6 B Saturday, October 6, 2007 The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com Eagles pose little threat for Blue AML Amk .Mk AIML A-ML w a 0 Saturday, October 6, 2007 The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com Odds, defenders can't stop Hart By SCOTT BELL Most think this will be a low- Daily Sports Editor volume game for the Heisman - Trophy candidate, but if last week- Michigan cornerback Brandon end showed anything, assume the Harrison doesn't think it's possi- worst. ble for the Wolverines to overlook With Mario Manningham sus- another opponent after the Appa- pended, Hart could surpass 25 car- lachian State fiasco. ries and should definitely become But c'mon. It's Eastern Michi- Michigan's all-time leading rusher gan, a perennial bottom dweller of by Saturday afternoon. the Mid Athletic Conference. Eastern Michigan's Daniel See if the Eagles have a chance Holtzclaw is among the nation's to compete against the heavily elite in terms of tackles, but the favored Wolverines. Eagles will need every one to stop a hungry Hart ready to get back on Michigan rush offense vs. track. Eastern Michigan rush defense: Mike Hart may have topped the Advantage: Michigan 4 century mark for the fifth-straight game last weekend, but it wasn't Michigan pass offense vs. pretty. It took him 30 carries to Eastern Michigan pass defense: reach 106 yards, and even that stat Chad Henne made a success- line was padded by a late-game 23- ful return last weekend, but if yard run. he wants to keep his momentum going Saturday, he'll have to do it without his favorite target, Man- ningham. Henne will still have Adrian Arrington, who is quietly hav- ing a very strong season, and Greg Mathews, Michigan's emerging third-down passing threat, at his disposal. That should be enough to gain the edge over an Eastern Michigan team that has surrendered more than 200 yards a game through the air this season. Advantage: Michigan Eastern Michigan rush offense vs. Michigan rush defense Michigan coach Lloyd Carr spe- cifically challenged Michigan's rush defense this week, saying it's something the team definitely needs to improve. This comes after Michigan's less-than-stellar per- formance against Northwestern, in which the Wolverines allowed the Wildcats to run all over them in the first half for more than 300 total yards. Eastern Michigan enters the game averaging just a hair more than 100 yards per game as a team. With Carr specifically calling the front seven out, expect some positive results. I'm not predicting a repeat of the Notre Dame per- formance, but be surprised if the Eagles near their triple-digit sea- son average on Saturday. Advantage: Michigan Eastern Michiganpassoffense vs. Michigan pass defense Bad news for Michigan: Eastern Michigan runs a spread offense. Good news for Michigan: It's Eastern Michigan. Despite the Wolverines' inaus- picious start to the season against spread teams, they seemed to show at least a little progress last weekend against Northwestern. The Eagles run a similar offense, so expect Michigan to continue improving against it. Even though Eastern Michigan quarterback Andy Schmidt began the season with five touchdowns to just one interception, his solid season hit a bit of a speed bump last weekend against Vanderbilt. The Commodores met the Eagles' spread offense with pressure, forc- " i e's one of best foot- ball players to ever wear that uniform." Just think about the praise Michigan coach Lloyd Carr bestowed upon running back Mike Hart after the win over Penn State. One of the best players ever to wear the Maize and Blue. Notable Michigan alumni include, but aren't limited to: Tom Brady (he of the three Super Bowl rings and a possible fourth this year), Charles Woodson and DANIEL Desmond D Howard. BROMWICH We could go back even fur- ther, to the days of Ron Johnson, Bump Elliot and Tom Harmon. And Carr, who has been a part of Michigan football for 27 years, just put Hart in that group. You'd be hard-pressed to find somebody on this campus to dis- agree, given the feats we've seen over the past four years. But nearly nobody expected this. When Hart arrived on campus as a freshman in 2004, he boasted one of the most impressive high- light tapes ever circulated on the Internet. He had obvious talent. There was some serious criticism, however. Not big enough, they said. At barely 5-foot-9 and 185 pounds, he'llnever be able to shake off BigTen tacklers, notto mention pick upsa defensive end or blitzing linebacker in pass protec- tion. Three years later, Hart might be the best pass blocker on the team. "There's a lot of ways to miss a linebacker when he's coming if he's 240 pounds and you're 200," Carr said. "Sometimes you want to. Mike Hart never wants to. He met (Penn State linebacker Dan Connor) head up and didn't give an inch." He's also been just big enough to average almost 117 yards per game for his career, the best in Michigan history. He's had 25 games where he's topped 100 yards and four where he's topped 200, both Michigan records. And he's been strong enough to hold on to the football as well. It's been 928 consecutive touches since Hart has lost a fumble, and he's lost just one his entire career. So size and strength haven't been too big a problem. He's never played against real competition, they said. Coming out of a Class D high school in notoriously weak New York State, he won't match up well against Division I competition. Hart gained 144 yards against Ohio State's defense last season - a defense that entered the game ranked the