Three and Out (49 page)

The players nodded and murmured. He had hit a note.

The keys to victory, he said, were simple. On offense: no turnovers. “That is not the ball you have in your hands,” he told them, “that is the program. You don't take care of it, we're all going down. But if we have no turnovers, we will win. Mark my words.

“On defense: punish the quarterback.”

He then showed them Phil Bromley's motivational video, ending with the words “MICHIGAN TRADITION.” The guys jumped to their feet and started shouting.

“DAMN STRAIGHT!”

“HELL YEAH!”

“Get in here!” Rodriguez said, and they were only too ready.

“We are ONE!” he yelled, and they followed suit.

“We are MICHIGAN!”

“Again!”

*   *   *

The night before the 2010 season started, Forcier admitted to me that he had failed to do “what I should have done over the summer—the workouts, the schoolwork.” But he seemed to have learned his lesson. “I'm just hoping that I get in, because I truly think if I get in—the game has slowed down for me so much this year—that if I get in, I won't be giving that spot back.”

Forcier was not dead yet. His attitude had improved since the Breakfast Club Massacre, and he had regained some of the respect of his teammates—but he was not yet all in. Would he get to play against Connecticut?

“Guess we'll find out tomorrow,” he said, sitting at the desk, working on his weekly quarterback quiz. “I'll tell you one thing: If I don't, I might shoot up some fireworks with my dad about transferring.”

Which left Denard Robinson, who had never started a college football game. Could he do it? Rodriguez's future depended on the answer.

The next morning, more people than usual crowded the hotel lobby. They cheered for their team boarding the buses, with more yelling and screaming for them along the bus route to the stadium than ever before.

Since David Molk suffered a season-ending knee injury against Penn State in 2009, he was especially eager to play again. “It's been almost eleven months,” he said, making a fist repeatedly. “Someone is going to pay.”

In the locker room, Barwis yelled in his trademark rasp: “The last two years, you've been through more shit than anyone at any level of football—high school, college, or pro. Nobody's been through what you've been through. You go through the hardest workouts of any team in the country, and you just say, ‘That's nothing. Just how I live my life.'

“You got one guy,” he said, referring to senior Jon Bills, “he gets in a car wreck, breaks his neck, and he's coaching you today. You got another guy, Brock Mealer, he's walking you out of the tunnel today.

“So this is us right here. You take what those assholes have given you, and you stuff it down their fucking throats. This is our chance to fight back—in the only place that matters!”

A few minutes before kickoff, the players gathered on one knee by the door. Mark Moundros, the walk-on turned captain, stood up.

“The experts said Brock Mealer would never walk! The experts say we're done! And the experts are wrong about us, too!”

He slammed his chest. “They can't take this away from us. They can't take away our pride. They can't mess with this. Today is ours!”

A minute later, Rodriguez stood before them, speaking with a calm intensity. “Mark's right. They don't decide who we are. We have a great opportunity to show the whole world who we are. You've earned the right to have a little fun, on the biggest stage around.

“But remember this: We are one. And we are Michigan. No matter who's trying to tear us apart, it ain't happening.

“You play every play the way you know how, and you show them what your heart is.

“Because when you play Michigan—”

“YEAH!” In Rodriguez's third year, the players knew this set piece by heart.

“—you better tie your shoes a little tighter!”

They were shouting now.

“You better put on a little more tape!”

The players were so loud, yelling and slapping their helmets and shoulder pads, they could barely hear Rodriguez.

“And you better—”

“STRAP IT ON!”

The time had finally come to start the 2010 season and see what they had.

They burst out the door, then walked down the tunnel together, restraining their enthusiasm, because they had one more order of business: Brock Mealer. They remained in the tunnel's darkness during the video that covered Brock's journey from accident victim and paraplegic to man on the cusp of walking across the field to touch the banner.

When the video finished, the players walked down the tunnel, right behind Brock, while the announcer invited the crowd to turn their attention to the man in the wheelchair in front of the tunnel.

