2B — October 31, 2016
SportsMonday
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
A heartbreaker moves into the past
E
AST LANSING — It was
heartbreaking, Kenny
Allen said, though even
that doesn’t seem to do it justice.
A year and a couple of weeks
ago, Allen
stood in the
Crisler Center
media room
after one
of the most
stunning
losses in
the history
of college
football. The
kicker had
the unenviable task of speaking
to reporters after that crushing
defeat — though there wasn’t
much to say.
He spoke in a soft voice, his
face still wearing the same
expressionless shock as everyone
else in the stadium that day. He
said he was as close as he could
have been to punter Blake O’Neill
bobbling a snap with 10 seconds
left before Michigan State
returned it for a game-winning
touchdown as time expired. At
some point, after the Spartans
changed the college football
world and before he stepped foot
into the media room, Allen told
O’Neill that the team would stand
behind him.
“We support Blake through
everything,” Allen said that day.
“That’s the kind of team we’re
going to be.”
And that’s the kind of team
the Wolverines have been since
their in-state rival devastated
them last Oct. 17. They have lost
only once since. They capped a
successful 2015 season with a
rout of Florida in the Citrus Bowl.
They have steamrolled eight
opponents this season, most of
them with ease.
And they have patiently waited
for the day they could finally
put their feelings about last year
further into the rearview mirror.
Saturday in East Lansing, that
chance came, though it came
with plenty of memories. Three
hours before the noon kickoff, a
tailgate near the stadium played
the audio from ESPN broadcaster
Sean McDonough’s call of the
play. Just outside the stadium,
one man began reciting the
same call to his friend. Inside,
Michigan State’s students had
bigger plans in mind.
At 10:50, as Allen began
practicing field goals on the
south goalposts in front of the
student section, the 1,000 or so
in the crowd began chanting
the call: “Whoa, he has trouble
with the snap! And the ball is
free! It’s picked up by Michigan
State’s Jalen Watts-Jackson, and
he scores! On the last play of the
game! Unbelievable!”
There was no escaping it,
though Allen said he didn’t hear
much of it. “You just have to have
a sense of humor,” he said. Once
the Wolverines started winning,
the talk died down.
“Someone made fun of my
mustache, which I’ve been
working pretty hard to grow, so
that one cut deep,” Allen quipped.
A year ago, humor was an
impossible perspective. It could
have been difficult even a few
weeks ago. After Allen started
his season 3-for-3 on field goals,
he missed two kicks against
Colorado on Sept. 17 and two
more against Wisconsin on Oct.
1. After the latter game, Michigan
coach Jim Harbaugh declared
that there would be an open
competition for the kicking job
starting the following week.
Allen never relinquished it.
Last week against Illinois, he
hit two chip shots for his first
conversions in five weeks. At
Michigan State, he finished 3-for-3,
making two more short kicks but
also a season-long 45 yarder that
helped put the game out of reach.
The Wolverines won, 32-23,
beating the Spartans for the
first time since 2012 and taking
perhaps the biggest step toward
putting last year’s mishap behind
them. Allen was back among the
top contributors from a simple
math standpoint: Michigan won
by nine, and he kicked three field
goals worth three points each. If
he hadn’t, the game could have
turned out much differently.
Perhaps he would have even been
the goat, as O’Neill was last year.
“I’m so happy for him — he’s
an amazing person, amazing
player,” said senior cornerback
Jourdan Lewis. “He did his job
today. He did an amazing job
today, kept us in the game, made
sure we had the lead the whole
game. I’m just proud of him. He
did his job. He wasn’t worried
about the past.”
Allen’s kicks Saturday silenced
his critics and helped add more
distance between now and
last year. In the years to come,
O’Neill’s miscue will fade deeper
into the past. In Michigan’s next
visit to East Lansing in 2018, the
broadcast echoes will be less
frequent, and the tongue-in-cheek
T-shirt with O’Neill’s name and
number should be gone from the
front row of the student section.
The two rivals will play
many more exciting games
with exciting finishes, and the
punt from last year will be but
a memory alongside Colorado’s
Hail Mary in 1994, John
Wangler’s pass to Anthony Carter
in 1979 and so many others.
