It was summer 2007 and I was in Las Vegas, Nevada, wrapping up a tourist trip and Spanish horse show with my mom. The arid desert heat gave way to numerous air-conditioned gaudy monstrosities which ‘Sin City’ is known for. Our trip back to Detroit was set for the late afternoon, but as I was about to embark upon my senior year at the University of Michigan, this was the respite before the grind.
In South Point casino, I searched frantically for a way to see my fifth-ranked school’s season opener, but as the inaugural game on Big Ten Network, and me being some 1,800 miles away from Ann Arbor, it wasn’t available in the sports book, nor was it on via the hotel’s internal TV circuit in the rooms. The year before, I watched the second half of Michigan’s season-opening win against Vanderbilt in my room at the same hotel.
It turns out, I was glad to have not seen it.
The game was dubbed ‘the horror’ by fansite MGoBlog, and with good reason. A Wolverines team with the quarterback, running back, receivers, and a whole bunch of other playmakers returning from the year before’s borderline championship squad did the unthinkable — they lost to a team from the FCS level. Never before had a ranked team in the big leagues done such a thing.
On the plane ride back home, in between dialogue from episodes of ‘The Office’ that I watched on my computer, I could hear the girl sitting in front of me, proudly donning an Ohio State shirt, gloating about what had happened earlier in the day to anyone who could hear. I slunk down in my seat, drowning my sorrows quietly, trying to evade any comment about how my school just became an embarrassment, not only on a national level but in a way that would live on forever.
Here we are, 16 years later, and for the first time since that August day, Michigan has similar expectations. The maize and blue return the starting quarterback and star running backs from a year ago, and look to be strong at nearly every position group. That 2007 game was the prelude to a dynasty falling, even if Michigan hadn’t won the conference in a few years, and were 10 years removed from a national championship. Now, Jim Harbaugh and company aren’t just working to right the ship, they’re navigating toward rarely charted territory.
The Wolverines have won two-straight conference championships, have beaten Ohio State twice after losing 15 of 16. The expectations have changed, not just in Ann Arbor, but across the sport. Sure, the Buckeyes still get more publicity, but they didn’t fall off a cliff like Michigan did, starting with that August 2007 day.
Why write this? Because these are parallel situations, plausibly with much different outcomes.
Michigan had internal expectations coming off of 2021’s prodigal return to greatness, and no one gave it a chance in 2022. Now, the Wolverines are back in the good graces of the college football elite, and are being treated as such. That final year of the Lloyd Carr era was a whimper given the expectations. But this team entering 2023 won’t allow itself to falter as some of its predecessors.
Why is that? While it’s not said explicitly, it’s because of the dark days that once existed in Ann Arbor. A once-proud program is working to regain its pride, not just for this year, but for future generations.
“Just guys buying into the program, willing to do whatever it takes to help his team just get to their first national championship,” fifth-year cornerback Mike Sainristil said. “And I’m not sure how long but that’s what we want. We’re trying to set a new standard for the program and the teams to come and just being bought into what we want to do here and the culture we want to leave.
“I feel like this more so guys want to leave legacies when they leave here. And like, I know personally for myself, I want to be a guy that when freshman come here, like, ‘I want to be like Mikey Sainristil,’ for little kids, ‘I want to be like Mikey Sainristil, I want to be like Blake Corum, I want to be like Trevor Keegan, Zak Zinter.’ I can go down the list of guys who have the opportunity to do that.
“I think the whole mindset of coming back for that fifth year is, ‘Alright, let’s put everything into this last season. Let’s play everything into a winning national championship.’ And it’s that goal.”
I’d be lying if I didn’t look at this upcoming season and not have flashbacks to the summer of 2007, remembering how I thought it was Michigan’s year, just months before it all came crashing down. The program didn’t fully rebound for a decade and a half, but now is the most prime opportunity since Chad Henne (who just retired from the NFL) and now-Michigan running backs coach Mike Hart donned a winged helmet.
Every time I harken back to those old days, when everything fell apart, I think about the past two years and the players who are still on the team who made them happen. And then I realize, there’s next to no chance of that moribund history repeating.
Now it’s about making good on the promise of those teams that could have and should have. This team, as Jim Harbaugh says, ‘has the license and ability’ to win it all. Let’s see what they do.
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