The Wolverine: Covering University of Michigan Football and Sports
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94 ■ THE WOLVERINE 2021 FOOTBALL PREVIEW Even when the injury occurred, on the Memorial Stadium turf, he didn't realize his season was finished. "No," Hutchinson assured. "I thought I just sprained my ankle. Sometimes you're walking or running and your ankle kind of gets caught, you slip a little bit. That's what I though, initially. I was in a lot of pain, walked off and was really trying to get back in the game. "I could feel it getting worse and worse. The doctor gets his hands on it, and tells me I need to get an X-ray." That X-ray, performed inside the stadium facilities, delivered the news that shattered Hutchinson's autumn. "It's really weird looking back on it and how fast everything happened," he said. "One play, I'm hitting the quarterback, about to have a really good game. Five minutes later, I've got a doctor telling me my season's over. It all happened so fast, and it's crazy." The moments that followed were pure tor- ture. Not just because the ankle hurt so badly — which it did. The emotional blow of see- ing the months of prep and the season itself torpedoed felt unbearable. Hutchinson's parents, Chris and Melissa — the former a U-M football All-American and an emergency room physician — made their way to the locker room. They shared one of the most difficult mo- ments in their son's 20 years on the planet. "It was tough at first, to be honest with you," Hutchinson offered. "I can remember my parents coming into the locker room, and it's a super-emotional thing. I know how much work I put into this. They know how much work I put into it, for it to be taken away from me. "It's one of those things that are out of your control. That's what I told myself, and what people constantly told me: keep moving forward. You can't dwell on it. Keep pushing through every little obstacle I had to get fully recovered. "I was pretty emotional, though, just hear- ing those words from my doctor, having my family come down. It was a pretty big event." It didn't get easier any time soon. The Wolverines lost that Indiana game, and all but one thereafter — convincingly. The season spun out of control, and one of U-M's top performers could only watch it happen. "It was tough," he stressed. "During the season, I really couldn't walk on it, because I'd just gotten surgery. I wasn't at the build- ing too much, to be there for practice or meetings. I couldn't travel to games. "That first game, Wisconsin, after I got hurt, it was hard sitting on the couch, watch- ing that game unfold. It wasn't very fortunate to us, obviously, in the end [49-11]. We took a loss that game, and it hurt — a lot. "Just watching your guys lose ball games, and you can't do a single thing about it. That's what I was feeling." His doctor/dad, understandably, remained off saving lives in the COVID-flooded Beau- mont Hospital system. While dad remained an encourager, Hutchinson credited his mom for the heavy lifting on day-to-day push. "My mom was really big in all of this, get- ting my mental state right," he said. "There are days you're really down in the dumps. You've got to turn that page the next day and start making little goals that you can start to get to. "She helped with that, a lot. I'm really grateful for that. She told me, 'We've got to attack it every day,' and that's what we did." Incentive To Burn Hutchinson's still attacking. He'll even sack the suggestion that all the adversities of fall 2020 helped do in the Wolverines. "We've moved on," he said "I'm not go- ing to sit here and make an excuse to you, though. I'm not going to sit here and say, 'We were bad because of COVID, or we were bad because of this or that.' We just didn't execute last season. "That's the truth of it. You put any excuse to it, and that's not really owning up to your mistakes and your faults. A lot of stuff went into last year. A lot of factors affected us. "But at the end of the day, we didn't get the job done. That's something we're turning the page on — we've moved on." They've moved on in many ways, includ- ing those drawing up the defenses Hutchin- son and his teammates will be executing. Macdonald brings all of his experience from helping guide the Baltimore Ravens' staunch In 2019, Hutchinson racked up 68 total stops, 10 tackles for loss and 4.5 sacks, and shared the Richard Katcher Award (given to Michigan's best defensive lineman) with Kwity Paye. PHOTO COURTESY U-M ATHLETICS