Life and How to Live It

A lovely view of the weekend house.  (Zach Shaw)

Raise the walls and shout its flaws, a carpenter should rest

So that when you tire of one side the other serves you best

Read about the wisdom lost, a knock, a knock, a knock

A secret knock one hammer's locked the other wisdom lost

--"Life and How to Live It" by R.E.M. from their 1985 album Fables of the Reconstruction

Leon Franklin scored a touchdown today.

Yes, the touchdown made the game 58-0 in the fourth quarter, but consider this: In the 1,365 games in Michigan football history, there have been 34,781 points scored by Michigan all-time.  Leon Franklin is responsible for six of those; no one can ever take that away from him.

Leon Franklin is a senior who lettered last year and had been a special teamer.  He played at Southfield A&T and had a touchdown against NIU called back last year.  He's a Computer Science major, and now, Leon Franklin joins the hundreds of other Michigan football players who scored a touchdown in their career.

I love this for him.  I love today for every Michigan player on the roster who got to see game action today because Michigan's starters handled their business.  Because Michigan's special teams handled their business with a punt block and a punt return touchdown.  Because Michigan knew the assignment and crossed all the ts and dotted all the is.

Michigan player participation neared 100 players today, including having seven different Michigan players attempt at least one pass (Connecticut completed five total.)  All of those players who spend so much time in practice, studying film, and being a student, got to get into the game today.  Some of these guys will forever be to point to a moment in a video to their kids and their grandkids and show them that they played at Michigan.  I think that's pretty great for them.

It is remarkable in its own way that in a game where Blake Corum tied the Michigan record for rushing touchdowns in a game with five, it was not, at all, the Blake Corum game.  Blake Corum was just the closer.  Another case of doing exactly what was needed at the moment.  It was a day where sure, let's let Jake Moody try a sixty-two yard field goal at the end of the half that would have sent the Big House into pandemonium had it hit, but alas.  

The Big Ten conference slate looms, starting with Maryland for Homecoming next weekend.  But for now, let us celebrate three straight games of over 50 points for Michigan and the simple joy that Leon Franklin scored a touchdown.