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DAILY SPORTS BREAKS DOWN THE WEEKEND THAT WAS
2B - January 7, 2008

The Michigan Daily - michiganclaily.com

'M' SCHEDULE
TUESDAY-1.08
M. BASKETBALL VS. INDIANA, 7P.M.
ICEHOCKEY VS. U.S. NTDP7:35P.M.
THURSDAY-1.0
W. BasketballC@Purdue, 7p.m.
FRIDAY -1.11
W Swimmin Diving@ Notre Dame
Invitational, 4p.m.
W. Track & Field @Kentucky Invitational,
5 p.m.
W. GYMNASTICS VS.WEST VIRGINIA AND
ARKANSAS,7'30P.M'
ICE HOCKEY VS. WESTERN MICHIGAN,
7:35 PM.
W. TENNIS VS. MICHIGAN INVITATIONAL
M. Tennis @Notre Dame Invitational
SATURDAY -1.12
M. Track & Field @ EMU Open
W. Swimming/Diving @ South Bend
Invitational, 9 a.m.
M, SWIMMING/DIVING VS. INDIANA,I1PM.
M Basketball @ Northwestern, 5:30p.m.
M. Gymnasticy@Windy City Initaional
1 p.m.
Ice Hlocke @ Western Michigan, B8D.

SAID AND HEARD
"I'm going back. I want to get my
degree. ... I'm being for real."
- Michigan wide receiver Mario Manningham
told the Associated Press on whether he'll return
for a senior season with the Wolverines.

ATHLETE OF THE WEEK

STEVE
LUKE
At the Lone Star Duals, the
redshirt junior posted three
pins, each in under three
minutes, to lead the Michigan
wrestling team in its sweep of
Harvard, Columbia and Appa-
lachian State in the dual-meet
competition.

4

4

Pryor's Buckeye sticker reheats rivalry

Wrestling@ NWC
Duals
SUNDAY-1.13
W. BASKETBALL V
P.M.

Inter
wor
the

A/Clif Keen National Less than a week after one
of the most impressive wins of
the Lloyd Carr era, the positive
S. MICHIGAN STATE, 12 momentum from Michigan foot-
ball team's Capital One Bowl vic-
home games in all caps tory quickly
*all times EDT stopped Satur-
day afternoon.
What
thwarted
this seem- j
ingly unstop-
pable force? A
sticker. SCOTT
Yes, the BELL
mood within
Wolver-
ine Nation
. shifted from optimistic to enraged
ested in because of a simple prank.
At the Army All-American
king for Football Bowl, during which
four-star safety Brandon Smith
Daily? committed to Michigan, it was
another high school senior's attire
that drew the ire of Wolverine
fans.
Terrelle Pryor, the game's MVP
and the nation's No. 1 recruit
according to Rivals.com, had a
o one of our Buckeye sticker on the back of his
meetings. hemt
Before Michigan fans even
thought about how it got there,
hysteria set in. Message boards
were going nuts. "NEXT!" "He's
gone," and "Hope Mallett stays"
were just some of the slew of mes-
sages that came flying in after an
NBC camera showed a close up
of Pryor's helmet during a play.
More anger filtered outa quarter
y 10th, 15th, later when the Jeannette, Penn.,
th, 27th native got more attention.
On the sideline, the 6-foot-
p.m. 6 quarterback with 4.4 speed
iynard Street flipped his helmet around and
pointed to the Buckeye leaf sticker
on the back with a smile on his
face. Sure he was surrounded by
Ohio State commits, including the
one who placed the sticker on the
helmet, but the act itself didn't sit

4

Come t
mass

AP PHOTO
Star recruit Terrelle Pryor, considering both Michigan and Ohio State, wore a single Buckeye sticker on his helmet at the U.S. Army All-American Game this weekend.

January
20
7
420 Ma

well with Michigan fans.
And because of that simple
gesture, the future of Michigan
football, which according to most
was resting on the shoulders of
a quarterback who hasn't even
committed to a school yet, was
bleak.
But why?
Michigan fans overlooked the
fact that the Wolverines played
great in their season-ending win
over Florida and that one of the
nation's top coaches is now run-
ning the program.

