Three and Out (56 page)

“What? My knee's fine. Where'd you get that?”

“They said on TV—”

“Damn, already?”

After lunch, Robinson walked over the spot where John F. Kennedy had stood almost fifty years earlier to introduce the idea of the Peace Corps, and past a retail tent selling yellow T-shirts with
SHOE
at the top,
LACE
at the bottom, and an untied cleat in the middle.

“Think they'd give me one?” he said, walking by unnoticed.

“Only if you want an NCAA violation,” I replied, recalling a similar conversation Chris Webber had had with Mitch Albom.

“That's crazy,” he said, smiling. I didn't have the heart to tell him a replica of the No. 16 jersey he wore on Saturdays was going for $70 down the street. Paying players might be impractical, but it's even harder to justify why some guy selling Denard's nickname on a T-shirt should make a profit—or EA Sports, for that matter.

Walking back across the street to Gardner's truck, a stranger in a pullover sweatshirt walking toward us struck the Heisman pose with no words spoken.

Robinson smiled and shook his head. “That's crazy, too!”

He asked about Desmond Howard and Charles Woodson. Who struck the pose? When?

Howard did it, I said, in the 1991 Ohio State game. Robinson thought about it, then said, “I wouldn't do it.”

Driving back down the hill in Devin's truck, Denard asked, “You been to New York?”

“Yeah,” I said. “You'd love it.”

“I'd like to go. Is it expensive?”

“Flights are cheap, but hotels aren't,” I said. “But you know…”

He started wagging his finger back and forth. “Naw, naw, nawwwwww. Don't even go there,” but he knew the Heisman ceremony took place in New York.

But if Robinson wasn't going to discuss his newfound status, everyone else was. The previous night, on
Monday Night Football
, Michigan alums Tom Brady and Chad Henne battled it out, but Robinson was still the story. “Both Brady and Henne have lots of Michigan records,” Ron Jaworski said, “but neither would be starting for Michigan right now.”

While we drove down State Street, ESPN radio's Scott Van Pelt was interviewing Michigan State quarterback Kirk Cousins—about Denard Robinson. The actual Robinson turned the radio off.

“Do you have to pay to go?” he asked, referring to the Heisman trophy ceremony.

“No, they pay for your flight.”

“Do you have to pay for your hotel?”

“No, they pick that up, too. Couple nights, probably.”

He considered that in silence, then got out to meet his professor for an office hour appointment.

*   *   *

By two o'clock, Robinson was back in the cold tub, up to his chest in frigid water, with his elbows on the deck. He borrowed a cell phone to handle a national press conference with ESPN and others on the line.

“It was a great win for Michigan,” he said. “We're all in.

“Scott Shafer offered me as a defensive back, but Rod Smith offered me as a quarterback. That was my goal, to play quarterback.

“I was just in the right place at the right time. The right coaches, the right teammates.

“I wouldn't say I'm famous yet. A lot of people seem to know me around town, but that's about the only difference.”

When he hung up, Phil Johnson told him, “You better go—you're going to be late.”

It was 2:27, and the quarterback meeting started at 2:30 sharp, as always. Robinson put on his sweats and ran up the stairs to the meeting room, stopping to pick up my dropped pen on the way. The treatments seemed to be working.

When he got to the door, Magee was waiting outside.

“I was in the training room,” Robinson said with a half smile, knowing it wouldn't matter much.

“I don't care why you're late,” the normally cheerful Magee said. “Late is late.”

After going over dozens of plays and pointers, Rod Smith explained to his quarterbacks that the coaches had had a breakthrough during another late-night film session.

“Last year we thought they had our signals. We got word from people that they did. But they don't. They ain't got our signals. They got our
tendencies.

“Watch this. What they're watching is not our signals but our running back. Look, when Carlos [Brown] sets up inside the tackle, they raise their left hand. That means get ready for [a play called] belly—and the end squeezes hard.

“But watch this: When he's outside the tackle, they point left.

