The Wolverine: Covering University of Michigan Football and Sports
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THE WOLVERINE 2016 FOOTBALL PREVIEW ■ 41 as a recruit (and guest of MSU) in 1969. "When he walked out, somebody ran up to Bo and said: 'You will never win in this stadium! You will never win a game here!'" Thornbladh recalled. "He always remembered that. He would mention that: 'They told me, we would not win here! We would not win here!' "He would always say, 'Men, I need the 60 toughest, most rugged, most committed guys that I can find, because we're going to Lansing, and we're going to have to be ready and pre- pared. And we shall not lose.'" And they didn't. The next eight trips to East Lansing, Schembechler heard only sweet si- lence afterwards. In 21 games versus the Spar- tans, his teams lost a mere four times. "I remember them telling him that, and it was a mistake," Thornbladh said. "They should have been happy they beat him, because he never forgot that." Longtime U-M equipment man Jon Falk agreed. "Bo always said, 'You can't afford to lose to Michigan State. Because if you do, you hear about it wherever you go in the state of Michigan,'" Falk stressed. "And he's right. He's totally right." Falk could never get out of East Lansing inconspicuously following a loss. Riding in the big maize-and-blue semi carrying the Wolver- ines' gear, he and others became a target when the Spartans prevailed. "There's a lot of jealously and hatred to- ward Michigan when you take the field against Michigan State," he said. "The people at Mich- igan State are nice. It's the crowd and the stu- dents, and they're all riled up. They want to beat Michigan pretty bad. "The years we lost, we had to drive the semi out the back, through the golf course and over to get onto I-96. People are screaming: 'Get that circus out of town! Put a tent over that circus!'" Former U-M All- American offensive tackle Jon Jansen grew up in Clawson, Mich. He's convinced those from the state feel more deeply about the series than anyone else, al- though he acknowledges a few big hits — and especially a loss — can grab the attention of a winged-helmeted warrior from anywhere. For him, it was always personal. "What's fun about Michigan State is that when they come to Ann Arbor or you to go East Lansing, you see people that you've known from all around the state," he said. "It's one of those games that if you grew up in Michigan and you lose, you have to live with every day of the year. "There were students at Michigan State that I went to high school with, that I saw in the crowd, and now they're cheering against me. "To me, that was always a special feeling. If there is anybody that you want to beat more than anybody else, it's a friend. You're going to have to live with that. You're going to talk trash, or they're going to talk trash, all year long. You want to make sure you're on the win- ning side of that game." Own The Game, Own The Talk Jansen knows personally what it means to quiet an overly talkative Spartan. Even though the Wolverines beat Michigan State in 1996, 45-29, an MSU defensive lineman from Flor- ida boasted afterward about getting the best of the redshirt sophomore offensive tackle. "He was in the news and said it was some- thing special, and he didn't understand what the game meant," Jansen recalled. "And in '97, he was going to show he understood what it meant now and it was going to be something different for Jansen. "That really fired me up. And we all know what happened in '97." Michigan invaded Spartan Stadium and dominated the home team, 23-7, on the way to an undefeated season and the national champi- onship. Along the way, Jansen forced a frustra- tion error he still smiles about. "There was a moment, when it was 10-7, and we were going down to score just before halftime," Jansen noted. "At about the 10-yard line, I was faced up against one of their guys. He was a eventual first-round pick that didn't work out so well for the Minnesota Vikings. "He was a good player. I took him and bur- ied him, right down on the goal line. It was third down. He got up, punched me in the facemask, and we got a 15-yard personal foul against him. "First down, and we got it on about the 4-yard line. We went in and scored, and never trailed again in that game." There was a time when the Wolverines seemed to regularly force such frustration out of the Spartans. It can make the all the differ- ence, Jansen stressed. "I'm not saying I was trying to get that out of him, but all of those things add up to wins or losses in that game," he said. "If you can't control your emotions, if you can't control the mental part of that game, you're at a huge disadvantage. We used it in that game, and it helped us." Of course, they also used one of the most spectacular interceptions in college football history, involving Heisman Trophy win- ner Charles Woodson soaring to snag an MSU pass one-handed. "I remember him going up, and I thought he was just going to be out of bounds," Jansen marveled. "For him to be able to come down with that interception … I'll never forget that moment." Falk remembers the highlight moments as well. "The greatest game was the '89 game," he insisted. "We held Michigan State at the goal line and beat them 10-7. What a great game that was. We stopped them four times at the goal line, and they had Blake Ezor, their big fullback. To stop them down at the goal line was just tremendous." He also mentioned the 2007 contest, when Chad Henne, battling through arm issues, led "Those games, your feet don't touch the ground. When you play Michigan State and Ohio State, you give maximum effort. You're as physical as you can be, and you hit as hard as you can. That's what it's going to take to be victorious." FORMER U-M FULLBACK BOB THORNBLADH The Paul Bunyan Trophy has been given to the winner of the Wolverines-Spartans matchup every year since 1953, but U-M has not held it since 2012. PHOTO BY LON HORWEDEL