Avant Is Expected to Sit Out

He hasn’t officially been ruled out of Saturday’s Rose Bowl game, but junior receiver Jason Avant is not expected to play against Texas and fifth-year senior Jermaine Gonzales probably will start in his place.

Avant, who has 38 receptions for 447 yards and three touchdowns, has not healed as well as expected since having arthroscopic surgery on his right knee after the Wolverines’ final regular-season game against Ohio State on Nov. 20.

Avant has not practiced since the team arrived in Southern California.

“We’ve just got to step up as players and as a team and get the job done,” Gonzales said Tuesday. Gonzales has seven catches for 94 yards and one touchdown.

Also playing a more significant role in the offense will be junior Steve Breaston, the Wolverines’ career punt-return leader with 909 yards. Breaston, who has been used primarily as a short-yardage receiver, is third on the team with 31 catches.

Braylon Edwards, one of the top receivers in the nation, is first with 87 receptions, and Avant is second.

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Breaston, who suffered a stress fracture in his right foot during summer practice, and broke the ring finger on his left hand Sept. 25 against Iowa, has sat out only one game.

His foot is healed, he said, but at Tuesday’s news conference he held out his hand and revealed a finger swollen at the knuckle and bent sharply inward.

“It didn’t [heal] the way everybody thought it would,” he said, adding that it has not affected his ability to catch the ball.

“We’re in the Rose Bowl, so I’m glad I fought through some of these injuries and played and did my part.”

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Asked why Michigan had been so good during Coach Lloyd Carr’s tenure, offensive coordinator Terry Malone said that it was hard to pinpoint, but that one factor was Carr’s ability to inspire through readings from famous poets and authors.

Rudyard Kipling is one of Carr’s favorites, but Jon Krakauer’s “Into Thin Air,” a harrowing account of the 1996 tragedy on Mt. Everest, yielded the best results, the national championship in 1997. Said Malone: “That was our national championship year, and it’s amazing how many similarities there are in playing in a football season and climbing a mountain. The higher you get onto a mountain the tougher it gets, and the longer you get into a season the harder it gets to keep playing the way you want to play.”

The similarities, he said, end there.