“They covered both plays perfectly. They had us.

“So they didn't have our calls. What they got, they got from our alignment. So this year, we're going to be in the same alignment every time.”

Smith went back to the board.

“The back is going to line up right behind the tackle—not inside or outside. Your toes will be at six yards, and so will the back's.

“Then once you yell ‘Ready!' you step up
one yard.
Then the back will not shuffle, shuffle and go, like normal, he'll just take off. But you'll have more time to read it because you're a yard up.

“We're gonna fuck these guys!”

*   *   *

Rodriguez laid out the challenge in front of his team: another nationally televised game and probably a new stadium attendance record. The Spartans were for real, with fourteen starters returning, he said, then brought up a slide of the Paul Bunyan trophy.

“The ugliness of the trophy is well documented. It's undeniable. But Paul's ugliness is only acceptable when
we
have it.

“They've had Paul for two years now. Who knows what they're making Paul do? Probably taking him around to every damn frat house on campus and doing God knows what to him.” They laughed. “Poor Paul! He needs to be rescued!”

That meant complete focus. Unless you've got a test or paper, he said, that's all you're doing: class, practice, preparation. “Whatever you got to do to get ready, you do it this week. Tell your best friends, your girlfriend, your parents, ‘I'll call you Sunday!'

“They say all games count as one. Trust me, this one counts more. This game is different.”

He didn't tell them how much rode on the game, but he didn't have to. They read the blogs, they talked to the “normies.”

“If you watch that game last year, it'll make you puke. It was the worst- executed game we played in seventeen games. It was
awful.
AWFUL. On both sides of the ball. We
gave
the damn thing away. Well, that's not going to happen this time, because we're going to take care of the ball.

“On offense: ball security always. BSA!

“On defense: Shed, hit, and wrap—and quiet all the crap.

“I am
tired
of hearing about them, tired of talking about it. Tired of answering questions about it. I just want to kick their ass.”

His emotional fatigue threaded through his comments and undoubtedly pushed some buttons in his players, too. They were more tired than they let on, every week preparing for a must-win game.

“You turn down a chance to make a play in this game, you'll be embarrassed about it the rest of your life. You leave nothing on the table. We play them
one
time a year, and we hear about it 365 days a year.”

Rodriguez had to know that if they lost this one, he could be hearing about it for a lot longer than that. Instead, he said, “I know it's not life-or- death. It's not. But as far as football goes, trust me, this is war.”

*   *   *

At practice, members of Michigan's football royalty lined the field to watch, including Dave Brandon, Bill Martin and his wife, Sally, and a dozen or more former players. Like most teams today, Michigan hits only on Tuesdays, and even then it's mostly pushing and shoving. But on this day, you could hear the pads smack, each hit packing more punch.

After practice, Rodriguez told his team, “Turn around and look at that stadium. The Big House. We're going to have the biggest crowd ever, and they're going to be the
loudest
ever.

“Next time we hit someone, they'll be wearing green.

“‘Michigan' on three.”

Robinson led the quarterbacks in their postpractice chest bump—Forcier joining them—then showered, reached behind the equipment manager's counter to grab a fresh pair of Twin City socks, and headed to the training room for yet more treatment.

It was 6:49, and Denard Robinson had been on the go for twelve hours. He would not be heading home for another four.

Phil Johnson, who was putting in a fourteen-hour day himself, gave Robinson different knee pads to try on, two sizes bigger than normal. Wasn't he afraid the big black rubber pad would let the Spartans know which knee to hit?

Robinson laughed. “They already know. The girl at
lunch
knew!”

Junior Hemingway walked by, then stopped. “Damn,” he said, “your knee looks like a balloon.”

Next, more ultrasound. “Congratulations!” Phil said, gliding the applicator around Denard's knee. “It's twins!”

