For 3,653 days — long, arduous, 
hollow days — the Michigan 
football program lived in the 
shadows of its unremitting failures 
against Ohio State. 
There won’t be a 3,654th day. At 
long last, that futile streak is over. 
After eight consecutive bitter 
losses 
to 
the 
Buckeyes, 
the 
Wolverines emerged from The 
Game victorious. No. 5 Michigan 
(11-1 overall, 8-1 Big Ten) shocked 
No. 2 Ohio State (10-2, 8-1), 42-27, 
clinching the Big Ten East and 
punching a ticket to next Saturday’s 
Big Ten Championship Game. 
“One of my favorite sayings of 
all time is, ‘When there’s a will, 
there’s a way,’ ” Michigan coach 
Jim Harbaugh said after the game. 
“And the will was very strong for 
our team.” 
As the fourth quarter wound 
to a close, reality melded with 

imagination. Senior running back 
Hassan Haskins stood in the 
endzone with outstretched arms, 
celebrating a touchdown that 
handed Michigan a 15-point lead 
with 2:17 minutes to play. He blew 
kisses to the crowd, beckoning the 
raucous sea of maize pom poms 
that serenaded him for an electric 
five touchdown performance. 
Pandemonium had officially set 
in. 
When the clock struck double-
zeroes, everyone seemed to forget 
about the freezing cold and the 
endless nightmares from previous 
defeats. Droves of fans plunged 
from the stands and spilled out 
onto the turf, reveling in their 
newfound glory. 
Michigan, champions of the Big 
Ten East. 
“It was a surreal moment,” junior 
quarterback Cade McNamara said. 
“It’s something we’ve dreamed of. 
Every 6 a.m. (practice), that feeling 
is the reason why we do it.”
Saturday offered an opportunity 

for the Wolverines to exorcise 
past demons, escaping the recent 
doldrums and persistent pain of 
the rivalry. A win would vault them 
into the Big Ten Championship 
Game and buoy aspirations of 
a berth in the College Football 
Playoff, two hurdles that the 
program had yet to clear as of the 
morning, seven years into Jim 
Harbaugh’s tenure. 
But just as toppling the Buckeyes 
began to feel sisyphean, the 
Wolverines punched first — and 
refused to relent. 
“It was really like a war out 
there,” senior defensive end Aidan 
Hutchinson, who wreaked havoc 
on Ohio State’s offense with three 
sacks, said. 
On 
Michigan’s 
opening 
possession, sophomore receiver 
A.J. Henning found the endzone 
on a 14-yard touchdown run, 
whipping Michigan Stadium into 
an immediate frenzy.
In the second quarter, even 
as Ohio State took a brief 10-7 

lead, Michigan proved unfazed, 
embodying its season-long serenity. 
A 13-play, 82-yard touchdown drive 
sent the Wolverines into halftime 
clenching a 14-13 lead. 
In 
past 
years, 
Michigan 
unraveled in similar moments, 
particularly in The Game. On 
Saturday, the team merely grew 
stronger. 
The second half started to a tee. 
The Wolverines’ defense forced 
a crisp three-and-out, and the 
offense blazed down the field, 
running the ball three times for a 
total of 81 yards; Haskins capped 
the drive with a touchdown. 
They had kicked Ohio State back 
onto its heels, and the Buckeyes 
would never recover. 
Michigan’s 
offense, 
having 
re-discovered its rhythm, operated 
with 
machine-like 
efficiency. 
A 31-yard pass from freshman 
quarterback J.J. McCarthy to 
sophomore receiver Roman Wilson 
set up a 34-yard flea-flicker from 
McNamara to junior receiver Mike 

Sainristil. 
So hapless were the Buckeyes 
that only a brief kerfuffle could 
slow 
down 
the 
Wolverines. 
After 
a 
scrum 
triggered 
an 
unsportsmanlike conduct on Ohio 
State’s Cameron Brown, Michigan 
found the endzone again. Haskins 
bounced outside, scoring for the 
third time on the day, staking the 
Wolverines to a stunning 15-point 
lead. 
The result incited delirium and 
momentarily broke the Michigan 
Stadium scoreboard — an apt 
microcosm for the shock of The 
Game’s result. 
Even as Ohio State scratched 
and clawed its way to an early 
fourth 
quarter 
touchdown, 
Michigan responded with yet 
another emphatic, methodic drive. 
Haskins wiggled his way down the 
field, ultimately plowing into the 
endzone for his fourth touchdown. 
In the game’s waning minutes, 
when Stroud’s fourth-and-18 heave 
fell shy of a first down, the reality 

set in. Bleachers rattled. The 
stadium shook. Hutchinson and 
fifth-year safety Brad Hawkins 
shed tears. 
“We 
have 
(a 
sign) 
inside 
Schembechler Hall, ‘What are you 
doing today to beat Ohio State,’ ” 
Hawkins said. “And today, we beat 
them. It’s a blessing.” 
A blessing, perhaps, but certainly 
not a product of luck. 
“Every workout, every practice, 
every 
game, 
everything 
that 
we put into this season — that’s 
something that we kept in the back 
of our minds every single day that 
we entered Schembechler Hall,” 
McNamara said of Ohio State. “We 
did enough to beat them today.” 
After nine years of perpetual 
suffering, Michigan had achieved 
the unthinkable. It’s a game that no 
one will soon forget. 
“We’ve got a lot of hours left 
today,” 
Harbaugh 
smirked, 
allowing 
himself 
to 
digest 
the gravity of the moment. “… 
Celebrating long into the night.” 

