Three and Out (20 page)

There are times every head coach has to act angry to get his players' attention. But this was no act. Rodriguez was white-hot mad.

But he was not out of control. The last thing he needed was to lose his team after two losses, and he had enough sense, even in the heat of the moment, to know that most of the players, if not all, were working hard.

“Now everyone else is going to dump on you—the media, the fair-weather fans, whoever—but I'm not going to leave you. I know how hard you've worked. Those folks haven't seen it. They haven't been at your workouts, your practices. They've got no idea. But I do. And I'll defend you. But I'll be goddamned if we give away another game like that!”

All that was left to do was shower in silence, get on the bus, and endure a three-hour ride that would feel like a day. But before Rodriguez left the coaches' room, he took one more look at that old play scribbled on the wall.

He knew exactly how that poor bastard had felt.

 

10   CELEBRATE GOOD TIMES

Just as Rodriguez had warned them, the Wolverines took it like a piñata for a solid week. But Michigan had the next Saturday off, which was probably a good thing for all involved.

When the players returned to Schembechler Hall, they had shaken off the defeat and its aftereffects. They were fresh and ready to work, putting in their best week of practice to that point.

Rodriguez was pleased—and relieved to see them bounce back—but he still had the nagging feeling they were missing something, a certain joie de vivre. Maybe it was because they stood at an uncharacteristic 1–2 for the second year in a row and had ninth-ranked Wisconsin coming to the Big House that Saturday. The Badgers were not just the highest-rated team in the league, they were widely considered to be the Big Ten's best chance—maybe its only chance—to win a national title.

Fresh or not, Michigan's players knew ending the weekend at 1–3 was a very real possibility. The seniors who had endured the 7–5 season in 2005, and the ignoble start to the 2007 season, couldn't be blamed for dreading the onslaught of criticism they'd face if they lost to the Badgers.

“I don't get the feeling they really believe we're going to win,” Rodriguez told me that week. “They're intense, but they've got no swagger. We're not having any
fun.
”

When Gary Barnett addressed his Northwestern team before their opening game against heavily favored Notre Dame in 1995, the Wildcats hadn't won in South Bend in thirty-four years. Barnett believed they could. But did his players?

Right after their bus pulled up to Notre Dame Stadium, he told them not to carry him off the field when they won. Not if—when. It was a great bit of motivation—and it worked. The Wildcats beat Notre Dame 17–15 that day, the first step in a magical journey that ended in Pasadena.

“Well, that's what I want to do,” Rodriguez said, pondering the story. “Plant the seed that maybe, just maybe, we could win this one.”

On Thursday, Rodriguez decided it was time to lighten things up. “I want some spirit!” he said in the coaches' meeting that morning. “I want some fight!”

Under Rodriguez, Michigan ended each practice with one play for the offense and one for the defense, just as Schembechler had done for years. The offense was supposed to throw a last-second game-winning touchdown pass, and when it was the defense's turn, it was supposed to knock down a would-be game winner.

On this Thursday, however, after each of those last two plays, Rodriguez wanted them to jump up and down, storm the field, and generally act like they'd just won the Rose Bowl. But when they did it, Rodriguez wasn't satisfied.

“No, no, no,” he said. “That's not it, men.”

They didn't display half the enthusiasm he had wanted, so they did it again. Once more, however, their celebration fell short.

“Hold up! Hold up! Hold up!” he yelled. “You're not celebrating like you just won some big game. The way you're acting, you look like you just won a
scrimmage
! So we're going to do it again!”

The third time was a little better but not quite the charm. So Rodriguez blew the whistle one more time and gathered the players around him.

“Okay, now you just won a nonconference game—maybe,” he said. “But it wasn't any Big Ten game. And it sure as hell wasn't anything like the way you'll be dancing when you beat the ninth-ranked, first-place Wisconsin Badgers on Saturday! So we're going to do it again. And damn it, we're going to
keep
doing it until you guys learn to celebrate like a Michigan team should.”

He knew that last threat would get them, because if there's one thing college players want more than anything else, it's for practice to end.

