. “We get this going, no one can stop us.”
“I can’t wait for game time,” Hemingway said. “I wish it was tomorrow.”
“Any requests?” Stonum asked.
“Third-and-longs,” Robinson said.
While Stonum fished around for the file on Bromley’s computer, they talked about how long their days had already been.
“Classmates say, ‘You look tired,’” Hemingway said. “Yes, I just finished lifting for ninety minutes, before you woke up.”
“Or they say, ‘You walk slow,’” Robinson said. “Yes, I do. It’s because I’m dead.” And it was true: They run like hell and work like crazy during conditioning and practice, then they walk out of the building slower than their grandparents, barely lifting their feet. They don’t waste an ounce of energy getting to
their cars.
“Girl calls me up and asks me what I’m doing,” Stonum said. “I say, ‘I’m watching film.’
“‘Oh, what film are you watching?’
“‘No, not a film. Just film.”
At 10:34, they finally walked out of Schembechler Hall for the last time that day. Normally they would be coming out of the Academic Center, but somehow two middle-aged men carrying a stack of glossy photos figured out where they were and approached Robinson the moment he walked outside to sign their photos of him. It was all for charity, of course, or their ten-year-old kids—they claimed both at various times—so Robinson autographed one each, then said, “That’s it, man,” and got into Gardner’s pickup.
He would be in bed by eleven, then do it all again the next day—plus a workout and study table.
I had only followed him that day—and I was exhausted.
44 LITTLE BROTHER, BIG GAME
“I’ve never seen it like this since Bo coached,” Jerry Erickson said by his barbershop’s picture window, flipping through a stack of tickets the day before the Michigan State game. “I’m getting $100 to $150 a ticket.”
The next day, a picture-perfect Saturday, more than two hours before kickoff, it was obvious this day was different. The team buses drove past crowds that were thicker, louder, and more juiced than at any other time during Rodriguez’s reign, exceeding the energy levels before UConn and Western the year before. The cheering and honking never stopped as the caravan made its way through tailgate after tailgate, fans drawn to the buses. The Victors’ Walk was pulsing with fans yelling and cheering from new perches they had to seek out, thanks to the overflow crowd.
When Mark Dantonio got off his team bus, however, he was not feeling quite as cheerful. He had suffered a mild heart attack shortly after State’s overtime victory against Notre Dame and had not been allowed to coach from the sidelines since, but he still went to every game.
A crowd control volunteer greeted all the opposing coaches when they stepped down from the bus, and, he told me, they always appreciated it. Well, almost always.
“Coach Dantonio,” he said, extending his hand, “I just want to wish you a speedy recovery and welcome you to Michigan Stadium.”
Dantonio brushed his hand away. “Get the hell outta here.”
Back in Michigan’s coaches’ room, the TVs were off, even though a few Big Ten games were already well under way. The coaches radiated more quiet intensity than they had for any game yet. Before they headed out for warm-ups, Greg Robinson stood up and began shaking the other coaches’ hands, starting a chain reaction of back claps and man hugs.
“Let’s go.”
“All in this together.”
They knew what this game meant.
While Mike Barwis shouted at the troops—“Today, we start the demise of MSU, and the rise of MICHIGAN!”—Rodriguez leaned forward in his chair. He was as still as he could be but couldn’t stop his feet from tapping a furious beat, like a boxer moments before a title bout.
Someone poked his head in. “Coach, it’s time.”
He nodded. He took one last look at his notecards, stood up, exhaled, and walked slowly through the door.
* * *
The atmosphere was everything they had hoped for—and more.
It seemed like almost every game in the Rodriguez era qualified as do-or-die, must-win, and a career saver or a career killer—so often that it sounded like crying wolf before long. Certainly the players were tired of hearing it.
But it was so often true. If beating Notre Dame could reestablish Michigan as a national power, losing to UMass or Indiana would put them right back in the also-ran bin, just like that. But for all the hyped-up games of Rodriguez’s reign in Ann Arbor, this one topped them all.
On the third play from scrimmage, Robinson ran toward the middle, then cut right for an 8-yard gain.
To the fans, this looked like a decent but unremarkable play. The coaches saw it differently. On the right side, the offensive line had opened up a hole big enough to drive a bus through, or about five Denard Robinsons. Of course, they needed only one Denard Robinson to take advantage of it.
If he had, he would have discovered his men had also picked up the corner blitz perfectly, which took a couple more Spartans out of the play. Downfield, Darryl Stonum had blocked out the free safety. The pathway had been cleared for Robinson. Everyone had done his job perfectly, leaving no one to stop him—setting up the kind of before-you-know-it touchdown runs he’d been executing from his first game against Western Michigan to his last game against Indiana the previous week.
But as Robinson headed for the hole, he got caught by the foot of a lineman who had stepped too far back, forcing Denard to pull back, then run wide around the right end. Eight yards.
