Bleacher Report - Articles by Wade Starnes

Michigan-Wisconsin: Big Comeback the Signature Win of Rich Rodriguez Era

Wade Starnes — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 13:10:00 -0400

For various reasons, some of which I will get to in later posts, I've been silent about the Wolverines. After Saturday's win, I'm feeling the need to say something.

How long will I stick with it? Who knows—hopefully for the rest of the season. We'll see.

Saturday's victory (highlights here) was one of the greatest I've seen in a long time. In fact, it was the biggest comeback in the history of Michigan Stadium. Somewhat ironic that it came on the day the University celebrated its 500th game in the Big House's history.

I was lucky enough to attend the previous greatest comeback, the 17-point fourth quarter comeback against Virginia in 1995. (As an aside, GREAT YouTube highlights of that game here. Further aside, I totally forgot about the greatest drop in college football history by Butterfingers with about 10 seconds left.)

I still remember screaming and jumping up and down as Mercury Hayes caught that fade route from Scot Dreisbach in the East corner of the North end zone. I still remember the deafening roar that ensued.

That game was the first of the Lloyd Carr era, a "signature" win for most of that season, until UM beat undefeated Ohio State.

While this is most definitely the "signature" win of the Rich Rodriguez era, it unfortunately did not come in the first week of the season.

While I am no fan of Mitch Albom, I thought his column today was not half bad. He opines that the John Thompson interception return was the defining moment of the game and symbolized the moment that this team became, well...a team.

I remember thinking something similar as Thompson slowly weaved his way through Badgers behind a convoy of Wolverines, playing "Rubber Duck" to Terrance Taylor's "Pig-Pen." (If you don't get that reference, you're probably younger than 35.)

The play was a great showing of team defense and unity, a play that symbolized how well the unit played together all day.

The fact that the defense held Wisconsin to only 19 points in the first half despite four costly turnovers (the fifth didn't really affect the D) had a lot to do with dropped passes and poor execution by Wisconsin, but more to do with the fortitude of a defense that hadn't looked very stout to date.

The D was led by Brandon Graham, who finished the day with three sacks and a couple of forced fumbles, but there was pretty decent play from the entire front seven. I thought Jonas Mouton continued to play with great effort and was always around the play and looked good on several blitzes.

While the defense most definitely were the stars and kept UM in position to make a comeback, I can't say enough about Steve Threet.

No, he's not a star. Probably never will be. Hell, it remains to be seen if he'll see the field next year. But there aren't a whole lot of quarterbacks, especially redshirt freshman quarterbacks, who could have pulled off that victory on Saturday.

2-10 with two picks and NEGATIVE seven yards passing in the first half?!?! Of course, his final numbers weren't much prettier, but it takes something special to endure that kind of performance and still have the confidence to continue to trot out to the huddle amidst a sea of boos.

Special commendation should also be made to the coaching staff for sticking with Threet. While Threet is most definitely the best QB on the roster, it couldn't have been an easy decision to stick with him.

I had to laugh when Threet busted through the left side of the line on their final scoring drive for that 58-yard gallop. It was so unexpected and so awkward, yet another symbol that fit the game perfectly.

Here was this 6'6", 230-lb. kid, who no one (including me) has had much positive to say about this year, in a breakout performance, breaking out of the pack and outrunning several defenders before slowing considerably to cover the ball on what was Michigan's longest play from scrimmage season to date.

He probably could have scored had he not been so wary of a potential fumble. However, Sam McGuffie punched the ball in a couple of plays later.

What does this win mean? It's obviously a confidence builder. This win has got to do wonders for all young kids they are trotting out there this year.

Probably more importantly, though, this win calms down nervous Nellies like me and will get the Michigan sports media off Rodzilla's back.

However, along with the praise come higher expectations. A win against Illinois, which seemed all but impossible until Saturday's fourth quarter, now looks like a possibility. If they had continued to play so poorly against Wisconsin, I'm not sure many would have had hope for more than one or two Big ten wins (Minnesota and Northwestern).

