Michigan 30, Ohio State 24: Thrice as nice
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The most overused word in the Michigan-Ohio State rivalry over the past few years has been “toughness.” And look, I’m not here pointing a finger at others without taking some ownership myself here. I’ve absolutely hurled a stone or two (or 10) in this glass house, including an all-caps TOUGHNESS tweet on Saturday after Michigan’s first touchdown against Ohio State — a 4th-and-goal, we’re-running-it-straight-down-your-throat carry by Blake Corum — and a lengthy diatribe about toughness two weeks earlier in the aftermath of Michigan’s gritty, less-than-aesthetically pleasing road win over a top-10 Penn State squad.
It makes sense why it’s a thing — we all watched the 2021 edition of The Game when Hassan Haskins scored five rushing touchdowns on Michigan’s final five “real” drives of the game. And the chatter that came in its wake was expected, too, both due to the fact that Michigan had just emerged from a decade-long drought in college football’s greatest rivalry and due to the fact that, well, it was true. Michigan did bully Ohio State on Nov. 27, 2021 in such a way that Ohio State players, fans and coaches alike still haven’t gotten over it.
Case in point: Ryan Day’s comments after beating Notre Dame earlier this fall. It was a key road victory for a Buckeye squad that established itself as the No. 1 team in America for the first few weeks of the CFP rankings, and a top-2 mainstay throughout. But the only thing on Day’s mind was the “toughness” of his squad — after gaining one yard against a defense that was inexplicably playing with 10 guys on the field — and what followed was his infamous Lou Holtz rant that will likely follow him for the rest of his career (along with his increasingly awful record against Michigan, of course).
But here’s the dirty little secret about the 2022 and 2023 editions of The Game. It wasn’t Michigan’s toughness that earned it those victories.
While the toughness trope does fit, when it comes to the 2023 Michigan Wolverine football team — and the program at large — I contend there’s a better word to describe just how special it has become, one that was personified time and time again on Saturday:
Resiliency.
Michigan is absolutely a tough program. It’s as “Football Guy” as it comes. It’s a big group of guys that not only refuses to shy away from contact, it seeks it out. It embraces it. If Tim The Tool Man Taylor was a football program, it would be the Michigan Wolverines. But grit and contact and toughness are only one piece of the puzzle as to why this program does so well. And it takes more than excelling in the trenches (and loving every second of it) to get through some of the things these 18-22 year-old student-athletes have had to endure this season, and more specifically, on Saturday.
And as fun as it is to dunk on Ryan Day (and trust me, I’ve got some dialed up for later in this column), another dirty little secret is that when it comes to actual play on the field, Ohio State wasn’t that soft on Saturday, either (as for the off-the-field stuff — sorry, I can’t defend this. Or this.)
The Buckeyes flexed some muscle on Saturday, too — particularly when it comes to their first drive of the second half, a drive that ended with these eight plays once the Buckeyes crossed midfield and got into Michigan territory:
4-yard run
5-yard run
3-yard run
12-yard run
6-yard run
5-yard run
8-yard run
3-yard run, TD
And it’s right at that point of the game, in the immediate aftermath of TreVeyon Henderon’s touchdown run that tied the game up at 17, where Michigan’s trademark resiliency was most on display — coincidentally, at the point in the game and the season where it was needed the most.
At 17-17 with five minutes left in the third quarter, Michigan faced the closest thing it had felt to a second-half deficit all season long. The Wolverines weren’t behind on the scoreboard (nor have they been at any point of any second half this season). But the feeling inside the Big House was unlike anything fans had felt post-COVID during an edition of The Game. Ohio State had just imposed its will for the duration of a six-minute drive, and the Buckeye swagger that had become all-too-familiar to Michigan fans during the Urban Meyer and early stage Ryan Day eras felt like it was creeping back in.
This next drive for the Michigan offense was going to say a lot about the team’s chances for the rest of the game. For the trajectory of the season. And for how Michigan’s last two wins would be remembered. That’s how high the stakes were. That was the latest thing put on the plates of these kids, who knew they were signing up for a lot when they put pen to paper on their NLIs somewhere between 2-5 years ago, but never could’ve imagined just how heavy a burden that may feel like in the future when they actually lived out the stakes they’d be inheriting.
The early returns on Michigan's crucial drive were very promising. The Wolverines mixed in runs and passes. There was grit. There was finesse. They moved the ball up the field with relative ease, not facing a third down at any point of the drive. J.J. McCarthy showed off his arm and legs, earning first downs on a pass to Colston Loveland and a scramble with his legs. Blake Corum and Donovan Edwards kept giving Michigan manageable second-down situations with effective first-down runs.
With about 3 minutes left in the third quarter, Corum’s next first-down run only gained a yard, and Michigan faced a 2nd-and-long situation — its first undesireable spot of the drive. To make things worse, Loveland (McCarthy’s safety blanket and top target all day long) was forced to leave the field because he was bleeding from his mouth.
But Michigan’s Next Man Up mentality showed up once again, and Indiana transfer AJ Barner stepped into the game, and after McCarthy dropped back to pass and Barner gave the illusion that he was in to block for the first few seconds of the play, he released into the middle of the field on a perfectly designed delayed screen, caught the ball and took it 18 yards to the Ohio State 22 yard-line.
