T

hough Jourdan Lewis 
will make Saturday’s top-
10 highlight reels for his 

late-game heroics, not one player 
better led the 
Wolverines to 
a 14-7 victory 
over No. 8 Wis-
consin than 
senior corner-
back Channing 
Stribling.

To be fair, 

Lewis’ pick was 
nothing short 
of miraculous. 
When Badgers quarterback Alex 
Hornibrook dropped back and 
launched the ball on 4th-and-10 
with just over two minutes left in 
the game, everyone at Michigan 
Stadium froze. But Lewis was 
there — almost too early, curiously 
floating for what seemed like an 
eternity before he grabbed the ball 
with one hand and tucked it in to 
cut short Wisconsin’s last breath.

If it weren’t for Lewis, 

Wisconsin could easily have 
been set up at midfield with two 
minutes of time to reach the end 
zone. Maybe the game would have 
gone to overtime.

But if it weren’t for Stribling, 

Michigan may have never been in 
that position in the first place.

Throughout all four quarters, 

the defense had to hold up 
the offense. In the first top-10 
matchup at the Big House since 
2003, Stribling showed up for all 
four quarters.

In the first quarter, he broke up 

his first pass of the game. In the 

second, he undercut a Wisconsin 
receiver and picked off the ball, 
giving the Wolverines possession 
at Wisconsin’s 44-yard line. In 
the fourth, he broke up a pass and 
picked up his second interception 
of the game.

Stribling shifted the momentum 

when his teammates seemed 
sluggish.

“I can think of two right now 

that were outstanding, they were 
testing him deep,” said Michigan 
coach Jim Harbaugh. “I think 
he got his hands on four or five 
balls during the game, which is 
outstanding, and two interceptions. 
That’s outstanding for a corner. 
And he tackled. I thought he had a 
heck of a ballgame as well.”

It’s fair to say that Stribling 

wouldn’t have had his shining 
moment today if it weren’t for 
Lewis, though.

Stribling himself put it best 

after the game: “(Lewis) is an 
All-American, you’ve gotta go the 
other way!”

But this time, when the Badgers 

tested the corner without All-
American accolades, they got 
burned.

“(Wisconsin) tried to test us 

early, just figuring out who was 
the weak link, I guess,” Stribling 
said. “We didn’t have any, so after 
that, we worked.”

Neither Lewis nor Stribling 

showboat, but Lewis shows his 
confidence more outwardly than 
Stribling does. They’re different 
people and different players, so 
that makes sense.

But Stribling thinks that that’s 

why others have doubted his level 
of composure when he knows he’s 
always been self-assured, even from 
the first day he stepped on campus.

“Kinda back to my freshman 

year coming in, I had the same 
kind of confidence,” Stribling 
said. “When the coaches have 
confidence in you, the sky’s the 
limit. Just bringing it back to 
myself, especially this year, this last 
year, just making sure I had it.”

Stribling later added: “I’m not 

like a ‘rah-rah’ guy. I mean, I get 
a little rowdy, but you see JD, 
you know he gets rowdy. He’s out 
there. When I get confident, I’m 
calm, just like, ‘OK, I’m good.’ ”

The last time he had two or more 

picks in a game was his senior year 
of high school, when he had three. 
This season, Stribling had a pick-six 
against Hawaii, but so did Delano 
Hill, and the Wolverines dropped 
63 points on the Rainbow Warriors. 
The points came from just about 
everywhere.

But this time, the interceptions 

and pass breakups came against 
a talented top-10 team with two 
wide receivers who had already 
logged more than 200 receiving 
yards this season.

Stribling was asked after the 

game if this was the biggest 
performance of his career.

“I think so, (but) we still got 

plenty of games left,” Stribling said. 
“I think this was a stepping stone 
for me, proving to myself, proving 
to I guess a lot of people that I can 
make plays and do a lot of things, so 
I just gotta keep going with it.”

