2B — November 21, 2016
SportsMonday
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Somewhere, Brady Hoke is smiling

I

ndiana called a timeout, and 
then De’Veon Smith picked up 
the first down, and then the 

chant started 
in earnest.

In the 

previous few 
minutes, there 
had been 
murmurs of 
it, as if those 
remaining 
from an 
announced 
crowd of 
110,288 had 
been waiting to start it. Then, 
with just under four minutes to 
play, with the No. 3 Michigan 
football team in possession and 
the game finally in hand, it came 
out in full force:

BEAT O-HI-O.
As the Wolverines ran out the 

clock on a 20-10 victory against 
Indiana on Saturday at Michigan 
Stadium, the chant rumbled 
throughout the building. It 
continued after the clock ran out 
and the Michigan Marching Band 
played “The Victors.” It echoed 
through the concourse as the fans 
filed out of the bowl. It may well 
echo around the state all week.

The chant was “BEAT 

O-HI-O.” It was not “BEAT THE 
BUCK-EYES,” the more common 
call before Jan. 12, 2011. That 
day, Michigan introduced its new 
head football coach, a man named 
Brady Hoke.

Hoke put the Michigan-Ohio 

State rivalry on a pedestal. He 
refused to wear red. He wanted to 
win this game more than any of 
the others. He called the Buckeyes 
“Ohio” as a slight, which is how 
the chant started.

As Jim Harbaugh leads the 

Wolverines near the pinnacle of 
the college football world, those in 
the fan base try to erase memories 
from the painful years that came 
before. That will be hard to do this 
week. Though most of Hoke’s staff 

is gone, most of Michigan’s players 
are his recruits — and “The Game” 
is the biggest game in college 
football this week, just like Hoke 
always wanted.

Much has changed around 

Ann Arbor since Hoke resigned 
and Harbaugh arrived. 
Harbaugh religiously avoids 
placing more significance on 
one game than another. If his 
team does so, he reasons, then 
it didn’t give its best effort in all 
of the games — an unpardonable 
sin in Harbaugh’s book. The 
next game, he repeats, is the 
most important one.

Brady Hoke made no such 

stipulation.

“(Ohio State) is the most 

important game on that 
schedule, and not that the 
others aren’t important, but it 

is the most. Important. Game. 
On. That. Schedule,” Hoke 
said at his introductory press 
conference, pounding the 
podium for emphasis. “… It’s 
very important to me, and very 
… it’s almost personal.”

Hoke’s four years as head coach 

will always be a sore spot because 
of his record, especially compared 
to his successor. But Hoke was, by 
all accounts, a good man whose 
players loved him. He just didn’t 
win nearly enough football games.

He did, however, get his team 

ready for Ohio State. In four 
editions of the most important 
game on Hoke’s schedule, 
Michigan played some of its best 
football in all of them, winning 
one and making the other three far 
closer than they should have been.

Hoke also put his fingerprints 

all over this year’s team, and for 
that Harbaugh owes him a great 
deal. He recruited Michigan’s 
entire starting defense, from fifth-
year seniors Chris Wormley and 
Ryan Glasgow on the line to senior 
cornerbacks Jourdan Lewis and 
Channing Stribling at the back end 
to, yes, even redshirt sophomore 
Jabrill Peppers.

He brought in starting 

quarterback Wilton Speight, even 
after other schools shied away 
from Speight following an injury 
in high school. He signed all 
three of Michigan’s top receivers 
and laid the foundation for an 
offensive line that now starts 
three fifth-year seniors.

And as much as the program 

is different now than it was 
two years ago, parts of Hoke’s 
culture remain. Fifth-year 

senior Ryan Glasgow, whom 
Hoke brought in as a walk-on 
before he blossomed into one 
of the defense’s most important 
players, said after Saturday’s 
game there was “no doubt” that 
this weekend’s showdown is the 
biggest of his career.

