ANN ARBOR, Mich. — In the lead-up to the Week 8 game against rival Michigan State, Michigan football players said all of the right things. ‘We’re not focused on the tunnel incident from last year, we’re focused on this year.’ ‘That’s in the past, we’re not worried about it,’ and things of that ilk.
However, now that the Wolverines are over a week removed from annihilating MSU, 49-0, one thing is for sure: the North remembers.
Game of Thrones idioms aside, now that that game is past and the bye week is also in the rearview, players are admitting, yeah, we said that we put it in the past, but that’s just what we said. In reality, the remnants of the 2021 game were front and center in the minds of the players who endured from it.
“We came to that game, we wanted to make a statement for the bye week,” team captain and left guard Trevor Keegan said. “I think it really is just the thing that happened last year in the tunnel — that really motivated as well. I know guys were like, ‘Don’t let it distract you,’ things like that. And, you know, ‘We’re over it.’ No, we weren’t over it. We wanted to come there, really beat down on them. So it was nice. It was a good time.”
Not only did Michigan football remember, but it relished the opportunity to go and decimate — nay, embarrass — its rival as they did.
So if MSU players decided to do any talking on the field in between plays, the Wolverines were determined to let their play do the talking for them. 49 points scored offensively and zero allowed defensively later, mission accomplished.
“Absolutely. With them being our rivals, it’s always fun to be able to kick some butt, just get a rival win, get a state championship win under our belt,” senior defensive tackle Kris Jenkins said. “But, honestly, with that incident, I mean, like we’ve been saying, it’s an unfortunate, ugly incident, nothing that we stand for, we wanted to happen.
“So, with all that aside, you know, we just came in there to just kick some butt, win as one. We knew there was going to be talking related to that incident the second we got in there, but it didn’t matter. All we have, all we got is us. So, despite all the adversities we face or we faced last year, we continue to do what we do best.”