When a receiver drops a bomb, everyone sees it. Everyone knows what was lost. But the spread offense is set up more for the run than the pass—not 3 yards and a cloud of dust, but long, game-breaking runs that work better than bombs. So when the table is set to rattle off one of those runs, they have to take advantage of it. If they don’t, the crowd doesn’t see it—but the coaches do.
In this case, Michigan lost a likely touchdown run, the kind that breaks the game open and makes the crowd explode. It was the first of Michigan’s many missed chances that day, but only the coaches and players knew it.
On third-and-4 from State’s 10-yard line, Robinson rolled right and saw his receiver cutting across the end zone a step ahead of State’s Trenton Robinson. Denard hesitated a split second, then fired—late, and behind, but right at Trenton Robinson, who caught the ball in the end zone. It was the kind of mistake a banged-up quarterback starting his sixth game makes in the biggest game of his career.
The Michigan fans deflated, while Michigan State fans let everyone know exactly how many had made it into the stadium that day.
After Michigan’s much-maligned defense did its job, Denard picked up where he had left off: four runs for 15 yards, and six simple, quick passes for 35 yards.
From State’s 24-yard line, Robinson rolled to his right. He saw State’s cornerback come up to stop the run, and Darryl Stonum slip behind him, unnoticed, wide open in the end zone. All Robinson had to do was loft one over the cornerback’s head—the kind of pass he’d been making all season—for the first touchdown, which would set off this tinderbox of a crowd.
But his mechanics were off. He instinctively avoided following through to avoid putting pressure on his injured knee, leaving his weight on his back foot and his left shoulder open. The pass flew too high, exactly like the pass he had missed in Wednesday’s practice and for the exact same reason. That’s why the ball didn’t fall softly into Stonum’s waiting hands but kept flying over his head. The Wolverines had to settle for a field goal and a 3–0 lead. But it could have been 10–0, or even 14. And with Michigan’s porous defense, the offense couldn’t afford to leave plays on the table.
On the sidelines, Stonum blurted out, “Shit!” a half dozen times. “I thought it was going to come down, but it kept soaring! Shit!”
When the first quarter ended, Michigan’s defense had held State’s offense to zero points and minus 8 yards rushing. Reporting from the sidelines, ESPN’s Quint Kessenich asked me, “Was this the same defense I saw two weeks ago?”
But in the second quarter, Michigan’s defense finally broke, allowing State’s Edwin Baker to convert a simple line plunge into a 61-yard touchdown.
Denard countered with a pass to Martell Webb, who had no trouble beating his man to finish the 12-yard touchdown play. 10–7 Michigan.
But Michigan’s defense promptly let the Spartan’s Le’Veon Bell beat them for another long touchdown, this one 41 yards. Kessenich was starting to get his answer.
“Once our D steps up, it’ll be a different game,” said LaMarr Woodley, who had taken advantage of the Pittsburgh Steelers’ bye week to be on the sidelines, with his face painted maize and blue. He, for one, was all in. “They’re close, but
you can’t give up the big play. That’s all it is: two big plays.”
After the Spartans kicked a 38-yard field goal and then blocked the Wolverines’ 42-yard attempt, the half ended, 17–10 State.
But the Wolverines had reason for hope, plenty of it. They led the Spartans in first downs, rushing, and passing. In fact, just about everything but turnovers—including one crucial one—and points.
The normally reserved fifth-year senior Greg Banks made a desperate plea: “We ain’t going out a loser. We ain’t going out a loser! This is my last fucking go-round. Let’s go!”
To the team, Rodriguez said, “On defense, just a couple big plays got us. Stop those, and we’re good. On offense, we’re just killing ourselves. Once we get out of our own way, we’ll take off. This is it, men. This is our time. Leave everything out there. LET’S GO!”
But after Michigan cornerback James Rogers—one of two seniors on defense—came out with a full-body tension cramp, the Spartans went immediately to his replacement, true-freshman Cullen Christian, burning him for a 41-yard touchdown bomb on the left side.
Only 2:28 into the half, it was 24–10 Michigan State. For the first time all day, the same stadium that had been waiting for a reason to boil over turned cold. There was no energy in the stands and none on the Michigan sideline, either.
Ten plays later, the Spartans scored again, giving them a 31–10 lead—and all the momentum they would need. “FUCK!” Mike Martin yelled. “Fuck, man!” Then he sat down and yelled “FUCK!” again.
Down 31–17 with just under a quarter to play, the game was not out of range—until Robinson threw his third interception on the next possession.
Later, when Rodriguez elected to punt on fourth-and-9 from Michigan’s 30, with six minutes left, he got booed, a rarity in the Big House. For perhaps the first time at Michigan, he didn’t trust his gambler’s instincts, a decision he would say he regretted at the press conference.
But it hardly mattered. What did matter, however, was a far less significant play, with a far more serious outcome, when a Spartan delivered a chop block to Mike Martin’s left knee. The ref saw it and threw his flag, but if the lineman had finished the job, Martin would be out of the game, out of the season, and out a career. It was that easy to do.
Three and Out Page 43