Whatever voodoo doll with a University of Michigan football uniform on it is out there, it must still be being passed around, because bowl game nonsense has been a hallmark of U-M's program off and on, mainly on, for the past 35 years or so.
The Wolves dropped another of those postseason games, 32-28, to Nebraska in the Alamo Bowl last night. They blew a nine-point fourth quarter lead, but that's nothing new for U-M, this season or in bowl games. The game ended with a bizarre, Cal-wanna-be lateral extravaganza which got the ball to the Cornhuskers' 13 at the final gun. That play, too, was a microcosm of Michigan's rate of success in bowl games: wild and wacky, but coming up short in the end.
It hasn't been all bad, of course, U-M's performance in bowl games, but mostly disappointment is the carryover feeling the program and its followers have between the final game of the previous season and the start of camp in August.
Bo Schembechler, a wonderfully succesful regular season coach, had a devil of a time in games played in December and January. The frustration for Bo began with his heart attack suffered days before his first Rose Bowl against Stanford in 1971, and it never really went away entirely. The Wolverines, however, actually won TWO bowl games in 1981: New Year's Day in Bo's first Rose Bowl victory, and on New Year's Eve 364 days later, winning the old Astro-Bluebonnet Bowl in Houston. But what is the first thing that comes to mind when I mention U-M football and bowl games? Not umitigated success, I can tell you that.
Bo: A heart attack in '71 was a harbinger of things to come
About a year and a half ago I asked Johnny Wangler, U-M's quarterback in that '81 Rose Bowl win over Washington, if Bo was emotional in the lockerroom following that win, which finally got the Rose Bowl monkey off his back.
"It was very emotional," Wangler told me. "And Bo didn't get emotional very often."
Things didn't change much after Bo left. Gary Moeller, and now Lloyd Carr, have unfortunately carried on the tradition of lost opportunities in bowl games. Even Carr's 1997 team, co-National Champions with Nebraska, have that nagging feeling that they should have been sole champions. Tom Osborne's well-timed announcement of his retirement as Huskers coach, I believe, contributed mightily to the vote that year. Always something with Michigan.
The Wolverines have tried all sorts of gimmicks and changes in itinerary, especially in bowl games played in California, to try to find the winning formula. But the truth is, they haven't had all that much luck in any of our continental United States, when it comes to those games played around the holidays.
1 comment:
That was a crazy game last night with very questionable officiating. How many players were on the field for that last play, about 50?
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