Now? I think they have a much better shot against aforementioned Illinois, Purdue, and potentially Michigan State...and who knows? Despite Penn State's success, I am still not a believer, and hey, Ohio State hasn't exactly set the world on fire the past couple weeks.

Lloyd Carr's first team in 1995 team did it. Why can't Rich Rodriguez's 2008 team do the same?

WR McNeal to Michigan?

Wade Starnes — Thu, 01 May 2008 08:40:00 -0400

MGoBlog is reporting that UM has added another top player to its Class of 2009. Minnesota WR target Bryce McNeal, who is a 4-star recruit on Rivals and currently the #70 player overall in the country, apparently has fashioned his Myspace page in maize and blue and has told several people he's already committed to the Wolverines. While this is less than concrete because no major media outlets are reporting yet, I think it's a pretty solid indication following McNeal's comments in the latest article regarding McNeal on Rivals. While apparently still considering 8 schools at the time of print, he had this to say about Michigan:

"Michigan is up there," he said. "They have nothing to worry about."

McNeal, at 6'2" and 170, will probably add 10-15 pounds and play at the outside receiver. McNeal would be the first outside-receiver commitment Michigan has for this class, being that Rodzilla and the staff have focused on the jitterbug-types to date. McNeal is the 11th-rated WR in the Class of 2009 according to Rivals, whereas Scout has him as #15 (Scout must have bumped him recently as Brian at MGoBlog said he was 3-star and #70 on there). In any event, this seems to be another solid pickup for the Wolverines.

If this indeed comes through, Michigan now stands at 8 commitments for the Class of 2009, four of which are currently ranked in the Rivals Top 100 (DT William Campbell, DB Justin Turner, QB Kevin Newsome, and McNeal) and a fifth (QB Shavodrick Beaver) that falls in the Rivals Top 250. The 3 other UM commitments (RB Teric Jones, RB Fitzgerald Toussaint, and DB Isaiah Bell) have yet to be fully evaluated by most major recruiting services, but have some serious buzz around them. Jones, who was mostly a reserve as a Junior, clocked the fastest 40 time and was named honorable mention at the Army All-American Junior Combine, which attracts some of the top talent in the country.

This is all good news considering the absolutely sickening class that Ohio State has put together thus far in 2009. The Buckeyes currently stand at a class of 14 commits, 7 of which are in the Rivals Top 100, with an additional 3 falling in the Rival Top 250, and another 3 who have yet to be fully evaluated. Yikes.

Michigan Adds QB #2: Shavodrick Beaver

Wade Starnes — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 14:36:00 -0400

The Class of 2009 took further shape today with the commitment of 4-Star dual-threat QB from Texas, Shavodrick Beaver. Beaver was recently named to the Rivals 250 and currently sits at #176 and is about the 15th QB on the list. Beaver is rated behind other QBs that Michigan has a fancy for Eugene Smith and Tate Forcier (brother of former UM/current Stanford QB Jason). This would seem to end Michigan's pursuit of those two, but you never know.

Michigan was a late-comer for Beaver, who was all but signed with TCU in early April. You might think "Great job, Rodzilla, you took a kid TCU wanted", but Beaver is a solid 4-star kid with offers from Nebraska, Texas Tech, Clemson and Arizona too. I'm a little skeptical that any commitment this early without a visit is solid, but his interest seems genuine and high in the articles I've read thus far.

There's been no indications that he will be an early enrollee, so he'll probably start '09 behind Threet, Feagin, and Newsome (who is going to attempt to enroll early), but again it's way too early to project these things. I'm not going to even attempt to sound knowledgeable about what Beaver brings to the table that could be different from Newsome. Here's a newsflash though, he can run, he can throw, he can throw while running, and ..BONUS... he does all these well against the competition he's facing. But, from what I've seen, Beaver will definitely need to add some mass to be able to take the pounding, he's got more of a slender build than the near linebacker-type build of Newsome. He's probably a good candidate to redshirt and learn the ways of Barwis prior to emerging as a serious candidate for QB in 2010.

All in all it seems to be another good get and another step in the right direction of filling out the roster with guys who fit the system.