The Wolverine: Covering University of Michigan Football and Sports
Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/835590
THE WOLVERINE 2017 FOOTBALL PREVIEW ■ 25 zards over The Big House, and even ardent U-M fans uneasy about the direction under the longtime loyal assistant now sitting in the director's chair at Schembechler Hall. Five consecutive Big Ten championships in the late '80s and early '90s had turned to numb- ing near misses and declining results. It wasn't an issue of talent. Most of the elements of the '97 explosion — including an eventual Heisman winner in Charles Wood- son, along with Jansen and a host of others — were in place during Carr's first two seasons as head coach. The Wolverines underscored their potential in the final regular-season game both years. They ran wild on No. 2 Ohio State in 1995 at home, 31-23, then stunned the No. 2 Buck- eyes in Ohio Stadium the following year, 13-9. That game, Carr insisted, marked the gen- esis of the '97 triumph. There were no early indications of such. The Buckeyes, nearing the end of a 2-10-1 domination by the Wolverines, jumped ahead 9-0 in The Snakepit, knocking starting quar- terback Scott Dreisbach out of the game in the process. On came redshirt junior Brian Griese, the former preferred walk-on who started several games after Dreisbach got injured in '95 but then slipped into the background again in '96. Entering the regular-season finale in '96, Griese had attempted precisely 10 passes on the year. Amid a howling horde of 94,676 onlookers, the Wolverines faced a huge uphill battle. The opening minute of the third quarter changed everything. Griese fired a short pass to wideout Tai Streets, defended by OSU's Shawn Springs. Springs slipped to the turf, and the Wolver- ines saw Streets of gold, the veteran wideout racing away on a 69-yard touchdown bolt. Placekicker Remy Hamilton added a field goal in the third quarter and one in the fourth, and Michigan's defense slammed the door, limiting OSU to 84 second-half yards and an Ohio "O" on the scoreboard. "They got the momentum," Buckeyes head coach John Cooper lamented. "They had a player make a big play and got a spark. All of a sudden, they came to life." This went beyond one play, or one game, Carr asserted. "What Griese did in Columbus was really special," Carr said. "He came in, and we were down, 9-0. He hits Streets, and our entire program changed on that play. "After that second half … as a coach, I came out of there knowing we had a chance to be a great team." The win over the Buckeyes factored heav- ily into Griese's status for the following year, Carr acknowledged. Griese had to beat out Dreisbach, who'd won the job out of camp the previous two years, and Tom Brady, who would later add five Super Bowl rings to his national championship hardware. "One of the things that was going through Brian's mind was, he'd been at Michigan four years and had never been to a Rose Bowl," Jansen said. "Leading up to when that senior class was there, there were guys that had made four and five trips to the Rose Bowl. "His was going to be one of the first clas- ses to go through Michigan without taking a team to the Rose Bowl. That's not a legacy you want — especially at that time. You don't want to go through life with that albatross around your neck. That was a huge factor in it." The '96 effort against the Buckeyes couldn't be ignored, Carr offered. "The advantage he had was that he had started nine games two years earlier, in the '95 season, and he had played in that Ohio State game — the biggest game we have," Carr recalled. "In that second half, he played flawlessly." Carr demanded that Griese be a condition- ing leader in the summer of '97, getting in the "We knew the value of every person that was part of that national championship team. Nobody felt too big. Nobody felt too small. Everybody felt like they had a hand in winning that national championship — because they did." ALL-AMERICAN OFFENSIVE TACKLE JON JANSEN The last U-M football squad to win the national title gathered for a 20-year reunion this April at Michigan Stadium. Players, coaches, managers and trainers were all represented. PHOTO COURTESY MICHIGAN ATHLETIC MEDIA RELATIONS