8502060728
DETROIT FREE PRESS
850915
Sunday, September 15, 1985
STATE EDITION
1D
Photo Associated Press
MITCH ALBOM
Copyright (c) 1985, Detroit Free Press
IMAGINE! U-M DID, AND WON
ANN ARBOR -- Unranked, my foot.
Call those pollsters. Wake them up this morning. Let the phone ring 100
times if you have to.
And when they finally grunt a "hello," let 'em have it full blast, in your
loudest shish-boom-bah voice:
Michigan 20, Notre Dame 12.
Put that in your computer banks.
This is Wolverine football, fellahs, don't forget, and leaving them out of
both pre-season Top 20 rankings hurt their Wolverine feelings.
So what they did on this Opening Day, before a mere 105,000 fans and a
national TV audience, was knock off a team ranked 11th by UPI, 13th by AP and
as high as seventh by The Sporting News.
A team with a Heisman candidate running back, Allen Pinkett, who gained
less than 100 yards and could probably tell you which Wolverine defender has
the worst breath, he spent so much time in their arms.
Michigan 20, Notre Dame 12.
Didn't let them score a touchdown.
And, best of all, they beat them with -- are you ready, are you sure, are
you certain? -- imagination.
Offensive imagination.
Well, a little, anyhow.
Bo on the run
Now everyone knows that fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly and Michigan gotta
run.
And run. And run. And run.
Left, right, up the middle. And then left, right, up the middle.
It doesn't always stir the creative juices, but, hey, it wins a lot of ball
games. At least it has in the past. And despite promises by Bo Schembechler
this summer about a new look to the offense, more passing, more points, it was
the old standard model that came out for the first half Saturday.
Run, baby, run.
And they went into the locker room down 9-3.
Not a whole lot of new there.
Tailback Jamie Morris was the designated work horse this time around, a
sophomore who stands only 5 feet 7 but moves like a pinball off a bumper. By
the time his blockers open a hole he's through it, tackled, and back in the
huddle going "Me again, please, me, again, can I, huh?"
As good as Morris is, however -- and that's pretty good, considering his
121 yards Saturday -- going to him so often can get predictable.
And that's largely what Michigan did during the first half. And the
Fighting Irish shut them down short of the end zone every time.
But when Michigan came out in the second half, picked up a fumbled kickoff
and scored to go up by one, well, we saw something, uh, different.
After Notre Dame kicked a field goal to go ahead 12-10, the Wolverines
embarked on a drive that must be considered, well, yes, I'll say it,
imaginative.
They passed. They ran off guard. They passed. They ran a delay. They passed
on first down. They rolled out. They scrambled.
And the Opening Day crowd came to its feet, applauding as the team moved
downfield, 40 yards, 50, 60, 70, touchdown. I think the Goodyear Blimp even
stopped to watch.
Like New Coke
That put them ahead to stay. Another good drive -- highlighted by some
scrambling by quarterback Jim Harbaugh -- got them a field goal, and if not
for a fumble by Morris, they might have had another touchdown.
Instead Notre Dame took that fumble and started a drive with 3:43 left that
brought them all the way down to the Michigan 11.
Now, the first thing you normally do in such situations, when the opposing
team is within spitting distance of your end zone and the clock is winding
down and 105,000 people are screaming their heads off, well, normally the
first thing you do is pray.
Of course, when you're playing Notre Dame, it doesn't always work, since
you figure they got first dibs on praying.
So Michigan sucked it up and pulled out old reliable -- defensive pressure
-- and intercepted a fourth down pass and that was it.
Victory.
It reminds me of when Coke came out with the New Coke this year.
"Looks pretty much the same," one would say.
"Well, yeah," said the other, "but it's a little sweeter."
And so is this. Michigan 20, Notre Dame 12.
Unranked beats ranked.
"Guess we're not the dog people think we are," said Schembechler
afterward.
Not today. Hear that pollsters? Wake up. It's Sunday. And Michigan is
1-0.U-M; college; football