Every day, Michigan football players file out of their dressing room in Schembechler Hall and pass beneath these words stenciled above the doorway to an adjoining practice field:
“Those who stay will be CHAMPIONS.”
Bo Schembechler, the legend for whom the building is named, tacked up a sign bearing that phrase in 1969, when he led the upstart Wolverines to the Big Ten title with a shocking upset of top-rated Ohio State. His point was that any player who spent four years in Maize and Blue would wear a Big Ten championship ring and play in Pasadena, Calif.
It has been true for every class since. But a pair of seniors are on the verge of becoming the first class to put the lie to that slogan. Nose tackle Will Carr and offensive guard Damon Denson have spent three years here and never played in the Rose Bowl. And, 10 fifth-year seniors were on the roster of Michigan’s 1992 Big Ten champs but didn’t play in the Rose Bowl.
So there is more than the usual pressure on the 12th-ranked Wolverines as they prepare for their opener Saturday against Illinois here.
“It’s always on people’s minds,” said center Rod Payne, one of the fifth-year seniors. “That’s the only reason we go to Michigan–to graduate and to win the Rose Bowl.”
Not so many years ago, it seemed as if Michigan needed only to strap on its winged helmets and fire up “The Victors” to be recognized as the best in the Big Ten. Starting receiver Tai Streets, a product of Thornton Township High School, said he came here because of the strong blend of academics and athletics. But there was another reason he spurned Illinois and Notre Dame and several other schools that recruited him.
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“Michigan,” he said. “It’s just the name.”
Recently, it is just a name, one of eleven in the Big Ten. In this era of parity, when once-feeble Wisconsin and Northwestern have won two of the last three Big Ten titles, tradition doesn’t cut it.
Since winning their last league championship in 1992, the Wolverines have gone 15-9 in conference play, third-best behind Ohio State (19-4-1) and Penn State (19-5) in that span.
The Wolverines have lost six games in the Big House in the last three years after losing only seven in eight years before that. And they have lost seven of their last 11 games against ranked opponents.
On many campuses, these numbers would hardly provoke alarm. Here, they add up to one conclusion: “M” stands for mediocre.
That’s the challenge facing the 1996 Wolverines.
“I think we have every bit as good a chance to win as anyone else does,” head coach Lloyd Carr said.
Carr enters this year with the relative security of a contract that extends through the 1999 season. In the spring of 1995 Carr, a longtime assistant, was named interim coach after Gary Moeller was ousted following a drunken tirade at a suburban Detroit restaurant.
Carr spent the 1995 season on a roller coaster. The highs included the greatest comeback in school history, an 18-17 win over Virginia in the opener, and a 31-23 upset of second-ranked Ohio State in the regular-season finale.
The lows included a home loss to Northwestern and an upset loss at Michigan State.
This year, with the Big Ten race seemingly wide open, the Wolverines have designs on returning to Pasadena. But if Michigan is headed West, it will need its defense to live up to its preseason billing. The Wolverines return nine starters on defense, including all-conference picks Jarrett Irons, Charles Woodson and Will Carr.
“Our defense is going to have to lead this team early in the season,” Carr said.
The offense has potential but is young at the skill positions. Quarterback Scott Dreisbach, a rifle-armed, 6-foot-4-incher, is said to be healthy after missing most of last year with a hand injury. At tailback, Chris Howard and Clarence Williams have been waging a spirited battle to take over the starting job vacated by Tshimanga Biakabutuka.
And the receiving corps has been depleted by the graduation of Amani Toomer and Mercury Hayes, though Streets “has an opportunity before he’s done to be a great receiver here,” Carr said.
“I think our offense will come around,” Carr said.
It needs to do it in a hurry. The Fighting Illini aren’t considered Rose Bowl contenders, but they’ve given the Wolverines fits in recent years. In two weeks, Michigan heads to Boulder for a meeting with fifth-ranked Colorado in a rematch of the 1994 game that ended on Kordell Stewart’s Hail Mary touchdown pass. And on Oct. 5, Michigan meets Northwestern in Dyche Stadium.
If they’re looking for inspiration on their visit to Evanston, the Wolverines might want to stop by Northwestern’s Nicolet Football Center, where a photomural of the Rose Bowl, dappled in sunlight and shadows, hangs in the atrium.
That’s an unfamiliar destination for these Wolverines, but the only one that matters this year.