When they started their warm-ups, wearing helmets, jerseys, and shorts, the one-legged hops looked more like dancing than working.
“I’ve seen these bastards suffer for three fucking years,” Barwis said. “They got what they deserved on Saturday. I don’t get emotional too much. But when a paralyzed guy walks, or 125 guys get shit on for three straight years, and their faith gets rewarded—well, that’ll do it.”
So was that him pulling a tear on the game tape?
“Pulling a tear? Me? Naw, man.” He toed the turf, stirring up a small cloud of black rubber pebbles. “See this stuff? The black pebbles kick up, get in your eyes. It’s just not safe. Someone needs to look into this.”
He looked up, and seeing his BS wasn’t flying, grinned the biggest grin I’d seen from him since I’d met him.
“All good things come to you now,” he said.
Time would tell.
49 PLAYING FOR PRIDE—AGAIN
The schedule did the Wolverines a favor the following week, giving them a trip to Purdue. The Boilermakers were mired in the middle of another mediocre season with a 4–5 overall mark and 2–3 in the Big Ten. The day was gray and ugly, cold and muddy—perfect Big Ten weather for mid-November.
“This is what we’ve been working for,” Magee said. “Just us and an opponent, playing football.”
Of course, that wasn’t entirely true. On ESPN, Kirk Herbstreit and Robert Smith were reporting that the decision had already been made: Jim Harbaugh would replace Rodriguez. Fortunately for the Wolverines, they were in West Lafayette, about as far from the national media as you can get. With even a little less pressure, they seemed a lot more relaxed, though the sloppy field matched the sloppy play.
With 5:59 left in the game, Michigan had the ball and a shaky 20–13 lead. On the sidelines, Rodriguez grabbed Denard Robinson, who had banged his left hand earlier that game. “If you’re really hurt, I’ll put Tate in.”
“Fuck that!” Denard said.
“All right,” Rodriguez said. “You’re the quarterback. So go in there and win us the fucking game.”
And that’s just what Robinson did, chipping away at Purdue and the clock with a confidently executed nine-play drive that finished with freshman Stephen Hopkins barreling into the end zone with 1:58 left, for a 27–16 lead. Game over.
“I’ve been part of a lot of pretty losses lately,” Greg Frey said, jogging off the soggy field. “I’ll take an ugly win.”
In the double-wide, separate-standing locker room, the chant went up: “SOMEWHERE WARM! SOMEWHERE WARM!”
At 7–3, they were all but guaranteed to avoid the dreaded Motor City Bowl and head to Arizona, Texas, or Florida. In stark contrast to the funereal return trip from Penn State, the plane ride home from Purdue was fun, complete with Jeremy Gallon and Devin Gardner singing a duet of a country song Rutledge blasted at practice, “Where Did You Come From? Where Did You Go?” Life was good—and could still get better.
The coaches took advantage of a bit of breathing room to look around the league, and the country. They couldn’t help but be amused that USC, Texas, and Florida, which had all won national titles that decade and had consistently landed the top recruiting classes in the country, were, to quote one of them, “in the shitter.”
In the Big Ten, an all-but-dead Minnesota team upset Illinois, and Iowa had just gotten surprised by Northwestern, 21–17. It was always interesting when it wasn’t you.
Three Big Ten teams were now in the top eleven: Ohio State, Wisconsin, and Michigan State.
“We’re about to screw the whole Big Ten race up,” said the everoptimistic Magee, “when we beat Wisconsin next week.”
On ESPN radio that morning, however, strength coach Dan Mozes heard Dan Patrick give a less sanguine assessment, reporting a “100 percent chance Rich will be fired.”
One of the two predictions was about to get a big boost.
* * *
Down at Coach & Four, Jerry Erickson was back on the positive: “The word around here is we’re gonna do it. That’s what everyone’s saying. But we still got guys—Michigan guys—who don’t want us to win, whether they’re supposed to or not. What is that?”
His cousin Red Stolberg wanted them to beat the Badgers. He just didn’t think they would.
