The Wolverine: Covering University of Michigan Football and Sports
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MICHIGAN FOOTBALL everything I have and let my actions speak, and let my words speak that I'm there for them." Gardner believes he was a good teammate a year ago, offering posi- tive feedback even when the line — with first-time starters at left guard, center and right guard — struggled, and the payoff came against the Buckeyes. In the four series after Gardner suf- fered a broken foot, he completed 18 of 26 passes (69.2 percent) for 183 yards with three touchdowns. The running game also came alive, averaging 4.9 yards per carry on 15 touches versus 3.9 yards on the Wol- verines' first 20 carries. "Up to that point, that was the first time those three guys in the middle were starting so it's hard to develop that sense of urgency without play- ing — you can't replace game ex- perience," he said, noting he thinks the light switch has been turned on. "They've now had a lot of game ex- perience and I don't think I have to ask them to have that type of urgency. "I've expressed to them [they were successful against Ohio State] so they know they can do it. Sometimes you doubt yourself and that's something everyone has to deal with. With them being so young, it was hard to fight that off. But they believe in them- selves and they've been working re- ally hard, and I'm excited about the year." ❑ Competition Sizes Up The Wolverines' Offense The Wolverine magazine approached opposing conference players on both sides of the ball at the Big Ten Media Days July 28-29 to ask their opinions of the Maize and Blue. On the condition of anonymity, they shared their thoughts on Michigan's offense. On Michigan's offense: "They had a lot of great players last year — Devin Gard- ner, Devin Funchess, Jeremy Gallon — but our coach always tells us that there will be more talented teams than us but it's the sum of our parts that matter, and last year it seemed like they had great individual players but weren't a great team. "Usually that's a leadership issue because you need one or two guys on your offense that bring everything together. They seemed a little disjointed." On fifth-year senior quarterback Devin Gardner: "Toughest quarterback we played. By far. He took so many hits in our game and kept getting back up. And kept going back to the huddle. "At some point, it's like, 'Why don't you just stay down. You're going to hurt yourself,' but he kept battling. That's the kind of guy you win with." Another player on Gardner: "I don't know how he survived our game. And we came after him. We beat him up. We beat up a lot of quarterbacks, but never like that.