“All right, this is it! Last play of the game! We're beating Wisconsin by two points, they've got three seconds left,
and the crowd is going crazy.
But the Badgers got the ball, and you know what they're going to do. Hail Mary! Here it comes! Let's go—hike the ball—and
be ready
!”

The quarterback dropped back and heaved a bomb. But the defensive backs were in perfect position and knocked the pass to the turf. Normally that would be enough, but on this day it was just the first step. The question remained: Would the players celebrate with enough enthusiasm to satisfy their coach—and get to go home?

They started jumping up and down, doing chest bumps, and screaming and yelling like madmen. The guys on the sidelines came charging onto the field like they were being chased by lions. Mike Massey grabbed the first-down marker and started thrusting it up and down over his head like he was a member of some football tribe initiating a war dance with his shield. Mike Shaw got on his knees and banged the turf with his fists like he was crying. Toney Clemons sprayed water on his teammates as if it were an explosive bottle of champagne, while others high-stepped up and down the field like drum majors.

Rodriguez got into it, too, hooting and hollering and chest-bumping everyone in sight.

They kept it up for a solid two minutes, when Rodriguez finally blew the whistle, signaling the players to get in two lines and slap hands the way they do after each practice. Everyone was still belly laughing.

“Now, men,
that
is how a Michigan team celebrates a great win!” Rodriguez said. “Don't forget it!” Not all the players were “all in” for Rodriguez, but on that day it sure looked like it. And a big win could make a convert out of almost anyone.

*   *   *

In the first half of the Wisconsin game, however, the Wolverines didn't give themselves or their fans much to cheer about. How bad were they? They took only twenty snaps on offense the entire half. They gained a grand total of 21 yards on offense—with minus 7 yards passing. They would have been better off telling Threet to take a knee on every play.

That's not a joke. They got exactly one first down—
one
—and that play ended with a fumble, one of four turnovers that half.

The Wolverines all but gave Wisconsin 19 points. The Badgers' defense was on the field so rarely that their players broke into the Gatorade and oranges not out of hunger but boredom. They had the first half off.

The day marked the five hundredth game in Michigan Stadium, and in all those games, the Wolverines had never come back from so far down, not even in Carr's record-breaking debut. They didn't seem likely to on this day, either.

When the Wolverines ran up the tunnel at halftime, the Michigan fans gave it to them, and good. One veteran said it was the loudest booing he'd heard since Oregon tagged Michigan 39–7 the year before—and that, he said, was the loudest he'd ever heard. “Honestly,” he muttered, “I don't know if we're going to win a league game all year.”

When the Wolverines ran up the tunnel, they heard the Badgers yelling, “Take a shower, Blue! Ball game's over. Take a shower!”

In the locker room, Terrance Taylor, a senior defensive lineman, yelled at his teammates, “You guys aren't playing like you give a damn! This is it for the seniors. We don't have another shot at the Big Ten title. This is our last chance! It's up to you, offense! How ya gonna respond?”

No one yelled back.

But Rodriguez didn't rant and rave, not even in the privacy of the coaches' locker room. He didn't make a lot of changes, either. “Our strategy wasn't the problem,” he said later. “Hell, maybe it'd be easier if it was. You could fix it, then.”

He had enough experience with rocky transitions to recognize what he could start changing immediately and what could be improved only over time. And he didn't share Taylor's view that they didn't care.

“The strange thing was, no matter how bad we'd played, no matter how bad we looked, and no matter how loud the fans booed us, our
effort
was good,” he said the next day, after he'd seen the tape a few times. “It was our
execution
that was lousy. No, we just had to get in a rhythm. Give Threet something he can execute, get his confidence back, and get a little momentum going.”

Before they ran back onto the field, Rodriguez said in a calm voice, “Now look, I'm not gonna pull your chain. That first half right there—well, hell, we just couldn't play any worse. But despite all that, we're only down 19–0. Could be a lot worse.
Should
be a lot worse! They had to settle for four field goals in the red zone. That's got to tick 'em off a little. Our defense is playing their
asses
off!

