Three and Out (21 page)

But if anyone knew the high-wire act ahead, it was Rodriguez. If there was one thing he and his coaches agreed on, it was this: “Year three and four, that's when it takes off,” they often said. “You watch. That's when you'll see it.”

This is not to say Rodriguez was going to take the losses in the meantime with philosophical equanimity. This is a guy who loved sports as much as he hated losing. When he was still a kid back in Grant Town playing Pop Warner football and his team lost, it put him in a typically inconsolable mood, “crying and moping,” Arleen recalled.

On the drive home, Arleen turned to him in the backseat of their station wagon and said, “We're tired of seeing your face like that after every loss. We don't want to see it anymore!'”

So instead of coming out of his funk or faking it, Rodriguez grabbed a blanket in the backseat, pulled it over his head, and kept it there the rest of the ride home.

He had gotten a little better since then—but not much. No matter how expected a loss might be—especially in the early stages of implementing his system—he never took it well. He was good with the players in his postgame speeches and Monday afternoon assessments, but he started taking it out on himself in the coaches' room with a stream of profanity and an occasional relocated play chart or chair. Then he would grumble the whole way home, where only Raquel, if she felt bold enough, could talk to him. If Rita had an unavoidable question, she would send Raquel to ask.

The best competitors are motivated less by a desire to win than an abject fear of failure. At the highest levels, even one loss diminishes them in some deeply personal way. For them, a victory is not a victory. It is simply a loss avoided. Rodriguez was squarely in that category.

He would spend the night watching the tape, back and forth, writing things down, getting a few hours of fitful sleep. He'd get up early and go back to the tape, so by the time his staff met at 11:00, he'd seen it probably four or five times—and he wasn't happy. But after they broke down the game as a staff, and he'd had his final say, they were amazingly good at putting it behind them and focusing on the next one. The mantra was absolute: “Don't let the team that just beat you, beat you twice.”

And at age forty-five, he had some perspective and some experience. He knew what the stages looked like. He had faith in his system, and he wasn't going to panic.

He did have some concerns unique to this team, however, including a defense that did not seem to be improving, but there are few problems in a coach's life that winning doesn't solve.

*   *   *

The Illini were 2–2 overall and 0–1 in the Big Ten, but with their electrifying quarterback Juice Williams they could be very dangerous.

Michigan jumped ahead 14–3 in the first quarter, before the Illini pulled in front. In the second half, the Illini blew past Michigan, winning 45–20. Rodriguez wasn't happy, but on a rational level he understood that it was Illinois coach Ron Zook's fourth year, and Juice Williams had put on the best performance of any visiting player in Big House history, with 431 total yards. Rodriguez could also take some solace seeing that the spread offense, run by a great quarterback, could work very well in the Big Ten, too.

He also knew that Toledo was coming to town, the next best thing to a bye week, and maybe better, because you get credit for a win. The Rockets, at 2–4, were not even a good MAC team, and everyone—maybe even the Rockets—assumed Michigan would be right back at 3–3, with their streaks still within reach. After all, Michigan had never lost to a team from the MAC, sitting on a perfect 24–0 record.

“Always remember,” Auburn's legendary coach Shug Jordan said, “Goliath was a forty-point favorite over David.”

On its second possession of the game, Michigan easily cut through the Rockets' defense, pausing only to let the officials move the chains. The Wolverines soon faced first-and-goal from the Toledo 5-yard line. Steve Threet rolled out to the right, saw freshman Kevin Koger wide open in the end zone, and delivered a perfect strike—right to Rockets' safety Tyrrell Herbert, who caught the ball easily, then took off from the goal line down the Michigan sideline with a half dozen Wolverines on his tail. But they couldn't catch him, and just like that, instead of a quick opening touchdown en route to a blowout, Herbert broke another stadium record—longest interception return—and the Rockets were up 7–0.

More surprising, Michigan's offense failed to get it back, while the defense looked helpless against receiver Nick Moore, who caught twenty passes to set a third record for opponents in the Big House in two weeks.

