8A — Wednesday, October 14, 2015
Sports
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Tuesdays with Jourdan:
Junior CB brings energy
By MAX BULTMAN
Daily Sports Editor
Between his leadership and his
defense, Jourdan Lewis brings a
lot to the Michigan football team.
The junior cornerback leads the
team in pass breakups and is one
of the most senior members of
the secondary, and he returned
an interception for a touchdown
against
Northwestern
on
Saturday.
But one underrated boost
Lewis brings to the Wolverines
doesn’t
come
on
Saturdays.
Every Tuesday, all season long,
the normally laid-back Lewis
has shown up to practice with
his most energy of the week.
“That’s his day,” said junior
safety Delano Hill. “He says,
‘Tuesday is my day, I’m gonna
help y’all out with the energy,
and the rest of the week y’all
gotta help me.’ Today was his
day, so the rest of the week, we’re
gonna help him out.”
Normally, Tuesdays can be
lower-energy. It doesn’t have the
excitement of being the first day
of the week, but it’s still far from
game day. It can be grueling. But
when you bring up his Tuesday
energy routine, Lewis shows no
signs of dread or intimidation.
He shows excitement.
“Tuesday’s the start of the
week — the work week,” Lewis
said. “When we start working,
we’ve got full pads on, that’s
when we really get down and
grind.”
With Lewis, that’s exactly
the point. If he can get the team
fired up on Tuesday, when the
hard work starts, they can ride
the energy through the harder
practices of the week.
As for his tactics, teammates
never quite know which method
Lewis will take to bring the hype.
“He just acts wild,” Hill said.
“Screaming, whatever you can
name, he’s doing it.”
Normally, Lewis has a relaxed
demeanor. He is relatively small
in stature, and he speaks softly,
albeit with an edge. That, too,
plays a role in Lewis’ Tuesday
tradition.
Since his teammates know
him as laid-back, seeing him full
of energy re-ignites the defense.
Regardless of how reserved
Lewis can be off the field, his
performances in games have
spoken volumes. Pro Football
Focus rated him as the nation’s
best
cornerback
before
the
Northwestern game, and after
he returned an interception for
a touchdown, redshirt freshman
safety Jabrill Peppers echoed
that sentiment.
Through six games, he has
broken up eight passes and has
two interceptions, and those
numbers
come
despite
the
fact that teams have avoided
throwing his way all year long.
“He’s
earned
everything
that’s been said about him and
even more,” said redshirt junior
receiver Jehu Chesson. “I think
he’s one of the best cornerbacks
I’ve ever gone against. To be
going against him every day, it’s
a great opportunity for me to get
better, because if I fail at a route
or something, I can go to him and
sort of see what he saw.”
Like most receivers Lewis
faces, Chesson is significantly
taller than the 5-foot-10 Lewis.
To combat it, the junior relies
mostly on his speed, game
planning and yes, his energy, to
exploit opponents’ weaknesses.
“There’s really nothing to this
game but preparation,” Chesson
said. “If you really want to win,
you’ll prepare, and he really
wants to win every play, so he’ll
prepare and do so every play.”
Some days, preparation means
being calculated and reserved.
But on Tuesdays, it could mean
just about anything.
JAMES COLLER/Daily
Jourdan Lewis becomes the emotional leader of the defense every Tuesday.
‘M’ impressive in
California outing
Mueller’s 198
breaks Michigan
tournament record,
earns fourth place
By CONNOR MULSHINE
For the Daily
On his way to a record
performance, sophomore Kyle
Mueller led the Michigan men’s
golf team to a fifth-place finish
at the MacKenzie Invitational in
Fairfax, California.
After limping to a 13th-place
finish at the event in 2014, the
Wolverines
saw
significant
improvement this year in an
event
that
broke several
program
records.
Mueller broke
the Michigan
tournament
record by four
strokes with a
198 on his way
to
finishing
fourth overall.
Joining
him
in the top 10 was senior Chris
O’Neill, who played a bogey-
free final round to finish with a
personal-best 204.
As a team, the Wolverines
shot a program-record 824,
shattering the previous mark by
15 shots.
“I’d say it was a good event,”
said
Michigan
coach
Chris
Whitten. “I’m never going to
say that I’m real happy about
finishing fifth, but we definitely
saw some good things from our
guys, and we can take some
confidence from the way we
scored.”
After starting the final day 11
strokes behind California, the
tournament winner, Michigan
struggled to gain its footing on
the front nine before finishing
the day strong with a 275. The
Wolverines did most of their
damage on the par-5s, scoring
28 under par while only posting
one
bogey
throughout
the
tournament.
“The ball striking this week
was very good,” Whitten said.
“Probably the best I’ve seen
from most of our guys this fall,
which is really encouraging.”