“Yeah, it’s gonna be a tough one,” he said, snipping away. “A lot more rolling on this one than meets the eye. I’d like to see a Wolverine win, but Wisconsin’s just too big, too experienced.”
* * *
On Saturday, November 20, the naysayers were proved right—early and often.
After being forced to punt on its first possession, Wisconsin ripped through Michigan’s hapless defense on four straight scoring drives to forge a 24–0 lead while racking up 379 yards to Michigan’s 124.
Michigan’s vaunted offense showed some glimmers, but they usually ended in the now-familiar missed field goal. With Wisconsin driving yet again near the end of the half, Michigan’s James Rogers picked off a pass at the 6-yard line and ran it back to the 15. With thirty seconds left, everyone assumed Rodriguez would do what he does best, throw the dice and take his chances to get back in the game—but he sent Denard on two straight runs to end the half. The fans were disappointed to see his gambler’s instincts suppressed, cascading boos down on Rodriguez and his players as they ran to the tunnel.
If the players wanted to give up on the game, the season, their coaches, and themselves, this was the perfect chance. Return to the field with anything less than a full effort, and the Badgers could put 83 on them the way they just had against Indiana, a team Michigan barely beat.
Or they could pull themselves up and fight, knowing there was virtually no chance for success.
David Molk decided to pull himself up, and he wanted his teammates to come up with him. They were slumped in their stalls, ready to concede, when he stood up and marched around the room. “Hey, Michigan! Are we fucking scared? Because we’re playing like it! We are all on our fucking heels! ALL OF US!
“We gotta drop our fucking nuts and MAN UP! We are NOT lying down! We are NOT scared! We will fight! We will FIGHT! And we will GET AFTER THEM!
“Everyone STAND UP! Stretch out! I mean it!”
“Get up!” Van Bergen said, and they did.
“We’re gonna hit ’em in the fucking face,” Molk said, “and they’ll cry! They’ll bleed! NOW LET’S GO!”
The energy spread. The players went out and drove the ball 71 yards for their first touchdown of the day: 24–7.
Freshman Courtney Avery forced a fumble on the Badgers’ third play of the half, and Mouton recovered it at Wisconsin’s 38. Denard passed to Stonum for 34 yards, then ran the remaining 4 for another touchdown. The score was 24–14, just 5 minutes into the second half. Suddenly, anything seemed possible.
The Badgers came back with a touchdown, but Michigan matched it to close the gap to 31–21 when the third quarter ended.
The Wolverines’ defense still couldn’t stop the old-school Badgers, though, who scored 17 more points Big Ten–style in the fourth quarter by sending the big boys running downhill. But when the game ended, Michigan had recaptured a measure of self-respect by outscoring Wisconsin 28–24 in the second half.
At Michigan, there are no moral victories. The press would bury them for the 48–28 loss. But they could at least walk off with their heads up and look their teammates in the eye. If the ugly first half showed just how mentally worn-out they were, the second showed just how much fight the players had in them.
* * *
It was no surprise that Red Stolberg wasn’t enthusiastic about Michigan’s prospects the next week in Columbus—or Rodriguez’s chances of keeping his job. “You’re hearing all kinds of rumors,” he said between haircuts, sitting in the customers’ chair with a newspaper in his hand. “Some say he’s gonna stay, some say he’s gonna go. And some say they’ll keep him but clean house on defense. Who knows? I think they’re all gonna go. It’s gonna be real interesting to see.�
�
A client came in, which got him out of the chair. “I don’t have much hope for tomorrow at all. Not at all. I think we’re gonna get pounded. I’m gonna say 45–28. Go Blue anyway!”
No shock there. What was surprising was how completely Rodriguez had lost one of his staunch defenders, Jerry Erickson, up the street. “I thought for sure we were going to win that game,” Erickson said, sitting in his chair, enjoying a cold beverage and conversation with his regulars while his assistants worked away. “We were all pulling for an upset, but when you play defense like EMU, that’s what you get. It is the defense—but why is it the defense? That game took the wind out of a lot of people’s sails.”
