*Sunday, September 24, 1970 THE MICHIGAN DAILY Page Nine ~unday, September 20, 1970 THE MiCHIGAN DAILY -Daily-Sara Krulwich Moorhead to Staroba, 4 completions, 62 yards Wolverines rizona By ERIC SIEGEL The Michigan offense kick-i ed and sputtered for the bet-I ter part of yesterday's game, but the defense was superb and the Wolverines finally ground out a 20-9 win over S the underdog Arizona Wild-, NIGHT EDITORS: BILL ALTERMA cats.N TEIT;:BLLATR More Sports Pag -Daily-Sara Krulwich sputter ildcats, past 20-9 "I, iPORTS AN and MORT NOVECK e 7 N The Wolverines could man- t age to total only 354 yards, 186 on the ground and 168 in the air - a total they sur- passed in all but three games last year. . Twice they drove within the Arizona 25 but fail- a ed to score; on another occas- ion, they had the ball first and goal on the Arizona five after driving from their own 35, but could only salvage a field goal off the foot of Dana Coin. . .The Wolverines also had a field } f >' goal attempt blocked, fumbled a : .,...~.... punt, and were socked with three Daily-Sara Krulwich penalties worth a total of 42 yards. Taylor (42) blocks for Moorhead "Our running game especially was a disappointment," Coach Bo WILD ESchembechler, who likes to run, EY D said after the game. "We just weren't blocking. We've got a lot of work to do. "But," Schembechler added. "don't underestimate the fact that we won. That's the important thing." By PHIL HERTZ offense, however, didn't help us. Weber felt that his team had a Quarterback Don Moorhead, The scenario for yesterday's Weber conceded a large reason chance until the closing minutesho completed 11 of 24 passes and ichigan - Arizona was p r e t t y be ionce o te An when Lance Scheffler's touchdown gained only 64 yards in 20 rush- much agreed upon by most ob- zon the impotence ofMihia put the decision out of reach. He ing attempts, expressed his frus- servers before yesterday's contest defense. "We thought Michigan did, however, feel his team was tration more succinctly. "There's .real no one part of our offense even got under way. was a great team because of their in trouble when they were forcedwe have to work on," he said, The Michigan Wolverines, one dfse. e ere right; thea to settle for a third field goal. shan hi heak "We he to oftgnto' otaldefense. We were right; they have shaking his head. "We have to of the nation's football power- a really good defense." "When we got down so close, but work on everything. houses, would overcome a variety were unable to get the touchdown "BUT," he added, "we'll get it of maladies and eventually roar to Both of the defenses completely that would have put us ahead, I "Bthe convinding victory over the Ar- throttled the other team's run- together." convncin vicoryoverthe ri-knew we were in trouble. You 1Moorhead, who said there was zona Wildcats, one of the weak ning games. Arizona was only able can't expect to get that close " wa Mhi shdh e sisters of the Western Athletic to collect 84 yards on the ground again against the Michigan de- n fay byh22 pointd may Conference, a conference n e v e r in 32 attempts. fense." have been a little down on the noted for its grid profess. offe bue aigh praise Everyone knew that the Wolver- THE INEFFECTIVENESS of the THROUGHOUT the poshe game the pa ofha h high praise for ines might start sluggishly, but running game also took its toll on interview, Weber continued to em- te "Tos guysiae geat. that before the afternoon was over the team's passing game. "It's ph h dt t thmates. Those guys are great. ate Wolverines would have made hard to throw the ball when that's the result of the contest, but he They always get the ball for us." short work of the Wildcats and all you're doing,' noted Weber. also was willing to look ahead. "I The Wolverine defense got the proceeded to a thrashing triumph. Weber felt that the difference think we're going to win a lot of ball directly four times, as the Everyone knew this was going to in the game was his team's failure games this season," was the Ari- untested secondary came up happen; that is, everyone exceptI to get the breaks, but Weber con- zona mentor's assessment of - with three interceptions and line- Arizona coach Bob Weber, his ceded that a good proportion of teams prospects - an assessment backer Marty Huff, who has been staff, and his players, the luck was due to Michigan's with which Schembechler com- making interceptions a habit for the past two years, picked a excellence as a football team. pletely agreed, "they're better than th off the ars, id- CONSIDERING Michigan was "Michigan's about as big andE people thought, and they're going catheralde am of tWmd favored by 22 points before the strong as anyone in the country. to surprise a lot of people." cats heralded Brian LInstrom. start of yesterday's game, one They may oneone of the top six Apparently everyone now con- All of Michigan's interceptions * I "Our running game was a disappointment, but don't underestimate