Michigan Football: Devin Gardner's Last Chance to Salvage Legacy

A year ago Devin Gardner was the unquestioned leader of a 6-1 Michigan squad that was battling for a berth in Big Ten championship game.

Then the bottom fell out.

Date	Opponent	Result
11/2/14	Michigan State	L, 29-6
11/9/14	Nebraska	L, 17-13
11/16/14	Northwestern	W, 27-19 (3OT)
11/23/14	Iowa	L, 24-12
11/30/14	Ohio State	L, 42-41
12/28/14	Kansas State	L, 31-14
8/30/14	Appalachian State	W, 52-14
9/6/14	Notre Dame	L, 31-0
9/13/14	Miami (OH)	W, 34-10
9/20/14	Utah	L, 26-10
9/27/14	Minnesota	L, 30-14
10/4/14	Rutgers	L, 26-24
10/11/14	Penn State	W, 18-13
10/25/14	Michigan State	L, 35-11

Michigan has since gone 4-10, he was injured, benched for a game and coach Brady Hoke is squarely on the firing line.

Gardner now faces the last few games of his collegiate career with a final opportunity to salvage his tarnished legacy.

It’s difficult to imagine how last November could have been worse for Gardner.

• A horrific 1-4 stretch that included bookend losses to key rivals Michigan State and Ohio State.
• He was pounded mercilessly as his offensive line struggled to compete during the backstretch of the Big Ten season.
• His epic fourth-quarter performance versus Ohio State ultimately fell short, and an injury during the game ended his season.

When Gardner returned from injury for spring practice, he had a new offensive coordinator, new plays to learn and new competition for the starting quarterback job.

This is not what most people expected when Gardner committed to Michigan in 2010. He was an elite 4-star recruit and one of the top dual-threat quarterbacks in the state of Michigan.

TONY DING/Associated Press

Unfortunately, his time at Michigan coincided with the collapse of the program first under Rich Rodriguez and now Brady Hoke. He also was stuck behind the singular talent of Denard Robinson on the depth chart for three seasons. The turmoil in the program also resulted in Gardner playing for three separate offensive coordinators (Calvin Magee, Al Borges and Doug Nussmeier), not too mention being switched to wide receiver for most of the 2012 season.

Gardner battled the competition and won back the starting position by the start of this season. But the same problems that plagued him during the end of last season returned.

The offensive line was only marginally improved, and Gardner continued to turn over the ball at a frantic pace.

Gardner personally has more interceptions (10) than 97 teams in the NCAA FBS division. And many of them are simply inexplicable. In an effort to make a big play, Gardner will sometimes see something that simply isn’t there.

In the aftermath of a 35-11 loss to Michigan State, Hoke tried valiantly to explain Gardner’s mistakes.

“He's constantly trying to make a play," said Hoke. ”The pick-six was a pretty athletic play in some regards by the defender. Tried to maybe put it in there in a small window. Part of it is he's aggressive, he believes in himself, believes in making plays. Do you coach [him] to try and not to? Yeah, every day.”

Gardner has four guaranteed games left in his collegiate career. His incredible performance versus Notre Dame last season is a distant memory. Unless he flips the script during these next few games, he’ll be remembered as the quarterback who threw too many interceptions, fumbled too many times, got sacked too often and whose performance got Brady Hoke fired.

Last week Gardner told Angelique Chengelis of The Detroit News:

"You can only control what you control…You can't control anything else. I can't control if a coach wants to bench me. I can't control tipped passes. I try to control the things I can control.”

The Devin Gardner who showed up last year against Notre Dame and Ohio State would tear up the next three teams on the schedule—Indiana, Northwestern and Maryland.

The next few games could be a small measure of redemption for Gardner.

He’s in control of his legacy—it's his move.

Phil Callihan is a featured writer for Bleacher Report. Unless otherwise noted, all quotations obtained firsthand

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All season statistics from mgoblue.com, official University of Michigan athletic department website.