The crowd erupted. Wolverine fans who were biting fingernails, pacing or doing some combination of both after Ohio State’s last offensive drive were feeling at least a little relief from the most recent spike on the anxiety roller coaster, as Michigan found itself on the doorstep of the Ohio State red zone.
But a look toward the middle of the field in the aftermath of Michigan’s big gain brought upon an even bigger spike an anxiety, coupled with a heavy dose of anger, sadness and grief, too.
There laid Michigan captain Zak Zinter on the middle of the field, writhing in pain. TV refused to show replays. If you’ve avoided it in the aftermath of the game, consider yourselves lucky, and make strides to keep it that way. It was clear it was bad very quickly, and the response from officials, players and coaches alike all solidified that.
The FOX telecast almost immediately switched to a commercial break. A few minutes later, the telecast returned, but with Zinter still in the same spot.
More than 100 Wolverine players, scholarship and walk-ons alike, had made their way to the hash marks opposite Zinter, making a walk that stretched 25 yards and went four or five players deep across the entire duration.
Tears were shed. Breath was held. And yet another gut punch was handed to this group of young men that have to feel like participants in one of the longest 12-round fights known to man.
FOX actually cut back to commercials before a resolution came to fruition. During that second commercial break, Zinter was met with defeaning “Let’s Go Zak” chants as he was put on the cart and eventually taken off the field.
Talk to anyone that was at Saturday’s game, and I’m confident they’ll all refer to it similarly: one of the most emotional, moving moments at the Big House in their lifetime. Even FOX’s Joel Klatt had to fight back tears when he recalled what happened a few days later (suggested viewing if you haven’t done so already).
The game was stopped for close to seven minutes before Zinter was eventually carted off the field. And then the gravity of the situation just returned like a ton of bricks. Michigan players had to wipe tears off their face, buckle their chin straps back on, and try and face their bitter rivals — who just so happened to be undefeated and the No. 2 team in America — in a tie game with 17 minutes left.
McCarthy, the same guy who was hugging and comforting Zinter’s parents on the field just a few short moments earlier, took the snap and handed it off to Corum, the guy who was standing right in the middle of that 100-plus player wall standing across their fallen All-American teammate. Corum took the handoff, started toward the middle, then slipped his way through a hole created by Trevor Keegan — Michigan’s other elite guard who happens to be Zinter’s best friend. Keegan went from punching the ground and openly weeping to moving a Buckeye defender so far out of position that it became a no-brainer for Corum to freelance and make an on-the-spot detour to the short side of the field.
And what a detour it was. Once he was through that hole, Corum was gone. He traveled up the left sideline and jaunted into the end zone for a touchdown, Michigan’s longest run of the day.
As Corum crossed the goalline and earned his team six points, he dropped the ball, found the nearest camera and gestured a “6” with both hands, followed by a “5” with his right — a tribute to his teammate Zinter, who wears the number 65.
The tie game became a Michigan lead, and it was a lead the Wolverines would never relinquish.
How’s that for some resiliency?
Say what you want about some (if not most) of the adversity heading into Saturday’s ultra-high stakes version of The Game being self-imposed. Even if you don’t agree with how the Big Ten has handled SignGate, even the most biased observer with maize-tinted glasses would likely admit that these off-field distractions wouldn’t be distractions if Michigan simply didn’t break/bend/challenge (whatever your verb of choice may be) the rulebook. But no matter what mistakes coaches and administrators have made before, during and after this controversy, the byproduct has been felt by the student-athletes — and that’s not fair.
But this group of guys doesn’t care about fair. They’re not interested in sulking. They don’t need your sympathy. All they care about are the titles that are there for the taking.
And with Saturday’s 30-24 win over Ohio State, Michigan’s third straight win in a rivalry that was one-sided for oh-so-long, the path to those titles looks a lot more clear.
This is a tough team. Again, I’m not disputing that. But it’s so much more. Resiliency is defined as “the capacity to withstand or to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness.” We know the toughess. But we’ve also had a front-row ticket to this group of guys withstanding and recovering from difficulties all season long. And with Corum’s TD coming the first play after Zinter’s horrible injury, I’d say the “quickly” criteria was certainly met, too.
Michigan wasn’t moving the ball at will on the ground on Saturday. Far from it. The team had just 34 yards on 18 rushes (1.9 yards per carry) in the first half. And ever after a stronger second half, a 39-carry, 156-yard team total for an average of four yards per carry is hardly something to print t-shirts over. Many of Michigan’s key plays in the second half were on trick plays or involved non-traditional wrinkles or slight of hand. And you know what? That’s OK.
Every single time Ohio State threw a punch Michigan’s way on Saturday, the Wolverines responded. And they did so with a punch that packed ever more power than the one they received. It’s the same response the Wolverines have had all season long. And it’s what this group of guys hoping to earn the program’s first National Championship in a quarter century plans on doing for the next three games on their schedule.
Bet against them at your own risk. I’ll pass.
With a game this big, it’s only fitting to go big with takeaways, too. So let’s dig deeper into Michigan’s third straight victory in The Game — and its 28th straight regular season win, matching a Big Ten record — by exploring 7,000+ words worth takeaways from Saturday’s 30-24 victory, too.
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