What happened in 1997?

It mostly came together a couple of years earlier.

Things were pretty wobbly by the end of 1994. Michigan lost to Ohio State (unthinkable--this NEVER happened!!) and lost 4 games, also unthinkable, never mind that one of those was on a  Hail Mary to a top-5 Colorado team they dominated, and another was an even, back-and-forth affair with eventual national champ Penn State. But a few years removed from Bo, recruiting was taking a hit, and Michigan no longer was (like they were in 1988-1992) considered one of the ELITE-elites.

That might have helped them--they lost out on some national recruitments they naively wandered into when FSU et al. were starting to ramp up their cheating games, so Moeller had his recruiting staff revamped to focus more on player evaluations. The result was a class that wasn't highly ranked, but which was filled with non-5-star national types Bo never would have pursued, e.g. a skinny California QB who fell to them because their top two prospects both went to USC, which was where Brady wanted to go.

That offseason, Gary Moeller had his incident and was fired, probably as much for his four-loss seasons as anything else. This was the inflection point.

Michigan was interested in looking outside of Bo for a new coach but the players wanted Lloyd Carr. Fearing a player mutiny, M allowed Carr to coach on an interim basis. This not only kept the program together, but rescued a 1995 class that included two of the best to ever play the game: Tom Brady and Charles Woodson. The class also had Rob Renes, Tai Streets, James Hall, Josh Williams and Aaron Shea, who would form the core of the 1997 title team or define the years after. At the end of 1995 Carr's 4-loss team knocked off #2 Ohio State--and YOU try staying rational about fuddy duddy old fashioned Lloyd when Biakabutuka just ran up 313 rushing yards on the Buckeyes. The interim tag was removed and the program felt stable enough that they were able to put a good 1996 class together, now with better evaluations (read: people watching videotape). The 1996 season was a downish year but they repeated the capstone, beating #2 OSU on the road this time. A win like that really keeps the level of offseason questions down.

Still, going into 1997 people were expecting another 4-loss season, especially because they had a BRUTAL Big Ten to go through. Ohio State kept faltering vs Michigan but they were also a top-3 program. #2 Penn State was a national title contender and that was a road game. And the middle of the Big Ten was strong. Northwestern was coming off consecutive victories over Michigan and a recent Rose Bowl, which to everyone alive was unthinkable, like Rutgers being Big Ten champs. Hayden Fry's Iowa was a power still. MSU was starting to get good under Nick Saban, whose dirty recruiting stories were the buzz around Ann Arbor. And that one was at State. Even Wisconsin, a former doormat, was becoming a strong program, going 8-5 in 1996. Even getting to the B10 unscathed felt difficult. The nonconference schedule started with #8 Colorado which was on a run of top-10 seasons at the time, and #11 Notre Dame. The only easy spots on the schedule Week 2 vs Baylor, at Indiana in Week 4, and Nov 1 vs a meh (think Maryland today) Minnesota. B10 bottom-dweller Illinois had rotated off the schedule, so M had the toughest road in the conference. It felt like we were playing top-15 teams every week.

The 1995 evaluations paid off however as that class (now juniors and RS sophs) had matured and were able to step in immediately after graduations on the defensive line especially. Going into the year, DT and an edge who could pass rush were growing concerns; the emergence of Renes (NT), Williams (DT) and Hall (Edge) flipped a questionable line into a major strength, and was taken by some (read: me) as a minor miracle. Finding those guys also meant they could make the best use out two 3T/5T older types in Juaquin Feazell, who was sort of a DL jack of all trades, and solid 5-tech in Glen Steele (think Mike Morris), who we were worried would have to play inside if they didn't have anybody else.

Even after graduating a superstar the ILBs were supposed to be the strength; Sam Sword was a former 5-star who understudied then played next to Jarrett Irons. Former transfer (a very rare thing in those days) Eric Mayes had risen to team captain and could be trusted at WLB. SAM is a position that barely exists anymore but was important then, and Michigan had a pair of seasoned thumpers with good fullbackian names in Clint Copenhaver and Rob Swett. SIDE NOTE: If you think those names are glorious to read here, listen to them in the voice of Keith Jackson. The LBs also got a boost because two surprise 1996 recruits popped: converted RB Ian Gold and WLB Dhani Jones. That was a big deal because they lost Mayes for most of the year to injury and Jones had to start, with Gold rotating in frequently. Again, young surprises from Michigan's improved scouting turned a fear point into a strong point.

