the climb

[Ed-Seth: This being the 20th anniversary of the 1997 National Championship, Michigan historian Dr. Sap is taking us game-by-game through it. Previously: Those Who Stayed (Colorado); The Hit (Baylor); The Stop (Notre Dame); The Captain’s Down(Indiana); Vengeance (Northwestern), Gut Check (Iowa), Six Picks (Michigan State), The Trap (Minnesota), Judgment (Penn State), The Crucible (Wisconsin) No Flags (Ohio State), The GOAT (Heisman)]

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Materials: Box Score, a TON of articles

[Sara Stillman Archives/UM Bentley Historical Library]

POLL GAZING

On December 10, 1997, three days before the Heisman ceremony, an event occurred that mattered more to many football coaches than any outcome of any game that season: Nebraska head coach Tom Osborne announced his retirement. His #2 Huskers had finished the season undefeated, thanks notably to the “kick six” that saved an embarrassing loss to Missouri, whom they’d beat in overtime.

This was the last year of the bowl system that predated the BCS. Under that system four of the big conferences—the ACC, the SEC, the Big XII, and the Big East—had tried to organize a quasi-championship game by agreeing to put their best two teams in a rotation of the Sugar, Orange, and Fiesta Bowls. Noticeably absent from this agreement was the Big Ten and the Pac Ten, who were happy enough to send their champions to the “The Granddaddy of Them All,” thank you very much. This caused a lot of resentment: Not only had national championships been split too many times over the years because of the bowl alignments that didn’t match the best teams, but the Rose Bowl had cachet, history, and viewership that the rest of the games did not, and it didn’t seem right that two conferences could hog them all.

By Osborne’s retirement, this had finally been hashed out, and the BCS system would go into effect the following season. And once #2 Florida State was knocked off by Florida, a lot people wished Michigan could play Nebraska instead of Washington State.

Michigan was going to the Rose Bowl to face Ryan Leaf and the 10-1 Pac Ten champions of Washington State, who were just #8. While it was WSU’s first appearance in the Rose Bowl in almost 70 years, they weren’t exactly backing into this game. Even though some writers were saying that UCLA was the best team out west, WAZZU silenced their critics with upset victories over the Bruins as well as USC. The Cougars had the #2 offense in the country, and liked to spread the field by going five-wide, a matchup nightmare in an era when teams rarely had to play more than two cornerbacks in a game.

All things considered Michigan probably would have preferred to play the Huskers. Because Woodson didn’t need safety help the Wolverines would have been free to send a safety aggressively after the pitchman, and the Michigan interior defensive line would have been a steep upgrade over any competition Nebraska had yet faced. If you had to design the absolute worst possible matchup for the 1997 Huskers, the 1997 Wolverines wouldn’t be far off from the result.

Number 3 Tennessee, whom Nebraska would face because of the Bowl Alliance, was on the other hand a highly favorable matchup. Favorable and ominous in two respects: (1) The Cornhuskers would play a Top 5 opponent and (2) the Volunteers were overrated in ’97 thanks in part to their darling, senior QB who couldn’t win the big game (or the Heisman—tell your friends!). A Big Red victory seemed to be a sure thing. The question was just how big would the margin of victory be?

Towards the end of December, talk had started circulating that if Michigan barely beat Washington State and Nebraska throttled Tennessee there just might be a split in the voting for the National Championship. But folks back here in the Midwest wondered just how that could be possible? UM had a 69-1 margin (presumably Graham Couch) of 1st place votes over Nebraska in the AP (writers) Poll heading into the Rose Bowl and a 58-4 margin in the Coaches’. Even if the Wolverines struggled to defeat the Cougars, historically no #1 team that won its bowl game had ever dropped in one of the two major polls.

If you weren’t a coach with a grudge about the Heisman vote or the Husker quarterback’s mom or something there was no plausible reason to give Nebraska’s collection of favorable bounces versus mediocre competition the same respect as Michigan, who sat 11-0 versus one of the toughest schedules in the history of the game, and a hypothetical victory over YET ANOTHER top 10 team shouldn’t change that. And yet.

