Liberal Values Defending Liberty and Enlightened Thought

Saturday was the 500th game played at Michigan Stadium and the Michigan program seemed like it might be at one of its lowest points in decades, needing a win just to bring their record for the season up to .500. Michigan has a young team, a new coach, and a new offensive scheme which it has not yet recruited the players to fully implement. Michigan has the most wins of any team in the history of college football and had won 22 straight home openers prior to this game, not having lost at home since 1967–two years before Bo Schembechler came to Ann Arbor.The streak was now in question.

This time now Michigan was the underdog while Wisconsin was a top ten team and favored to win. At halftime it looked like a replay of their loss to Notre Dame with Wisconsin leading 19 to nothing–with 16 of the points coming after Michigan turnovers.

Then in the third quarter Michigan stopped beating itself and began to play. They scored a touchdown, and another, and another, and another. Michigan scored twenty-seven points (with one failed two point conversion attempt). The third touch down which gave Michigan the lead came after John Thompson intercepted a Wisconsin pass (photo above) and ran it back twenty-five yards for the score. A late fumble by Wisconsin stopped one touchdown drive. Wisconsin did score with only thirteen seconds to go but their two point conversion, which would have sent the game into overtime, was called back on a penalty. Wisconsin missed on their second try and Michigan won 27 to 25.

Regardless of how the season comes out, Rich Rodriguez started his career as Michigan’s coach with the  biggest come back ever at the big house. Ironically, former coach Lloyd Carr began with a seventeen point comeback against Virginia in 1995, which at that time was Michigan’s biggest comeback ever. Today’s game was also the second biggest comeback in Michigan history, being a couple points shy of their 21 point comeback at Minnesota in 2003.

The young team still has many weaknesses to work on, but Michigan teams have come back from two nonconference losses to win the Big Ten title in the past.Time will tell whether a team this young can improve to that degree over the course of the season, but every Michigan fan knows that Bo Schembechler shocked everyone by beating Ohio State his first year when nobody thought they could be beaten. Today’s win gives us hope for such an upset again this year.