B
SportsMonday

MAKING HISTORY

n The Michigan women’s soccer team 
is off to a 5-0 start in Big Ten play, the 

best in program history. Page 4B

LET’S TALK

The Michigan Daily | michigandaily.com | October 3, 2016

n This weekend’s “Fab 5 at 25” panel 
hopes to start a conversation.
SportsMonday Column, Page 2B

TAKE
UR PICK

Three missed field goals, all 

within makeable range, all in a 
close game.

That’s what the Michigan 

football team surrendered to 
Wisconsin on Saturday, taking 
nine points off the board against 
the nation’s No. 8 team. You don’t 
usually come back from that.

And yet, the fourth-ranked 

Wolverines were still standing 
Saturday night, when the clouds 
opened up and gave way to the 
rain that, if you looked only at the 
stat sheet, you might have thought 
was present all game long.

How 
else 
to 
explain 

Michigan’s 0-for-3 showing on 
field goals in a game in which 
they needed them? Fifth-year 
senior kicker Kenny Allen made 
81.8 percent of his field goals 
last season. But in the second 
quarter, he missed two inside 44 
yards, sending his team into the 
half up 7-0 instead of 13-0.

It might sound like a small 

difference, but in a game that 
boasted two of the nation’s best 
defenses, the Wolverines could 
ill afford those misses. Add in 
sophomore Ryan Tice’s missed 
field goal from 40 yards out in 

a tie game late in the third, and 
it’s a minor surprise Michigan 
emerged victorious from its first 
true battle of the season.

After the game, redshirt 

sophomore quarterback Wilton 
Speight tried to take the blame.

“Any time you leave points 

off the board, it’s not the 
goal, it’s not what you want,” 
Speight said. “But that’s not on 
the kicker, that’s on me as the 
quarterback, and on the offense 
to get the ball in the end zone.”

Speight said it was “unfair” 

to put pressure on a kicker on 
a windy day like Saturday, but 
when a top-five team leaves that 
many points off the board, it’s 
almost inevitable.

The 
Wolverines’ 
defense 

bailed 
out 
the 
special 

teams Saturday, buoyed by 
three 
interceptions 
from 

its 
cornerbacks 
and 
timely 

pressure 
on 
the 
Badgers’ 

redshirt freshman quarterback, 
Alex 
Hornibrook. 
Redshirt 

sophomore 
defensive 
tackle 

Bryan Mone was back, giving 
Michigan its full rotation for the 
first time this season, and the 
benefit was evident.

“It was a game ball for 

Don Brown kind of a game,” 
Harbaugh said.

It may not have had to be, 

though. Up 7-0 with just under 10 
minutes left in the first half, Allen 
missed his first field goal from 31 
yards. He missed again from 43 
yards on the very next drive, his 
third straight miss dating back to 
the Colorado game.

That led Harbaugh to give 

Tice a shot when Michigan 
got into field-goal range on 
its second drive of the third 
quarter, this time in a tie game. 
The Wolverines had gotten as 
far as the Badgers’ 12-yard line 
on that drive, but after senior 
running back De’Veon Smith 
was stuffed for a loss of one, 
Speight took a nine-yard sack 
back to the 22-yard line.

Harbaugh singled out that 

sack — which put the ball at the 
right hash mark for Tice — as 
Speight’s only big mistake of 
the day, even despite throwing 
an 
interception. 
And 
the 

Wolverines paid for it when Tice 
missed wide right.

Now, even though his team 

survived the mishaps, Harbaugh 
has a decision on his hands.

With Allen having lost his 

form, and Tice an inexperienced 
walk-on, the Wolverines’ coach 
said there would be a kicking 
competition in the coming week. 
He said that he never thought 

MAX BULTMAN

Managing Sports Editor

See DEFENSE, Page 2B

Y

Michigan’s defense bails 
out kickers to salvage win

‘M’ leaves nine points on the board, but gives up just seven

Michigan 14, Wisconsin 7

See HALL, Page 2B

AMELIA CACCHIONE/Daily
SINDUJA KILARU/Daily

Lewis may have stolen the show, but Stribling won the day

KELLY
HALL