best in the country. He cut up this season's Nittany Lion defense for 153 yards when it ranked as the best rushing defense in the nation. But the evidence isn't just in the statistics. Every fan has seen him carry two, sometimes three tacklers an extra several yards for a first down. He never falls backwards at the end of a run, always falling forwards to gain an extra yard. And when a linebacker sneaks through the line and meets Hart in the backfield, 95 percent of college backs go down right away. With Hart, we almost expect him to somehow, some way elude the tackler. He rarely disappoints, and whenever he does go down, he usually comes up yapping. Apparently, the competition needs to step up a level. Even if he does eventually become a significant contributor, he won't be able to do it his fresh- ,man year, they said. He needs to put on weight and becomeaccustomed to taking hits. Maybe sophomore or junior year he can start to see some time. Hart didn't want to wait. In the third game of his freshman season, he rushed for 121 yards against San Diego State. Three games later, he tallied 163 yards against Minnesota. Next game, he topped the 200-yard mark, with 237 yards at Illinois. He finished with 206 at Purdue in the next game and ran for 224 against Michigan State the next week. Getting tired? Hart wasn't. He recorded 151 yards against Northwestern the following week. Just to sum up, that's five straight 150-plus yard games and three consecutive 200-yard games as a freshman. Hart had already tied Ron Johnson's record for career 200-yard games at Michigan. And he still had three years to break it. Not surprisingly, he did so the next season. He's just too slow, they said. He doesn't have the breakaway speed to take it to the next level, to have the long, backbreaking runs that squash a defense's spirit. Eh, maybe. He's been fast enough for a 64-yard run against Michigan State sophomore year and 54-yard runs against Minne- sota last season and Appalachian State this year, to name a few. Still think he's not fast enough to bea successful back? At the end of this season, Hart will own almost every all-time Michi- gan rushing record there is. He already holds the records for 100- plus, 150-plus and 200-plus yard games ina career. Barring injury, he'll break the all-time yardage (4,472) and all-time carries (924) records Saturday against Eastern Michigan. All these statistics, all this evidence, and yet it doesn't even touch on what really makes Hart special. His leadership, his never- say-die attitude, his willingness to sacrifice his body to help his team get that crucial first down or give his quarterback a couple extra seconds to throw is what separates Hart from other backs. His ability to galvanize the team with a victory guarantee after two losses to start the season and his consistent support for and confi- dence in the guys around him are why, even though Jake Long and Shawn Crable are also captains and Chad Henne is the quarter- back, everybody knows who the real leader of this team is. Unfortunately for Michigan fans, Hart graduates at the end of this season. He'll head to the NFL Draft in April, where he's considered a borderline second- or third-round prospect. Apparently the scouts have questions about whether he's big enough. - Bromwich can be reached at dabromwi@umich.edu. RODRIGO GAYA/Daly Junior Adrian Arrington will replace the suspended Mario Manningham as the No.,1 receiser Saturday. ing Schmidt to toss three intercep- tions. Expect a similar strategy from Ron English and the Wolver- ines, with similar results. Advantage: Michigan Special teams: Eastern Michigan could have a quasi-trained seal as a kicker and a one-eyed goat as a holder and there'd still be no way Michigan escapes with more than a push in this category. No matter how well Zoltan Mesko punts - and he's punting well this season - special teams have been a big question mark for Blue. Jason Gingell has gone just 3-for-9 in his field goal attempts, and Carr reopened competition for the spot this week. our bet for starting kicker is K.C. Lopata, but no matter who it is, Michigan hasn't earned its way to an advantage in this category. Advantage: Eastern Michi- gan Intangibles: Eastern Michigan has a chance to slay Goliath, but the Eagles will probably be satisfied with leaving Ann Arbor with a nice fat appear- ance check. Michigan, on the other hand, has to prove it can be a mid- major at football. The last time a huge underdog entered the Big House, the Wolverines were a part of college football's greatest upset. Something tells me the words Appalachian and State have been heard quite a bit this week around Fort Schembechler. I'm pretty sure motivation won't be an issue this time around. Advantage: Michigan Prediction: Michigan41, Eastern Michigan 10 Senior running back Mike Hart is just 33 yards and 18 carries away from holding both all-time Michigan rushing records. Ann Arbor Tortilla Factory OR Tqo Fresh Stone-Ground Preservative-Free, Non-GMO w ww.A2Tortilla.com a Phone: (734) 973-9824 ATTN: Student Oganizations & University Dpmts Contact Us For Discounts On Your Next Event Find Our Products At: The Brown Jug, Le Dog, Bello Vino Marketplace, Morgan & York, Nabalee Produce Market, Ypsilanti Food Co-op, Arbor Farms Market, Ann Arbor Food Co-op, Arbor Brewing Company RODRIGO GAYA/Daily Senior Chad Henne should be able to take advantage of a weak Eastern secondary. DON'T GET THE BIG TEN NETWORK? Follow the football game via live updates on our blog, The Game, at michigandaily.com/thegame.