He’d been hearing rumors of a press conference scheduled for Monday, which was gaining momentum in the mainstream media. “Supposedly Harbaugh’s got his bag packed,” Erickson said. “Some say they want another coach before the bowl game. Everyone’s pretty down, I can tell you that. Nobody feels good about it. All I can tell you here is we’re about to get our butts kicked. I’d say 42–7. I hope they prove me wrong, but I got this bad feeling. If that happens, you might as well head back to West Virginia!”
He stood up to take a customer. “I tell you this: If I was Rich Rod, with all this pressure? I’d leave on my own!”
* * *
In the visitors’ locker room the following Saturday, Mark Moundros stood up to speak. “Your body will grow old and break down, but your memories will never fade. When you get older and look back on this, how do you want to remember this game, this season, your career?
“Forget those who don’t believe—because we do!”
Three years ago it was surprising when the sophomore walk-on talked to his teammates, but now they expected it.
What they didn’t expect, however, was senior Greg Banks—who had been saved from living with his family in their car in Denver by a full-ride scholarship to the University of Michigan. When he left for Ann Arbor, his mom begged him to do two things: not come back, because she knew the neighborhood could bring him down, and to take care of his teeth. He took both pleas seriously, always traveling with a bag filled with floss, mouthwash, and an expensive electric toothbrush his first Michigan girlfriend’s uncle, a dentist, had given him. On Fridays, at the hotel, he would cut his teammates’ hair for free. In a few weeks, he would graduate from Michigan and join his new girlfriend in San Francisco, where she was going to graduate school.
He had his teammates’ respect, and their attention.
“It’s been an honor,” he said, “to play with you guys. I’ve been on a lot of teams, and this is the best of them all: the tightest and the toughest. We’ve been yelled at by our coaches, but it made us better. We’ve been cussed at by people we don’t even know, but here we are, still fighting. Let’s keep fighting today!”
From the back of the room, sophomore Roy Roundtree yelled, “I got you, Greg! Every play! You can count on me! You can count on me!”
Once again, incredibly—after another disheartening week, after more flack from some fans and coaching rumors on the Internet—the players found a way to play their best, at least for a while.
To start the game, the defense sent Ohio State’s vaunted offense to the sidelines after three plays. Robinson led a strong twelve-play drive from Michigan’s 27 to Ohio State’s 28, where they faced fourth-and-8. Most teams would take their chances on a 45-yard field goal. Not Michigan. Rodriguez went for it, but Robinson threw incomplete.
After another Buckeye three-and-out, Robinson rolled the offense from their own 18 to Ohio State’s 26. On third-and-17, he cut up the middle all the way to the 9—enough for a first down, with a chance for a touchdown—where he fumbled the ball. He would later call this his most disappointing play of the year.
Michigan outplayed Ohio State in the first quarter—six first downs to two, 133 yards to 97—but, having failed to capitalize early, it was only a matter of time. Dropped passes; penalties; turnovers; injuries to Je’Ron Stokes, Taylor Lewan, and Denard Robinson; and atrocious punting—Will Hagerup was back in Ann Arbor for breaking team rules—all added up to a 24–7 halftime score, despite a 14–9 advantage in first downs and a slight 258–229 edge in yardage. As usual, they could get the yards but not the points, another sign of an inexperienced squad.
And once again, they were done—and they knew it.
In the second half, the Buckeyes scored on their first three possessions to post a 37–7 score, and it would have been worse if Coach Tressel had not shown some mercy in the fourth quarter. The Buckeyes’ infamous fans, of course, showed a little less mercy, yelling and screaming profanities throughout the game. In the words of a U-M police officer assigned to guard the players, “If I was given a free pass to shoot Ohio State fans today, I’d have run out of bullets.”
But they were far less hostile than usual, which might have been even more insulting. They knew a beaten team when they saw one.
“Let’s don’t act like they beat us!” Lewan told his teammates back in the locker room. “They didn’t. We beat ourselves. We had ’em! We outplayed ’em!” As crazy as it might have sounded, given the final score, he wasn’t far off. They made nineteen first downs, same as Ohio State, and lost the yardage contest 478 to 351. Significant, but not reflective of the score. Michigan just made more mistakes—turnovers, bad penalties—which were as foreign to Michigan fans as Rodriguez’s high-flying offense.
