Come late November, the Michigan
fanbase is used to singing the same
melancholy song:
There’s always next year.
But, as the Wolverines have espoused
since the first day of the
season, this year — and
this team — is different.
On Saturday, when
Michigan led Ohio State
at the half, fans started
to believe that it could be
true. The 14-13 score was
hardly an indication of
the dominance to come,
but rather a hint that
this time, maybe, their confidence wasn’t
misplaced.
The momentum in the stands continued
to grow with each ensuing touchdown.
When
senior
running
back
Hassan
Haskins brought the score to 34-20 with a
touchdown early in the fourth quarter — his
fourth of the day — the feeling turned from
excitement to one of surreal acceptance.
Fans might not have to wait any longer.
By the time Haskins ran into the end
zone with the Wolverines’ sixth and final
touchdown with just over two minutes
left on the clock, the spots of red began to
disappear from the stadium as Ohio State
fans tried to avoid the inevitable. Michigan
was going to win and the field would fill
with maize and blue.
The fanbase that has sustained itself
on blind hope and willpower for nearly a
decade has finally gotten what it wants: a
win against Ohio State.
But what happens from here?
When you’ve already surpassed your
own bar for success, how do you gauge what
comes after? It’s a question Michigan coach
Jim Harbaugh has surely had to ask himself
several times this year.
“Just everything about the team,”
Harbaugh said. “Every day, every week,
every month. Going back to the beginning of
this year, it’s always felt like the beginning.
Accomplish one goal then go to the next and
the next and the next.”
Coming
into
the
season
carrying
mediocre expectations, the Wolverines
have raised their ceiling with each win. On
Saturday, they shattered it completely.
The win opened doors for the remainder
of the season, doors Harbaugh has never
walked through. A Big Ten Championship
and College Football Playoff berth are well
within reach.
It’s been said before every
big game in Harbaugh’s
seven-year tenure, but this
time the notion rings true
more than ever:
This is very possibly
the turning point in the
Harbaugh era, the moment
the
former-Michigan
quarterback
has
been
waiting for, a chance to
elevate
this
program
into the upper echelon of
college football.
Or it could be a repeat
of 2011, a good team and a
good season that ended one
Ohio State drought just to
start another.
The difference between this being a
different Michigan team and a different
Michigan program will be decided in the
coming weeks.
A different Michigan team can end the
season 11-2 with a win over the Buckeyes and
an appearance at a Big Ten Championship.
A different Michigan program has to prove
to recruits that Harbaugh has made good
on his promise and made the Wolverines a
real national contender. That would mean
capturing the program’s first Big Ten
Championship since 2004 and notching its
first-ever berth in the playoff.
When Harbaugh said in his postgame
press conference that this felt more like the
beginning than the culmination, this was
what he meant. Michigan has moved past
its biggest hurdle under Harbaugh — and its
largest barrier to success
since the turn of the
century — opening a whole
new box of challenges.
There’s
a
different
feeling about this team,
obviously.
If
anyone
can
pass
through
the
challenges ahead, it’s this
team. A team that’s kept its
fans on their feet and sent
them out onto the field at
the end of the game.
And
players
feel
confident that they can
keep it going.
“Long term, we’ve set
the
expectation
now,”
junior quarterback Cade
McNamara said. “It’s been
so long since we beat Ohio State, but we did
that today. For the guys coming back, now
we’ve got to do that every single year. We
know what it took.”
The Wolverines proved they knew what
it took to turn the page on Ohio State. In the
coming weeks, we will find out if they have
what it takes to start a whole new chapter of
Michigan football.
All season, this Michigan team has had an
identity: run the ball.
With two players at the center of that ethos,
sophomore Blake Corum and senior Hassan
Haskins, the ‘thunder and lightning’ running
back duo became a bellwether for the offense.
On Saturday, Haskins led the Wolverines’ to
a 42-27 victory over Ohio State.
His performance, which totaled 169 yards
on 28 attempts for five touchdowns, will go
down in the record books — it’s the most rushing
touchdowns in The Game’s history, as well as
tying Michigan’s all-time single-game record.
But his historic performance went beyond
the stat sheet.
Haskins dictated the pace of the game from
the very start. He touched the ball on five of nine
plays, including three 3rd-and-short downs. In
those three downs he ran for 35 yards total,
keeping a crucial opening drive alive, a drive
that ended with the only Michigan touchdown
Haskins wouldn’t take in himself.
His quick cuts found holes and broke
through a Buckeye defense that had yet to
stack the box, demoralizing a defense that held
Heisman candidate Kenneth Walker III to just
28 rushing yards a week ago. Yet when Ohio
State adjusted, stacking the box, Haskins still
found a way to fall forward.
“They thought they saw a ghost but it was
number 25, Hassan Haskins,” Michigan
coach Jim Harbaugh said. “He has great
determination, great purpose. Creatability.”