The secondary had a cheat code in Woodson. The rest of it had been replenished in a major 1994 recruiting haul that lost some dudes along the way but ultimately gave them a pair of smart, solid, and experienced fourth-year safeties in Marcus Ray and Tommy Hendricks, and an okay 2nd CB in Andre Weathers. If you had to pick a weak point in the defense it was Weathers, which was unfair to Weathers because he was fine, just playing with stars and vets all over the place. The other thing they loaded up on in 1994 was kickers, so by 1997 they had seniors in Jay Feely and Jay Vinson.

So that was the defense. It had the bona fide best player in the country (when Peyton Manning was a senior and Randy Moss was at his college peak) in Woodson, no real holes, and depth everywhere but CB; the only major injury was they lost Mayes.

The offense was decent, but frustratingly so. QB had been a sore point for a couple of years, with 5-stars washing out or getting hurt. Brady shot up the depth chart in spring 1997, but there were two former (meh) starters around in Griese and Scott Dreisbach; Griese won, Brady ended up his backup, and then Brady got hurt, but Griese really turned his career around after off-field issues earlier. Other receivers developed later but Tai Streets was really the one they trusted, and Woodson moonlighted as another. Fans liked our one JUCO like ever...Russell Shaw, who was slight and couldn't block so Carr didn't play him. The passing game was there to be a sideshow, or at least until they ran for 2 yards, 2 yards, and needed to convert 3rd and 6. There was lots of that.

The OL preseason was actually a pretty big concern because lots of guys had moved on, including their old OL coach Les Miles, who left when Moeller did. Michigan got a MAJOR boost in that two redshirt freshmen recruited by new OL coach Mike DeBord in 1996 were instant stars: G Steve Hutchinson and LT Jeff Backus. They still had RT Jon Jansen (a '94) at the other bookend. So they just had to fill a couple of interior roles with a pile of G/T types like Chris Ziemann, Zach Adami, and Steve Frazier, though a third RS freshman, C David Brandt, kinda looked better than all of them. This young line wasn't great at pass pro vs weird looks on long downs yet, so they kept it mostly on the ground, driving all of us nuts. They didn't have a star RB either, which added to the frustration, but they had a good fullback in former 5-star RB Chris Floyd, and a hard runner in Chris Howard the fans were sick of but who didn't lose yards or footballs. Cass Tech mite Clarence Williams (C-Will) was too fun, and true freshman Anthony "A-Train" Thomas was too talented not to toy with. TE was mostly Jerame Tuman, a solid receiver and solid blocker (think Kevin Koger-level). Other TEs were, you know, block-shaped blocky guys named Mark Campbell or something. Aaron Shea really came on later in his career.

So that was the feel going in. Michigan was kind of a B+ program going along at a 4-losses-per-year pace but playing at a 3-losses-per-year level. But that 1995 class really hit and filled the gaps left in a fairly solid core, and that was enough to outlast a lot of REALLY good football teams all year. The only game they really didn't play well in was Iowa, which needed a late comeback to win. But they went to Beaver Stadium and pummeled Penn State (IE "Judgement Day" because other top-6 teams were playing each other too), and that was when people had to take Michigan seriously rather than as another good Big Ten team. The #1 vs #4 Ohio State game was basically Woodson magic breaking a slate gray tie between equals. The defense clamped down on Heisman candidate Ryan Leaf in the Rose Bowl.

Each game was a slow-motion grind-down, most which were within 1 or 2 scores, and featuring a final, terrifying drive when we feared (because it happened to Michigan a lot) an opponent M had dominated all afternoon could get one lucky drive in. That was how the season felt each week: Top 15 opponent that's really good at X, Michigan spends most of the day up 10-3 when it should be 21-0, until we punt with 3 minutes left in the 4th quarter in a 1- or 2-score game and hold on. That lasted all the way to the last drive of the Rose Bowl.

And then it was just...over. There weren't any more games. But by the end, this team that wasn't perfect had nobody left to play, and when they looked back they'd beaten 12 teams, 9 of which had been ranked in the top-15 at some point that year, two of them (PSU and OSU) playoff-caliber.

The sense wasn't this was a team of destiny or anything. The thing it was most like was last year, if you figure the MSU game doesn't get turned by reffing and if they played a decent team in the Rose Bowl instead of a generational Georgia dynamo in the 1st round of the playoffs. We just got to the end of it, looked back, and were like "damn."