Page 4-The Michigan Daily- Sports Monday - November 4, 1991
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Rushing
Player Att
ds Back to basics for Michigan
R. Powers 23
J. Johnson 8
Wheatley 7
McThomas 3
Grbac 2
Howard 1
Washinaton 1
118 5.1 12
23
32
1
-9
8
1
2.9
4.6
0.3
-4.5
8.0
1.0
Totals 45 174 3.8 18
Receiving
Player No Yds Lg TD
Howard 7 108 47 2
VanDyne 3 58 24 0
J. Johnson 2 25 20 0
W. Smith 1 9 9 0
R. Powers 1 9 9 0
Totals 14 209 47 2
Passing
Player C-A Yds TD I n t
Grbac 11-16 175 2 0
Collins 3-4 34 0 0
Totals 14-20 209 2 0
Gr bac
Defense
Player Tac Ast Tot
Wal ker 9 3 12,
Anderson 8 2 10
Eva ns 6 1 7
Hutchinson 3 1 4
Simpson 2 2 4
Ware 2 1 3
Brown 2 1 3
Holdren 1 2 3
Williams 2 0 2
Dottin 2 0 2
Henderson 2 0 2
Maloney 2 0 2
Townsend 2 0 2
C. Wallace 2 0 2
M/larshall 1 1 2
Burch 1 0 1
O. Johnson 1 0 1
Ritter 1 0 1
Stanley 1 0 1
Rekowski 1 0 1
Aghakhan 1 0 1
Peoples 1 0 1
Sta rk 1 0 1
Punting
Player No Yds Avg La
Azcona 2 61 30.5 34
Team 1 6 6.0 6
Totals 3 67 22.3 34
Punt Returns
Player No Yds Ava Lg
Howard 2 53 26.5 39
Kickoff Returns
Player No Yds Avg L9
'M' Powers into
by Matt Rennie
Daily Football Writer
For a while Saturday, Michigan
football was looking like its old
self. When the Wolverines drove
within the opponents' 15-yard line,
they ran the ball.
No play-action fakes. No lob
passes to the end zone. Just give it to
the tailback and let him run it up the
gut. In other words, Michigan foot-
ball.
In fact, Michigan scored four of
its six touchdowns on the ground in
its 42-0 victory over Purdue. Soph-
omore Ricky Powers and rookie
Tyrone Wheatley each tallied a pair
of touchdowns, and Powers rushed
for 100 yards for the ninth time in
his career.
While the exploits of quarter-
back Elvis Grbac and wide receiver
Desmond Howard have attracted na-
tional headlines, Powers has estab-
lished himself as the second-best
runner in the Big Ten behind Indi-
ana's Vaughn Dunbar. Saturday's
game was typical for Powers, in
that he broke the 100-yard mark
without the benefit of a long, break-
away run. He carried for 12 yards on
his longest run of the day.
"Powers is such a big guy," Pur-
due coach Jim Colletto said. "He'll
get six, seven yards and it may not
look like he got that much."
Jesse Johnson combines with
Powers and Wheatley to give the
Wolverines a three-pronged rushing
attack. This depth has had its pros
and cons for Powers, who occasion-
ally feels he's getting too much
rest.
"Sometimes I feel like I'm hit-
- - ...." -W s i r e'AI i
the end zone against Boilermakers
ting the holes too quick. That comes
from being in the game off and on,"
Powers said. "When I'm in the game
longer I can tell if I'm hitting them
right."
The success of the Howard-Grbac
combination has certainly comple-
mented the running game.
pons, the Wolverines need someone
to choose which fuse to light.
Colletto believes Grbac fills that
role to perfection.
. "Their quarterback knows ex-
actly what's going on all the time,"
Colletto said. "Nothing affects
him; he plays like he's in a vacuum.
0
It's real difficult to take away everything
they do. They just wear you down. Part of
this game is mental. After a while, you just
run out of gas'
- Purdue coach
Jim Colletto
"Desmond's a lifesaver," Pow-
ers said earlier this season. "With
him out there, the defensive backs
can't worry about the run at all."
Purdue cornerback Jimmy Young
believes the change in this year's
Michigan team is a difference in per-
sonnel, rather than in play-calling.
