The Wolverine Now

SEPT. 16, 2012 BLOWOUT T BY JOHN BORTON he University of Massachusetts picked up a hefty check for agreeing to head west to The Big House. Presumably, a good chunk of that cash will go directly to the UMass dental school. It's expensive to fix a good kick in the teeth. That's precisely what the Minutemen ab- sorbed, the Wolverines sending their inci- sors flying halfway back to Amherst in a 63- 63 13 13 runover. U-M rolled up 585 total yards in charging to 2-1, while UMass fell to 0-3 overall and 0-2 in the Big Ten after getting hammered by Indiana a week earlier. Yes, Indiana, providing a forecast for the Michigan game of partly ugly with a 100 percent chance of rout. It rained yardage at Michigan Stadium, the Wolverines ringing up 294 on the ground. Senior quarterback Denard Rob- inson again delivered the one if by land, two if by air warning, rushing 10 times for 106 yards and a touchdown, while going 16-of-24 passing for 291 yards and three more TDs. Redshirt junior running back Fitzgerald Toussaint racked up 85 yards and a touch- down on 15 tries, and junior wideout Drew Michigan Mows Down Minutemen With Emphasis, 63-13 Dileo led nine receivers with at least one catch, hauling in three for 91 yards. "We would have taken any win," U-M head coach Brady Hoke stressed, brushing off the smoldering pile of UMass aspects of the contest. He instead stressed improving — which he's hoping the Wolverines did in Michi- gan's penultimate non-conference clash. What this one lacked in drama, it made up for in dominance. The Wolverines took less than three min- utes to send a malevolent message to the Minutemen. U-M covered 65 yards in just five plays on its opening drive, Robinson gunning a 26-yard touchdown pass to a wide-open Devin Funchess, and the fresh- man tight end raced in untouched to raise the curtain on the rout. "Devin still has a lot to learn, but he's a playmaker," Hoke noted. With UMass and quarterback Mike Weg- zyn (14-of-29, 141 yards) racking up three- and-outs like pre-scandal Roger Clemens hanging Ks, Michigan didn't lack for early chances to extend the lead. U-M covered 45 yards in seven plays for a touchdown near the end of the quarter, Toussaint taking center stage. He hauled in a 17-yard screen pass from Robinson, and then finished the truncated TD drive by bursting through a hole in the left side of the line, shaking off would-be Minutemen tack- lers and racing 11 yards for the touchdown. Senior running back Vincent Smith, who scored two touchdowns, was one of eight different Wolverines to reach the end zone in the rout of Massachusetts. PHOTO BY PER KJELDSEN

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