The Wolverine: Covering University of Michigan Football and Sports
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28 ■ THE WOLVERINE 2017 FOOTBALL PREVIEW "After the injury, I fought like hell to get back out there when I could, to be around the guys, to be at practice," Mayes said. "I showed up at halftime of the Iowa game when I should have been on bedrest. I looked those guys in the eye and let them know, we're not going out like this. "I just walked in. It was a quiet, sober moment. They just turned and looked at me. I didn't say a word, but it was understood." Afterward, Michigan medical personnel made Mayes understand he wasn't welcome in East Lansing the following week — noth- ing personal. "It was so bad, after the game, the trainers actually had to push the fluid and blood out of my knee in the locker room. "They said, 'Next week when we go to East Lansing, if you show up there, we're going to have you committed to the hospital. This knee won't be any good if you walk on it like that again.'" The Wolverines themselves stood firmly on two feet, surviving yet another reminder of how fragile perfection can be, but how tough they remained. "We knew we were pretty good, and I think we were starting to feel ourselves a little bit," guard Steve Hutchinson recalled. "But then Iowa came in and definitely had full intention of winning that game. "The turnaround we had, compared to the way we played the first half, was huge. We showed that, A, you can't come out and play like that, and B, we're talented enough and we have the resiliency that if something bad happens, we can overcome it." Judgment Day There wasn't much to overcome the fol- lowing two weeks. Woodson soared seem- ingly 12 feet in the air to pull down a one- handed sideline interception at Michigan State, one of a half-dozen pickoffs in a 23-7 silencing of the Spartans. Michigan kept the Little Brown Jug by knocking off Minnesota 24-3, and by then the whole nation was noticing. The Wolverines, 8-0 and No. 4 in the country, headed to 7-0 and No. 3 Penn State for a showdown on a Saturday ESPN pro- claimed "Judgment Day" for college foot- ball. For some, the verdict came in early. Commentator Beano Cook let it be known, emphatically, that the Wolverines need not even show up in Happy Valley. "Beano helped us that day," Carr insisted. "I'll never forget listening when they inter- viewed Beano and he said, 'Listen, Michigan should send their band down to State Col- lege, because their football team doesn't have a chance to beat Joe Paterno and Penn State.' "That was one of two or three games in my career that I really felt like something that was said by somebody really sparked us. I said, this guy is the most well-respected guy in college football, in terms of the me- dia. He says we should send our band. We need to shut him up." Burly defensive end Glen Steele posses- sed the wherewithal to shut up plenty of quarterbacks. Penn State's Mike McQueary was no different, despite leading an offense averaging 37.0 points and 464.6 yards per game. Steele lived up to his name on the opening snap from scrimmage. He rampaged in off the edge and buried McQueary with a sack, the first of five suffered on the day by a quarterback who passed for 68 yards while running for his life. "I'm going to fire off every time the first play of the game, just hit the guy as hard as I can in the mouth," Steele noted. "I got a start, and it was a slow-developing play. I got back there." Two plays later, defensive lineman Jua- quin Feazell got back there and planted Mc- Queary again. Message sent, like a gavel coming down on a vanilla helmet. "He was done," Steele said. "He was frus- trated, and he was done. It was just lights out. That game was over." "The rest of the game seemed to be quite easy," Feazell concurred. "They didn't score until the end of the game." Senior defensive end Glenn Steele was one of two defenders to earn first-team All-America honors in 1997 (AFCA); cornerback Charles Woodson was the other (consensus). PHOTO BY PER KJELDSEN