the fact that we won," Schembechler said. .Ci":"':t:..:v.1.":":":"::4W.": vv . :... .r................:{":Y"}:......... r:. .:.:: . :i:L5:..... .. of plays with the Wildcats hold- have. That kid can really knockl ing the ball second and seven the ball. That's why I wanted to on their 35. get four up because he could have The ball, however, was over- won the game for them." thrown and sophomore defensive Coin's field goal came with 3:49 back Bo Rather, who said later he remaining, enough time for Lin- was "really scared" when the game. strom to engineer an upset. began, picked it off along the far A few seconds later though, any* sidelines and stepped out at the hopes the Wildcats may have hadI Michigan 35. were dashed when Huff intercept- ed a pass at the Arizona 27 and "WE WERE in a zone, and Lin- brought it back 15 yards to the strom was trying to loft it over 12. Four plays later, Scheffler, (Frank) Gusich's head." Rather who played most of the second- said. "My play was to pick him up half in place of a. tired Glenn deep and I guess he just didn't Doughty, and gained 30 yards on see me back there. I just wanted eight carries, took a pitch-out to knock it down, but when I saw from Moorhead and went six yards I had a chance for the intercep- for the score. tion, I went for it." When Tim Killian kicked his From the 35, Michigan took second conversion of the after- eight plays and a little more than noon, Michigan had a 20-9 lead three minutes to get down to the with only 1:08 left on the score- Arizona five. The big plays in the board. drive were a 15 yard Moorhead to "We hoped for a break late in Staroba pass and a 15 yard per- the game, but instead we gave it sonal foul against the Wildcats to Michigan," a dejected Wildcat after the play was over. Moor- Coach Bob Weber said., head, who said he "did the wrong The first half was as uneventful thing on the option too many as a 10-6 halftime score might in- times," did the right thing twice, dicate. running for gains of eight and Neither team could mount a nine yards. drive on the first series of plays, Once they got close, though, but Michigan finally put one to-! the Wolverines stalled out and gether the second time they got s e t t 1 e d for a field goal with the ball. Starting from their 40,: fourth and goal at the three giv- the Wolverines marched to the ing Michigan a 13-9 lead. Arizona 28, Moorhead hit Staroba for 17 yards, but a clipping pen- SCHEMBECHLER EXPLAINED alty put the ball back on the 26. later why he decided to go for the Two plays and two incompletions field goal. "We seldom go against later, Coin kicked a 42-yard field1 as good a placekicker as they . goal, setting a Michigan record and giving the Wolverines a 3-0' lead. AFTER THE kickoff, Michigan's defense held Arizona to four yards in three plays, and four minutes later, the Wolverines were on the scoreboard again. This time, though, the Wolverines got seven points instead of three, with the touchdown play coming on a pass out in the flat to full- back Billy Taylor, who took the ball and streaked in for the score. Seven plays earlier, Taylor, who gained 64 yards on 18 carries, wents off left guard and then cut wide for 25 yards, bringing the ball into Wildcat territory. The only thing the Wildcats could get in the first half was a pair of field goals, one for 44 and one for 19 yards.I Meanwhile, the Wolverine de- fense was holding the Wildcats tol 77 yards on the ground and a meager 32 in the air. Overall, the defense allowed only 84 yards rushing, and 143 in the air. AND TOM DARDEN; who led the team in tackles with 14, stop-K ped one Arizona drive with a third-quarter interception, at the Michigan 44, returned to the Wild- cat 46, then fumbled in the air to safety Jim Betts, who went eight more yards with the ball. Earlier in that quarter, Gusich put the Maize and Blue in good field posi- tion with an interception at the Arizona 43, although the offense was unable to capitalize on the break. Both Weber and Schembechler were clearly impressed with Mich- igan's defense. "Don't forget," Schembechler said, "they didn't get into our end zone." Weber, from the other lockerroom said, "We couldn't put our drives together. Michigan cut off our running game and that made it difficult to pass. (Middle guard Henry) Hill was all over the place and the linebackers made it hard to run." Hill, though, who had eight tackles, had his own perspective on the performance of the defense. "We did a good job," he said, "but we didn't do a great job. A great job is when they don't score at all." Whoopee? FIRST DOWNS Rushing Passing Penalty TOTAL NO. OF RUSHES NET YARDS- Rushing1 Passing , FORWARD PASSES ATTEMPTED Completed Intercepted by Yds. Intercept. Ret'd TOTAL PLAYS (Rushes and Passes) PUNTS Number Average distance 4 KICKOFFS, ret'd by YARDS KICKS RETURNED Punts Kickoffs FUMBLES, Number Ball lost by PENALTIES, Number fYards penalized Mich. 18 9 2 59 Ariz 10 4 5 I 32 Staroba Seymour