“Ohio State, Michigan, greatest 

rivalry in sports — how can it not 
be in the back of your mind from 
right after the day you play it until 
the next year?” Glasgow said. “I 
don’t really hesitate to say that it’s 
probably the biggest game that you 
play in every year — all dependent 
on what rankings are and what 
position you’re in, but it’s always in 
the back of your mind.”

In the final minutes Saturday, 

Glasgow couldn’t help but hear the 
“BEAT O-HI-O” chants coming 
from the stands. How could he 

not? The passion and sentiment 
Hoke instilled didn’t leave when 
he did.

“Great guy, great mentor,” 

Glasgow said. “I still check in 
with him every now and then. 
Personally, I owe a lot to that guy. 
Believed in me from the beginning. 
As an unrecruited walk-on, 
sometimes that doesn’t happen.”

Harbaugh, meanwhile, 

preaches the importance of 
treating every game like a 
championship game, and it 
doesn’t hurt that this really is 
one. If Michigan wins Saturday, it 
will win the Big Ten East division 
and advance to the Big Ten 
Championship on Dec. 3.

That only adds to the usual 

storylines. Each team has plenty 
of players from the other state, 
including both starting running 
backs (Michigan’s De’Veon Smith 
is from Warren, Ohio, while Ohio 
State’s Mike Weber hails from 
Detroit). Each team is ranked in 
the top three heading into the 
matchup for the second time ever.

“I don’t need to say too much 

about the game — it’s just the 
game,” Peppers said. “Now that 
it’s finally here, we can zero in on 
it and put all our focus towards 
it, ’cause this one’s for all the 
marbles. Everything we want is 
right in front of us. We just gotta 
go out there and execute.”

No longer do Michigan and 

Ohio State have to downplay this 
weekend’s showdown to avoid 
getting ahead of themselves. 
Regardless of which coach is 
at the helm, the game Saturday 
is the biggest of the season. 
Hoke and most of the rest of the 
country treat it that way because 
it’s “The Game.” Jim Harbaugh 
and his team do because it’s the 
next game. This week, it just so 
happens to be both.

Lourim can be reached 

at jlourim@umich.edu and 

on Twitter @jakelourim.

SPORTSMONDAY COLUMN

JAKE
LOURIM

JAMES COLLER/Daily

Former Michigan coach Brady Hoke never got his team to the level he wanted, but his fingerprints are all over this year’s team as it heads into “The Game.”

scrimmage his freshman year,” 
Glasgow said. “I think me and 
Chris had him on a running back 
draw, and we were sure to take 
him down, and he kept his legs 

moving, and we got back to the 
line of scrimmage and we were 
like, ‘This kid is a horse.’ This kid 
just doesn’t stop, he’s relentless, 
so that’s always awesome to have 
in a running back.” 

After snow angels were made 

and all of the fun in Michigan’s 
first snow of the year had 

been had, redshirt sophomore 
linebacker Jabrill Peppers pulled 
Smith’s chair out for him in post-
game media availability.

Peppers took it a step further 

and uncapped Smith’s Gatorade 
for him, too.

It’s safe to say that Smith had 

earned it.

chances to put away an inferior 
team on their home field. They 
know they could have lost their 
fourth straight Senior Day game. 
They’ve done it all before.

They played better, but did not 

manage to survive, in last year’s 
heartbreaker against Michigan 
State. They did the same in their 
home finale in 2013 against a 
much better Ohio State team. In 
between, they suffered losses of 
every form.

The Minnesota game in 

2014 brought the Shane Morris 
concussion incident, to say 
nothing of the fact that the 
Golden Gophers came into 
the Big House, dominated the 
Wolverines and stole the Little 
Brown Jug off their sideline. 
Utah stomped Michigan until 
a downpour halted play, then 
stayed in the stadium and 
finished it off with only Utes 
fans in the building. Maryland 
spoiled the Wolverines’ Senior 
Day, all but extinguishing their 
bowl hopes with a trip to Ohio 
State coming the following week.

