4B — Monday, September 24, 2018
Sports
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Mason has career day in rout of Nebraska

Ben Mason’s objectives each 
game are simple.
“Just come in, attack people 
and do the best that I can,” the 
sophomore fullback said after 
the Michigan football team’s 
56-10 whooping over Nebraska 
on Saturday.
Mason, commonly referenced 
as the Wolverines’ “toughest 
player,” checked off those boxes 
quickly. And then he added one 
more to-do.
“About midweek, coach (Jim 
Harbaugh) told me that they need 
me to run the ball a little bit,” 
Mason said. “There’s no problem 
with that whatsoever. Just go in 
there and run.”
Mason had six carries for 18 
yards and three touchdowns 
— in the first half. Prior to the 
game, Mason’s career statline 
in five previous appearances 
was six carries, 10 yards and 
three touchdowns. Rushing isn’t 
necessarily the fullback’s bread 
and butter, but he proved it to be 
another weapon in his arsenal 
separate from his run-blocking.
“Personally, I think I can do a 
lot of things as a football player,” 
Mason said. “Today was really 
the first time you got to see me as 
a single back.”
In front of the media on 
Wednesday, running backs coach 
Jay 
Harbaugh 
characterized 
Mason’s mindset acerbically — he 
wants to “smash everything” and 
“bludgeon people.”
On his first and third scores, 
that is exactly what Mason did, 
barrelling up the middle of the 
offensive line. But for his second 
touchdown, Mason sauntered to 
the endzone untouched from four 
yards out — an unusual situation 
for the team’s toughest player.
The scoring outburst garnered 
praise from last year’s fullback 
and touchdown vulture Khalid 
Hill, who was crowdsourcing on 
Twitter to tell Harbaugh to “give 
the ball to Ben one more time” for 
a fourth touchdown.

Mason’s emergence came in 
part because Chris Evans was held 
off the field — the junior running 
back suffered an undisclosed 
injury 
in 
last 
week’s 
game 
against SMU. But Mason made 
his presence known. His punch-
ins were what blew the doors off 
against the Cornhuskers, and kept 
himself, a massive fullback, in as 
the 
impromptu 
No. 2 running 
back.
“Inertia 
was 
the main factor 
in the decision,” 
Jim 
Harbaugh 
said. “When he 
gets going — I 
think he’s 258 
pounds — he gets 
moving fast. He’s 
running 
hard. 
He’s got a talent and ability.
“Like having Ben Mason in 
the game. Talk about physical 
player, he’s known as that on our 
team already, and we’re taking 
advantage of his skillset.”
Mason’s 
touchdowns 
stole 
the show, but he continued to 

excel in what he knows best in 
run protection. At the Nebraska 
44-yard line, Mason sealed off 
a right-side edge rusher while 
Karan Higdon — who toted the 
ball 12 times for 136 yards — 
charged left through a wide gap 
for the Wolverines’ only other 
rushing touchdown.
“Competitiveness, 
hard 
work,” 
Higdon 
said on what he 
admires 
about 
Mason. “He’s a 
hard runner. He 
definitely 
has 
that 
hard-hat 
mindset, and you 
can see it when he 
runs or when he’s 
blocking. I love 
running 
behind 
him.”
Mason’s blocking and all-
around, hard-nosed play was 
emblematic 
of 
Michigan’s 
most 
impressive 
blocking 
performance 
this 
season. 
Mason was not a spark plug 
— he was another cog in an 
unusually cohesive offensive 

line.
“As an offensive line, they 
were pushing people off the 
ball and making enormous 
holes for the backs to run 
through,” Mason said. “It was 
a great thing to see for the 
offense.
“I think today that was a 
great statement for the team 
as far as being a tough physical 
football team.”
Mason’s performance even 
captured 
the 
attention 
of 
SportsCenter, which tweeted a 
comparison of Mason’s statline 
to all of Nebraska’s offense — 
21 total yards to Mason’s 18 at 
the time of his third score.
Mason, of course, didn’t 
chime in on the attention that 
his 
performance 
received 
online. It wasn’t a part of his 
typical game regimen.
“As a team, we just did a very 
good job of doing what was 
asked of us,” Mason said.
Whether it was his running 
or 
blocking, 
the 
team’s 
toughest player can tip his cap 
to something.

And this time, silence

There 
were 
probably 
several 
different 
ways 
Nebraska 
coach Scott 
Frost 
saw 
Saturday’s 
game going.
Maybe he 
expected a hefty loss. Perhaps 
he still expected his team 
to “out-hit” Michigan, as he 
infamously 
told 
reporters 
after a 51-14 loss to Michigan 
in 2016, when he was still 
coaching at UCF. Who knows, 
maybe 
he 
even 
thought 
Nebraska would win.
I’m fairly certain getting 
lambasted by a hamburger 
chain on Twitter by the third 
quarter didn’t cross his mind. 
And 
yet, 
it’s 
the 
most 
succinct summation of the 
utter 
drubbing 
that 
was 
Saturday’s contest — a 56-10 
loss to the Wolverines that 
somehow felt like it should’ve 
been worse. The very epitome 
of rock bottom.
Scott Frost likes to talk. It’s 
a personality trait Michigan 
fans know all too well.
In 1997, some would argue 
his 
impassioned 
plea 
on 
television 
robbed 
the 
Wolverines 
of 
a solo national 
championship. 
After 
winning 
the 
Orange 
Bowl, 
Frost 
made his plea 
for the then-No. 
2 Cornhuskers 
to claim a share 
of the National 
Title.
“You 
know, 
if 
all 
the 
pollsters 
honestly 
think, 
after watching the Rose Bowl 
and 
watching 
the 
Orange 
Bowl, that Michigan could 
beat Nebraska,” Frost said at 
the time, “go ahead and vote 
Michigan, by all means.”

