Starting out number 5 in the polls with talk of a national championship bandied about, the stunning reality of losses to Appalachian State and Oregon turned that victory parade into an uphill struggle.
Yet eight straight victories later and stunning upsets across the NCAA landscape, it seemed that glory remained within our grasp despite the obstacle of a 0-2 start.
And then it all fell apart with a shocking loss to Wisconsin . And then another defeat to Ohio State. So we ended with an 8-4 season. Not horrible. But not stellar, either.
Mister and I managed to make it to four games this year--a record. The alumni association came through with tickets to Eastern Michigan and Notre Dame while Mister's grandpa gave us tickets to Purdue and Appalachian State.
Until this season, since going to 2 or 3 games per season since 2002, Mister has never seen Michigan lose in person. That ended with our Appalachian State game. It was stunning to see ASU play so well yet still we thought we'd get just a scare until that last field goal attempt was blocked. Mister was devastated. I tried to provide the usual dad perspective that if we could bounce back from this loss, by the end of the season this upset would no longer be considered the greatest upset in history as the instant analysis was claiming that day. Indeed, that judgment has fallen with time. Not that it did us any good. We went on to get crushed by Oregon the next week.
Still, I tried to provide that perspective thing. Look, this could be very bad, I said, but if our team can make a gut check--and Michigan has the character to do this--we could still win the Big Ten and have a very good season.
Beginning with a needed thrashing of an admittedly weak Notre Dame team, our large margin of victory at least made a statement that we weren't done for the season. Mister and I saw that game:
We also got bragging rights versus my dad who is an ultra Notre Dame partisan and professes to hate Michigan . I think it is mostly an act, but I digress. Walking home from the stadium, Mister asked if we'd call grandpa when we got home to gloat. Oh, no, son, I replied. That's what grandpa would expect. I'll wait until tomorrow to call. Because if I call tonight, he'll know it is over. If I wait, every time the phone rings he'll wonder if it is his son and grandson calling to proclaim Michigan's victory. I can be cruel that way. No instant gratification weakness in my blood. Heh. Still, I did not gloat. Earlier in the season after his call to rub in the ASU loss, my dad had the good grace to call back and leave a message that he may have called too soon since Notre Dame was demonstrating just how bad a season his team was about to have.
And I went into the perspective thing, again. Even a close win would have been insufficient to provide hope. And then the next week we beat a tough Penn State team despite fighting it with our freshman backup quarterback. Injuries to Henne and Hart would plague us all season. Yet we came up with the victories, validating my refusal to let early season disaster become full blown defeatism. I want Mister to have the perspective to take setback in stride. To assess where you are and plan how to move forward and not just think further retreat is inevitable. Life is like that. Problems come up. You don't let those problems crush you, however--or rather you shouldn't let them crush you. Too many people do just that. I want Mister to always look forward. To learn from setbacks and build a life rather than compile a list of really good reasons for your failures.
Heck, we even had a moment for the "back when I was young" moments when the tussle over the new Big Ten Network (curse the Big Ten for this move and damn Comcast for pretending that they don't want customers to pay for a channel they don't watch--let's have a discussion over the home shopping channel and about thirty other channels I have to pay for on my basic cable. Anybody at corporate headquarters want to really discuss that issue? Bueller?) kept the Northwestern game off of our TV lineup. We listened to the game on the radio and Mister clearly had trouble following the game in this medium. This was normal, I explained. My friends and I in college often listened to games on the radio with Bob Ufer calling the plays. (The drinking on Saturday morning pre-game, I left out.) Back before there were a thousand cable channels, even Michigan didn't have that many games broadcast on television. Mister was unimpressed with the Stone Age. Sometimes perspective lessons fail completely.
Still, we saw no more defeats at the Big House, including the Purdue game:
With an 8-2 record and undefeated in the Big Ten, we prepared to battle a good Wisconsin team. It looked like we were all set up for the standard Michigan-Ohio State final battle. And despite adversity, we clawed our way to within two points. I thought we would get the victory in the end even without Henne leading the team. The gutsy win over in-state rival Michigan State the week before seemed to be a sign that we were not going to let our 0-2 start spoil our comeback. But taking chances, including a 4th down attempt to get the first down on our own 5-yard line, led to two more Wisconsin scores. The game was closer than it looked but it was still a loss in the end.
So Mister needed perspective again and I did my best to do so once again. Look, as much as it would have been nice to win this game and go into the last game undefeated, we didn't absolutely need this win. If we go into the Ohio State game with one loss or no losses, we still need to beat Ohio State to win the Big Ten. And if we put Henne and Hart into the Wisconsin game and they were injured too much to play the last game, wouldn't even a victory of Wisconsin at that price be too much to pay? Coach Carr did some coaching on that decision, I think, and did not cave to the fans' desire for a ninth win in a row when the price could be too high for what might be gained. So Mister accepted that logic. And then Ohio State's loss to Illinois, who we beat, made the Wisconsin loss seem less fatal.
I won't go into the final game. We lost. I thought we'd win despite the odds and our fist drive seemed to prove we could move the ball despite settling for a field goal. But then we were shut down. And I must say, Ohio State could have scored again if they wanted to. The 14-3 loss was worse than it seemed. And I told Mister that I felt worse for our players than for Coach Carr. Carr was paid for this job and he's had his share of success. The seniors, men to be sure but just still college kids really, would graduate without beating Ohio State . As for me? Please. I've seen many wins against Ohio State, including many that spoiled Ohio State's hopes for a national championship. And I'd see many more in my life. My disappointment was nothing, really.
It was tough to provide this perspective to this loss. Yet the very fact that the final game again was the game to decide who would win the Big Ten was a lesson when you stepped back to September 9 and looked forward from a 0-2 start. The bookend pairs of losses hurt, but the middle 8 straight gave us a respectable season if nothing else. And for a while there, with even more stunning upsets around the NCAA (more perspective there), it looked like we just might--maybe--back into the Rose Bowl. And all because we didn't just give up after two defeats at the start of the season.
We still have a January 1st bowl game, and I hope we beat the odds against Florida to give Lloyd Carr a bowl win on his way out. But either way, you have to have perspective about football and life. If I can impart that lesson, no football season can ever be truly bad.