Elliott told me he was more nervous that morning about his brother's walk than he was about his own play. “I couldn't sleep,” he said. “I can only imagine what Brock's going through.”

When the introduction was complete, the overflowing crowd got on its feet to cheer him on. Brock Mealer got out of his wheelchair, gripped his canes, and did something the experts said he never would. He took one step, and then another. And then another. He was so pumped, walking between his two brothers, he was more concerned about going too fast and losing his balance than he was about being able to walk.

Since the famed banner was first raised in 1962, Michigan football players have touched it over thirty thousand times—and every single one of them got there faster than Brock Mealer did. But as Mealer approached the block “M” in the center of the field, stopped, and reached up to touch the banner, no All-American or Heisman trophy winner ever received more affection and respect from the crowd than he did.

Rodriguez stood in front of his team at the tunnel. Only his wraparound sunglasses prevented the camera from seeing his red eyes.

After that scene, it probably wasn't necessary, but the military sent two more planes overhead for good measure, to ensure the crowd was ready to boil over. The fans would soon get their chance.

*   *   *

When the PA announcers told the crowd Michigan had won the toss, it erupted as if Jonas Mouton had made an interception. If ever there was a team that might choose to take the ball first, this was it—but by choosing to defer, they set up the first challenge of the season: Could their decimated defense stop anyone?

Three downs later, the Wolverine defenders were running off the field, showered in cheers. Mission accomplished. “Now
that
is a Michigan defense!” Jim Plocki yelled at them.

Denard Robinson took over, hitting two passes and running six times to set up Vincent Smith's 12-yard run into the end zone. Just that easy. After the defense shut down the Huskies again, Robinson took off through a hole on the right, cut right again, then just kept running 68 yards for Michigan's second touchdown, 14–0.

It was hard to look at Forcier, sitting on the bench, and not think: Michigan has just found a new quarterback.

The Wolverines tacked on another one in the second quarter, to push it to 21–0, and it looked like the rout might be on. “These bastards are
tired,
” Tony Dews said. “They
cannot
run with you. Keep pressing them!”

But Michigan's defense gave up a field goal and, with just seventeen seconds left in the half, the Huskies' first touchdown cut Michigan's lead to a mere 21–10—well within reach, given Michigan's recent history. Had the 2010 Wolverines learned their lesson?

The Wolverines jogged up to the tunnel but had to wait for the Huskies to lumber up the path to their locker room. Michigan finally headed up in a full sprint alongside them, the contrast obvious.

In the locker room, the Wolverines were pumped, eager to get back on the field, and not even sweating. Whatever they had done in the off-season seemed to be working.

“We can run all day!” one yelled. “ALL day!”

“Don't even
think
about letting off the gas pedal!” Van Bergen exhorted his teammates.

The Wolverines started the second half with a methodical nineteen-play drive, six of them third downs. It lasted over 8 minutes and got them 3 points. Michigan 24, Connecticut 10.

But the Huskies came right back with a strong drive of their own. Facing fourth-and-1 from Michigan's 7-yard line, Randy Edsall decided to take his chances. When D. J. Shoemate cut through the left side for a 4-yard gain, Edsall's daring appeared to pay off—until sophomore defensive back J. T. Floyd jammed his helmet right on the ball. It popped loose, bouncing off Craig Roh's hands and into Obi Ezeh's.

Ten plays later, Robinson tossed a slip screen to Vincent Smith, who spun around, then zipped past the Huskies into the end zone. Michigan missed the extra point, but the 30–10 margin looked solid.

But something else happened on that possession, far more significant than any missed extra point. Three plays into that drive, Denard landed hard on his backside and came out for a couple plays. With the game on the line—a game that, if Rodriguez lost, would result in the football world coming down on his head—he had to make a decision, which would be no decision at all for most coaches. On the bench he had Forcier, who had started every game the previous season, and true freshman Devin Gardner, who had never taken a snap in college. But Forcier had done almost nothing the coaches and seniors had asked of him in the off-season, while Gardner had done everything and then some.