Count 
fifth-year 
senior 
Chase Winovich — less than 
two years old in 1997 — 
among 
those 
who remembers 
Frost’s 
antics. 
After the game, 
Winovich 
unequivocally 
said 
Frost’s 
comments 
were 
used 
as 
motivation this 
week.
“It’s 
been 
all week. Like 
everyone 
finds 
something 
to cling to — locker room 
banter 
almost,” 
Winovich 
said. “For us, it was that for 
this week I’d say. It goes back, 
historically, look back at the 
’97 year, where we had the 
national 
championship 
and 
all the drama that went down 

there. There’s been a lot of 
motivation for us.”
He then added, “Yeah, I 
think we out-
hit them today.”
For 
Frost 
and 
Nebraska, 
though, 
today 
had little to do 
with the past. 
Not while the 
avalanche 
of 
the 
present 
came tumbling 
down into an 
unwieldy mess.
This was supposed to be 
the game to lay a foundation 
for the Frost era. Sure, an 
0-2 start was rocky. But this 
was a chance to show at least 
glimpses of the promise of 
national 
prominence 
that 
came with the Frost era.
That foundation is nowhere 

to 
be 
seen. 
Instead, 
the 
existent 
hole 
just 
keeps 
getting deeper.
It 
wasn’t 
just 
that 
the 
Cornhuskers 
lost, to extend 
their FBS-high 
seven-game 
losing streak. It 
wasn’t even just 
that they lost by 
46. Or that their 
quarterback 
Adrian 
Martinez had 10 
total yards. 
It 
was 
the 
lifelessness, 
the sheer incompetence, the 
demoralization of a once-elite 
program 
discovering 
what 
rock bottom looks like. And 
a coach left to try his best to 
plug every hole just to keep 
the ship afloat.

Saturday when Frost spoke, 
he spoke with a malaise. This 
wasn’t the Scott Frost of his 
boisterous past. 
He pleaded for 
trust 
— 
that 
he could turn 
things 
around 
for a program 
now 0-3 for the 
first time since 
1945. 
When 
he 
answered 
questions, 
he 
looked 
like 
a deer in the 
headlights.
He didn’t dare take any 
silver-linings from this one — 
no subtle jabs at Michigan as 
he did after losing by 37 points 
in 2016. I suppose the 46-point 
margin this time around was 
just a bit too large. He said 
things that sounded nice, but 

really didn’t mean much. 
For example: “We’re not 
ready to beat a team like this 
yet. The key word to me is 
yet. Because I know where 
it’s going. That’s not going as 
quickly as I would like, but 
I’m kinda excited because it’s 
not going to get worse than 
this, it’s only up from here.”
For another: “I think our 
whole team needs to see what 
it looks like now to play at 
that level. We weren’t ready 
to play at that level today. 
Adrian is going to be a great 
player 
at 
Nebraska 
for 
a 
long time. I hope he never 
experiences a day as rough as 
this one.”
And a third: “If there was 
something I could snap my 
fingers and fix, I would.”
And so on, and so forth. It’s 
possible Scott Frost turns into 
the wunderkind that he was 
touted after self-declaring his 
UCF team national champions 
last year; it would be unwise 
to write anything off after 
three games. Michigan fans 
probably don’t care right now.
Despite 
Michigan 
coach 
Jim Harbaugh claiming he 
didn’t know about Frost’s 2016 
comment (one Winovich all-
but debunked minutes later), 
the players made it clear 
there’s 
extra 
satisfaction 
from 
this 
one. That lays 
squarely 
at 
the feet of one 
Scott Frost. 
“I think he 
can he eat his 
words,” 
said 
junior running 
back 
Karan 
Higdon.
Maybe he could wash them 
down with a Wendy’s burger 
and fries, too.

Marcovitch can be reached 

at maxmarco@umich.edu or on 

Twitter at @Max_Marcovitch.

RYAN MCLOUGHLIN/Daily
Nebraska coach Scott Frost said his team is “not ready to beat a team like (Michigan) yet” after Nebraska fell to the Wolverines, 56-10 at Michigan Stadium.

After the controversy around the 1997 national championship, the Michigan football did everything to silence Nebraska Saturday.

MAX 

MARCOVITCH

“There’s 
been a lot of 
motivation for 
us.” 

“We weren’t 
ready to play 
at that level 
today.”

ETHAN WOLFE
Daily Sports Writer

RYAN MCLOUGHLIN/Daily
Sophomore fullback Ben Mason scored three touchdowns in Michigan’s 56-10 win over the Cornhuskers on Saturday.

“Just come in, 
attack people 
and do the best 
that I can.”

“We’re not 
ready to beat a 
team like this 
yet.”

The Michigan Daily Top 10 Poll 

Each week, Daily sports staffers fill out ballots, with first-place votes receiving 10 

points, second-place votes receiving nine and so on. 

1. Alabama: *Disturbed voice* TU-
WAH-AH-AH-AH Tagovailoa

2. Georgia: More like Kirby Dumb. Ooo
ooooooooh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

3. Ohio State: I bet Urban Meyer got a 
lot of text messages after his big re-
turn!

4. Clemson: Hold that Tiger!

5. LSU: Heauxld dat Tigah!

6. Auburn: Heauwoldt dt Tyyyygaaaaa!

7. Oklahoma: It cost $54.95 to read 
this joke

8. Stanford: Did Stanford win? Or did 
Oregon lose?

9. Wisconsin: Alright this poll may be 
rigged. I don’t know how the Badgers 
made the top 10. This isn’t a joke, this 
is Mike Persak scolding his section. 
(Laney loves her section so she doesn’t 
care.)

10. Penn State: The Nittany Lions 
dominated Illinois and its coach Wooly 
Willy this week.