The presence of last year’s
game is not as faint as those yet,
but the Wolverines have moved
forward. Just before Allen got
off the bus Saturday morning,
O’Neill texted him and long
snapper Scott Sypniewski. “I’m
excited to see you guys go out
there and do your thing,” Allen
recalled the message saying.
The memory of last year still
stings for now, but Saturday,
Michigan went out and did its
thing. With nine minutes to go
in the game and the Wolverines
up by 20, Allen dropped back to
punt. Before he got it off without
a hitch, the chant “Block the
punt!” echoed from the Michigan
State student section, calling up
those demons from last year.
Perhaps the students had that
chant planned for all afternoon.
We’ll never know. That was
Michigan’s first punt. For
Saturday, that was a statement
in itself.
Lourim can be reached
at jlourim@umich.edu and
on Twitter @jakelourim.
GRANT HARDY/Daily
Kenny Allen’s success on special teams helped Michigan move past last year.
ICE HOCKEY
Wolverines falter at
Dartmouth, Vermont
In
a
matter
of
seconds,
Dartmouth forward Troy Crema
determined the outcome of a
game that has now been recorded
as the No. 11 Michigan hockey
team’s third loss this year.
With only 49 seconds left
in the third period and the
game knotted up, 2-2, Crema
slipped the puck past freshman
goaltender Jack LaFontaine off
an assist from Corey Kalk and
Carl Hesler. The deficit proved
to be insurmountable for the
Wolverines, who finalized the
weekend by tacking on two losses
for a 3-3-1 overall season record.
Their
first
loss came at the
hands of Vermont
on Friday in a
shutout,
3-0.
The Catamounts
started the game
early with a goal
22 seconds into
the first period,
and another at
the 10:36 mark.
And even though
freshman
goaltender
Hayden
Lavigne recorded 39 saves, he
couldn’t stop the final power-play
goal of the night by Vermont’s
Rob Hamilton that pushed the
Catamounts to a 3-0 lead.
Michigan
recorded
eight
penalties for the night and was
doubled up in shots, managing
just 21 against Vermont’s 42.
While the Wolverines managed
to close the gap to 35-24 in their
match Saturday against the Big
Green, it still wasn’t enough to
put them ahead.
“You could tell they were
excited
—
this
was
their
hometown and they were really
physical right off the bat,” said
senior forward Alex Kile. “You
could tell that they wanted to
win. It was evident really quickly.
I think the main thing was they
tried to use their physicality and
create turnovers.”
Initially kicking the game
off on the right foot, freshman
forward Adam Winborg scored
the first goal of the game — and in
his career — 17 minutes into the
first period. The power-play goal
came off of assists from Kile and
junior defenseman Sam Piazza to
put Michigan ahead, 1-0.
However, Dartmouth took over
the second period with goals from
Kevin Neiley and Cam Strong. The
Wolverines also recorded three of
their five penalties in this period,
two of which occurred at the same
time. Kile and senior forward
Max Shuart both
landed
in
the
penalty box at
the 12:43 mark
for
charging
and
boarding,
respectively.
This resulted in
two minutes of
play with the Big
Green possessing
a
two-man
advantage, 5-3.
However, Michigan managed
to kill off both penalties without
a goal, and at the 10:33 mark in
the third period, Kile tied up the
game after corralling a loose puck
and shooting it past Dartmouth
goaltender Devin Buffalo.
But Kile’s goal did only that —
tie the game. And with no answer
for Crema’s goal in the final
minute, the Wolverines faced
their second loss of the weekend.
“We need to learn how to close
out the game,” Kile said. “We’ve
kinda (blown) games in the third
period all season long, and that’s
got to stop. I thought we actually
played pretty well tonight, we
were pretty physical and we
played the game, but we just didn’t
close it out how we wanted to.”
Michigan shut out on Friday, give up
last-second, go-ahead goal Saturday
LANEY BYLER
Daily Sports Writer
“We just
didn’t close it
out how we
wanted to.”
SPORTSMONDAY COLUMN
It’s safe to start dreaming
Y
ou’ve thought it quietly
to yourself. Now it’s OK
to start thinking it out
loud.
