Repent, the end is near!
College Football Armageddon approacheth. It’s less than two days away. Michigan at Ohio State, 3:30pm, Eastern Standard Time, Saturday, 18 November 2006. Look, there’s even a countdown clock. Michigan-Ohio State is big, folks. It’s the greatest rivalry in sports history, even the United States Congress says so. Michigan and Ohio State have played 102 times and have played each other as the final game of the regular season every year since 1935. This is the biggest game ever. This is the first time they’ve been ranked #1 and #2 in the country. This right here is the mythical national championship game.
Oh, and last Saturday Michigan pretty much thrashed Indiana.
Michigan Wolverines: 34 - Indiana Hoosiers: 3
Michigan has several athletes who are excellent at what they do and are likable and worthy of admiration, but my favorite is Steve Breaston. As you can tell by the photos, he’s not the biggest guy on the field and he’s not even the fastest. Although he is a special talent, no one would argue he’s the best athlete out there. He’s probably too small to play in the NFL and I doubt he’ll be drafted after he graduates.
He’s extremely soft spoken and writes poetry and wants to be a teacher after college because he likes children so much. He’s struggled through injuries in his career and he’s actually bulked up a bit which has robbed him of some of his elusiveness he once had. There are games when he’s not much of a factor. Then there are games when he simply explodes and is almost single-handedly responsible for most of the points Michigan scores.
At the end of the 2004 season, Breaston set a Rose Bowl record for most all purpose yardage piling up 315 yards in rushing, kickoff returns, punt returns, and receptions. Michigan started most of their drives at midfield because of Breaston. Last year, Michigan dealt Penn State their sole loss because of a last second touchdown catch by Mario Manningham, but it was Breaston’s kickoff return to midfield that made it possible. Against Indiana, Breaston was back and accumulated 231 all purpose yards, caught a 62 yard touchdown pass and returned a punt 83 yards for a touchdown.
This, a week after ESPN analyst and announcer Kirk Herbstreit had called his contributions “worthless.”