The Wolverine: Covering University of Michigan Football and Sports
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JANUARY 2024 ❱ THE WOLVERINE 23 pers, Maurice Hurst Jr., Jake Butt and a host of other Wolverines thought they'd put the hook in the worm all the way back in 2016, in Harbaugh's second season as head coach. But that worm wiggled away, thanks to some crucial, crushing mistakes — and some slimy assistance — in OSU's 30-27, double-overtime win in Colum- bus. The Wolverines experienced another near miss a year later, despite losing start- ing quarterback Wilton Speight to a seri- ous back injury early in the 2017 cam- paign. But the Buckeyes had Michigan's number defensively, in 2018 and '19, the latter being Day's first year as head coach. In those two seasons, Ohio State won by the gaudy totals of 62-39 and 56-27. That prompted Harbaugh to go in a different direction, tapping into brother John's NFL staff with the Baltimore Ra- vens, seeking better-fitting sandbags for the crumbling Ohio State dike. He found them. First Mike Macdonald as defensive coordinator in 2021 and then Jesse Minter, the past two seasons, turned off OSU's offensive spigot. Instead of needing 60 to win The Game, the Wolverines suddenly required 30 — a marked difference. MINTING SOME GEMS Minter suffered zero illusions about his job demands when he came up from his defensive coordinator job at Vanderbilt to interview for the open spot on Har- baugh's staff. Minter spent four years as a Ravens assistant before heading back to college coaching, and knew well some of the schemes Macdonald used to bedevil the Buckeyes in the breakthrough 42-27 victory in 2021. Harbaugh wanted to know if he could achieve similar results. Michigan State got its own nod. How he dealt with the conference's other members mattered, of course, but the staff could worry about those details later. "When I interviewed here, it was like, how are we going to beat Ohio State?" Minter re- called. "How are we going to beat Michigan State? We were coming off a loss to Michigan State as well. It's something you work on every day here. You work on it year round. All the drills that we do, all the physicality … I even think our offense has things built in to allow us to be ready for that [Ohio State] game, that you see in spring ball, you see in training camps. It's a year-round thing, and it's really im- portant. "Even after the game, you're really thinking about what you're going to do the next time you play them, and the answer you need to have for some of the things you showed. It's a year-round pro- cess. The guys have really bought into that, and it's allowed us to be successful over the last couple of times we've played them." After making the game-sealing interception with 25 seconds remaining, junior safety and Ohio native Rod Moore (9) celebrated with fellow defensive backs Mike Sainristil (0) and Quinten Johnson. His pickoff punc- tuated Michigan's 30-24 win against Ohio State — its third straight in the rivalry — in a showdown of top-five teams Nov. 25. PHOTO BY PER KJELDSEN