"Their gameplan is still to run
the ball 66 percent of the time,"
Young said. "They go to the pass
when they need to, and when they
need to, Howard's there for them."
Colletto was also impressed
with the Wolverines' offensive ver-
satility.
"It's real difficult to take away
everything they do," Colletto said.
"They just wear you down. Part of
this game is mental. After a while,
you just run out of gas."
With so many explosive wea-
He's like having a coach on thefil.y
field."
A luxury that all of Michigan's
skill players have enjoyed is the
play of the Wolverine offensive
line, which has opened holes for the
tailback trio and allowed Grbac
enough time to find the open re-
ceivers.
Saturday, Michigan's line was a
makeshift group with Matt Elliot
filling in at center, where Steve
Everitt and Marc Milia have already
been injured. Colletto felt no
sympathy for Michigan.
"They're solid up front," he said.
"They'll open up cracks early in the
game, and as they wear you down,
the cracks become bigger and big-
ger." Michigan sophomore Ric
Powers carried the ball Z
.SHUTOUT
Contiuned from page 1
more than 40 points for the fourth time this
season. However, after establishing a 7-0 lead
3:01 into the game, Michigan struggled for
much of the first half.
Defensive back Deon Johnson recovered a
fumbled punt snap on Purdue's 26, three plays
after which tailback Ricky Powers rambled 11
yards for the score. But on its next three
drives, Michigan punted, allowed another
punt to be partially blocked, and fumbled. The
Wol-verines' first-half time of possession
was half that of Purdue's.
"The offense sputtered in the first half; I
was disappointed we didn't run better,"
Moeller said. "And I just hate to punt. Get-
ting a punt blocked... I can just not stomach to
think that someone can block a punt on us."
However, split end Desmond Howard
broke the Wolverines' slump on a 47-yard
touchdown reception with 2:21 left in the
half. The junior Heisman candidate caught
Elvis Grbac's eight-yard toss on a slant over
center, cut left, and raced past a host of de-
fenders toward the end zone.
Though the Wolverines again punted on
their first drive of the second half, they
reached the end zone on every ensuing posses-
Sion.
"The key is, did we get better today?"
Moeller said. "Offensively, in the first half,
INETH SMOLLER/Daiy no. In the second half, we might have."
Powers initiated the second-half offensive
burst with his own scoring drive. The sopho-
ky Powers runs away from Purdue Saturday.
3 times for 118 yards.
more back rushed for 44 of the drive's 46 yards
on nine of its 11 plays, finishing with a seven-
yard endzone sprint.
Following free safety Corwin Brown's in-
terception of Pike three plays later, Michigan
went to the air. Grbac hit Howard on a 17-yard
fade in the right of the end zone to give the
Wolverines a 28-0 lead with 3:32 remaining in
the third quarter.
"He's as great in person as he is on film,"
Colletto said of Howard. "I looked at that
and said 'Wow, we're out of our league.'
After Howard almost broke a 39-yard punt
return for a touchdown, Grbac went to
Howard's counterpart, flanker Yale VanDyne.
VanDyne flagged passes of 12 and 24 yards to
set up Tyrone Wheatley's 1-yard endzone dive.
Down, 35-0, Purdue drove to the Michigan
13, where it faced fourth down. After convert-
ing once in three previous fourth-down at-
tempts, the Boilermakers sent in Joe O'Leary,
whose 31-yard field goal try sailed wide left.
Colletto defended his decision to attempt
the field goal after having declined to kick all
game.
"When you'd been sacked as many times as
we had, you know you can't pass," Colletto
said. "I guess we couldn't kick, either."
Wheatley then added another 1-yard touch-
down to round out the score at 42-0.
"Our defense played hard for a while, but
not throughout the game," Colletto said. "It
gets to the point where you're not getting
anything back, the offense isn't helping. It
gets hard to play."
"0
Frosh Tyrone "Superman" Wheatley comes back to earth for his first
of two scores in Saturday's game with Purdue.
Northwestern upsets MSU, 16-13 ---------------------
McGee
1 6 6.0 6
Associated Press
Northwestern 16,
Michigan State 13
The Wildcats ran up 351 total
yards on the hapless Spartan defense,
and punctuated it with a late scoring
drive to win the game.
