6E - New Student Edition

The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com

Blue suffers
historic upset

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Appalachian State
debacle maybe most
shocking loss ever
By KEVIN WRIGHT
Daily Sports Editor
Sept. 4, 2007 - Put aside the dif-
ferent subdivisions and throw out
preseason rankings.
It came down to execution.,
Plain and simple, Appalachian
State's 34-32 upset win over No.
5 Michigan in Saturday's home
opener, a feat labeled as the great-
est upset in college football his-
tory, was decided on the field.
"They just outplayed us," Mich-
igan tight end Mike Massey said.
"They executed better than we
did, and we had a lot of penalties
that hurt us too."
Appalachian State wide receiv-
er Dexter Jackson brought reality
home for the* Michigan faithful
with his post-game comments.
"By coming in here and beat-
ing Michigan, it's a big statement
to represent every team that's in
our division," Jackson said. "This
opened a lot of doors for a lot of
teams."
Saturday's loss to Appalachian
State more than likely open'ed
floodgates that could drown
what's left of the Wolverines' 2007
campaign.
Michigan's home opener was
supposed to be their first step to'
a national championship run, but
all it took was a two-time national
champion from a lower subdivi-
sion of college football - the Foot-
ball Championship Subdivision
(FCS), formerly Division I-AA - to
dash those hopes.
"When you lose to a team like
that - they're a I-AA team - how
can you go for a National Cham-
pionship?" said Mike Hart, who
rushed for 188 yards and three
scores despite a bruised thigh
sidelining him for roughly two
quarters.
"I believe, personally, it's out of
the picture. I'm not going to give
up on it. It's in everybody else's
hands now."
The loss marked the first time
a team ranked in the Associated
Press poll, which started in 1936,

fell to a FCS squad.
What started out as just a scare
turned into the statement of the
season, but not for the team that
had questions to answer.
Appalachian State entered the
Big House more hopeful than
expectant.
The Mountaineer sideline began
to believe when Jackson broke free
on a 68-yard touchdown catch on
a simple slant pattern to knot the
score at seven with 10:55 left in the
first quarter.
"That was real big," Jackson
said. "That was big motivation for
me that we could hang with these
boys. So basically before that, I
knew if I made aplay, it would be a
long day for them."
Numerous Michigan miscues
followed to give the Mountaineers
the edge.
Protection broke down when
Appalachian State (1-0) blocked
two Jason Gingell field goals, one a
44-yard attempt with 1:47 left and
a potential game winning 37-yard
try with six seconds remaining.
The Wolverines (0-1) commit-
ted seven penalties to the tune of
56 yards, including an illegal pro-
cedure and a delay of game that
stymied two drives in Mountain-
eer territory.
And Chad Henne, the four-year
starting quarterback, threw an ill-
advised toss across his body that
Appalachian State's Leonard Love
intercepted.
The natural order of college
football hierarchy appeared to
return in the second half. Michi-
gan stormed back to a 32-31 lead
with 4:36 remaining in the fourth
quarter after an inspired 54-yard
touchdown scamper by Hart..
But Mountaineer coach Jerry
Moore wouldn't let his team quit.
"The bottom fell out on us,"
Moore said. "What are you going
to do? You going to throw in the
towel? You going to cry that we
played hard and we gave them our
best? We could have walked away
real easy, 32-31, and everyone
would've said, 'Well, you played
hard.'"
The soft-spoken coach added he
said a short prayer following the
shocking win - an act many of the
Michigan faithful will imitate in
the coming weeks, if they haven't
already.

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Then-senior Chad Henne celebrates Michigan's 41-35 upset over Florida in last year's Capital One Bowl. Henne threw for 373 yards and three touchdowns against the Gators.
Wolverines sen coach
0Carr, out on hig note

Players find looked 41-35 upset of the defend-
ing National Champion Florida
motivation in being Gators.
"It was a great ride," Carr said.
underdogs "A great ride by a bunch of great
guys."
Carr was talking about being
By DANIEL BROMWICH carried off the field, but he could
Daily Sports Editor have just as easily been referring
to the game that had just finished
Jan. 3, 2008 - ORLANDO, Fla. or even to his final season as the
- It was a perfectly fitting end to Michigan football coach.
a season where nothing fit at all. After an up-and-down season
After a year in which the pieces finished with losses to Wisconsin
of the Michigan football puzzle and Ohio State, critics predicted
were beaten (twice), humbled, that the Wolverines would be out-
torn, sprained, dislocated and matched and outclassed by Flori-
then beaten (twice) again, the da (5-3 Southeastern Conference,
pieces finally came together and 9-4 overall). Michigan (6-2 Big
created an everlasting image for Ten, 9-4) foresaw a different end-
anyone who cares about Wol- ing to its coach's final season.
verine football: Michigan coach "You hear all throughout the
Lloyd Carr riding victorious off weeks that it's ri''ev~en oing to
the field on his players' shoulders be close, it's going to be a rout,
after a more-impressive-than-it- they're going to beat us by 5O,"'