[After THE JUMP: A Leaf on the wind]

[Ed-Seth: This being the 20th anniversary of the 1997 National Championship, Michigan historian Dr. Sap is taking us game-by-game through it. Previously: Those Who Stayed (Colorado); The Hit (Baylor); The Stop (Notre Dame); The Captain’s Down(Indiana); Vengeance (Northwestern), Gut Check (Iowa), Six Picks (Michigan State), The Trap (Minnesota), Judgment (Penn State), The Crucible (Wisconsin) No Flags (Ohio State)]

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UM Bentley Library

December 13, 1997: Heisman Voting

Rk	Name	Team	Yr	P	1st	2nd	3rd	Total
1	Charles Woodson	Michigan	Jr	CB	433	209	98	1815
2	Peyton Manning	Tennessee	Sr	QB	281	263	174	1543
3	Ryan Leaf	Washington State	Jr	QB	70	203	241	861
4	Randy Moss	Marshall	So	WR	17	56	90	253
5	Ricky Williams	Texas	Jr	RB	3	18	20	65
6	Curtis Enis	Penn State	Jr	RB	3	18	20	65
7	Tim Dwight	Iowa	Sr	WR	5	3	11	32
8	Cade McNown	UCLA	Jr	QB	0	7	12	26
9	Tim Couch	Kentucky	So	QB	0	5	12	22
10	Amos Zereoué	West Virginia	So	RB	3	1	10	21

It was perhaps the greatest Heisman field in the history of that award. It included a generational quarterback and a guy everyone thought would be. It had the most talented receiver the game had ever seen. It had the most productive rusher college football had ever seen. And Twenty years ago today the award for the “most outstanding player in college football” finally went to a primarily defensive player. He was just that good.

In 1997, two-way stars like Tom Harmon were a thing of the past or it was something “cute” that guys like Gordie Lockbaum did in D2 football. As Warren Sapp correctly pointed out a few years earlier, the bronzed Heisman statue has a player carrying the ball, not swatting it down.

Charles Woodson challenged that paradigm. You didn’t need to be a senior anymore to win the award. You didn’t need to be a quarterback or a running back, either. The trophy is engraved thusly: “The outstanding College Football Player In The United States.” The instructions given to voters are to choose…

The outstanding college football player whose performance best exhibits the pursuit of excellence with integrity. Winners epitomize great ability combined with diligence, perseverance, and hard work.

It doesn’t say anything about being an offensive MVP; but that was the paradigm. Paradigms had changed before in the history of this award—it used to be so Domer biased that QB Paul Hornung won it in 1956 while going 2-8 and throwing 13 INTs to 3 TDs (Jim Brown finished third). It says outstanding.

Woodson was. Leave aside the highlight reel and look at the effect he had on that defense. Michigan’s D spent most of that season in a Cover 1 with the free safety either shaded over the side opposite Woodson, or running around in a robber. Students made a shirt (now available on the MGoBlogStore) that noted “75% of the Earth is covered by water, the rest is covered by Woodson.” They weren’t far off. Ask any coach if he thinks he could get away with this:

Back in 1997, few in America believed the 1,000 voters had finally figured out what that truly meant, especially when they had a nice, easy senior career candidate who “deserved” it for turning down the NFL and virtually repeating his 1996 performance.

[Hit THE JUMP]

[Ed-Seth: This being the 20th anniversary of the 1997 National Championship, Michigan historian Dr. Sap is taking us game-by-game through it. Previously: Those Who Stayed (Colorado); The Hit (Baylor); The Stop (Notre Dame); The Captain’s Down(Indiana); Vengeance (Northwestern), Gut Check (Iowa), Six Picks (Michigan State), The Trap (Minnesota), Judgment (Penn State), The Crucible (Wisconsin)]

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[Robert Kalmbach, via UM Bentley Library]

November 22, 1997: #1 Michigan 20, #4 Ohio State 14

• also #2 FSU 29, #10 Florida 32 who remembers when we were huge Gator fans?
• also also not that it should matter but just in case “undefeated” Nebraska tries to stake a bogus claim to a championship that shoulde be Michigan’s and Michigan’s only, a struggle vs unranked team ought to take care of that, and lo and behold: #3 Nebraska 27, Colorado 24

Materials: Box Score. Cumulative stats. Articles. WH Highlights, Part II, Entire broadcast by j bakkar, or if you want to watch this with friends we’ll have it on at the MGoBlog Tailgate before The Game on Saturday.

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Back in 1997, there was no B1G Conference Championship Game. That meant THE GAME between Michigan and Ohio State was going to be for all the marbles – sort of.

It was #1 UM (10-0) going against #4 OSU (10-1). It was essentially for the Rose Bowl, with a slight twist. If Michigan won, they would be the outright Big Ten champs and go to the Rose Bowl. If Michigan lost and Penn State defeated Wisconsin and Michigan State -- there would be a three-way tie for the Big Ten title (with OSU & PSU) -- Michigan would still go to the Rose Bowl under the Big Ten tie-breaker rule, unless Ohio State was ranked #1 or #2 in either major poll, in which case the Rose Bowl would be obligated to take OSU.

Got all that?

[Hit THE JUMP to go back to that cold terrifying morning]