Slide Away

Will power, it's now or never. (Michigan Athletics)

Slide in baby, together we'll fly

I've tried praying

But I don't know what you're saying to me

Now that you're mine

We'll find a way of chasing the Sun

Let me be the one who shines with you

In the morning, we don't know what to do

Two of a kind

We'll find a way to do what we've done

Let me be the one who shines with you

And we can slide away

--"Slide Away" by Oasis from their 1994 debut album Definitely Maybe

I think the Stripe Out was a great metaphor for this week.  The instructions were simple enough, odd sections in maize, even sections in navy, students in maize.  I had my doubts because Michigan fans are a "you can't tell me what to do" group, each in their own little ways.  But those doubts were tempered by possibility.  It could work.  I could be one of those things that is straightforward enough that even when faced with failure points, it comes through.

In other news, Alex Orji was named Michigan's starting quarterback for this game against USC.

On some level, most observers of Michigan football with Alex Orji at quarterback figured the game plan would be:

• Rely on a stout offensive line to make holes for the running back
• Run with your one-two punch of Edwards and Mullings
• Throw occasionally to try and stop the opponents from stacking the box
• Play like demons on defense and force some turnovers to create scores or short fields.
• Make fewer mistakes than they do.

And honestly, it kind of worked for a while.  Michigan got explosive 40+ yard touchdown runs from Mullings and Edwards and held USC to a short field goal to head into the locker room up 14-3 in what, much like looking at the Stripe Out's success, was a pleasant surprise.

But, if you're one dimensional on offense, it does make it much easier to stop you, and USC came out of the locker room with some significant adjustments on both sides of the ball.  Only a Will Johnson pick six (to make him Michigan's all-time leader in interceptions returned for a touchdown) kept Michigan's hopes alive, but after a wide open Trojan found the end zone with just over seven minutes remaining to go up 24-20 (and suddenly the blocked extra point loomed large).  Michigan's response drive was...a three and out that went for -4 yards and resulted in a punt that USC took on Michigan's 38.  Michigan's defense, to their immense credit, rose up and got a three and out with negative yardage, which put Michigan's offense on their own 11 with just over four minutes left.  The brain trust in the crowd was imploring Michigan to move it, but also, without a sense of a passing game, it seemed highly improbable that Michigan was going to find a way to get back into the lead.  Orji found Marlin Klein for a ten yard pass, setting up a critical third and one.

Enter Kalel Mullings.

Kalel Mullings, fittingly, played Superman on the next carry, blasting through the line, up the middle of the field, shedding a tackler that had wrapped himself completely around Mullings waist, stiff arming a second that had joined the fun, and 63 yards later, set up a 1st and 10 inside the USC red zone at the 17 as the we hit the two minute timeout.  Michigan still needed six more plays, 1-8-2-3-incomplete-2 to set up the ball game, fourth and goal from the 1.  Everyone in my section is spending the time out to reach the same conclusion, don't get cute, off tackle behind the fullback.  Kirk Campbell agreed, Mullings followed his blockers, got a full foot down in the end zone before getting pushed back.  The official's arms went up, the point after sailed through the uprights, and Michigan was up by three with 37 seconds to go.

Michigan's defense made the remaining time perfunctory, not allowing USC to cross midfield before forcing a turnover on downs.  Michigan kneeled it out and had an improbable "season-saving" victory over a top 15 team and, as strange as it sounds, a win in the conference opener.

Michigan threw for 32 total yards in this game, and won.  According to Jason Kirk, this is the sixth time since Jim Harbaugh took over in 2015 that Michigan threw for less than 100 yards.  They have won all six of those games.  Michigan believes its identity is a running football team, that is is SMASH, that it can impose its will upon you without being multiple.  This might be true.  But it would have been very easy to point to those 32 total yards of passing offense as "you just can't win like that in modern football."  That's probably also very true.  

"Slide Away" might be my favorite Oasis song.  Noel claims that the song was just waiting for him in the guitar he borrowed from Johnny Marr of the Smiths, Marr having got it from Pete Townshend of The Who. But it took Noel to find the song, to put it together, and to make it what many consider the lynchpin of their much beloved debut album.  For one afternoon at Michigan Stadium, on the final day of summer, Michigan ran for its life, it found the song that was just in the guitar and was rewarded in the end.  That doesn't always happen, so we must savor it when it does. 

Tales from the Spreadsheet
Win 1,007
27-24 is NOT a Scorigami (3rd time, most recently 10/9/2004 in the Little Brown Jug game against Minnesota.)
110,702 were in attendance (the 92nd-largest crowd of Michigan Stadium history.)

Michigan moves to 5-6-0 all-time against the University of Southern California.
You may remember that Michigan moves to 6-2 all-time on the 21st night of September. (Losses to Cal in 1968 and Wisconsin in 2019)

Michigan moves to 45-7 when scoring exactly 27 points.
Michigan moves to 18-18 all-time when allowing 24 points to the opposition.
Michigan has won 48 games all-time by precisely 3 points, most recently, the 2021 Nebraska game with the Haskins Hurdle and Money Moody.