The Wolverine: Covering University of Michigan Football and Sports
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/230001
MICHIGAN FOOTBALL sophomore since Roy Roundtree had 72 in 2010 (also the sophomore record). Funchess has averaged just a shade less than four catches per game this year, and if he reaches four in the bowl game, he will move into a fifthplace tie with Anthony Carter at 51 grabs. David Terrell holds the sophomoreyear receiving-yardage record with 1,038 in 1999 and the yards-per-game record at 86.5 that season. Funchess' 727 yards and 60.6 per game both rank seventh. The sophomore would probably already be at 50 receptions but suffered a miserable afternoon at Iowa Nov. 23, dropping three balls while catching just one for two yards. He had been averaging 5.7 grabs and 89.8 yards in the six previous contests. TAYLOR LEWAN WAVES OFF TEARS, SAPPY MOVIES IN GOODBYE Fifth-year senior captain Taylor Lewan can best be pictured with a smirk and a quotable off-the-cuff comment. A staple at Michigan's Monday press conferences throughout his final two seasons in Ann Arbor, he'd provide plenty of fodder, even in those moments when anger overcame his easygoing nature. Asked at one point in the season if he had begun feeling his days in a Michigan uniform drawing to a close, he chop blocked any typical misty-eyed tributes. He was here to win football games, he stressed, and not to go soft hearted. "I'll worry about the emotional stuff after the season is over," Lewan said. "I'm not here to watch 'P.S., I Love You' and cry myself to sleep. I'm here to play football. So when Saturday rolls around I'm here to play a football game. It's not about me. It will never be about me. It's about the team." Lewan assured, in the days leading up to a return to his home state of Arizona for the Buffalo Wild Wings Bowl, it's still not about him. "I think I said before, I'm not here to go watch soft, sappy movies and do all that nonsense," noted Lewan, following Michigan's first bowl practice. "I'm here to play football." He's done that, earning the Rimington-Pace Offensive Lineman of the Year Award in the Big Ten for the second straight season. He's the ninth Michigan offensive lineman ever to start all four years, and didn't allow a single sack this season. Lewan chose to come back for a fifth year in a Michigan uniform, when he could have headed out for the NFL last year. Although he didn't achieve one of his primary purposes for coming back — winning a Big Ten title — Lewan insists he wouldn't change the decision. Finishing up in Arizona will be interesting, he admitted. "It's an unbelievable feeling," he said. "Obviously, I would rather go to Pasadena and win a Big Ten championship, but the fact that we're going back to Arizona and practicing at a school I was at for a year, and built some relationships there, and having