I remember it clear as day, though it took place eight years ago. I remember the weather, unseasonably warm and sunny. I remember arriving to Michigan Stadium at 11am, basking in the gorgeous day while playing witness to a full hour of on-field warmups and band activities. And I remember my obstinate refusal to consume any alcohol, ensuring that I would have an entirely clear head for the Game. It was my last home game as a collegian, after all.
That game is still fresh -- Braylon Edwards and Chris Gamble engaging in fisticuffs in the first quarter; the long touchdown to Braylon that was called back on a crap holding call; Chris Perry cementing his Doak Walker Award with two touchdowns and me subsequently telling anyone who would listen that I was naming my first son Chris Perry Labovitz.
The aftermath remains indelibly implanted as well -- jumping over the wall with a fistful of roses; running onto that field; climbing on the back of Big Tony Pape because he was the first player I could find who probably wouldn’t mind supporting the weight of a 6’4, 220-lb raving lunatic.
It was an unbelievable day... for a long time, it was the best day of my life. No one could have foreseen that it’d be the last time Michigan would beat Ohio State in that decade.
For seven long seasons, Michigan fans toiled through a roller-coaster of peaks and valleys -- a Rose Bowl in 2004 on the backs of an all-freshman backfield for the ages; the ghastly 2005 season that still featured incredible highs like the Manningham catch that ruined Penn State’s perfect season; 10 straight wins to climb to No. 2 in 2006; the inexplicable 2007 season bookended by both a program-defining defeat (to App. State) and victory (over Florida and Urban Meyer... yes, more on him later); and the abyss that was the Rich Rodriguez era. But no matter the year, record or stakes, each season invariably ended with another gut-punching loss to Ohio State. So many years have passed since 2003 that there’s an entire generation of Michigan alumni who had never seen Michigan emerge victorious in college football’s greatest rivalry.
No longer.
I was confident that Michigan would finally end the streak last Saturday, but I had no idea that it would end in the fashion that it did. I had no idea that a defense that had undergone such a renaissance this year would make Braxton Miller, so inept all year, look like the second coming of Vince Young. I had no idea that an offense led by a coordinator and a quarterback so heavily criticized all year would put up more points against OSU than any Michigan team since 1946. And I certainly had no idea that after three years of watching something that barely fell under the definition of defense, and 11 years of watching team after team score on Michigan in a game’s closing seconds, that it’d be the defense that would make the game- and season-defining play.
When Courtney Avery intercepted that pass, Michigan nation rejoiced in unrequited euphoria, a feeling not experienced by most for a nearly a decade; a feeling experienced by some for the very first time. It was not just a reveling in victory over a rival, the joy brought on only by stomping on the face of that school. No, this was something greater... the feeling that Michigan is truly back, once again a contender, a national power. If what doesn’t kill you truly makes you stronger, than the college football world should be put on notice.
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Ohio fans will try and diminish the meaning of the win. They’ll point to Jim Tressel’s firing, and Terrell Pryor’s departure, and say that Michigan beating Ohio’s worst team since 2004 is no big deal. Of course, they conveniently ignore -- and certainly never seemed to mind -- the fact that their victories in 2008 and 2009 came at the hands of the worst Michigan teams in its 132-year history.
And then they’ll say that it’s just a one year blip, that Michigan should live it up while it can, because the god of football coaching himself, Mr. Urban Meyer, is riding into Columbus on his shiny white stallion (paid for by OSU boosters, obviously).
[caption id="attachment_1481" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="He can't even point as well as Hoke"]
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There’s no doubt that Meyer’s a good coach. His record and shiny BCS titles speak for themselves. But lost in all Urban Meyer ass kissing that’s being levied by every media outlet this side of Al Jazeera are a few rarely-mentioned facts:
1. While he won two titles riding the back of his disciple Jesus Tim Tebow, he jumped ship at the first sign of struggle in Florida, and judging from this year, left the cupboard as bare as humanly possible... which is quite the accomplishment at a school like UF. Dollars to donuts he doesn’t outlast Braxton Miller by more than a year at Ohio.
2. As evidenced by No. 1, he’s not a very good recruiter. Don’t get me wrong: he’s unbelievably charismatic, and he’ll clearly say anything to get a kid to sign on the dotted line. He’ll surely pull guys who are top-rated, but as has been evidenced time and again, sometimes recruiting ratings don’t tell the whole story. See: Florida’s 2011 roster and how highly rated those players were.
3. By his own admission, his best recruiter while at Florida, the guy who took the lead on securing Mr. Tebow, was also the architect of the defense that held OSU to 80-some yards in the 2007 BCS title game: Mr. Greg Mattison. Does anyone think that Mattison might just have some insight into Meyer’s offense and how best to stop it?
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4. Just once, when ESPN flashes the completely irrelevant stat that Meyer’s 7-1 in bowl games, I want them to note that his one loss came at the hands of Michigan and Lloyd Carr. And anyone who watched that game knows the following: Lloyd Carr outcoached Urban Meyer. Honestly, that tells me all I need to know.
It matters not that everyone and their mother is talking about how Meyer’s offense will dominate the Big 10, solely based on how well it worked in the SEC (Mr. OSU golden boy Kirk Herbstreit himself has suggested that going up against Big 10 defenses will be like going up against “the scout team”). Notwithstanding that Meyer’s offense was successful largely because he had one of the greatest quarterbacks in college football history (Florida’s 2010 offense was mediocre at best), haven’t Michigan fans heard that before?
That’s right, the exact same things were said about Rodriguez’s offenses that dominated the Big East, as well as power conference teams such as Georgia and Oklahoma. But defense is still played in the Big 10 (much like the SEC), and Rodriguez could neither field one nor could his offense do much against stronger opponents.
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As Brady Hoke has stated countless times over the last few days, for as much fawning as we do over coaches, it’s the players who actually play the games. So let’s wait until the Meyer puts his product out on the field before we replace Paterno’s name with his on the Big 10 trophy, shall we?
In the meantime, neither Urban Meyer nor any other Buckeye can change the fact that on November 26, 2011, Michigan beat Ohio 40-34. They can’t change the fact that Brady Hoke is 1-0 against Michigan’s biggest rival (while Ohio’s new guy has never beaten Michigan). And until the two teams meet on the field next year, they can’t change the fact that Michigan now owns the bragging rights and the momentum.
Hail.
