Three and Out (36 page)

“We were 4–0, with Michigan State coming up,” Labadie continued, “when all these players get interviewed. And they come back and they're talking about it in the locker room. How much did that matter? A lot.”

The team unity they had forged heading into the season was strong enough to withstand the
Free Press
and the negative media response that followed. In some ways, it only reinforced the us-against-the-world mentality.

But these interviews were different. They were all conducted separately, and they created divisions. Some kids knew some of the rules. Some thought they did. Most were uncertain. They were understandably confused, since even Compliance didn't know what the rules were. When Mike Barwis called the office to ask about stretching—months before the
Free Press
story appeared—Ann Vollano called back to tell him stretching didn't count. Barwis let the call go to his machine and saved the message, which he later played back for Dave Brandon. A few days after the
Free Press
story broke, Vollano met with the entire team to repeat the same mistake, saying stretching didn't count. Except, of course, it did—or it usually did. In fairness to Vollano, even the NCAA couldn't give a straight answer when Compliance first called to check.

So, when the players entered the interviews, they were almost completely confused. Did stretching count or not? What about taping? Or team meals? When did watching film count, and when did it not?

And more important: What did you say? Is that going to get us in trouble?

“It was not the same as a guy screwing another guy's girlfriend, which will break up any team,” one staffer said, “but you need to be pulling in the same direction, and after that week, you're not. You could see it on the field.”

 

23   IN SEARCH OF PAUL BUNYAN

Jim Plocki woke up early Saturday morning at the team hotel, which was a stone's throw from the state capitol, and three miles down Michigan Avenue from Michigan State's verdant campus.

He opened the drapes, saw the rain turning the old asphalt a rich black, and said, “Crap. This is just what I didn't want to see.”

How would two green quarterbacks, from San Diego and South Florida, handle the ball on a cold, wet day, working with a substitute center who was just learning how to snap the ball? Plocki shook his head.

Yes, the Spartans were 1–3, and probably one good loss from throwing in the towel, but they weren't 3–9 the previous year. They didn't have dozens of players being pulled from practice all week to be questioned by NCAA and university attorneys. And Coach Dantonio wasn't constantly on the hot seat—even at 1–3 in his third season.

“I don't get it,” said another staffer, waiting to board the buses. “All these people bad-mouthing Rich and his staff. I want to tell them; ‘You think you're taking Rich Rod down. But you're taking the whole program down.'

“When the old players ask me about them, I always say the same thing: ‘Have you met these guys? You know who they are? Have you watched them work? Once you meet him, you like him. He's genuine.'”

To those ends, alumni were always welcome, with a few celebrated as honorary captains at each home game—one of several “traditions” Rodriguez initiated, along with the alumni flag football game and locker room tour on the day of the spring game, the Victors' Walk and the post-victory sing-along in the student corner. The honorary captains ate breakfast at Rodriguez's table Saturday mornings at the Campus Inn, and as focused as he tended to be, he always made the effort to connect with them.

“And after they meet him,” the staffer said said, “they always tell me, ‘You're right. He's the real deal.'”

*   *   *

On the way to Spartan Stadium, the buses passed a Michigan fan wearing a T-shirt that said
BIG BROTHER IS BACK
—a far cry from the sign seen on the way to the Purdue game last year:
OUR 2–6 SIX TEAM IS BETTER THAN YOUR 2–6 TEAM.

When Rodriguez's Wolverines took a knee in the Big Ten's most hated visitors' locker room, Jon Falk said, “Let's get that trophy back, Blue! It's right next door. Paul Bunyan wants to come home.”

“Get him outta jail, Jonny!” Brandon Graham yelled.

“Let 'em talk,” Brandon Minor said. “We don't play that game. Let's just go out and kick their asses.”

“C'mon, Rod, get on out here!” Graham begged. “We wanna go!”

Whatever fault lines Labadie had sensed starting that week weren't visible in that locker room.

“This is a different Michigan team than they played last year,” Rodriguez said. “We're going to stick together no matter what. That's who we are. That's the men who wear the winged helmet.”

