8802150142
DETROIT FREE PRESS
881016
Sunday, October 16, 1988
METRO FINAL CHASER
1E
MITCH ALBOM
Copyright (c) 1988, Detroit Free Press
HIDEOUS TIE GAGS HAWKEYE FANS - AND BO
IOWA CITY, Iowa -- Well, at least it shut the fans up. Iowa boosters, who
had been making life miserable all day for Michigan, filed slowly out of
Kinnick Stadium with blank looks on their faces. A tie? What were they
supposed to do with a tie? Be happy? Be angry?
Be quiet. Take it and tuck it under the sheets before someone maize and
blue returns, Hawkeyes, because this was a game that Michigan should have
won. It was a firecracker without the boom, a 60-minute drama that goes 58
minutes and then the lights come on and everybody has to go home.
"I hate ties," said coach Bo Schembechler Saturday after his Wolverines
knotted Iowa, 17-17, to keep both teams undefeated in the Big Ten. "Gawd, I
can't stand them."
Sure. Especially when victory is within a yard. Who designed this one? A
masochist? Here was Michigan, after a game's worth of jump-starts and oil
slicks, finally looking strong, moving like thunder, less than two minutes
left in the fourth quarter and the ball just an arm's length from the Iowa
end zone. Even the Hawkeyes fans -- screaming yellow zonkers who had foiled
the Michigan offense with incredible noise -- were packing up the pom-pons
and reaching for Sucrets. But whoa! Wait a minute. Here comes U-M's Tracy
Williams, who had just entered the game one play earlier, and he takes the
ball and he thrusts toward the goal line and, whoops, there goes the ball,
there goes the win, there goes the story. Fumble. Iowa recovers.
"I hate ties," Schembechler repeated. "I hate them."
Well, who doesn't? But whose fault was this one? You could blame Michigan, for
not executing the simplest of plays. Or for giving the ball to a cold running
back in the heat of the fourth quarter. Or for not having the defense to stop
The Chuck Hartlieb Passing Machine. (By the way, do all Iowa quarterbacks
have to be named Chuck, or is that just coincidence?)
"We had a significant number of mishaps before that last fumble," admitted
Schembechler, whose team was penalized eight times for 65 yards and allowed
Hartlieb to complete 26 of 33 passes. "Most teams would have gone home if
they'd played a first half like we did."
True. Then again, you could also blame Iowa. The Hawkeyes had a fumble on
that very same one-yard line -- a fourth-and- goal in the third quarter --
which Michigan then took and drove 99 yards to tie the score. And, true,
Iowa's defense was Jell-O-like in the final minutes. But at last count, the
team had lost six starters for at least part of this game, middle guard Dave
Haight, center Bill Anderson, linebacker Brad Quast, safeties Mark Stoops and
Gary Clark, and running back Tony Stewart. The last time so much Hawkeye was
missing was when M*A*S*H went off the air.
"We had walk-ons playing in the secondary," said Iowa coach Hayden Fry,
shaking his head. "In my 37 years of coaching, I've never seen so many guys
crippled and wiped out."
So maybe we should blame . . . the fans. Why not? Half the time, they were
the story anyhow. On three separate occasions their noise was so loud
Michigan quarterback Michael Taylor could not call the plays.
In practice, teams go over what you're supposed to do in that situation.
Step back from the line, signal the referee, and wait. Taylor tried that in
the second quarter, with Michigan driving on the Iowa 17.
He stepped back. He looked at the referee, John Nealon. He waited. Nealon
motioned for him to try again. Taylor motioned that he couldn't hear. Nealon
motioned to try it. Taylor motioned he couldn't hear. It was like watching a
Rudolph Valentino movie, with the music replaced by 67,700 farmlanders
hooting and hollering.
And the referee threw a flag.
Delay of game.
Huh?
"We interpret the rules that it's up to the quarterback to decide if he can
hear," said Taylor. "And suddenly he's calling me for delay of game. I didn't
understand it."
Why should he? The rules say it is not for the referee to determine
"acceptable" noise. It is the quarterback's judgment. True, he's supposed to
go under the center before signaling for help. But that doesn't warrant the
penalty. The referee was misguided. Or, as Schembechler put it: "That man has
no idea how to play the game of football."
Schembechler offered that thought to the referee.
Unsportsmanlike conduct.
Fifteen-yard penalty.
We can't print Bo's reaction.
Anyhow, the Wolverines rebounded from all this and marched in for a
touchdown. In fact, every time the Hawkeyes fans made trouble for Taylor, the
U-M drive ended up in a score. If they were smart, they'd have shut up in the
second period.
Iowa might have won by 30.
So that brings us back to Michigan, and the finger of blame must point there,
because, let's face it, no matter what happened before, first and goal with
less than two minutes left should get you some points, right?
"I have no excuses," said Williams, from whom linebacker Melvin Foster
stripped the ball. "It wasn't because I had just come in the game. I was just
sort of stood up and somebody hit it and I fumbled. We should have won."
Taylor said the same thing. So did Schembechler. So did Greg McMurtry, who
had the best clutch game of all, catching six passes for 91 yards. Could have
won. Should have won.
All forgotten now. The tie pretty much leaves Michigan where it was before
this game -- needing to win all the rest to get to the Rose Bowl. A victory
would have been better for both statistical and morale purposes. But either
way, it is mandatory against undefeated Indiana next week.
"Is this tie easier to take for you than Iowa?" a reporter asked
Schembechler. "Because Iowa already has one Big Ten tie and--."
"Ties are lousy, period. I don't care about Iowa. I don't want to hear any
more about Iowa."
And they don't want to hear about Michigan. They say ties are like kissing
your sister, but nobody was in the mood for kissing after this one. Mostly
they were just wondering what happened, or going, "Shhhh!"
"Would a noise problem like this exist at your stadium in Ann Arbor?" an
Iowa reporter asked Schembechler.
"No, it wouldn't," bellowed Bo, "because in Michigan Stadium WE HAVE MORE
SOPHISTICATED FANS."
Quick, somebody, start the bus.
COLLEGE;FOOTBALL;U-M