With a sputtering offense, Michigan loses its first game of the season 26-20 in overtime to Michigan State
Courtney Ratkowiak
Daily Sports EditorOctober 4th, 2009
EAST LANSING — It’s apparently impossible to stop believing in this year’s Wolverines, even when they're down by 14 in the fourth quarter of a miserable, rainy game against their third-biggest rival.
Tate Forcier has made sure of that. The Wolverines have been down late in three of this season’s five games. In all three, the freshman quarterback has coolly found a way to get his team back into the game.
This time, with two minutes, 53 seconds and no timeouts left in the game, the magic came in the form of a 92-yard drive and a third-down, last-gasp touchdown pass to rarely used redshirt freshman Roy Roundtree.
But this time, the extra point sealed a tie instead of a win. And in overtime, the quarterback who everyone has said doesn’t play like a freshman finally made a freshman mistake.
It was an over route by sophomore wide receiver Martavious Odoms, a miscommunication and a throw directly to Spartan cornerback Chris L. Rucker in the end zone. On Michigan State’s ensuing overtime drive, Michigan State’s own freshman hero — running back Larry Caper — shook off Wolverine tackles to run for a 23-yard touchdown and the 26-20 win.
“We're going to snatch it from 'em,” Michigan State coach Mark Dantonio said he told his team before overtime. “We're going to snatch it from 'em when they thought they caught us. We are going to snatch it right back.”
The Spartans did just that, and the Wolverines’ almost-comeback made Saturday’s real story even more strikingly clear: Michigan’s success this year has depended and will depend on show-stopping offensive plays. And Saturday, it just couldn’t muster up enough of them — which made the loss even more demoralizing.
This year’s team has relied on speedy, explosive offensive drives. Going into the game, Michigan had lost the time of possession battle in three of its four games even while outscoring opponents 150-91. But in East Lansing, the Wolverines’ paltry 20 minutes and 14 seconds of possession time was because they were forced to go three-and-out on too many drives, not because they were striking quickly. The offense looked flustered and disjointed, with receivers unable to hold onto the ball and the running game nonexistent.
Without any signature breakout plays, the Wolverines (4-1) managed just negative three rushing yards in the first half. Forcier's only complete pass in the first quarter, where the Spartans (2-3) kept the ball for a little less than 13 of the 15 minutes, was a three-yarder to Carlos Brown. The freshman was pressured early and often, and on Michigan's only real shot for a touchdown drive in the first half, he was sacked on third down and called for intentional grounding.
Even Michigan’s Big Ten-leading rushing game — which had averaged over 240 yards per game — failed them. Senior running backs Carlos Brown and Brandon Minor combined for a miserable 17 yards on 10 carries Saturday, and the leading rusher on both teams was Michigan State’s quarterback.
But if there was a game for the offense to look lackluster, a game against the mediocre-at-best Spartans was it. The Wolverines managed to keep it close the whole game, thanks to a flurry of Spartan penalties and critical stops by the Michigan defense.
"We just came out, you know, and knew we had to step up," sophomore nose tackle Mike Martin said. "The offense was struggling a little bit, but we got their back. Nobody’s pointing fingers after this game."
Instead of the offense bailing out the defense, which happened often last week against Indiana in an ugly 36-33 Wolverine win, the defense tried to give the offense two critical chances to showcase its flashiness.
But for the first time this season, the offense couldn’t take advantage of the opportunities.
One of those was on the first Michigan State drive of the game, on a Stevie Brown interception that gave Michigan the ball deep in Spartan territory. But instead of going ahead by seven early, the Wolverines managed to lose five total yards on the drive before settling for a field goal.
The other, a fumble recovery by Obi Ezeh, was midway through the fourth quarter, with the game at a pivotal moment and the Wolverines getting desperate. But two plays later, Darryl Stonum fumbled the ball right back to the Spartans inside the Michigan State 20-yard line.
Instead, Michigan’s first big offensive play didn’t come until almost 56 minutes into the game. Forcier chucked a 29-yard pass to Stonum that the sophomore caught before juking past two Spartan defenders, pushing one away with his free hand and running faster than two more en route to a 60-yard score to pull Michigan within seven.
In the end, even though Michigan State was technically favored in Vegas by a field goal, the 1-3 Spartans played the part of the spoiler well. They were chippy and aggressive the whole game, talking trash between plays and garnering four personal foul penalties. Their postgame celebration felt almost like winning a bowl game instead of an in-state rivalry contest, as players raised Caper in the air jubilantly as if he were the Paul Bunyan Trophy himself.
And Dantonio’s comments about the importance of the game—the Spartans’ first back-to-back wins against Michigan since 1967 — seemed to elevate it to instant-classic status.
“Amazingly — but facts are facts — it hadn't been done for 42 years,” Dantonio said. “We did something today that hadn't been done, and when you do things like that, it has a way of defining you."
But in a game where nearly everything that has defined the Wolverine offense failed them, the only way the players could define Saturday's game was "disappointing."
“I’m not gonna talk,” Michigan linebackers coach Jay Hopson said while walking to the team bus. “It was a tough one to swallow.”
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