Rodriguez did not hesitate. He motioned for Gardner to grab his helmet and go in. On Gardner's first play as a college quarterback, he made a poor read and suffered a 4-yard loss, while Forcier stopped warming up, returned to the bench, stuck his helmet underneath it, and a wrapped towel around his neck. He was done for the day.

As the clock ticked down Michigan's first victory of the season, a convincing 30–10 triumph, Forcier told me, “Write this down: I'm outta here.” Forcier repeated his comment to
Annarbor.com
, where it got plenty of attention—eclipsed only by the stunning performance of Denard Robinson, who had run for 197 yards and completed nineteen of his twenty-two passes for another 186 yards, good enough to earn Big Ten and national Offensive Player of the Week honors.

Rodriguez's Wolverines, perhaps for the first time, appeared to have a clear game plan and followed it to perfection.

A little icing: The crowd had broken the NCAA attendance record, with 113,090 fans that day. The players rarely paid attention to such things, but they thrust their helmets into the air with the news. When the final gun sounded, about a dozen Wolverines jumped up on the rail by the student section, Lambeau-leap style, and sang “The Victors” with the crowd.

Running up the tunnel, Mike Martin said, “I'm not tired. I'm just hungry!”

“That was the happiest win since we got here,” assistant coach Tony Gibson said later. “Just because of all the bullshit: the NCAA crap, the losing, the bad press. And you throw in the rededication of the Big House, Brock walking—man, our guys were just happy.
Just happy
. For once. Finally.

“The last ten seconds of that game, I looked over, and Rich was just smiling, hugging the guys. It looked like it
should
look.”

Hours later, back at Rodriguez's house, twelve-year-old Rhett sprawled in the recliner in the living room watching the big TV. His father sat on a barstool on the other side of the counter, next to the refrigerator, wearing a gray
MICHIGAN FAMILY
T-shirt and blue Michigan gym shorts. He propped his right foot on the counter, in front of the small TV he preferred, watching the LSU–North Carolina game.

For three hours, he was content—perhaps the most content he had been since moving into that house thirty months earlier.

 

38   ELEVEN AS ONE

The coaches had managed to wipe off their smiles long before the players returned on Monday, September 6, and they expected the players to do the same.

The man with the hardest job in this regard was quarterback coach Rod Smith. Denard had just been named the AT&T All-American Player of the Week, and his name was already being used in the same sentence as the Heisman. The task before Coach Smith, therefore, was to find fault wherever he could. And at this, Smith was a pro. “Look here,” he said to Denard, pointing to the screen. “The corner hasn't turned his hips yet to chase the wide out, so he's still able to break on Roy [Roundtree]. It's
your
job to see that.”

Robinson's failure to do so set up Roundtree for a crushing hit, resulting in a bruised lung. “I hope you call Roy and apologize for this.”

After a half hour spent bringing his star down to earth, Smith tossed his remote on the table and said, “Everybody says we kicked their ass. We didn't. Our O-line was average. Our backs and receivers were below average. But when you make the right reads in this offense, you cover a lot of mistakes.

“We won this game because we had no turnovers, twenty-eight first downs, and were 14-for-17 on third down, which is astronomical. You do that, we'll win a lot of football games.”

After he dismissed his quarterbacks to join the team meeting, he said, “When you win, food tastes better. But we can't get complacent playing average football. We should have won 50–10. We're not as good as we think we are.”

Rodriguez was in no mood to let up, either. “Just remember,” he told his team, “all these people who are patting you on the back and telling you how great you are are the same people who were telling you that you weren't worth a damn last week.

“You freshmen better understand what a rivalry week is like around here. When you cross that line, you better flip a switch—especially this week, because you're going to see a lot more intensity out of Notre Dame than you saw out of UConn. Don't wait for us to yell at you.