BELL: DEFENDING THE "INDEFENSIBLE" 'AGE 2B The Michigan Daily I michigandaily.com ( Monday, September17, 2007 MICHIGAN 38, NOTRE DAME 0 NOTRE TAMED Team rallies behind Hart's guarantee ike Hart showed exactly how you back up a guar- antee.* Thirty-five carries for r - 187 yards and two touch- downs came to play, but his guaran- tee stretched deeper than self-motiva- tion. He used K I it to reach out WRIGHT to his team- mates. The When Hart Sophomore went up to the podium after a horrific loss to Oregon and pre- dicted victory over Notre Dame, the senior captain drew a fair share of criticism. What prompted Hart to put so much faith in a team that opened the season with two bad losses? Why would he put even more pressure on a group of guys already hanging their heads over a hearthreaker and a blowout? Most important, how confident could he have been in an offense that had a freshman quarterback filling in for a four-year starter? But if you watched the same game I did on Saturday, you can, see why this team's emotional leader did it. He wanted everyone to play RODRIGO together, to unite around a single Senior Shawn Crable and the Michigan defense held the Fighting Irish offense to just 79 total yards, while recording eight sacks. cause - a guarantee. w "Anytime your leader goes out there He broke tackles and found a way to stay tackle. It was aggressive, pressuring the field against Oregon. and guarantees something, you have to on his feet when other backs would've quarterback with blitzes. And it caused And the offense, for the first time this put aside some of your pride and just surrendered to the ground. turnovers. season, converted on early opportunities play for the seniors," wide receiver Greg But he also mustered out of his team- Granted, the Fighting Irish looked lost to give the Wolverines a lead that they Mathews said. "And the fact that he just mates an intensity that had been missing on offense (and defense), but the Wolver- wouldn't relinquish. went out there and put his neck on the in Michigan's horrendous start. ine defense played with confidence. The The offensive line protected freshman line for us showed us a lot." The defense played like the Michigan unit came out with the chip on its shoul- Ryan Mallett and opened up holes Hart Hart followed through on his promise. unit of last year. It remembered how to der most expected to see when it took the had yet to see this season. It all goes back to Hart's choice words and his teammates rallying behind him. "He wanted everyone to come with him," runningbacks coach Fred Jackson said. "It was just him saying he wanted the other guys to come and play as hard as he's going to play." The cohesiveness started in practice. Hart said everyone gave him grief about the guarantee, especially in the stretching lines. Senior Adam Kraus said the team discussed Hart's words because it had to make the win happen. Even with all the heat Hart took in practice, his words served their purpose. His teammates weren't stuck on the way they fell flat on their faces coming out of the gates this sea- son. They had a new talking point. "You don't forget, but you have to put it behind you because if we would have been thinking about the first two games in this game, it would have been a loss again," defensive tackle Terrance Taylor said. At the Wolverines' weekly press conference last week, safety Bran- dent Englemon said he doesn't make guarantees, but in the same breath, he added he would do his best to turn Hart's into a reality. "We had a great time with it," Hart said. "We had a great time all week. We were all a group, andI think it helped us out." Hart's words did more than loosen the team. The guarantee gave it purpose. "We didn't want to make him look bad," Mallett said. Mallett and company can rest assured they held up their end of the bargain. - Wright can be reached at kpwr@umich.edu Strength and honor: Crowe inspires Blue Senior libero Stesha Selsky overcame an illness to record 38 digs in Saturday night's comeback win. IM' battles back to keep streak alv By SCOTT BELL Daily Sports Editor Heading into Saturday's game, the usual suspects were expected to fire up the Michigan football team. Embattled coach Lloyd Carr needed to pick up his team following an 0-2 start, running back Mike Hart need- ed to rally his teammates following his guarantee and defensive captain Shawn Crable needed to get his much- maligned defense back on track fol- lowingtwo dismal performances. But an unexpected source deliv- ered perhaps the game's most rousing speech: Academy Award-winner Rus- sell Crowe. The Australian actor flew in from Washington, D.C., Saturday morning to meet with his friend Carr and the team prior to kickoff. What did he say to get them so fired up? "I think that's secret information, mate," Crowe joked. Crowe later opened up a bit about the message of his pre-game speech. "It's just amatter of being one voice," he said. "Everybody wanting to do the same thing for the same reason." Crowe and Carr forged an unlikely friendship last year. Carr used clips from Crowe's "Cinderella Man" as motivation for his team. The film, about underdog boxer Jim Braddock overcoming odds to become a world champion during the 1930s, has been credited as one of the catalysts to Michigan's 11-0 start to last season. Crowe found out about Carr's team screenings and decided he wanted to meet the coach. "I was really touched that he was using it, but also, by seeing what he was using, I could really understand that Lloyd was a very, very smart indi- vidual," Crowe said. Carr flew to Australia in May to speak with Crowe's rugby team, the Actor Russell Crowe addressed the football team before Saturday's game By ALEX PROSPERI Daily Sports Writer It usually takes a team's worst game to expose major weaknesses, but the No. 10 Michigan volleyball team was fortunate to find out its flaws, and simultaneously winthe Michigan/Nike Invi- tational Championship, via a five-game victory on Sat- urday night in front of 1,180 fans - the biggest crowd to watch a volleyball game at Cliff Keen Arena this year. The Maize and Blue (12-0) faltered early against Geor- gia Tech, but rallied back to win 17-30, 30-24, 30-32, 30- 25 and 15-12 to solidify its second-straight undefeated non-conference season. "We gotinabattle," Mich- igan coach Mark Rosen said, "Anytime you get in a battle, it's good to win a battle." After beating up on Tem- ple and Utah Valley State on Friday in straight sets, it was clear from the outset the Yellow Jackets (6-4) were for real. Georgia Tech pulled away from a 17-14 lead in the first game by giving up just three more points to Michi- gan and going on a 7-0 run. . Michigan came out with more energy in game two, led by senior Katie Bruzdz- inski's five kills and two ser- vice aces to even the match. After losing game three, a back-and-forth affair that featured 11 lead changes and 18 ties, a loss didn't seem out of the question. Georgia Tech's system, - led by Lindsey Gray's 15 kills through three games - cre- ated problems for Michigan and revealed soft spots in its defense with quick attacks. "They exposed some things that nobody yet this year has exposed," Rosen said. Although Rosen wouldn't say precisely what those See VOLLEYBALL, Page 3B South Sydney Rabbitohs. Crowe figured he'd return the favor on Saturday. He saw the Wolverines struggling and decided he would give Carr a call. "I could sense through what I was watching on TV that my friend was in a bit of pain, so I thought I'd just take his mind off things and gave him a call and started teasing him about it, and he said 'Get over here,"' Crowe said. Following his speech on Satur- day, Crowe joined the Wolverines on the sidelines and even got to grab the Go Blue banner during the team's entrance. The largest crowd Crowe's ,Rabbi- toh squad played in front of last season had 34,500 people. With that nearly tripled on Saturday, it's understand- able that Crowe was slightly over- whelmed. "I just want to say that it was an incredible privilege to be part of being here today and the atmosphere," said Crowe, who said he wanted to grab a couple beers with Carr before he left Ann Arbor. Although Crowe admits he doesn't know everything about American football yet, he's pretty familiar with Michigan's roster. When asked whether he'd have Mike Hart or Shawn Crable on his Rugby team, Crowe didn't hesitate before veering toward option C. "I want Jake (Long)," he said, gar- nering laughs from the media.