Mueller tied a program record
with a 64 in the second round to
cap his third straight top-five
tournament finish, largely due
to his ability to avoid bogeys.
After three bogeys crippled an
otherwise-stellar first round,
Michigan’s
top
finisher
did
not bogey a
hole for the
remainder
of
the
tournament.
Mueller ended
with a 69-64-
65, falling two
strokes short
of
winner
Cody
Blick
from San Jose
State.
Despite a solid finish in
the team standings, Whitten
believes there is room for
improvement from this week’s
record-setting
performance.
Michigan
finished
just
five
strokes shy of second place
and is looking to cut down on
mistakes moving forward to the
Royal Oaks Intercollegiate in
Dallas on Oct. 26.
“We were giving shots back
with some bogeys and you really
can’t afford to do that,” Whitten
said. “We have to continue to
work on our strategy a little bit
and continuing to analyze the
situation we’re in and choosing
the correct shot to execute it as
good as we can.”
MEN’S GOLF
“We can take
some confidence
from the way
we scored.”
Field position, return game
taking leaps under Baxter
By ZACH SHAW
Daily Sports Editor
It was an absolute clinic on
how to run a kickoff return.
Northwestern
kicker
Matt
Micucci avoided highly touted
return
man
and
redshirt
freshman safety Jabrill Peppers.
Instead, he kicked to the east
side of the field as his gunners
to seal off the secondary return
man and redshirt junior wide
receiver Jehu Chesson.
Instead,
Chesson
—
whom
Michigan
coach
Jim
Harbaugh would later say is the
12th-ranked Wolverines’ fastest
player — broke past the seal and
went all 96 yards untouched to
give Michigan its first opening-
kickoff touchdown return since
1992.
It shocked the Wildcats, the
fans in the stadium and just
about everyone watching on TV
at home, but one man on the
sideline saw it coming the entire
time.
Michigan
special
teams
coordinator
John
Baxter
is
known as something of a guru in
the world of special teams, and
just six games into his tenure at
Michigan, the Wolverines are
already reaping the benefits of
his presence.
“He thinks on another level,”
Chesson said of Baxter. “One
of his things is that every team
presents a puzzle to solve, and
he’s going to work harder than
the next guy and work harder
than any other coach, and I
think he does that.
“I’m very confident to say that
we have one of the best special
teams coordinators there is.”
So far, Baxter has been able
to solve that puzzle every week.
According to FootballOutsiders.
com, the Wolverines were 82nd
in the nation in field position
advantage in 2014, a statistic
that measures the net gain or
loss from field position. This
year, Michigan is ninth.
According
to
ESPN,
the
Wolverines are fourth nationally
in
special
teams
efficiency
after finishing 2014 96th in the
category.
Due
to
Michigan’s
stifling
defense an an
opponents’
tendency
to
settle
for
a
touchback,
it
has only had
five
kickoff
returns — two
fewer
than
any
other
team in the country — but leads
the nation with a 39.0 return
average.
“When you’re back there and
you’re trained so well like we
are, things go in slow motion,”
Chesson said. “You just kind of
see gaps and holes open up. On
that play, the blocks made their
blocks, and the ball carrier made
a good decision with the ball.”
Yes,
Chesson
referred
to
himself as a ball carrier. Under
Baxter, plays are taught to see
the plays as puzzles to solve,
and their roles as simple cogs in
the
machine,
not
personal
efforts.
“That’s the
key (to special
teams),”
Chesson said.
“You have to
be
selfless.
You have to do
things
other
guys may not
want
to
do,
and the players who do that are
the ones who are going to play.”
Among
those
players
is
Peppers. Rated as one of the most
explosive players in the country
before he even took a snap for
Michigan, Peppers was more
than happy to let Chesson get
the touchdown, sprinting ahead
to block the only Northwestern
player that came within 10 yards
of Chesson.
“Big
mistake
(kicking
to
Chesson),” Peppers said with a
grin. “I saw the way they lined
the tee up and told Jehu, ‘The
ball’s coming to you. I got your
block.’
“The whole special teams unit
wants to see those touchdowns
and knows they have to do their
jobs to make it happen.”
Baxter solved Northwestern’s
puzzle, and has moved on to
Michigan State. The Spartans
have shown discipline on special
teams in their latest rise to
national prominence, but under
Baxter, so will the Wolverines.
“I don’t really know what
other teams do in terms of
special teams, but I think there
are things that (Baxter) does
that are unique on a play-by-play
basis,” Chesson said. “He really
takes his time and coaches each
individual position.”
JAMES COLLER/Daily
Redshirt junior Jehu Chesson returned a kick for touchdown Saturday, a reward for Michigan’s improving special teams unit.
“You have to
do things other
guys may not
want to do.”