“We played hard!” Rodriguez told them. “And we know we should have been up three scores in the first half. But that’s woulda, coulda, shoulda. We know we can fix it! You seniors have nothing to be embarrassed about. I’m proud of you.
“There’s a new level of commitment here, and we’re gonna build on it. That’s tomorrow, that’s this winter, this spring, this summer. It’s the work you do when no one’s watching that makes you great. We got rid of the selfishness, we got rid of the laziness. That’s what this year’s seniors established, and we’re gonna build on that.
“Michigan football’s not dead. We’re coming back.”
Probably everyone in that roomed believed him. But no one—not even Rodriguez—knew if he’d be around to see it happen.
50 THE FINAL BUST
Two days later, Rodriguez was taking calls in his office, wearing a jacket and tie, before heading off to Weber’s Inn, a venerable Ann Arbor institution. He was going to give a lunchtime speech to the M-Club, something he had done only a handful of times before.
This is the group Michigan coaches had been addressing every Monday during the season for decades until Rodriguez unwisely broke the chain. Not the big donors or the power players, but a good bunch to have on your side. He was doing so in the swirl of yet another media frenzy, kicked off by still more reports that Stanford coach and ex–Michigan quarterback Jim Harbaugh had all but been anointed his successor.
The speculative circus was made all the racier by rumors that Harbaugh would be attending Michigan’s annual Football Bust three days later, as part of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the stellar 1985 squad, which finished second in the nation. Ticket sales and media requests soared. Surprisingly, though, the news barely registered on the Rodriguez scale.
“Just another day,” he said. His threshold for drama had increased considerably since the Saturday night mess at President Garrison’s house almost exactly three years earlier.
He drove with Dusty Rutledge to Weber’s, where they sat with a dozen assistants and staffers. After Bruce Madej introduced him, the full house of five hundred or so patrons gave him a standing ovation. He talked about his three seasons at Michigan, 2010 in particular, and the Ohio State game. He was warm and funny, confident but humble, exuding none of the edginess or defensiveness he sometimes flashed in press conferences.
“We are closing the gap,” he said. “It may not seem like it, but we are. Right now we’re putting out a bunch of freshmen against a bunch of fifth-year seniors. But we’re getting better. Trust me. When we’ve got third- and fourth-year playe
rs against their third- and fourth-year players, we’ll be right there.
“We’re supposed to have five or six guys playing back there who are injured or gone. But we have guys on the scout team starting. The one place we couldn’t afford that was the secondary, and that’s where we got hit the hardest.”
When he said something like this in press conferences, it sounded like he was making excuses. But with the receptive audience, it came across as an explanation—one arguing for more sympathy for the players, not more criticism—and, no doubt, a pitch for giving him more time.
A patron asked him about recruiting. “We’ll be getting more defense, especially in the secondary. And did I mention kickers?” They laughed, but again, he would have been hammered for a similar statement in a press conference. “In practice, they almost never miss, but it’s not easy kicking with the wind and all that pressure.”
Another asked Rodriguez about dropped balls in the Ohio State game, particularly a few by Roy Roundtree. “Roy is one of our most reliable receivers. He makes almost all of the hard ones but dropped two or three of the easier ones. He’s young, and he’ll get better.”
Boubacar Cissoko? “He didn’t do what he was supposed to do,” he said, and left it at that.
The next question sounded like the sort of nonquestion they plant in political rallies: too good to be true: “I felt when you were announced, and before you ever stepped on campus, ‘We got the best coach in America,’ and nothing since then changes that.” A big cheer went up. “But right now you’ve got fours, fives, and sixes going against kings and aces.”
“I appreciate that,” Rodriguez said. “We feel lucky to be here. We’ve had some obstacles. The NCAA investigation threw us for a loop. I don’t want to say it’s a victory—whenever you get investigated, it isn’t fun—but the truth came out in the end. It made us better. We got better at our procedures and our communication. And I hope you understand that no one in or out of the department was trying to cheat.
Three and Out Page 48