The Wolverine: Covering University of Michigan Football and Sports
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20 THE WOLVERINE JANUARY 2022 to give it their very best, you got a good feeling it's going to hap- pen." Of course, the magical sea- son isn't over. Michigan stands two wins away from a national championship, facing a show- down with Georgia in a College Football Playoff semifinal on New Year's Eve in Miami's Or- ange Bowl. Regardless of what happens from here on out, the 2021 Wolverines have chiseled their legacy in granite. They shocked the world, including many of their own football alums. One of those alums boasts five Big Ten championship rings of his own. Doug Skene (1988-92), a major contributor to TheWolverine.com website on the On3 network, picked Michigan to go 5-7 this year, and wound up tearing up over its effort against Ohio State. Here's a look at Michigan's title season through his skepti- cal-then-ultimately-gratified eyes. A DISMAL OUTLOOK Nobody outside of Schembechler Hall gave Michigan a chance for a champion- ship this season. Following a 2-4 record in a COVID-shortened mess of a fall last year, many projected five to seven wins for the Wolverines, at best. Questions abounded, and the Ohio State hurdle appeared insurmountable. Even decent Michigan teams in recent years got blown up by the Buckeyes the last two times out. OSU head coach Ryan Day found himself emboldened enough to say his team would "hang 100" on the Wolverines the next time out. After experiencing the Buckeyes scor- ing 118 combined points the last two times the teams played, some worried he might come close. "The [2020] team just had issues," Skene said. "They were just short of awful last year. You could look around that ros- ter and say, who are going to be the lead- ers? Where's that going to come from? "I was one of the naysayers. I just didn't see it." The staff upheaval produced more questions than answers, at least initially, Skene noted. "I just thought this team was going to experience another third- or fourth-place finish," he said. "And, if this season was going to be like the previous few seasons … the Novembers for Michigan in the last couple of years have been terrible. We just kind of coast into the end of the season and get our butts kicked by Ohio State, and that's the way it felt. "Coming into this season, I looked at that roster and looked at the sched- ule and thought, we're not very good at road games. We're not very good at tough road games. I had losses at Wisconsin, at Penn State. I thought those were for-sure losses." In other words, this former Wolverine felt like many: more of the same on the way. "For me, personally, I had grown tired of all the hope," he continued. "I was try- ing to be as objective as possible, and then being pragmatic and saying, okay, this is what I've seen out of this head coach and the old staff, and this roster, for three or four years in a row. "I am no longer going to just stick my head in the sand and wish for the best and say 10- 2, or 9-3. I'm going to say, hey, this is a trajectory. This is a pattern, and I don't think it's a good one." INKLINGS OF CHANGE The Wolverines were con- vinced they'd be different. Ev- eryone else made the discovery in bits and pieces. For Skene, Michigan's resounding 31-10 clobbering of Washington un- der the lights at The Big House on Sept. 11 proved a mild eye raiser. "I thought, I can see a couple things here," Skene said. "I did seriously wonder how good Washington was at the time, so I didn't get too excited. "But there were good indi- cators out there. The running backs and [redshirt freshman quarterback] Cade McNamara. Not the deep ball, but the crossing routes and the short- to mid-range passing game, I thought McNamara was really good. "And the other thing I really liked about McNamara? He was getting rid of the football, oftentimes, just to safely punt. I thought, THAT's new and different. We typically saw guys trying to force it. Guys didn't know what to do with the football. "This guy was like, 'You know what? This ain't working. This ball is going into the turf, and we're going to punt and try this again next time we get the ball.' For me, that was a good indicator. "Of course, that marked the first flashes of the Hutchinson-[redshirt freshman linebacker David] Ojabo duo." Michigan's 38-17 win at Wisconsin made a greater impact. The Wolverines clung to a 13-10 lead at the half, then blew out the Badgers over the final 30 minutes. Michigan players even participated wildly in Wisconsin's "Jump Around" at the end of the third quarter — and many in maize and blue witnessed something to celebrate. "At Wisconsin was big," Skene said. "Wisconsin had struggled, but we went up there and I thought that was the first real box that got checked, for me. Ev- Redshirt freshman quarterback Cade McNamara was lauded for tak- ing care of the ball all season. He threw only four interceptions in 13 games for the Wolverines, entering the College Football Playoff. PHOTO BY LON HORWEDEL