September 11, 1993
Notre Dame at Michigan Final Stats
By Rich Christenson, The Scholastic 1993 Football Review
“They’ll never be able to do it” Statements like these echoed in the ears of the Notre Dame football players weeks before the clash with the University of Michigan. Radio, TV broadcasts, newspaper and magazine articles, predicted “Without Rick Mirer, Jerome Bettis and Reggie Brooks, the Irish will never be able to pull off an upset,” and “With the highly touted freshman quarterback recruit Ron Powlus injured and controversy surrounding the recent release of Under The Tarnished Dome, Notre Dame will be lucky not to get trounced.”
Sports Illustrated wrote, “Even the strongest Irish team couldn’t expect to defeat all of this year’s foes. And this is far from the strongest Irish team.”
The Notre Dame foot ball team heard all the skepticism. It heard but did not listen. Instead the Irish decided to do something about it: prove their critics wrong.
Michigan came into the match up as the favorites, with a regular season unbeaten streak of 20 games and the home field advantage. After last year’s fifth straight Big Ten championship, the Wolverines set their sights higher this year, aiming for the national title. Though Notre Dame may have been underestimated because of a shaky performance against Northwestern, Coach Lou Holtz and the rest of the Fighting Irish were not ready to surrender.
“After one bad day they wrote us off. We had something to prove,” said senior offensive tackle Aaron Taylor.
So the Irish began the day ready to convert the doubters.
After junior flanker Mike Miller returned the opening kickoff 17 yards, Notre Dame started its march down the field. Oblivious to the record crowd of 106,851 fans, the Irish set about proving their merit. Six plays and 83 yards later, senior quarterback Kevin McDougal scrambled into the end zone for an Irish touchdown.
“I did not expect to go that far,” stated a humble McDougal. “The receivers did a great job blocking.”
But could Notre Dame hold back the Michigan offense anchored by Tyrone Wheatley? When 6-4, 299-pound Aaron Taylor describes another player (Wheatley) as “big, strong and really fast,” one tends to believe him. And on the opening drive, Wheatley carried the ball on six of Michigan’s first 13 plays. The Wolverines moved 66 yards to get within field goal range, where Michigan booted itself on the scoreboard with three points.
Just as the shell-shocked Michigan crowd began to re-enter the game, the Irish silenced them once again. McDougal again took charge, hitting senior split end Clint Johnson for a 43-yard gain. Three plays later, McDougal found Michigan’s ‘sixth Great Lake’ – senior flanker Lake Dawson – for a spectacular 32-yard grab. The Irish drive culminated in a 24-yard field goal by fifth-year senior kicker Kevin Pendergast to give Notre Dame a 10-3 lead.
In the second quarter Miller stepped forward with something of his own to prove. With 12 minutes left in the first half, he received a Michigan punt on the Irish 29-yard line from senior kicker Chris Stapleton. Miller then ran 56 yards straight upfield for another Irish touchdown. Pendergast made the extra point, giving Notre Dame a 17-3 lead. Since Rickey Watters’ 81-yard punt return in Notre Dame’s 1988 victory over Michigan, no one had returned a punt for a touchdown against the Wolverines until Miller.
Michigan struck again late in the first half. Led in the air by senior quarterback Todd Collins and on the ground by Wheatley, the Wolverines marched 89 yards in nine plays as Wheatley pounded in a one-yard touchdown run to bring the score to 17-10. With only 1:13 left in the first half, the Irish could have opted to sit on their one-touchdown lead and head for the locker room, but Notre Dame still had something to prove.
Starting on the Irish 35-yard line, McDougal orchestrated the two-minute drill, completing passes to both Dawson and sophomore split end Derrick Mayes. With 13 seconds left, McDougal dropped back, and finding no receivers open, proceeded to scramble for 11 yards and a Notre Dame touchdown. Traveling 65 yards in seven plays, the Irish went into halftime with a 24-10 lead over the third-ranked Wolverines.
After a halftime speech by Irish defensive line coach Mike Trgovac – said to be similar but perhaps bested by Knute Rockne’s ‘Gipper’ speech – the Irish returned to the gridiron to prove the media, Michigan and the entire nation that the Notre Dame football team could and would win.
Wheatley started the second half with an impressive 49 yard kickoff return. However two plays later, Collins threw a pass intended for sophomore wide receiver Mercury Hayes that instead was intercepted by senior free safety Jeff Burris.
The well-balanced Irish offense began to crush the Wolverines’ spirit Chewing up over six minutes of the third quarter, McDougal completed two passes for 42 yards. Lou Holtz concentrated on the running game, using a plethora of running giants, including junior tailback Lee Becton, junior fullback Ray Zellars, freshman tailback Randy Kinder, and Burris. The Irish drove their way down the field, gaining 63 yards in 13 plays to set up Pendergast fora 19-yard field goal. Notre Dame secured a 27-10 lead over a team expected to dominate the game.
“In the middle of the third quarter, things started going the wrong way,” said Collins.
In the third quarter, Collins was intercepted three times, twice by Burris and once by sophomore cornerback Bobby Taylor. Taylor intercepted the ball and returned it to the Michigan nine-yard line with three and a half minutes left in the third quarter. Notre Dame then found itself in a fourth and one situation on the Michigan goal line. The Irish went for it, but Burris was stopped short.
“If we make it, we score. If not, they’re on the one yard line and have to go 99 yards; I like these odds. However, they did end up going 99 yards and made it look like a bad decision,” said Holtz. In a definite shift of momentum, the Wolverines marched 99 yards down the field for an eventual touchdown early in the fourth quarter, bringing Michigan within ten points of the Irish with a score of 27-17.
Once again the Irish had some thing to prove that it would take more than one solid effort to win a game. In the fourth quarter, the Irish defense stopped Michigan’s offense on its first three drives of the quarter. And Notre Dame’s offense ran conservative plays meant to run the clock out but not put points on the scoreboard.
Michigan, however, did not give up. Late in the game Collins led a 14-play, 80-yard drive, dwindling the Irish lead to four points with a score of 27-23.
“When most teams would have folded, they continued to play tough,” Holtz said.
An unsuccessful onside kick with 32 seconds left in the final quarter allowed the Irish simply to down the ball and end the game. The final score, 27-23, does not reflect the Irish domination in Ann Arbor.
“Notre Dame is a great school. They were an excellent team on defense and up front,” said Michigan Head Coach Gary Moeller.
McDougal finished the game with 12 completions on 21 attempts for 208 yards, while rushing for another 66 yards. He earned the respect of many people with this victory.
“Every time [Notre Dame] comes in here they move the ball. It doesn’t matter who they have in the backfield,” said Collins.
The Irish win dashed Michigan’s hopes in its quest for a National Championship.
“It is a terrible disappointment. This felt like the year. Hopes for the National Championship are gone. Now our goal is the Big Ten Champion ship,” lamented Collins.
“You can’t worry about what’s been said,” said McDougal in reflection.
And how true this is. It doesn’t matter what people may write in books or comment on TV. What matters is that Notre Dame continues to play its game.
And that’s exactly what the Irish did.