THE ROSE BOWL : ARIZONA STATE 22, MICHIGAN 15 : Wolverines Can’t Explain What Went Wrong in the Second Half

All season long, the Michigan football team has prided itself on its third-quarter domination.

The Wolverines scored 106 third-quarter points to their opponents’ 29 to compile an 11-1 record that put them in the Rose Bowl. Four times, they came from behind to win in the second half.

So, when they left the field Thursday at halftime, leading, 15-13, they had to feel confident about winning one for Bo against Arizona State’s Pac-10 champions.

Something must have happened in the Michigan dressing room, because when the white-shirted co-champions of the Big 10 came out to do their third-quarter thing, it never happened.

The lights were turned on in the Rose Bowl for the second half, but the lights went out for Michigan. The Wolverines didn’t score a second-half point.

When the game ended with Arizona State handing Bo Schembechler his seventh loss in eight Rose Bowl starts, 22-15, the entire Michigan entourage was nonplussed.

“When you play as well as you can and get beat (that) is one thing,” said quarterback Jim Harbaugh, the Wolverines’ offensive captain. “But I feel bad because we didn’t play as well as we could have.

“There’s no place to put the blame. I contributed (with a Rose Bowl record-equaling three interceptions), the line contributed, and the defense contributed. It was a general breakdown.”

Andy Moeller, the defensive captain and, like Harbaugh, a coach’s son who had been to Pasadena with other losing Michigan teams, echoed the quarterback’s thoughts.

“We just didn’t do what we had to do,” Moeller said, disconsolately. “We let the cat out of the bag too many times when we had them third and eight, or third and something, and they made it.

“I cost us three points when I dropped a pass I should have intercepted in the end zone that let them kick a field goal. And we had a pass go through a guy’s hands (Doug Mallory’s) that ended up in a touchdown for them.”

Flanker Bruce Hill’s grab of the touchdown pass that Mallory missed gave Arizona State its first touchdown with only 29 seconds left in the first half, sending them to the dressing room trailing, 15-13, not just by 15-6.

“To play in the Rose Bowl had been a dream I’d had with Andy (Moeller) since we came to Pasadena together when we were about 12, and to lose like this is very disappointing,” Harbaugh said.

Jamie Morris, the Michigan scatback who gained 51 yards in 11 carries in the first half, could gain only 9 more in the second half.

Schembechler thought he had the answer.

“If you want to be critical, be critical of the offensive line,” Bo said. “They were lousy.”

Morris chose to praise the Sun Devils’ defense.

“We tried to show them different things, but they were quick and moved around a lot,” Morris said. “Their defense was similar to Ohio State but we couldn’t handle it the same way.”

Against Ohio State, Morris gained 210 yards, much of it in the second half as the Wolverines came from behind to win the Rose Bowl decider, 26-24.

The only player on the losing side to show any emotion when the players trotted off the field was John Vitale, the 290-pound junior center who is the heart of the offensive line.

He angrily kicked a sideline marker, sending it skittering into the stands.

“I just feel terrible for the seniors,” Vitale said later. “They have worked so hard these last two years and we had two great seasons but now they’re going out on a losing note.”

Jumbo Elliott, the 306-pound tackle who usually leads the way for Morris, just glared.

“We had a lot of breakdowns, a lot of MAs (missed assignments),” Elliott said. “Those kind of things will kill you. We’ve always been a second-half team, but we couldn’t get going when we came back out. I can’t tell you why. We thought we could win out here, but it didn’t happen that way.”

One factor working against Michigan seemed to be the noisy Arizona State rooters. On several occasions, Harbaugh asked the referee for time so his teammates could hear his signals.

“That sack by No. 88 (Skip McClendon) was caused by a misassignment when our man couldn’t hear the signals,” Schembechler said. “Maybe some day we’ll get as many tickets as they do so we can make as much noise.”

Arizona State, as the Pac-10 representative, gets 41,000 tickets. Michigan received 21,000.

Harbaugh dismissed the noise factor as “no big deal,” pointing out that it was more a total team collapse.

“When the defense was on the field, we kept yelling for them to get us the ball,” Harbaugh said. “Then we’d get it and couldn’t do anything. When you go three downs and punt every time you get ball, it doesn’t give the defense much time to rest.”

The proof is in the minutes of possession. Michigan had the ball less than three minutes in the 15 minutes of the third period.

During that time, Arizona State converted third down situations four times out of five, Michigan none of two.

Mark Messner, Michigan’s defensive tackle who was most valuable player in last year’s Fiesta Bowl victory over Nebraska, credited Arizona State quarterback Jeff Van Raaphorst for the time deferential.

“He just played great, absolutely great, under pressure,” Messner said. “Time and again we thought we had him, but he managed to come up with the big play. The entire team executed very well, but it was the quarterback who kept pulling them out.

“I don’t know why we couldn’t contain him. They didn’t show us anything new, they just did what they wanted to do, the way they wanted to do it.”

Messner said the turning point of the tense game was when Arizona State contained the Michigan offense after the Sun Devils scored their go-ahead touchdown in the third period.

“We came out for the second half thinking the third quarter would be ours,” he said. “Even when they came down and scored after taking the kickoff, we thought we were in good shape.

“The offense has always been our strong point. They’d saved us before, but this time nothing happened.”

The first time Michigan got the ball in the third quarter, Harbaugh threw two incompletions and failed to gain on an option play. The Wolverines also lost five yards on a delay of game penalty.

What happened?

Andy Moeller, who wants to follow in the footsteps of his father, Michigan defensive coordinator Gary Moeller, and become a coach, sounded like one when he said:

“I’m not really sure what happened. We’ll have to look at the films to find out.”