“We're not going to make many adjustments, because that's not our problem right now. The only change we're going to make is this: Whenever we have a run-pass check, we're going to give the tailback the ball and run it. That's it. Everything else stays the same. Got it?

“Now, maybe some of you aren't sure if we can get back in this game. And I know the fans don't think so. No one likes being booed. But you had to notice one thing: None of them left. They ain't leaving! So somewhere in there, they still believe. And we do, too.”

The next day in his office, he said, “Every game you learn something about your team. And I knew I was about to learn a lot about mine—one way or the other.”

And they were about to learn something about him: The man could coach.

*   *   *

Michigan opened the second half with the ball, but stalled at their own 43. On fourth-and-1, Rodriguez figured they didn't have much to lose, so he decided to go for it—knowing that if they failed, the cement on their 1-and-3 record would start drying. There wouldn't be any need to celebrate that. But tailback Kevin Grady, fresh from a crucial red-zone fumble against Notre Dame, made Rodriguez look smart by busting through Wisconsin's beefy defensive line for 5 yards.

They stalled again at the Badgers' 26. On third-and-10, Threet found freshman tight end Kevin Koger in the end zone for Michigan's first points of the day. Michigan had been horrible to that point, but the scoreboard said 19–7. They weren't dead yet.

The coaches' decision to simplify Threet's play list had a great effect. Instead of looking lost, confused, and hesitant, he seemed calm, cool, and in control, throwing a series of short, quick strikes all the way down the field. Pop, pop, pop! He suddenly looked like a world beater.

With the Michigan fans on their feet for the second time all day—and the first to cheer instead of boo—Threet handed off to Brandon Minor, who busted through the Badgers' line for a 34-yard dash to the end zone. 19–14. The Big House went berserk, and the Badgers started feeling the heat. On their next offensive play, quarterback Allan Evridge dropped back and fired one over the middle—but Michigan's cornerback, Donovan Warren, read the play perfectly and got a hand on the ball just enough to tip it into the air for linebacker John Thompson to jump up and catch it.

An entourage of eight Wolverines seemed to materialize out of nowhere to escort the less-than-speedy Thompson down the field. No Badger could get within five feet of him. Thompson lumbered 25 yards to the end zone, and by the time he got there, the crowd was so loud that the coaches up in the press box could not be heard through their headsets.

After Michigan's defense, feeding off the crowd's energy, stopped Wisconsin again, Threet took off on an awkward 58-yard run, and McGuffie finished the job.

Michigan 27, Wisconsin 19.

The Badgers finally came back to life with a touchdown—their first points of the half—and then lined up for a two-point conversion to tie the game at 27. They made it, but an official saw that they had lined up illegally and had the guts to make the correct call. On Wisconsin's do-over, Michigan stopped them, and then held on for a 27–25 victory to complete the biggest comeback in the five-hundred-game history of the Big House.

The celebration that followed almost equaled their rampage after Thursday's practice.

Almost.

Unbeknownst to the fans, Rodriguez's crazy prediction had paid off, and his stunt worked like a charm.

“In all my years of coaching,” Rodriguez told them back in the locker room, getting a little choked up, “I've never been more proud of a team than I am of you guys today.”

It felt like he'd won them over. Winning, of course, solved a lot of problems, but perhaps this one more than most. And maybe, just maybe, Rodriguez might skip the first two stages of Bowden's four-step progression and start winning close.

 

11   WHILE THEY WERE MAKING OTHER PLANS

The 2–2 Wolverines would likely be heavy underdogs against high-flying Penn State and Ohio State—both of whom were in the hunt for BCS bowls—but they still had lowly Toledo and Purdue ahead of them, and winnable games against middle-of-the-pack Illinois, Michigan State, Minnesota, and Northwestern. Six wins seemed conservative.

That might not have been a big deal outside Ann Arbor, but it would mean Michigan would avoid a losing record for the forty-second year in a row and they would go to a bowl for the thirty-fourth consecutive year. The Michigan fans and press made sure Rodriguez was acutely aware of both records.