But Dusty Rutledge, sitting in his usual spot on the Michigan bench, was not so sanguine. How did he feel? “Scared to death. I wasn't last year, because we knew we weren't very good, and next year we know we're going to be very good. But right now, who knows? I guess we're about to find out.”

*   *   *

Just 98 seconds into the game, Ryan Van Bergen tipped Cousins's pass, which linebacker Stevie Brown ran back to the Spartans' 18-yard line. It was easy to think that if Michigan could get to the end zone, it could be a short afternoon. Michigan State's season could quickly go down the drain, and the Wolverines could take Paul Bunyan home with a 5–0 record and a top-twenty ranking. They would also have the breakthrough victory Rodriguez and his players needed to get ahead of the avalanche chasing them, once and for all, and focus on football. It was Rodriguez's first shot at match point.

But Michigan looked out of sorts, losing yards, getting sacked, and at one point throwing a simple screen to Tay Odoms—who hadn't even turned around. They had to settle for a field goal.

On the Spartans' next drive, facing fourth-and-inches at the goal line, Dantonio took his chances. Larry Caper vindicated his decision with the game's first touchdown, 7–3.

After Forcier's receivers dropped two more passes, Michigan had to settle for another field goal, which the Spartans matched before heading into halftime with a 10–6 lead. Labadie was right, after all: The Wolverines were not the same.

Back in the closet-sized coaches' room, Calvin McGee read the stat sheet: nineteen offensive plays. Anemic. “We're just dropping the damn ball. We just need to pitch and catch and make the reads. And we got to put Shoes [Denard Robinson] in there sometime. I don't care if it's too predictable—everyone knows he's going to run—we just need to get going.”

In the main room, Greg Robinson was working the board. “How's their offensive line?”

“Weak as hell,” Mike Martin said.

“We're just beating ourselves,” Brandon Graham added.

“They had the ball damn near thirty minutes,” Robinson said, “and we only gave up 10 points. That's it.”

“Listen up, guys!” Rodriguez told the team. “We have not even made them play defense yet, and the tide is already turned. Let's go!”

*   *   *

But Michigan was just as sloppy in the third quarter, relying on Donovan Warren to make a red-zone interception. After another failed drive, Forcier turned to Minor and Brown and said, “We haven't played football all day. Let's get going!”

But right as Forcier said this, Glenn Winston slipped into the end zone to expand the Spartans' lead to 20–6, just 11 seconds into the fourth quarter.

A refocused Forcier started hitting short, sharp passes to find his rhythm, including a nice toss to Darryl Stonum, at the Spartans' 17-yard line—only to see him fumble it 5 yards later. Michigan's student equipment managers started emptying the coolers on the sidelines. But after Michigan's defense stopped the Spartans again, Forcier went right back to Stonum, who gathered the ball, made a couple nice cuts, and dashed all the way to the end zone. With four minutes left, Michigan had cut the Spartans' lead to 20–13.

“The lights are back on, baby!”

As if on cue, the sun came out in full force.

After yet another defensive stop, the Wolverines got the ball on their own 8-yard line, with 2:53 left and no time-outs. They did not deserve to be in this game, having been thoroughly outplayed for fifty-five minutes, but there they were, with the same chance they had exploited against Notre Dame and Indiana.

Forcier passed for 9 yards, ran for 11, and took a roughing-the-passer penalty for 15 more, leaving 2:02 to cover 42 yards. The rain came down again, forcing the managers to scramble for dry towels for the footballs and the ball handlers. “Towels! Towels! Get some dry towels, damn it!”

On third-and-8, with just eight seconds left, Forcier rolled out and saw Roy Roundtree in the back of the end zone. Forcier threw a perfect strike, and Roundtree came down with the ball inbounds. Touchdown!

The celebration on the bench was like no other in this already wild season. Players were jumping up and down, chest bumping, hugging, and high-fiving each other. Total mayhem.

Someone on the bench yelled, “That guy is unbelievable!” To which Greg Banks said, slapping his chest, “No,
we
are unbelievable!” Confidence is contagious.

