The Wolverine: Covering University of Michigan Football and Sports
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146 ■ THE WOLVERINE 2016 FOOTBALL PREVIEW "We are excited to have Jim come home and lead our foot- ball program into the future. Since retiring from playing in the NFL, Jim has worked hard to become one of the elite coaches in the profession. He has been successful at every coaching stop and has done an exceptional job of molding and devel- oping young men as football players, students and citizens. "We believe that Jim is the perfect individual to bal- ance the academic and athletic expectations that come with representing this football program and university." — Michigan interim director of athletics Jim Hackett on the hiring of Jim Harbaugh "I liked a lot of things. Mainly, the thing I liked the most is we played a 40-minute game, and there were no injuries that I could tell. None at least that you don't come back from soon type. I'm most pleased with that. Obviously, the defense played extremely well. "Running game at times was okay — you know it is not going to be good in a spring game, just never has been, especially with the format that we had, which was a draft. Offensive linemen are playing in different combinations than they are used to. Quarterback play I thought was good. We had multiple areas that I thought were good, and to sum it all up, I'm most pleased that there were not any serious injuries today. [We can] come out healthy, and that will propel us into April and May." — Harbaugh on general takeaways from his first spring game in charge "He's being a coach — he's being supportive. He wants us to win, and not get down on ourselves. Bad plays are going to happen. You want to limit them as much as you can, but he was very supportive. He told me to keep going, to keep working hard." — Fifth-year senior quarterback Jake Rudock on Harbaugh's advice to him after he threw three interceptions in the Utah game "We don't really focus on shutouts and statistics per se. But we definitely preach, 'Let's not give them anything.' When everyone's doing their job, it's hard to score on us. We don't go into games saying, 'Let's get a shutout.' We say, 'Everyone do your job.' And the ultimate is a win." — Redshirt freshman safety Jabrill Peppers after the third consecutive shutout "They played their guts out. They played winning football and love the game so much. They played good enough to win. I was proud of how our team played. We have to have resolve, steel in our spine and move forward." — Harbaugh after the heartbreaking, last-second loss to Michigan State "This loss is obviously tough. You don't want to lose to Ohio State, especially the way that we did. But now it's a bowl game, and we haven't been to one in two years. We're super excited for that. We're going to get an extra 15 practices in, and we're going to roll with it. The bowl game is obviously our biggest focus now. We have the practices to get that much better and prepare for a team that we face in a bowl game that will be pretty good." — Senior defensive lineman Chris Wormley after the loss to OSU "We're not saying this is the greatest year in the history of Michigan football. Michigan football has been around for a long, long time. But this team, this team acquitted themselves very well." — Harbaugh after the 41-7 win over Florida in the Buffalo Wild Wings Citrus Bowl 1. NO POINTS FOR YOU! The Michigan defense recorded its first shut- out since 2012 against No. 22 BYU in week four of 2015. The defensive unit liked how it felt so much that they stacked two more donuts on top of it. Michigan strung together back-to-back-to-back shutouts against the Cougars, Maryland and Northwestern in weeks four, five and six to accomplish a feat that hadn't happened since 1980. Head coach Jim Harbaugh, a Michigan expert, couldn't even remember the last time a Wolverine defense looked so dominant. "It was very meaningful," Harbaugh said. "I was trying to figure out last week when was the last time we had three shutouts." When 35 years pass between occurrences, that can happen. 2. JAKE RUDOCK GETS RIGHT It was announced in April that former Iowa quarterback Jake Rudock would use his final year of eligibility playing for the Maize and Blue. With no proven quarterbacks on the roster heading into 2015, the addition of Rudock was certainly welcome. He was a serviceable QB while at Iowa, but was not guaranteed the starting spot at U-M. After a three-interception performance and a season-opening loss to Utah, doubts began to creep in around Ann Arbor. All Rudock did over the next 11 games was throw for 2,738 yards with 18 touchdowns and just six interceptions. He also added 155 yards and four scores on the ground to his production. To say he turned it around would be a vast understatement. Rudock finished with the second-highest passing yardage total ever at Michi - gan (3,017) and became the first quarterback in the 136-year history at U-M to throw for at least 250 yards in five straight games. He also ranks No. 1 in Michigan history for single-season completion percentage after connecting on 64.0 percent of his passes (249 of 389). 3. PESKY RIVALS Despite finishing 10-3 overall with a three-game shut- out stretch, big wins over ranked opponents and a blowout bowl win over SEC East champion Florida, Michigan failed to beat Michigan State and Ohio State in Jim Harbaugh's first season at the helm. That trend has gotten old for Michigan fans and is something that Har - baugh is never going to be okay with. As a former Wolverine quarterback and disciple of legendary coach Bo Schembechler, Harbaugh wants nothing more than to beat Michigan's two most hated rivals. "It's about that resolve — steel in our spine," Harbaugh said following the loss to the Spar- tans. "We move forward. There's a lot of fight in our guys, and so I'm proud of that." His message was similar after a 42-13 loss to Ohio State in the regular-season finale. "We'll come back with the same drive and aspirations that we've had — to win the next game," he said. In the last decade, Michigan is 4-15 (4-16 if you count the va - cated win by OSU in 2010) against the Buckeyes and Spartans. That is a number no Michigan fan, staffer, coach, player or alum is even close to content with. Harbaugh may hate it more than anyone, but in order to start changing it, he'll have to pick up a win in either East Lansing or Columbus in 2016. 4. WAVES OF MOMENTUM A bad loss to Ohio State to cap the regular season did not come close to ruining 2015 for Michigan. The Wolverines trounced SEC East champion Florida 41-7 in the Buffalo Wild Wings Citrus Bowl, sending the Maize and Blue into 2016 with an abundance of momentum. Rudock proved once again that Harbaugh knows quarterbacks and is capable of turning a mediocre signal-caller with limited physical abilities into a player that is now on an NFL roster. Wide receivers Jehu Chesson and Amara Darboh were ques - tion marks heading into 2015, but now look like the best receiver duo in the Big Ten heading into 2016. Tight end Jake Butt had an All-America season as a junior and was projected as an early-round draft pick, but decided to come back to U-M in order to chase a Big Ten crown — and possibly a national title. Michigan returns six starters on defense and a few other major contributors to what was an outstanding unit. Add in a healthy redshirt sophomore defensive tackle Bryan Mone and the nation's No. 1 overall recruit in Rashan Gary, and the defense could be scary good. Dipping into 2016 a bit more and you have college football's most talked about head coach in Jim Harbaugh making head - lines weekly, ruffling the SEC's feathers and traveling the world on an unprecedented satellite camp tour. Oh, and did we mention that Michael Jordan and his iconic brand will now be on the team's athletic gear? Add all of these things up and you have a very special future at Michigan and it all started with year one under Harbaugh in 2015. TOP STORYLINES OF 2015 Fifth-year senior quarterback Jake Rudock was one of three players from the 2015 roster taken in this spring's NFL Draft. The Detroit Lions selected him in the sixth round. PHOTO BY LON HORWEDEL THEY SAID IT