After win over Ohio State, it's clear: Michigan football has found its secret sauce

The mood had darkened like the skies above. It was quiet as a sanctuary inside the cavernous Big House with the home crowd subdued and on edge. Ohio State had just cobbled together its most impressive drive of the game, tearing through Michigan football’s defensive front on a 75-yard march to the end zone that left the score tied at 17. Team captain and right guard Zak Zinter was down on the turf after suffering a gruesome injury to his lower left leg late in the third quarter.

This was the moment when everything could have changed, when a rivalry could have flipped again, when the Wolverines could have folded and finally succumbed to all the adversity that has rocked this program over the past three months.

“But,” running back Blake Corum reminded everyone afterward, “we’re battle-tested.”

They’re also confident.

So, they didn’t blink, cringe or cower. As soon as their best offensive lineman was wheeled away and play resumed, they instead lined up and unleashed their fury on the unsuspecting Buckeyes. Corum took a handoff, surged through a hole that opened on the left side, slipped an oncoming tackler, and sprinted 22 yards for a touchdown. It was the defining moment of a thrilling 30-24 triumph that may go down as the most significant victory since the Wolverines were reborn three years ago.

Corum certainly thought so.

“One-hundred percent,” he said. “There is going to be more to come. But as of right now this is, to me, my greatest win.”

It certainly was the most symbolic. After all, it captured the ethos of a program that has concocted a potent recipe for success by mixing talent with resolve and unbreakable confidence.

Jim Harbaugh opened this week by invoking Ted Lasso, the fictional football coach who is hired to do the impossible and lead an English Premier League soccer team.

“Believe,” he told a group of reporters Monday.

The message may not have resonated with his audience of skeptics. But it certainly does with his team. Since Harbaugh resuscitated Michigan following the dreadful downturn of 2020, the Wolverines have rarely been shaken.

Instead, they have projected a stiff upper lip, pressing forward in the face of challenges and distractions because they have become convinced that nothing will stop them. They remained unfazed after Harbaugh was issued a three-game suspension by the school at the beginning of this season to mitigate potential sanctions from an NCAA probe into impermissible recruiting and coaching activities. They were undeterred by the Big Ten’s Nov. 10 decision to ban Harbaugh from the sideline for the final three contests as punishment for the sign-stealing scandal that has rocked Schembechler Hall over the past five weeks. They didn’t recoil from the harsh cheating accusations levied against them as the public turned against the No. 3 team in the land.

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Instead, they circled the wagons, turned inward, and declared it was Michigan vs. Everybody.

“We only care about us,” quarterback J.J. McCarthy said. “We only care about what we’re doing and how we feel. …Everyone can have their opinion. But, you know, we’ll keep doing us.”

Why wouldn’t they?

It’s worked until this point. The Wolverines are 37-3 in their last 40 games, have made it through the regular season with a perfect record for the second straight season, and have stayed on track to complete their lofty mission. Back in February, Corum told an audience at Crisler Center that the Wolverines were going to “win the national championship and go down in history.”

It was a bold proclamation. But Corum had faith in his teammates, Harbaugh, and the rest of the coaching staff.

The Wolverines had come close the previous two seasons, making it all the way to the College Football Playoff semifinal round before losing to Georgia in 2021 and TCU last December. They just needed to clear one more hurdle and advance to that last stage.

“We know the expectations,” defensive tackle Mason Graham said. “We know what it takes to take that next step.

It requires steadfast conviction and no fear. Time and again Saturday, the Wolverines displayed those attributes. Sherrone Moore, standing in Harbaugh’s stead, went for it on fourth down three times and the players rewarded his audacity by converting in each instance, including a goal-line dive by Corum that resulted in the Wolverines’ first score.

McCarthy, coming off two straight underwhelming performances, didn’t shy away from delivering tough throws against the best-passing defense in the nation. He threaded the ball between two defenders, hitting Roman Wilson in stride as he rolled to the end zone for a 22-yard touchdown. A dented offensive line shaken by the loss of Zinter regrouped to seal the win in the fourth quarter, paving the way toward two pivotal field goals and powering a run game that drained precious seconds off the clock.

“The guys just don’t flinch,” Moore gushed with pride. “They just keep attacking.”

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It was a testament to the Wolverines’ steely psyche.

It was also pure Michigan in 2023, as fans have come to realize. On Saturday, when the going got tough, the tough got going – marching onward to victory and another conquest of its greatest rival.

Contact Rainer Sabin at rsabin@freepress.com. Follow him @RainerSabin.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan football win over OSU shows it has found its secret sauce