S -M-c-g--n'-b'bak'n--ba OSU Michigan won't be 'back' until it beats OSU i w ww IRW w qw ast Saturday, the Michigan football team didn't come into Michigan Stadium to win. It came to make a statement. The Nebras- ka game was one the Rich Rodriguez Michigan team s lo st: a big game against a team that was just MICHAEL as talented. Instead, the FLOREK Wolverines dominated a ranked team and a traditional power. Junior quarterback Denard Robinson kept scooping imagi- nary food into his mouth because "this program has been starving for a while ... It's time for us to eat." National writers, like Sports Illustrated's Stewart Mandel were tweeting things like, "Yeah, I think Dave Brandon did all right in that coaching search." It all added up to one overrid- ing feeling: Michigan was back. "I think that there are aspects of Michigan that we there in the past that are showing up now and I think that's why people get excited about it," said senior defensive lineman Ryan Van Ber- gen. He's right. The Wolverines ran wrenching loss that would derail another season. After 11 games, it hasn't come. Losing to the worst Ohio State team in recent memory would deliver it. A loss means little has changed. It means the Class of 2012 leaves as an extreme outlier, never hav- ing beaten Michigan State or Ohio State. Michigan would still be a bit of an imposter, wearing the winged helmets, but never really finishing the season like the pic- ture of past teams in Michigan's minds. The collapse won't come because it is the last game of the season, but it would feel the same: high hopes that ultimately concluded in another season of missed opportunity. "I wouldn't say the whole season rests on this game as far as Michigan is back or not," Van Bergen said. But until Michigan beats Ohio State and breaks the streak that feeling will never go away. It may not be fair or true for other sea- sons, but right now, for Michigan to truly be "back," it has to beat the Buckeyes. -Florek thinks the only rivalry that comes close to Michigan-Ohio State is Gordon Bombay's Ducks vs. Jack Reilly's Hawks. He can be reached at florekmi@umich.edu, or on twitter, @michaelflorek the ball and played suffocating defense. They are within reach of a BCS Bowl Game. They have returned to protecting the Big House with a perfect home record so far. Does that mean Michigan is back? Those who stayed won't be champions this year. Michigan coach Brady Hoke says his goal is to win the Big Ten Championship this season. He missed that goal. But more so than that, and more so than the Wolverines teams of the last couple years, the Ohio State count looms over this team's head. It's been 2,923 days since Mich- igan beat Ohio State. The stretch spans a lot longer than the time the Wolverines spent as the disappointment of the conference. Yet, for a team that has exceeded nearly every expectation so far, not clearing the final hurdle would derail the progress made. For Michigan to fully be back, it needs to beat its rivals. Being back in the top half of the conference is nice. A return to 9-3 might mean a return to a more representative record of Michigan's past, but when there is talk of being "back" that's not what people think about. "Back" means warm and fuzzy feelings. It means singing The Victors in Pasadena. It means Charles Woodson with the rose in his mouth. It's that one time when you were 10 and some Michigan player everybody else has long forgotten had a ridiculously good game so you remembered his name forever. After the past three years, those fuzzy feelings won't return just because Michigan goes to a Capital One Bowl or Outback Bowl. For the entire season, fans braced themselves for the gut- BO TO BRADY From Page 7 with those same two words: "Beat Ohio." "He explained that this is what I do every meeting, and this is what you need to say," Koger recalled. "And after that, we caught on"' On Saturday, the clock will say "2,926." But the four days leading up to Saturday will decide what the clock says on Sunday. On Monday, Hoke and a few Michigan players were met by the biggest contingent of media members since Hoke's opening press conference. They were bombarded with ques- tions about the rivalry for more than an hour - questions about what this rivalry meant, how this year could be different, what this game will do for their legacy. The players remained poised. Koger remembered the feeling of losing in Columbus last year in an embarrassing 37-7 drumming - and in Ann Arbor the year before, and in Columbus again the year before that. "It's heartbreaking," Koger said of losing to Ohio State. "It's a lot of motivation. It's defi- nitely a driving force." Martin, one of the co-captains along with Koger, put it plainly. "This week has to be one of our best weeks of preparation, period," Martin said. "That's what it needs to be." If you granted me just one more week as Michigan's head coach, I wouldn't hesitate. I know exactly what I'd want...Give me one more week of coaching in preparation of the Ohio State game.And make it against the great Wayne Woodrow Hayes. The game would be icing for me, because if you're a real coach, a real leader, the prepara- tion is the thing. Then on Friday night, when I've finished handing out the hot chocolate and cookies dur- ing the bed check with allmyplayers, andIknew we were ready-andImean ready-I'd return to my room, I'd sit on the corner of the bed and I'd just go,'Ahhhhh.'AndI'd be satisfied. -Schembechler, as told in John U. Bacon's "Bo's Lasting Lessons." Looking back on that 1969 game, Brand- statter recalled how he and his teammates prepared. "We understood that when you practice on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, that's when you're preparing for the football games on Saturday," Brandsatter said. "You get ready by taking care of the details, by practicing with great intensity, by focusing on what you have to do so there's no mental mistakes, no missed assignments" The preparation started in January when Hoke was first hired. But no three days are more important than the Tuesday, Wednes- day and Thursday before the Ohio State game. The Michigan players know that. "There's definitely gonna be some differ- ences in this week," Koger said. "I expect practice to be very intense." With Hoke at the helm, there's no question Michigan will be ready to play on Saturday. "The last Saturday in November, at 12 o'clock, that ball being kicked off, there's nothing like it," Hoke said in his opening press conference. "If you play at Michigan and you wear that maize and blue, that's gotta be per- sonal." It was personal in 1969. But now, after seven straight losses to the Buckeyes and with a possible BCS berth on the line, it's as personal as ever. "When Brady gets them up to win this game, everybody will say he's the next Bo Schembechler," Taylor said. "He'll be the next Bo Schembechler if he wins this game." Oll 8 FootballSaturday - November 26, 2011