This year’s seniors remember 

all of that. Perhaps that was 
part of the emotion of this 
year’s Senior Day. Defensive 
tackle Ryan Glasgow finished 
the live portion of warmups to 
see his parents standing on the 
sideline, holding a frame with 
his jersey in it. Thomas, Hill 
and cornerback Jourdan Lewis 
shared a moment before they 
ran out of the tunnel for the 
final time.

“Before the game, we were 

all like, ‘I can’t believe we’re 
touching the banner one last 
time,’ ” Thomas said. “We all 
came in together, we all grinded 
together and now we’re all 
leaving together, except for a few 
guys who transferred.

“When they started playing 

that video, when they started 
playing that sad music, Khalid 
comes to me, he’s like, ‘I might 
start crying.’ I’m like, ‘If you 
cry, I’m gonna cry.’ And (Lewis) 
is like, ‘No, what’s wrong with 
y’all? Y’all got a game! Let’s go 
win!’ And then (Lewis) is like, 
‘You know, I might cry too, y’all.’ 
I was like, ‘We’re gonna be all 
right. Let’s just go win, and let’s 
make the best of this last year we 
got together.’ ”

Almost four hours later, with 

their final home win safely in 
tow, they celebrated. Morris, 
Jake Butt, Henry Poggi, Patrick 
Kugler and Ben Gedeon — all 
seniors who have gone through 
various forms of adversity in 
their own individual careers — 
took a picture together. Offensive 
lineman Kyle Kalis, in his own 
inimitable style, waved his arms 
frantically to pump up the crowd. 
Glasgow, for the first time in his 
career, ran to the student section 
and jumped on the wall — before 
he realized he was jumping in the 
wrong section.

It was one of Michigan’s 

least impressive victories of the 
season, yet it may have been the 
one most worth celebrating. 
The Wolverines are 10-1 and are 
heading down to Columbus next 
week for a showdown against 
Ohio State because they did what 
it took to win Saturday.

They managed just 59 

passing yards, their lowest total 
of the season. They had the 
same number of first downs as 
Indiana, 15. They outgained the 
Hoosiers by just 29. Only a pair 
of De’Veon Smith touchdown 
runs late in the third quarter 
secured the win.

But they did secure the 

win. These seniors don’t 
take that for granted — and 
neither does their head coach. 
In 1986, quarterbacking a 
then-undefeated Michigan 

team, Jim Harbaugh lost the 
last game he ever played at 
Michigan Stadium, 20-17 
against Minnesota.

“It’s not a good feeling,” 

Harbaugh said Saturday of 
losing his home finale. “At all. 
I’m glad our guys played eight 
home games and won ’em all.

“The constant, being a 

Michigan football player 
through the ages, is that you 
play in the Michigan Stadium. 
You play in that venue, that 
Big House. Always has been 
that way, is and always will be. 
That’s the one constant — all the 
time, the facilities, the changes, 
society and everything else — is 
that you play in that stadium.”

It hasn’t always gone 

smoothly here, and it didn’t 
Saturday, perhaps a fitting end 
to the seniors’ careers. Michigan 
trailed at halftime for the 
first time all season, and with 
starting quarterback Wilton 
Speight injured on the sideline, 
uneasiness spread among the 
announced crowd of 110,288. 
About a third of the student 
section emptied out at halftime.

Those who remained at the 

end had the opportunity to 
savor the feeling. By then, the 
snow had blown around the 
stadium and coated the turf. 
The cheerleaders made snow 
angels in the end zones, and the 
students threw snowballs on the 
field. “Let It Snow” played over 
the speakers.

With an eighth straight 

home win this year, the 
Wolverines added another 
lasting memory to erase all 
of the sour ones. Afterward, 
Harbaugh, who has won 78 
games as a college head coach 
and reached the Super Bowl, 
called it “one of the best wins 
I’ve ever been involved with.”

Because, as the Wolverines 

found out Saturday, that’s how it 
feels to survive.

