The Wolverine: Covering University of Michigan Football and Sports
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/152358
Henne became the first and only true freshman to ever lead a Big Ten team to a league crown. • U-M came up four points shy in the classic No. 1 vs. No. 2 showdown in Columbus in 2006. The Wolverines lost Bo Schembecher, the game and their best shot to win it over the past eight seasons. • Rich Rodriguez rolled into town, seeking to overhaul a semi into an Indy car. Three years later, Michigan rested upside down in a ditch, pondering hard lessons about continuity and togetherness. • Hoke arrived to replace a constant two-minute offense with two-fisted toughness, and the transition requires more than a snap of the fingers. Eight years rolled by, and the hardware shelf space concerns were put on hold. Hoke doesn't talk about the string of non-title seasons, but the Wolverines know. They all know. "Brady tells them, 'This is now — Team 134 — and we've got to go get it,'" Jackson offered. "Every day, there is some emphasis placed on winning the Big Ten championship — every single day." "No. 1, our goal is to win the championship, and we haven't done it," Hoke remarked. "We've failed … because that's an expectation." It's not getting any easier. Ohio State emerged relatively unscathed from The Cheating Decade under disgraced former head coach Jim Tressel. The Buckeyes are loading up again in an Urban (Meyer) renewal. Then there's the little matter of a Big Ten championship game, another thin-air climb toward the title summit. No matter, and no excuses. Guaranteed, nobody around the league is weeping for the program topping them all in trophies. Manning looks around, though, and he's getting a familiar feeling. He gazes across the line of scrimmage, and it looks like a Michigan offensive line. He sees linebackers that look like Michigan linebackers. "That gives you a fighting chance," he said. "That's why the recruiting aspect of it is so huge in college football. You can say all you want about coaching, but at the end of the day, players win the games, right? You need good players, you need good kids, and I'm excited about the ones we have." Some say the Wolverines are still a year away. Michigan's seniors don't have another year. "The people who are saying that are not going through what we're going through," senior cornerback Courtney Avery insisted. "They're not working with us each day, and knowing how hard we're working to get it this year. You reject that talk and give it your all this year. This is our last year. There's no time to wait." ❏ Editor John Borton has been with The Wolverine since 1991. Contact him at jborton@thewolverine.com and follow him on Twitter @JB_Wolverine.