The pulsed ultrasound was not to see what was inside Robinson's knee but to generate cavitation, Johnson explained. “Sound waves go in, open the cellular membrane, and, with some joint movement, fluid gets jostled out. Then when you elevate the knee, they hope the fluid leaves the area.”

All told, over the course of three sessions lasting three and a half hours, Denard Robinson received the following treatments:

• Kenisio tape, twice

• Cold tub, twice

• Big pool workout

• Stationary bike

• Dead lift, single leg, with thirty-five pounds

• Body weight squats

• Quad sets, four times

• Short arc quad

• Pivot board, clockwise and counterclockwise

• Electric stimulation, three times

• Inter-X, twice

• Low-level laser therapy, three times

• Pulsed ultrasound, twice

• Elevation, three times, twenty minutes each

• Recovery pants, tight spandex

• Electric stimulation at home

“That's all?” Johnson said, when I read back the list. “I'm disappointed. That's not enough.”

*   *   *

At 7:30, Robinson sat down with a few teammates in the Commons for some dinner and conversation. In less than an hour, Robinson ate:

• Two biscuits

• One big scoop of rice

• Sixteen chicken wings

• Two Gatorades

• Two caramel cheesecakes

All told, Robinson consumed well over four thousand calories that day—without a Barwis workout—which ranked him among the lightest eaters on the team.

After dinner the coaches, naturally, analyzed more film. First they watched that day's practice, then they watched Michigan State. Rodriguez was largely pleased with the practice, with one snag: On one play Roy Roundtree got wide open on an X-route, but Robinson overthrew him. That was normally an easy toss, which Robinson's overthrow converted into an easy interception.

“That was the first time I saw a bad throw out of him in weeks,” Rodriguez said, but he thought he knew the reason: Robinson was not putting full pressure on his swollen left knee, which forced him to put more weight on his back right foot, which in turn caused him to throw floaters, higher than he wanted. And that explained why Robinson had just spent three and a half hours in treatment that day, and would do it again the next.

Thanks to Michigan's paranoia over violating its self-imposed limitations on hours, probably no major team's players saw less film in 2009 and 2010 than did the Wolverines. But on this night, there were players watching film in just about every room on the second floor of Schembechler Hall. If this game didn't go their way, it wouldn't be for lack of preparation—which is not something they could claim the year before.

In the team meeting room, Denard Robinson, Vincent Smith, Junior Hemingway, and Darryl Stonum hunkered down to watch the big screen.

“They're not bad,” Stonum said, referring to State's defense.

Robinson agreed. “They're gonna play ball, man.”

When they put on the tape of last year's game, however, they were struck mainly by how badly they had played.

On one play, in Michigan State territory, Forcier had virtually every receiver open—Stonum up top and Odoms and Roundtree straight down the hashmarks, all available for touchdown passes—yet threw to Carlos Brown in the left flat, who had not yet turned around. The pass skipped harmlessly past him.

“Oh, my goodness,” Robinson said. “No one was
not
open!”

After the play, the nearest Spartan ran up to Brown and started trash talking, prompting the viewers to start laughing.

“Man,
he
didn't make no play!” Stonum said.

“That guy's woofing on every play,” Smith added. “Even when we just drop it.”

The last offensive play of the game, when Michigan needed to get 5 yards for a first down or 9 for a touchdown to take the lead in overtime, might have been worse. On the screen, Forcier ignores his checkoffs and telegraphs his pass to Odoms running across the end zone. The State defender actually grabs Odoms's jersey, pulling him back, then jumps ahead to tip the ball to a teammate for the game-ending interception. But that's not what these guys noticed.

“On that play he's supposed to look to Darryl, then to Koger,
then
to Tay,” Robinson said. “But he just locked in on Tay right away. And they could see it. Then he throws off his back foot.”

They watched it again. “Look at that gap,” Smith said, pointing to a hole on Forcier's right side. “Could've run for a first down, too.”

“Only needed 5,” Robinson agreed. “Not 9.”

They watched the ball fall into the hands of the Spartans for the fifth time.