SMITH
From Page 1B

SENIORS
From Page 1B

O’Korn’s run salvages shaky day

Football games rarely actually 

depend on one play, but Saturday 
night, one run certainly seemed 
to swing the outcome.

With the Michigan football 

team trailing Indiana, 10-6, late 
in the third quarter, redshirt 
junior quarterback John O’Korn 
was struggling. All game long, 
O’Korn had been under pressure, 
and most of the time, it didn’t 
end well. He was sacked twice, 
hurried twice and tackled for loss 
on another play.

His feet have been considered 

an asset off the Wolverines’ 
bench, 
so 
when 
starting 

quarterback 
Wilton 
Speight 

went down with an injury last 
week, it was widely expected he 
would showcase them early and 
often. It just hadn’t been working 
out that way. As the game wore 
on, O’Korn said, passing game 
coordinator Jedd Fisch told him 
over the phone, “You need to 
make a play.” He did.

Moving to his left, O’Korn 

took off scrambling, turned the 
corner and started up field. It 
didn’t appear to be a designed 
run like other times Saturday, 
but he found a hole regardless. 
Fifth-year senior receiver Jehu 
Chesson sealed a great block 
outside, and O’Korn shot through 
the lane. As he crossed midfield, 
it looked like he had all kinds of 
space to keep going.

“I thought I was going to 

score,” he said. “Got tackled 
from behind.”

Though he was stopped at the 

34-yard line, it was enough to 
kick-start the Michigan offense. 
Senior running back De’Veon 
Smith trucked a Hoosier defender 
and scored on the next play. 
Smith then added a 39-yard score 
on the next drive, and that was 
all the offense the Wolverines 
would need.

Prior to O’Korn’s run, the 

Wolverines 
were 
sputtering. 

They had just 166 total yards of 
offense, and even with another 
strong 
showing 
from 
their 

defense, six points wouldn’t 
have been enough. They were 
the beneficiaries of great field 

position for most of the game, 
but with O’Korn starting his first 
game in two years, the offense 
lacked direction, creativity and, 
until his long run, production.

“When John took off for that 

run, that’s what really sparked 
us,” Smith said. “That really is 
what got the offensive line going. 
It’s not like I had the whole game 
in control. The defense was 
definitely in control — they were 
making stops and putting us back 
on the field. We were just making 
plays as an offense.”

O’Korn said he knew Sunday 

afternoon that he would start 
for Speight, and even though 
no team likes to lose its starting 
quarterback with two weeks left 
in the regular season, there was 
reason for confidence around 
Schembechler 
Hall. 
O’Korn 

had started for a season and a 
half at Houston, and all spring 
and summer he was said to be 
in a heated competition for the 
starting quarterback job.

But that optimism seemed 

misplaced early. Partly due to 
heavy pressure from the Hoosiers 
and partly due to an apparent 
tendency to leave the pocket, 

O’Korn mustered just 59 total 
passing yards. He was 7-for-18 
on the day, with no touchdowns 
or interceptions, but thanks to a 
bruising game from Smith, that 
was enough.

Michigan 
coach 
Jim 

Harbaugh 
said 
O’Korn 
“did 

a lot of good things” against 
Indiana, but he also said that 
Speight could potentially return 
for next week’s tilt against Ohio 
State. If the Wolverines win that 
one, they will earn a spot in the 
Big Ten Championship Game 
and have an inside track to the 
College Football Playoff.

To beat the second-ranked 

Buckeyes, though, Michigan will 
need some kind of improvement 
under center. Ohio State is an 
entirely different beast than 
Indiana, and the Buckeyes are 
talented enough to bring even 
more pressure than O’Korn saw 
Saturday. So even as Harbaugh 
and 
his 
players 
expressed 

their pleasure with O’Korn’s 
performance, a nugget of truth 
came from the man himself.

“Luckily,” he said, “our run 

game and our O-line had my 
back today.”

MAX BULTMAN

Managing Sports Editor

AMANDA ALLEN/Daily

John O’Korn looked inconsistent in his first start at Michigan on Saturday.