They overlooked the fact that
Pryor showed up to the game in a
Michigan sweatshirt.
And they overlooked how the
sticker got there - Ohio State
pledge Devier Posey placed it
there, unbeknownst to Pryor at
first.
Pryor's actions are simply a
form of gamesmanship. Remem-
ber, he showed up to the game
in a Michigan sweatshirt. If you
were an 18-year-old kid, wouldn't
you want as much attention
around your recruitment as pos-

sible?
And even if he decides to
head to Columbus instead of
Ann Arbor, Pryor's antics did
something else besides setting
off panic on message boards - it
raised the stakes in college foot-
ball's biggest rivalry.
Pryor, a once-in-a-lifetime
recruit who has both thrown and
run for 4,000 yards in his high-
school career, isn't just choos-
ing one school - he's shunning
another.
Is it entertaining? Sure. But

will it make the left-out team's
fanbase angrier than ever? You
betcha.
Sweatshirtgate and Sticker-
gate, depending on your alle-
giances, have certainly been
blown out of proportion.
But once the dust settles and
one team gets the prized recruit,
the other will get something
nearly as dangerous: another
incentive to hate its rival.
- Bell can be reached at
scotteb@umich.edu.

4

Luke's three-pin performance
leads 'M' to dual meet victory

4

By IAN KAY
For the Daily
On the football field, Michi-
gan couldn't hang with Appala-
chian State. On the hardwood,
Harvard ran the Wolverines out
of the gym. But on the wrestling
mat, it was a different story.
Led by three pins from junior
Steve Luke, the Michigan wres-
tling team defeated Harvard
35-12 and Columbia 43-3 before
downing Appalachian State 32-9
at the Lone Star Duals in South
Grand Prairie, Texas.
Luke, the nation's No. 2
wrestler in the 174-pound divi-
sion, deftly executed a variety
of holds to tally the falls, giving
Michigan 18 bonus points.
The All-American earned out-
standing wrestler accolades for
the Lone Star's upper weights,
along with Michigan coach Joe
McFarland's praise.
"Not only was (Luke) turning
guys on top and pinning them,
but he was executing some dif-
ferent things that we've been
working on in practice," McFar-
land said. "I'm really happy
with how he wrestled over the
weekend."
In addition to Luke, sev-
eral other Wolverines turned in
impact performances.
Senior captain Eric Tannen-
baum, ranked No. 1 nationally

at 165 pounds, forced an injury
default against Harvard's Matt
Button halfway through the
day's first event to evaporate
a three-point deficit and give
Michigan a lead it didn't relin-
quish.
Wolverine grapplers swept
the next four weight classes,
highlighted by redshirt fresh-
man Anthony Biondo's three
takedowns in a dominant tech-
nical fall performance (15-0).
Michael Watts picked up right
where Michigan left off to open
the afternoon meet against
Columbia. The Lions' Brandon
Kinney tied the match with a
takedown late in the third peri-
od, but Watts wriggled away for
a one-point immediate escape to
upset the No. 17 125-pounder in
a dramatic finish.
Watts's tenacity and con-
fidence set the tone for the
remainder of the meet, a win-
ning trend the Wolverines hope
to continue into the second half
of the season.
"The more aggressive Michael
is, the better results he has,"
McFarland said. "We need him
at 125 (pounds). It gets us off on
the right foot, it gets momentum
on our side, it gets us that first
win."
Columbia's lone win came at
heavyweight in the dual's final
match and the Wolverines' 43-3

victory represents its highest
point total and margin of victory
since a 50-0 trouncing of Mar-
quette in 2001.
Michigan dropped the first
two matches of its evening dual
meet against Appalachian State,
but freshman Kellen Russell
showed why he's already on
his way to becoming one of the
school's all-time greats.
Ranked No. 1 at 141 pounds,
Russell scored two takedowns
against the Mountaineers' Mar-
cus Cox before pinning him late
in the first period. It was the
first fall of Russell's collegiate
career.
The High Bridge, N.J.,
native's three wins at the Lone
Star Shootout ran his career
record to 18-0 - the best career
start in Michigan history.
An outstanding finish against
the Mountaineers gave Michi-
gan a 25-4-1 record for the day
and plenty of momentum head-
ing into next week's NWCA/
Cliff Keen National Duals in
Cedar Falls, Iowa.
"Next week is going to be our
biggest challenge all year. All the
top teams in the country will be
there and we want to see how we
stack up," McFarland said.
Judging from their showing
this weekend, the Wolverines
stack up pretty well - in wres-
tling at least.

MAX COLLINS/Dail
Junior Steve Luke, ranked No. 2 nationwide in the 174-pound division, recorded three pins this weekend in the Lone Star Duals in
South Grand Prairie, Texas.