On a crucial drive to reestablish itself
in the game, down 10-7, Michigan faced a
fourth-and-one. Following a timeout, the
Wolverines set up in a three tight-end set
with Haskins in the backfield. Clearly, there
was one place the ball would end up. Yet after
a push and a twist, the chains moved and the
drive stayed alive.
Four plays later, Haskins dove over a pile to
stretch the ball in for his first touchdown of the
afternoon. Michigan never trailed again.
“It was a big emphasis to be able to run the
ball this week,” fifth-year offensive lineman
Andrew Stueber said. “We thought that a lot
of teams came out and played a little scared
against them, a little timid, and that’s just not
Michigan football. That’s not what we like to
play as an o-line, as Michigan football, as a run
game, as a unit.”
As time wound down in the end of
the game, Haskins played an even bigger
part. Up eight with just 14 minutes left,
the Wolverines needed to accomplish two
things: drain clock and score. So they turned
to Haskins. A nine-play, four-and-a-half-
minute drive featured eight runs, six of them
from Haskins.
In one instance, he showed his patience,
waiting behind a wall of blockers before finding
a hole and darting for six yards. Other times,
he showed his innate ability to fall forward,
turning a five yard rush into an eight-yard rush
and keeping the chains moving.
On its last drive of the game, Michigan
needed to move the sticks twice in order to ice
out Ohio State. Haskins listed off five rushes
for 63 yards through a humiliated Buckeye
defense, sealing the game.
At the beginning of the season, it seemed as
though the Wolverines’ reliance on its rushing
game would be a hindrance against the best
teams in the country. Against an explosive
Ohio State offense? There was no question,
Michigan would fail to keep pace.
Instead, on Saturday, as Haskins walked in
for his fifth touchdown, it became clear that
this Wolverine running offense is capable of
dominating just about everyone.
LANE
KIZZIAH
SportsWednesday: It’s a new team, is it a new program?
KENT SCHWARTZ
Managing Sports Editor
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Sports
Wednesday, December 1, 2021 — 11
With historic day, Hassan Haskins guides Michigan to victory
Despite first-round projections in the
NFL Draft last season, senior edge rusher
Aidan Hutchinson returned to Michigan
for one reason: to beat Ohio State.
“I told you guys at Big Ten Media Days
that we were emphasizing this game more,”
Hutchinson said. “Everyone seemed to have
a lot of questions about that, in terms of how
we were doing it, but I told you to trust me,
we were doing it.”
He was right — pretty much nobody
outside Schembechler Hall bought his
optimism. It wasn’t Hutchinson’s own
abilities that people doubted; it was the
ability of his team to actually beat the
Buckeyes. At the start of the season, national
media gave the Wolverines no shot in
The Game. This publication unanimously
picked Ohio State.
And still, Hutchinson persisted. On
Tuesday, he reiterated that the Buckeyes
had been a focus since January. He opined
that, while a lot of teams play Ohio State
“fearful,” his defense would have no
fear against the Buckeyes’ top-ranked
offense. Once again, no one listened — this
publication included, of course.
Saturday, though, Hutchinson realized
his vision. In the fifth-ranked Wolverines’
42-27 upset of the second-ranked Buckeyes,
he recorded three sacks — including his 13th
of the season, which set the Michigan all-
time record — on Ohio State quarterback
and Heisman frontrunner C.J. Stroud.
Over those three-and-a-half hours,
as the Wolverines solidified themselves
as a legitimate College Football Playoff
contender, Hutchinson himself solidified
his position as one of college football’s
top players, and maybe even stole some of
Stroud’s hype along the way.
“(Hutchinson’s) performance was …
dominant,” Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh
said. “Single-season
sack record already —
definitely should be in
strong consideration
for
the
Heisman
Trophy.”
In every moment
where the Wolverines
needed a play from
their
defense,
Hutchinson
was
there to deliver it.
After a first quarter
interception sparked
a long Buckeyes drive
and a 3rd-and-goal
at Michigan’s eight,
Hutchinson recorded
his first sack and
forced Ohio State into a field goal. That stop
preserved the Wolverines’ one-score lead
and helped the team carry its momentum
into the second quarter.
In the third quarter, with Michigan
nursing an eight-point lead and the
Buckeyes again finding some rhythm
offensively, Hutchinson notched another
sack that forced Ohio State to punt. On
the next defensive possession, with the
Wolverines up 15, he recorded another sack.
Even when he wasn’t sacking Stroud,
Hutchinson’s
drive
was
present
on
virtually every defensive snap. On one
fourth down, as the Buckeyes worked to
mount a comeback, Hutchinson was seen
visibly jawing with the left tackle prior
to the snap. As soon as Stroud took the
snap, Hutchinson ran directly over the
lineman into the backfield (Ohio State
still converted, thanks to a borderline
miraculous throw from Stroud).