Michigan might have played
its worst
quarter of
the season
to close out
its 32-23
win over
Michigan
State on
Saturday, but
the end result
clinched
it. At 8-0,
ranked No. 2
in the country and (finally) with
a win against one of its chief
rivals, it’s time to start thinking
about this as a special season in
Ann Arbor.
Of course, it’s no lock. The
Wolverines still have to win
two more home games and then
beat Iowa in a road night game.
They still have to face an Ohio
State team that has the talent
and coaching to upend those
dreams in the season’s final
week. They’ll likely have to beat
either No. 8 Wisconsin again or
No. 9 Nebraska in the Big Ten
Championship game.
But after this weekend, that’s
the bar. This has special-season
potential, and the next month is
all about whether Michigan can
realize it.
Thanks to the College
Football Playoff, seasons
are no longer bound to
a championship-or-bust
dichotomy, except in
Tuscaloosa, Ala. If the
Wolverines go 13-0, winning
their first Big Ten Championship
since 2004, it’s special. If they
make the playoff, even if it
means losing to Alabama, it will
be remembered forever.
Even though this season
doesn’t have to end with confetti
like 1997, it’s hard to argue there
would be no disappointment
if it turned out like 2006. If
Michigan walks into Columbus
undefeated and loses, the
deflation would be palpable. A
Rose Bowl win would probably
be significant enough to declare
it a banner year, but with the
way the Wolverines are going,
a loss in Pasadena might make
the year feel like something of a
missed opportunity.
That’s how far Jim Harbaugh
has taken Michigan in the last
22 months.
Interestingly enough, the
Wolverines have stats on their
side — the normal ones and the
weird ones.
The
analytics-
driven S&P
rankings have
Michigan at
No. 1 in the
nation behind
a suffocating
defense that
also ranks
first in scoring
and yards
allowed. The
Wolverines are scoring the
third-most points per game in
the country, and ESPN ranks
their special teams unit as the
nation’s 16th
most efficient,
second-best
among teams
currently
ranked in the
Associated
Press top 10.
And then
there are the
oddities that
past national
champions
have tended to share. Seven of
the last nine quarterbacks to
win a national championship
have been first-year starters
on their team, which redshirt
sophomore Wilton Speight
is. Of all the coaches to win
national titles since 2000, only
one (Mack Brown) did not win
one in his first four seasons, and
Harbaugh is in his second year
with Michigan.
There all kinds of ways to
explain those two stats (young
quarterbacks have the benefit
of chasing the top, not staying
there; dominant coaches tend
to win early and often), and it’s
possible they don’t mean all
that much. But when a team like
Michigan possesses both and is
in conversation for the playoff,
they come up. That’s one of the
identifiers of a special season.
So are Heisman Trophy
candidates, and Jabrill Peppers
is most certainly that. He
probably was before he scored
two rushing touchdowns against
Rutgers, and he certainly is
now, after another rushing
touchdown, two more tackles
for loss, a sack and a defensive
2-point conversion return
against the Spartans.
He’s the kind of player fans
pine for long after they’ve
left, and he’s not the only one
Michigan has on its roster.
Cornerback Jourdan Lewis and
tight end Jake Butt spurned
the NFL to play their senior
seasons. Receivers Amara
Darboh and Jehu Chesson
and defensive linemen Ryan
Glasgow and Chris Wormley
came back for their fifth years.
Most of the offensive line
has been together for three
seasons. It’s the kind of roster
fans fantasize about in their
championship dreams.
Which brings us back to
Saturday, a day fans have looked
forward to for a year. They
anticipated a remedy to the
painful memories of seasons
past, and they got one.
After Speight took the final
kneel down, Peppers did a back
flip. Speight gave a triumphant
fist pump as he moved toward
the tunnel. Both tried to get the
crowd even louder.
It was a special moment. And
for the first time in a long time,
it feels like more are coming.
Max Bultman can be reached
by email at bultmanm@umich.
edu or on Twitter @m_bultman.
If you believe the 2016 season is
going to be special, please send
him an email explaining why.
AMANDA ALLEN/Daily
The Michigan football team is building momentum, and the Wolverines are heading on a collision course toward a potentially special ending.
MAX
BULTMAN
It’s time to start
thinking about this
as a special season
in Ann Arbor.
JAKE
LOURIM