Down 13–10 in the final minutes, with the Appalachian State debacle in the air, Threet drove Michigan's offense to Toledo's 10-yard line. With just seconds remaining, Rodriguez decided not to risk running out of time and brought out kicker K. C. Lopata. He had been inconsistent so far that season, hitting four out of six field goals of varying lengths, but since this attempt was barely longer than an extra point, Rodriguez felt confident he could send the game into overtime.

Sean Griffin's snap was good, as was Zoltan Mesko's hold. The ball was down, and the laces were out. Lopata stepped into the ball, got good contact, and launched it high—and right. The fans' fears were confirmed when the refs signaled, “No good.”

The Rockets celebrated like it was the biggest win of their lives—which it was.

Rodriguez's expression at that moment, captured perfectly by an
Ann Arbor News
photographer, is beyond pain or anguish or even disbelief. It is a face I've seen only on college football coaches, the one where they look like they've swallowed a hand grenade, and it had just detonated.

Rodriguez congratulated Toledo head coach Tom Amstutz, then watched him get swept up onto his players' shoulders. Rodriguez jogged back to the locker room and gathered his team.

This one spoke for itself, so Rodriguez kept it short. He urged the players to keep working hard, to ignore the critics, and to stick together. “We'll be all right,” he assured them.

Given the circumstances, Rodriguez was remarkably calm—nothing like the postgame Notre Dame tirade—but once he got back into the coaches' room, his anger burst through. Game plans, chairs, trash baskets—he threw them all against the walls. His language matched his actions. None of the other coaches dared to say a peep. But Rodriguez's anger wasn't directed at anyone, just the results—and himself. There would be no rationalizing his way out of this one. He had failed to get his team mentally ready to execute against a mediocre team from a mediocre league.

While his wife and kids waited for him in the little room down the hall, Raquel asked her mom, with wide-eyed desperation, if she could stay with her friend, the daughter of assistant coach Tony Gibson, that night.

“Yes, honey,” she said.

Rhett asked if he could stay with Tony's son, Cody.

“Yes.”

If Rita could have stayed with Coach Gibson's wife that night, she might have joined them.

Adding insult to injury, while trying to avoid the traffic on State Street back to their home in Saline, Rodriguez managed to get lost and turn a twenty-minute trip into a forty-minute funeral procession.

Where was a backseat blanket when you needed one?

Rodriguez could not even speak about that game until a few days later, and even then, not much. “God, that was just awful,” he said softly. “One of the worst losses of my career.”

Toledo, which was supposed to be the only freebie of the season, turned out to be the most painful game of the year. Instead of entering the rest of the Big Ten season at 3–3, the Wolverines now stood at 2–4. That meant if they lost to Penn State and Ohio State, as expected, they would have to beat the rest of their opponents: Michigan State, Purdue, Minnesota, and Northwestern. Of that group, only Purdue, led by new adversary Joe Tiller, was struggling.

All of it made preparing for Michigan's next game, in Happy Valley against undefeated, tenth-ranked Penn State, that much harder.

When David's already knocked you down, how do you get up for Goliath?

Rodriguez didn't seem to give a lot of thought to the Nittany Lions himself, nor did he talk much about them to his team. The coaches had plenty to worry about just getting their guys to play the game hard and smart and not give up. That would be enough.

It could have been the start of an endless, heartless second half of the season, but the Wolverines played with abandon. They also had some history on their side, having won the previous nine straight games against the Lions, including a few last-minute thrillers. Threet looked comfortable, while tailback Brandon Minor looked positively unstoppable. Michigan blasted out to a 17–7 lead, more than enough to get the Lions thinking about the losing streak that started when they were about ten years old. But on the following kickoff, with Penn State probably content to get to the locker room, a Michigan player got into a shoving match, which resulted in a costly penalty, sparking the Lions to a quick touchdown drive.

It was just Michigan 17, Penn State 14—but the momentum had swung 180 degrees.

In Michigan's locker room, Threet sat in his stall by the front door, teary-eyed. Once Michigan's coaches ascertained he wasn't hurt, they made a tight circle around him while the other players passed by.

Rod Smith didn't have anything to say to Threet, instead just turning to Sheridan and saying, “Nick, you're in.”