Northwestern won its second
game in a row for the first time
since 1986, when the Wildcats fin-
ished with a 4-7 record, the last time
they have won more than three
games in a season.
The Wildcats' Mark Benson, a
senior flanker who led the Big Ten
with a 22.3 yards-per-catch average
entering the game, caught a seven-
yard toss from Quarterback Len
Williams with 1:48 left in the
fourth quarter for the game-win-
ning score.
The rest of Northwestern's scor-
ing came in the first quarter on a
Brian Leahy 46-yard field goal and
another Williams-Benson touch-
down hookup, this time for 18
yards. The Spartans countered with a
} -arrle..rnn a _ m _ . an
Coach Hayden Fry and the Iowa
Hawkeyes kept focused on Ohio
State for 60 minutes Saturday. Then;
after beating the Buckeyes ,16-9, it
was again time to think about what
had happened back on campus.
On Friday, a graduate student
killed three Iowa professors and a
classmate before shooting himself
to death. School officials had con-
templated not playing the game at
Ohio State, but decided since the
team had already made -the trip to go
ahead.
The Iowa players wore all-black
helmets in remembrance of the
shooting.
Iowa, which had beaten the Buck-
eyes at Ohio Stadium only once since
1960, moved to 7-1 and remained
tied for second place in the Big Ten
with Indiana with a conference
record of 4-1.
OSIJ (3-2 in the Big Ten, 6-2
overall) fell out of the Rose Bowl
picture. The Buckeyes have also lost
to Illinois.
Tnn,o tnnV rnanat thent
in the third quarter.
Ohio State, which came in averag-
ing 255 yards rushing per game, was
limited to 124 yards on the ground
and 97 more passing. Meanwhile,
Iowa totaled 443 yards, including
283 passing.
Indiana 34,
Minnesota 8
Vaughn Dunbar rushed for 153
yards and three touchdowns as Indi-
ana greeted Coach Bill Mallory's
return from a one-game suspension
with a 34-8 victory.
Indiana totaled 214 yards on the
ground to Minnesota's 115, and
Dunbar had the 13th 100-plus rush-
ing game of his 20-game career.
Indiana took advantage of four
turnovers and nine penalties against
the Gophers. Trent Green passed for
241 yards and rushed for one touch-
down and Scott Bonnell added two
field goals as the Hoosiers domi-
nated Minnesota from the begin-
ning.
Illinois 22,
Wirn £
For the first time in recent
memory, the Michigan Marching
Band was the best band on the field
Saturday.
This triumph was accomplished
for several reason:
1. The MMB didn't have to
compete with those out-of-shape
'we haven't touched our instru-
ments since last year's Homecom-
ing game' alumni
2. The annual Purdue Band-Sil-
ver Twins World Tour cancelled
its trip to Ann Arbor.
3. Coach Gary Moeller's squad
scored so many times, band director
Gary Lewis couldn't help but play
a lot of music in the stands.
4. Either the blustering wind
and frigid temperatures played
tricks on spectators' ears, or this
may actually be a good marching
band.
The only way to verify such a
rash statement is to check the
band's midterm grades:
MUSIC - All season long
Pasedena, the MMB will be capa-
ble of kicking a tune written since
the average undergrad finished el-
ementary school. Improvement is
measured in small steps. GRADE:
C-
MARCHING - Call me crazy,
but shouldn't a marching band be
able to march well? This is a grave
assumption when speaking of sev-
eral sections in the MMB.
Gary Lewis loves the corps-step
style band. He allows his troops to
glide step across the field during
most of every halftime. The famed
Michigan high-step marching is
alive and well only in the pregame
show.
Lewis asks his musicians to
maintain the ability to high-step,
but spends precious few hours on
the style in drills.
That is like training an army of
soldiers with small water pistols,
then tossing them into a war where
they have to use uzis.
Next week watch the trom-
Anderson
9
Scoring Summary
1st Quarter: Powers 11-yd
run, Carlson kick, 11:59, 7-0
Michigan
2nd Quarter: Grbac 47-yd
pass to Howard, Carlson kick,
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