Scheffler Taylor Berutti Harris 186 84 168 143 24 11 4 30 32 15 Staroba 0 0 Pass Receiving No. Yds. 4 62 2 27 1 23 1 29 1 17 1 10 Totals 11 168 Punting No.' Yds. Ave. 10 401 40.1 ARIZONA Rushing Tries Gains Loss Net 15 41 3 ,,3 10 37 1 36 6 15 5 10 1 0 0 0 Totals 32 93 9 84 Passing Att. Comp. Int. Yds. 32 15 4 143 Pass Receiving 83 64 McCall 10 9 Lewis 0.1 41.8 Linstrom 3 4 Pittman 52 140 0 34 52 106 3 5 Linstrom 1 0 3 4 42 59 , __ Doughty Moorhead Taylor Berutti Scheffler Moorhead MICHIGAN Rushing Tries Gains' 11 27 20 67 18 66 2 9 8 30 Loss 8 3 2 0 0 Net 19 64 64 9 30 Dean Fergerson Lewis McCall T g No. Yds. 6 96 2 13 4 26 3, 9 Totals 15 143 No. Yds. Ave. 9 377 41.8 0 0 10-20 3 0 3-9 Punting Black Totals Pass A 59 199 13 186 SCORE BY PERIODS: sing MICHIGAN 10 att. Comp. Int. Yds. ARIZONA 3 24 11 0 168 ATTENDANCE: 80,386 would have almost expected a fairly jubilant A r i z o n a locker room after their near upset of the Wolverines. However, that simply; was not the case. Weber was close ia tears, and the players were taking their sweet time changing out of their uniforms. Weber put it succinctly, "We thought we could win. We worked hard, and we wanted to start fast this sea- son." The Wildcats were supposed to present the first of several weak links in Michigan's 1970 football schedule, but throughout presea- son practice Wolverine mentor Bo Schembechler refused to concede that the season lidlifter would be a laugher. Schembechler appar- ently knew what he was talkig out. TWO SEASONS ago, Arizona had a good enough season to merit a trin in the SunBnnowl .A dnitpe teams in the country, and when cedes the future script for Ari- them"roeinlteLcond trait, two of you're that good, a lot of plays zona's Wildcats includes a lotof them in the fourth quarter. One that look lucky are just examples victories, and this time the script led to a second Dana Coin field of smoothness." may be a trifle less surprising. goal and the second set up a touchdown run by second-string tailback Lance Scheffler. THE INTERCEPTIONS werek ..especiallywelcome, too, as the ., f .f.....}{.Wolverines' slender 10-6 halftime .lead was whittled to a single point f. f , ">f ..., +Yc., . at the start of the final frame af- f ter sure-footed Wildcat place- . : ............Y ... I kicker Steve Hurley booted a 33- F c t .............%..;,.. yard field goal, his third of the afternoon' ยข . , ,4# ! f f Hurley then kicked off to Glenn ,..- Doughty, who returned the ball 10 Syards to the Michigan 20. Aided by an interference call against Ari- zona safety Justine Lanne at the Michigan 34 on a pass intended for Paul Staroba, the Wolverines marched to midfield before being forced to give up the ball. } r< S Atarnha.whobunted I10otimrc It's too early to worry, but... By LEE KIRK "When your running game isn't going,you can assume that you're not blocking well." Michigan coach Bo Schembechler has ever spoken truer words. If any single factor could explain the Wolverines' less than awe- some 20-9 victory over Arizona yesterday, it would have to be their inability to generate a consistent ground game. Michigan runners averaged only 3.1 yards pet carry, and on only one occasion, a 25-yard first quarter jaunt by Billy Taylor, did a Wolverine run- ner really break away from the rugged Wild- cat defense. "The defense is ahead of the offense early in the season" is an old football cliche, and both teams did little to disprove it yester- day afternoon. Perhaps this partially ex- plains the Wolverines' erratic offensive show- Arizona's defense still deserves a large part of the credit for slowing Michigan's potent ground game. Middle linebacker Mark Arneson drew special praise from Schem- bechler. "He was everywhere - he's one heckuva football player." The Wolverines' offensive sluggishness was further compounded by the Wildcats' defensive line and volleyball team. No less than nine of Don Moorhead's passes were batted around by rangy Arizona linemen. This makes Moorhead's 11-24 performance a little more impressive, but it also made him less effective. "They (the Arizona line) weren't really rushing in," Schembechler noted after the game. "They just had their arms up in the air and batted them down." Even though the Wolverines won by 11 At times it looked as though the Wol- verine defense was working outagainst in- experienced freshmen. The Wildcats couldn't manage a first down in the first quarter and never bunched more than two together throughout the game. The three Arizona field goals were set up by an interference call, a fumbled punt and a long bomb. Schembechler declined to place much stock in the 22-point margin the odds- makers had given his team. "To try to rate a team before they've played a single game is silly," he said after the game, "but I'm afraid it f-as to have some effect on the team. "Perhaps we aren't yet as great a team as some people thought we were, or perhaps we underestimated Arizona. I'm inclined to think it was a little of both.