The scoreboard read Michigan State 20, Michigan 19, with 00:02 left. There must have been some temptation, with the Spartans' defense clearly gasping for air, to attempt a 2-point conversion. But Rodriguez, uncharacteristically, resisted his gambling instincts and took the tie.

Dusty Rutledge, sitting on the bench, just kept shaking his head. “If [Michigan State] had any discipline at all, they would've won this game a long time ago.”

Phil Johnson, one of the trainers, agreed. “We just got our asses kicked, and now we're going into OT.”

The sun had returned, but it was still raining. It was that kind of day.

In overtime, the Wolverines faced second-and-6 from the 9-yard line, comfortable territory for this team. In the unlikely event their suddenly hot offense couldn't get to the end zone, even a field goal might be enough for Michigan's resurgent defense to stop the struggling Spartans.

There was, of course, a third possibility: After Forcier gave a halfhearted fake, he left the pocket, then fired a pass to Odoms, running through the back of the end zone. But State's defender grabbed the tail of Odoms's jersey and pulled him back for an instant, costing him a step. And that, in a tight offensive scheme, was enough to put the ball just out of reach—and allow another defender to tip it off Odoms's pads and up in the air, high enough for State's Chris Rucker to grab it before it hit the grass.

Interception.

All Michigan State had to do was score, but they fumbled on the first play. They recovered, and two plays later, Caper ran 23 yards for a 26–20 victory.

Paul Bunyan was staying in East Lansing for another year.

Tate Forcier sat on the bench alone, head in hands, agonizing over his first loss as a college quarterback.

*   *   *

In the visitors' locker room, almost every player had his head down, buried in sweaty, dirty hands. Rodriguez was back in the tiny coaches' room, writing a few thoughts on his index cards, before getting up and slamming the little green swinging door against the tile with a bang.

“First, you got
nothing
to hang your heads about. Nothing. You worked your asses off. And that's the only reason why, as bad as we played, we could've won that game. But we lost, and I take responsibility for that.

“The lights are still on, men! The cockroaches want to come around, they can. Nothing to hide here, but they don't like the light, so they won't stay long. This is gonna hurt, and it should hurt. But only for twenty-four hours. Then we'll get back to work.

“So let's shower and get the hell out of this hellhole. ‘Michigan' on three.”

“Michigan!”

Rodriguez walked back to the coaches' room, his face tight as a drum. Everything he had told his team was true, and he believed it. But he left something out: In their biggest game to date, with the most to gain against arguably their weakest conference opponent, Michigan had missed reads, missed throws, and just plain dropped the ball.

He banged the swinging doors again, then knocked a wooden chair against the wall. “Fuck me!”

Rodriguez might have preferred winning ugly to losing pretty, but there was no consolation in losing close and ugly.

The forty-five-minute bus ride back to Ann Arbor took days.

 

24   BRIGHT LIGHTS, BIG STAGE

If Michigan was looking for a break, they weren't going to get one the following week in Iowa City. But if Michigan wanted to atone for the loss to Michigan State, a nationally televised night game on ABC against the thirteenth-ranked Hawkeyes in one of the league's loudest stadiums—and, on this night, one of the coldest—would do very nicely.

It wouldn't pack the emotional punch rescuing Paul Bunyan would have, but it would serve the same purpose: launching Rodriguez and his players beyond the gravitational pull of their detractors. They would be out of reach and on their way.

In Iowa's infamous pink-walled visitors' locker room, the players took a knee near the door, waiting for their head coach.

“All I'm saying is, who wants to come in on Monday
waiting
to see this film?!” Brandon Graham asked his teammates. “Who wants to fight for each other? We do it in practice every day. Let's do it right here, right now!”

“They didn't lift the way we did,” Van Bergen said. “They didn't run the way we did. They ain't us. Make 'em pay!”

Rodriguez kept it short and sweet. “Okay, men, two things: First, you are going to get physical on every snap.

“Second, I want to see some smiles on your faces. You've got the national stage tonight. Let's have some
fun
out there.” He held their collective gaze a beat longer, then cut to the conclusion. “Every man, on every play. Because
they better understand
,” which cued the players to start slapping their hands and helmets in rhythm, and begin their pregame call-and-response mantra: “When they play Michigan!”