Just like that, Michigan's chance for another upset evaporated. Penn State unleashed all the frustration built up over a decade of losses and whitewashed the Wolverines 32–0 in the second half. Final score: 46–17.

That was Michigan's 2008 trademark: one good half.

 

12   FACING LITTLE BROTHER

With the Wolverines now stuck at 2–5 overall and 1–2 in the conference, a win over Michigan State would go a long way toward saving the season. But, to the Spartans, it would always be worth more.

The history between the schools is long and bitter. The University of Michigan Wolverines have always been the University of Michigan Wolverines. When young General George Custer took command of the Michigan Brigade at Gettysburg, he frequently yelled, “Come on, you Wolverines!” And that became their rallying cry.

Michigan State, in contrast, started life as Michigan Agricultural College, then Michigan State College, and finally, Michigan State University. Their mascot evolved from the Farmers to the Aggies to the Spartans—a direct response to Ann Arbor, the “Athens of the Midwest.”

Fritz Crisler did everything he could to keep Michigan State from taking his alma mater Chicago's place in the Big Ten, but the Spartans got in anyway. When they started playing in the Big Ten in 1953, Governor G. Mennen “Soapy” Williams announced the winner would get the Paul Bunyan Trophy—truly one of the game's ugliest awards, for one of the game's ugliest rivalries.

The Michigan players condescendingly said that if they won it, they'd leave it on the field. No matter: Sparty took the game 14–6, and the trophy. The Wolverines did win the next year, however, and, as promised, left the trophy on the field, and refused to get it engraved.

Michigan State got the last laugh in 1973, after Michigan and Ohio State tied 10–10, giving them identical 10–0–1 records. The Big Ten athletic directors broke the deadlock by voting 6–4 to send Ohio State to the Rose Bowl. MSU's athletic director, Bert Smith, a Michigan alum, voted for the Buckeyes. To the day Schembechler died, he never forgave Smith.

The cultural divide has never been breached. The Wolverines' tailgates at their famed golf course are run by the alums, and resemble wedding receptions. The Spartans' at Munn Field are run by the students, and resemble Woodstock.

If the Wolverines' most conspicuous feature is an upturned nose, the Spartans' is a carefully nurtured chip on their shoulder. The rivalry occasionally takes the high road—former MSU coach George Perles and Schembechler enjoyed a great mutual respect—but usually, it's as ugly as the trophy. When Rodriguez became Michigan's head coach, his duel with Mark Dantonio, which had started with West Virginia's two victories over Dantonio's Cincinnati squads in the Big East, grew a lot hotter.

Before the game, Jon Falk rolled the unwieldy wooden colossus that is the Paul Bunyan trophy into Michigan's locker room, so no one forgot what they were fighting for. The Wolverines entered the game rare 4-point underdogs, at home, to the resurgent 6–2 Spartans, though Michigan State hadn't taken Paul Bunyan home in six years.

As usual for the season, the Wolverines put up a good fight in the first half, which ended deadlocked at 14–14. That didn't stop Dantonio from telling Falk he expected Paul Bunyan to be waiting for the Spartans in their locker room before they returned after the game.

Falk wisely said nothing.

At the end of the third quarter, the teams were tied at 21–21, and that's when the Wolverines' wheels came off again, in the form of two unanswered touchdowns, the first sparked by an interception. They lost 35–21.

When the Wolverines got back to their locker room, Paul Bunyan was long gone—not because Falk was eager to fulfill Dantonio's wishes but because he didn't want the players to see the trophy rolled across the tunnel. The Spartans took it from their locker room back down to the field, where they celebrated under the temporary lights long after the Michigan fans had left.

Dantonio had gotten everything he wanted: a win at the Big House, a 7–2 record, and one of the largest trophies in college football—plus the chance to rub Michigan's upturned nose in it. The Wolverines, on the other hand, were left standing at 2–6, with absolutely no margin of error left to keep their bowl streak alive—an almost impossible task.

Michigan multiplied its problems at the postgame interviews. When a reporter asked Calvin Magee to describe Threet's performance, which included three interceptions, he snapped, “Inconsistent, like it always is,” before adding, “We just gotta get better. That's it.”