14 — Graduation Edition 2023

Michigan shocks Ohio State, ends eight-game losing streak in The Game

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Sports

JARED GREENSPAN
2022 Managing Sports Editor

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Michigan defeats Ohio State for 
second year in a row, 45-23

SPENCER RAINES
Daily Sports Editor

COLUMBUS — It feels like a 
lifetime ago.
Last year when the Michigan 
football team finally broke its 
decade-long curse against Ohio 
State, 
when 
the 
Wolverines 
stormed the snowy streets of Ann 
Arbor and when Michigan coach 
Jim Harbaugh deemed it just a 
“beginning.”
It was the Wolverines’ biggest 
win of the millennium. And on 
Saturday in Columbus, Michigan 
did it again.
Whenever they needed to, the 
third-ranked Wolverines (12-0 
overall, 9-0 Big Ten) delivered 
blow after blow to Ohio State (11-1, 
8-1), as they defeated the second-
ranked Buckeyes, 45-23.
“It feels great to sing ‘The 
Victors’ in Columbus,” Harbaugh 
said Saturday. “Our team really 
earned it in every way.”
The 
Game 
this 
year 
was 
different from the last, and that 
was obvious from the start. Ohio 
State’s offense took the field first 
and immediately got to work. 
A 12 play, 81-yard drive capped 
off by receiver Emeka Egbuka’s 
touchdown sent the Horseshoe 
into a frenzy. 
Not even five minutes into the 
game, Michigan was already in an 
unfamiliar situation: For the first 
time all season, the Wolverines 
didn’t score first. The discomfort 
was obvious.
Sophomore quarterback J.J. 
McCarthy was erratic. He dipped 
out of the pocket before he needed 
to, he was missing throws — 
nothing was working.
“In the first half, I was a little 
amped up because I’ve been 
waiting to play this game so long,” 
McCarthy said. “But once the 
nerves kind of calmed down and 
everything settled, I knew it was 
over from there.”
It took a while to get to where 
McCarthy knew the outcome — 
his team, at times, looked like they 
were just trying to survive the 
first half. The Buckeyes smelled 
blood, and they were trying to run 
away from Michigan. Everyone in 

the packed Horseshoe could sense 
that Ohio State was thoroughly 
outplaying the Wolverines in the 
first quarter, and yet, there was 
an uneasiness settling in.
Michigan was just hanging 
around. After giving up the 
opening drive touchdown, the 
Wolverines’ defense regrouped — 
only allowing three points on the 
next three possessions.
“We felt like any kind of 
stop was going to be like gold,” 
Harbaugh said.
Without junior running back 
Blake Corum able to play through 
injury, Michigan’s offense didn’t 
look like its normal self. But 
somehow that was alright. 
In 
a 
wild, 
back-and-forth 
second quarter, McCarthy found 
senior wide receiver Cornelius 
Johnson for long touchdowns on 
two consecutive plays. The Game 
was turned on its head.
Ohio State had its chance to 
bury Michigan, but it couldn’t, 
and the Wolverines made the 
Buckeyes pay for it.
After converting a fourth and 
one on its own side of the field, 
Michigan drove down the field 
and McCarthy found freshman 
tight end, Colston Loveland, for 
a 45-yard touchdown. After the 
Wolverines’ first drive of the 
second half, the Horseshoe fell 
silent.
“After that touchdown coming 
out of the half, we were able to 
do everything we wanted at that 
point,” McCarthy said.
Michigan never looked back.
Two drives later, the Wolverines 
finally found their running game. 

Their offense slowly leeched 
the life out of Ohio State’s once 
ravenous crowd on a nearly 
eight-minute-long 
touchdown 
drive. When McCarthy ran in a 
three-yard touchdown on third 
and goal, extending Michigan’s 
lead to 11 right as the fourth 
quarter started, the anxiety that 
hung over the Horseshoe was as 
nauseating as it was palpable.
“We looked at their sideline 
and they were over there hanging 
their heads,” senior defensive 
back Mike Sainristil said. “We 
knew… they’re vulnerable right 
now.”
That was a mindset shared by 
every Wolverine.
“You can feel when their will 
breaks,” 
graduate 
linebacker 
Michael Barrett said. “… You can 
feel it when it goes out of them.”
That’s when the avalanche 
came.
With only a one-score lead 
the Wolverines were faced with 
their biggest offensive possession 
of the season. On their first 
play, sophomore running back 
Donovan Edwards found daylight 
and burst through to the right for 
a 75-yard touchdown.
In one final attempt at victory, 
Ohio State drove down the field 
only for a desperate flick from 
quarterback C.J. Stroud to fall into 
the hands of graduate edge rusher 
Taylor Upshaw. To add insult to 
injury, 
Edwards 
subsequently 
broke an 85-yard touchdown run 
and hordes of scarlet and gray 
headed for the exits.

ALLISON ENGKVIST/Daily

 Read more at MichiganDaily.com

TESS CROWLEY/Daily