wide receiver Adrian Arrington
said. "Even their players were
saying that. We had a big chip on
our shoulder; and we came out
here and played."
Critics like ESPN's Kirk Herb-
streit had bashed the Big Ten in
recent weeks, saying teams like
Ohio State and Michigan would
struggle against faster SEC teams
like Louisiana State and Florida
in the bowls. Most of the country
agreed, with more than 90 per-
cent of voters in an ESPN.com poll
predicting the Gators would beat
the Wolverines.
"Ninety-one percent?" wide
receiver Mario Manningham said
after the game. "Come on, we
aren't that bad."
The Wolverines showed Florida
and the rest of the country they
had th 6''"W ndltie defense
to keep up. Cornerback Morgan
Trent caught super-athlete Percy
Harvin from behind on a 66-yard
run early in the second quar-
ter, preventing the Gators from
scoring with the game tied at 14.
Manningham looked just as elu-
sive as Harvin, getting a career-
high seven carries and turning
one of them from what looked
like a sure loss into a cross-field,
highlight-reel 23-yard scamper.
But for Michigan to pull out
the win over double-digit favor-
ite Florida, a lot stranger things
had to happen than simply
matching the Gators' speed.
Chad Henne, mentioned by
some as a dark-horse Heisman
Trophy candidate before the
season, had to battle through a
torn PCL in his knee early in the
season and a dis-
located throwing
shoulder later
on, as well as "W e h
"We want (back-
up quarterback chip
Ryan) Mallett"
chants from the should
Michigan crowd.
Henne turnedc
in arguably the
best game of his and
career Tuesday,
throwing for
373 yards and 3
touchdowns in
an effort that garnered game
MVP honors.
For many, however, the per-
formance was far from surpris-
ing.
"I expected him to have that
type of game," quarterbacks
coach Scot Loeffler said. "Every
time he goes on the football field,
he's expected to have that type
of game, and things worked well
today. We finally saw a healthy
Chad Henne. He's almost com-
pletely 100-percent."
Far less anticipated than
Henne's strong performance
was how the senior got it done.
Henne did nearly all of his work
from a spread formation, one
that surely shocked Wolverine
fans accustomed to power foot-
ball and straight-forward, drop-
back passing. Michigan changed
its gameplan for Florida, often
using four and five-wide receiv-
er sets and shotgun forma-
tions to give its playmakers
opportunities to exploit mis-
matches.
Predictably, running back
Mike Hart played well, gain-
ing 129 yards and scoring twice.
Astonishing, though, were the
captain's two fumbles on Flori-
da's goal line, one coming in the
second quarter and one in the
third. They were just the sec-
ond and third fumbles Hart has
lost in his career, and the senior
had gone 1,004 touches without
a fumble lost before giving the
ball away.
"(My teammates) knew how I

.G
C
E
J

felt about it," Hart said. "To fum-
ble two times inside the five-yard
line ... they knew I wasn't feeling
too good. The defense .stepped
up and the. offense stepped up. I
thank them for that."
Even Michigan's four turn-
overs, compared to Florida's zero,
couldn't stop the Wolverines. Not
when Michigan converted third
downs at a season-best 66 per-
cent while the Gators moved the
chains on just two of its 11 third-
down tries. Not when the pre-
viously boring and predictable
offense had a trick-play run for
left tackle Jake Long, tried a dou-
ble pass, endless end-arounds and
operated consistently out of the
spread offense for the first time.
Not when the defense, unable to
stop spread offenses and mobile
quarterbackss all season, a-dd
two new blitzes that confused the
Gators and did just enough to get
key stops when it needed to.
Michigan Athletic Direc,
tor Bill Martin called the win a
"storybook ending" to the sea-
son and the careers of Carr and
his seniors. And after a season as
emotional and as trying as this
one was, nothing could have been
more appropriate.
Michigan entered the season
regarded as National Champi-
onship contenders and favored
to win the Big Ten. Consecutive
season-opening losses to Appa-
lachian State and Oregon quickly
dashed those hopes, and it looked
like the Wolverines might have
trouble simply ending the year
with a winning record.
An eight-game winning streak
put them back
in contention for
the ,conference
ad a big title and a Rose
Bowl bid. But just
on our when it looked
like Michigan
er ...we was perhaps the
hottest team in
)ut here the country, the
back-to-back sea-
l : son-endinglosses
*d had the Wolver-
ines hanging
their heads.
All that
changed in the Caital One Bowl,
though. Expected not to have a
chance against the Gators, Michi-
gan finally fulfilled the potential
that everyone thought it had before
the year began. With Hart and
Henne healthy and the team fired
up to win their longtime leader's
last game, all the Michigan pieces
had come together. Everything the
experts thought was turned on its
head. Florida's defense wasn't too
fast for the Wolverine offense, the
Michigan defense contained Tebow
and Harvin just enough, and the
Wolverines managed to control the
game in a tough road environment.
Not even Florida coach Urban
Meyer's spotless bowl record (4-0)
compared to Michigan's five-game
bowl-winless streak worked oqt
"like it was supposed to."
Or maybe it did.
After all, Meyer, Tebow, Har-
vin and almost every contributing
member of Florida's football team
will return next season, likely
as the No. 1 or No. 2 team in the
nation. But for Hart, Henne, Long,
Crable, the rest of the Michigan
seniors and likely some important
juniors, this was an all-important
finale.
Now, even with their four
losses to Ohio State, even with
their National Championship
hopes quickly crushed in their
senior season, even with Henne
and Hart's injury-plagued sea-
sons, this group of seniors and
this coach have a complete, and
fittingly finished, work of art to
remember.

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