Even beyond the Heisman comments,
Harbaugh continued to sing Hutchinson’s
praises after the game. He named him
among a group of players he called the
“foundation” of the team — players who had
been with Michigan through the struggles
of 2020 and beyond and refused to give in.
“If there was a train, like a locomotive
going down the tracks, they literally stopped
it, picked it up onto their backs, turned it
around and started pushing,” Harbaugh
said. “(Saturday), the rest of us started
pushing, too.”
More
than
anything,
though,
Hutchinson’s performance represents a
clean resolution to a truly historic Michigan
career. An athlete raised in Wolverine
tradition — his father, Chris Hutchinson,
was a Michigan captain and All-American
defensive lineman in the early ’90s —
Hutchinson had already achieved just
about every individual accolade he could
hope for entering Saturday. Like countless
Wolverine greats in recent years, he only
lacked the elusive win over the Buckeyes.
Saturday, he sat grinning and shaking
his head at the postgame press conference,
as if in disbelief of what his team had just
achieved. With his Michigan journey
almost complete, he allowed himself to
reflect on that sack record and the elusive
rivalry win:
“Man. It was crazy. I can’t really put it
into words. I really just wanted to beat my
dad, and I went a little farther. It’s so cool,
and it’s a moment I can’t wait to share (with)
my dad.”
BRENDAN ROOSE
Daily Sports Editor
At last, Aidan Hutchinson has his moment
Following a thorough, dominant victory
over Ohio State — the most important win in
his seven-year tenure as Michigan coach — Jim
Harbaugh went home.
He spent the night surrounded by family,
commemorating his parents’ 60th wedding
anniversary. Festivities included watching
football, as they “always do,” and a few episodes
of “Heartland” with his daughter.
Then Harbaugh went to sleep. On to Iowa.
“The thing that hits me first is that this is a
new beginning,” Harbaugh said on Sunday.
“(We want to do) what we always do. We
prepare, we practice, we try to have great
days. One good day of meetings, practices, get
ourselves healthy, get ourselves ready and go
play the game.”
That’s a mentality that Michigan has stuck
to throughout the season, one instilled by
Harbaugh.
But as much as that quote feels familiar,
something about Harbaugh seemed different.
He conducted the press conference like a man
who just had a burden lifted from his shoulders.
He was downright giddy recounting his
postgame interaction with Juwan Howard,
laughing that the moment was “so cool.” He
rattled off the congratulatory messages that
flooded his phone, highlighting a memorable
text from John Madden, who lauded the
Wolverines’ offensive line for one of the best
performances he’s ever seen.
“They really like our team,” Harbaugh said
of the common thread through the messages.
“They really like how hard our players play.
Kinda that’s been the theme. Comes through
the TV set. See a bunch of guys that really like
playing the game and playing the game the way
it’s supposed to be played.”
The “new beginning” phrase also speaks to
his refined mindset. Harbaugh is cognizant of
the implications looming this weekend, just as
he was aware of the stakes against Ohio State.
Remaining levelheaded is difficult following
a victory of such emotional magnitude. These
situations are conducive for letdowns.
That’s why, when Harbaugh thinks about
the pending Big Ten Championship Game, he
is reminded of the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey
team. The group famously stunned the heavily
favored Soviet Union, but still needed one
more victory to secure the goal medal. The
Americans finished the job, rallying from a 2-1
deficit to defeat Finland.
Harbaugh wants the Wolverines to follow
their lead.
“This is the championship this week,”
Harbaugh said. “This week, that’s for all the
marbles. That’s for the championship. It’s
a continuation of the playoffs. … That’s the
message towards the team this week.”
Harbaugh carried that out in his press
conference. He showed appreciation for Kirk
Ferentz and his Iowa team, noting that there’s
“pretty much no one” he respects more.
And though Michigan opened as 10.5-point
favorites, he’s not overlooking the Hawkeyes,
either.
“We know how good Iowa is,” Harbaugh
said. “What stands out is how good and
conscious they are in all three phases — offense,
defense, special teams.”
As Harbaugh flipped the page to Iowa, he
allowed for moments of reflection, too. He
thought back to the spring, when he realized
the potential of this collection of players and
coaches that no one else saw.
“That’s one of those feelings that you have,
and the guys start feeling it too,” Harbaugh
said. “… The comments back then were, ‘Well,
everybody says that.’ But we felt it.”
And against Ohio State, they sure did show
it. Now, if the Wolverines can do so one more
time, they’ll be Big Ten champions.
“Maybe we were better prepared, maybe
we were stronger, maybe we were more
talented, a lot of factors there,” Harbaugh
said, reflecting on the victory. “The fact is that
we’re here. We’re excited about it. We want to
go finish.”
JARED GREENSPAN
Daily Sports Editor
‘We want to go finish’: Harbaugh,
Michigan begin shifting focus to Iowa
ALLISON ENGKVIST/Daily
MADELINE HINKLEY/Daily