Confidence and instinct kicked in when calamity nearly hit Jake Thaw in the Rose Bowl
HOUSTON — There are two ways you can look at the last special teams play of the Rose Bowl: Either Michigan football punt returner Jake Thaw nearly cost the Wolverines the game or he saved the maize and blue from losing the game.
Actually, both things are true at the same time. But Thaw isn’t looking at it that way, even now, nearly a week removed.
Alabama punted to Michigan with just under a minute left, and if Thaw — who hadn’t been back at punt return all game — fields the ball cleanly, it could have set the maize and blue up to win the tied game in regulation. But the unthinkable happened: he muffed the punt and then had to scurry to keep the ball from going into the end zone, effectively ending the game on a safety.
Still, Thaw, realizing his mistake, doesn’t count the prescience he had at the time to fall on the football in-bounds. But his training did kick in at a key moment to keep Michigan alive for another play.
“I don’t really think of it as a game-saving play, I think of it a bit more I just — hopefully I didn’t make a bad play worse,” Thaw told Wolverines Wire. “Once that ball goes through my hands, I was thinking, ‘Holy cow, this game is on the line, protect that football all costs, get it out of the end zone.’ And I’m just lucky I was able to do so. It was obviously a tough play. And I’m just glad that my team was able to rebound from it.
“I put the offense in a bad situation they still had to get off the half-yard line, and they got off that. So a lot of thanks to that offensive line, to coach Moore and we’ve finished the job. And now we get to play on Monday.”
Michigan often preaches repetition and fundamentals. “You get better at football by playing football” is an oft-repeated mantra by head coach Jim Harbaugh, and it turns out, the football we don’t see played a key role in Thaw’s in-play recovery.
It was as if muscle memory kicked in, not just when it came to instantaneously rebounding, but in that Thaw didn’t panic. Because, as he says, he’s made mistakes in practice, and thanks to strength and conditioning coach Ben Herbert, he knew exactly what to do in the split second calamity nearly hit.
“All credit to coach Herb for that. Just the way he’s trained us, the way that he’s taught us, to rebound from bad situations and really turn a bad situation to a better one,” Thaw said. “I just trusted my training. Not a lot of them, but I’ve muffed punts in practice before it’s happened and I’ve got practice in terms of just finding that ball and trying to save that game at all costs.
“It was a big stage, a lot of people watching and which was tough for me as it had nothing to do with nerves, no pressure — I didn’t feel pressure. I was confident. And I think that confidence kind of remained through the play even despite the terrible mistake I made. Just kind of unwavering confidence and poise to just go grab that ball and keep it out of the end zone.”
Michigan special teams was the negative highlight for the Rose Bowl but the Wolverines hope to rebound on that front on Monday when they play Washington in the national championship game.
