Wolverines Dismantle Spartan Hopes

This Michigan-Michigan State game was supposed to be one for the ages. It turned out to be one for a moment or two on the highlight films, and little else.

Artistic excellence was not a priority for the No. 5-ranked Wolverines, who played it close to the vest in their 23-7 victory over the Spartans here Saturday.

The game attracted a sellout of 79,687 on a brisk, overcast day in Spartan Stadium. Michigan State had entered the game ranked 15th in the Associated Press poll, had a 5-1 record that seemed to make it a reasonable threat against 6-0 Michigan, and had people 40 miles to the northwest of Ann Arbor talking Rose Bowl for a change.

Now, talk may lean more toward the new Motor City Bowl in Pontiac, Mich., the executive director of which is, ironically, fired Spartan coach George Perles.

The man who replaced Perles three years ago, Nick Saban, brought a team that had impressed pollsters with opening routes of Western Michigan and Memphis and a nationally televised victory over Notre Dame. That, of course, was back on Sept. 20, when people still assumed that Notre Dame was fielding a Division I football team this year.

Ensuing Spartan victories over Minnesota and Indiana apparently continued to camouflage the defects, which began to come to light a week earlier in a 19-17 loss at Northwestern.

Nevertheless, that was seen as an aberration in these parts, since the Spartans had:

--A veteran defense;

--A 6-foot-7, 330-pound offensive tackle named Flozell Adams, who had been compared favorably by opposing coaches to an asphalt grader;

--A talented running back named Sedrick Irvin, who is Michael Irvin’s cousin and, so far, has made headlines for football exploits only;

--And a steady, if unspectacular senior quarterback named Todd Schultz.

Saturday, the Spartan defense was, for the most part, veteran. Adams was an asphalt grader. Irvin was talented. And Schultz was unspectacular.

Make that horrible.

Michigan intercepted six Michigan State passes, and five of those were thrown by Schultz. The most costly for Schultz and Michigan State occurred early in the fourth quarter, with Michigan holding a 13-7 lead and Michigan State’s defense holding on for dear life. Schultz rolled right and fired a pass into a gathering that included one Spartan and what appeared to be half a dozen Wolverines. Coming out of the pack with the ball was All-American Charles Woodson.

That set up a two-yard scoring run by Chris Howard a minute later, making the lead 20-7 and triggering nearly an entire quarter of garbage time, as Michigan Coach Lloyd Carr kept the offense conservative. And why shouldn’t he, considering that his defense has not given up a touchdown in the second half and no points in the fourth quarter this season.

Woodson said that the pass by Schultz that he intercepted to set up Howard’s score, was “kind of an insult.”

“He had just tried that play to the other side,” Woodson said, “and I couldn’t believe that he actually tried the same play over at me.”

Woodson wasn’t insulted--more like ecstatic--about an earlier interception he had made against Schultz.

Schultz had rolled right and, once again, fired in the direction of about eight players, a couple of them even his, when Woodson leaped high along the sideline, snatched the ball out of the air with one hand and got the required foot down before going out of bounds. Michael Jordan would have been proud, maybe even impressed.

The other highlight-film moment in this non-highlight-film game came when Irvin, for much of the first half a one-man show, fooled the entire Michigan offense on a fake field-goal play. With just under four minutes left in the first quarter, Irvin stood well off to the left, near the Spartan sidelines, as his team lined up for a field goal. When the ball was snapped to holder and backup quarterback Bill Burke, Irvin took off unnoticed down the left sidelines and was all alone when he caught the ball and scored on the 22-yard play.

The Spartans rode that moment to a 7-3 lead with just over five minutes left in the half. And they had the Wolverines backed up to their five, the wind in their face and the Spartan student body in that end making life miserable.

But Howard ripped loose for 11 yards on the first play, and Brian Griese quarterbacked Michigan down the field on an 11-play, 95-yard march that, as it turned out, took all the spunk out of the Spartans.

“That was the turning point,” Carr said.

And soon, as the game dragged through the final minutes and yet another Wolverine had made an interception, Woodson led the celebration along the sideline by directing the Michigan band in one last, in-your-face-Spartans rendition of “Hail to the Victors.”