The Wolverine: Covering University of Michigan Football and Sports
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26 ■ THE WOLVERINE 2025 FOOTBALL PREVIEW our stadium, and we'd already scored 10 points before we walked out on that field. Now, we get maybe three, maybe noth- ing. Where is Michigan? That's what ev- erybody's saying out there on that field. 'Where is Michigan.' "Bo would say 'I don't want to see any smiles on your faces. I don't want to see you having fun. This is not fun.'" Smoking Start Against Ranked Foes Michigan began the season against three straight ranked foes — home against No. 13 Notre Dame, at No. 15 South Caro- lina and home against No. 17 Maryland (which Sports Illustrated ranked No. 1 in its preseason issue). The pent-up anger the Wolverines carried into the opener didn't deliver immediate results, the Irish leading at the half, 9-3. But Notre Dame never saw the end zone, and Michigan came storming back for a 20-12 win, Morris rushing for 119 yards on 23 tries. "In the second half, we ran a draw play for Jim Harbaugh, and he scored a touch- down," Morris recalled. "That lifted us, and our defense came to play. They were running the ball really well, but they shut 'em down in the second half." Morris also remembered playing with a significant hamstring cramp, after re- ceiving a toughness challenge from the head coach. "I didn't come out of the game," re- called Morris. "That was him. It's our opener, it's hot, and it was a rivalry game." Messner's memories proved even messier. "The thing I remember most was pray- ing coming out of the tunnel that the of- fense would be on the field first," he said, with a laugh. "It was my first home game as a [redshirt] freshman, and I am scared to death. I threw up all over the offensive lineman's hand because I was so nervous. I remember catching [Notre Dame run- ning back] Allen Pinkett in the backfield after throwing up on the lineman's hand. The guy was so freaked out that he didn't get out of his stance." Next came a journey into SEC coun- try to face the Gamecocks, complete with enough pregame pageantry to get the Wolverines more riled than they were riding up to the stadium. The home crowd geared up to see a major takedown of the winged helmets, while the band and flag corps set the stage for an out-of- this-world collision. "We didn't really have any idea how much of a hornets' nest that is, and what a spectacle an SEC Deep South school was going to produce," Messner ob- served. "It was intimidating. We went into that wide-eyed and said, 'Man, this is quite the show!'" Too much so, some felt. While the Wolverines stood ready to take the field, they were put on hold by the theme music to "2001: A Space Odyssey," blasting out and whipping the crowd into an even big- ger frenzy. Schembechler bowed not at all to the crowd, the majestic background music, or the mammoth South Carolina banner. "He said, 'We're going take that flag and shove it right up their a--,'" Morris recalled. "He was in rare form. What he did, and all the things he said just showed us how intense he was about this season. "He gave us such an emotional speech. Going out on that field, we had to wait for them. They played that 'Space Odyssey' theme. And it just fired us up so much. Bo fired us up. We couldn't wait for them to get on that field. We just tried to destroy them — and we did." They did, to the tune of a 34-3 rout. Michigan literally ran over the Game- cocks, rushing for 324 yards, Thomas Wilcher and Morris leading the way with 104 and 95, respectively. Meanwhile, a second straight team never found the end zone against the U-M defense, which held South Carolina to its lowest point total in three seasons. "Gary Moeller had that defense hum- ming," Morris said. "We had our option Quarterback Jim Harbaugh, starting behind a powerful offensive line, finished the 1985 season with 1,976 yards passing (164.7 per game) and 18 touchdowns while leading the nation with a 163.7 passing ef- ficiency rating. PHOTO BY PER KJELDSEN