Blue Streak

It was mid-October, barely halfway through the college football season, and Michigan was all but finished.

The Wolverines had lost two of their three previous games. They were behind, 14-0, after a listless first half at Minnesota.

A shot at the Rose Bowl? A top-10 ranking? None of that was on the minds of players venting their frustration with less-than-subtle language in the visitors’ locker room at the Metrodome.

“We could have quit,” receiver Braylon Edwards recalled. “We could have said, ‘Let’s play for the Insight Bowl.’ ”

Instead, Michigan rallied for 31 points in the fourth quarter -- the biggest comeback in school history -- and a 38-35 victory. Five wins later, it has a spot in the Rose Bowl against top-ranked USC and a confidence that comes from fighting back.

“We don’t give up,” linebacker Scott McClintock said. “We have some toughness to us.”

This wasn’t the sort of lesson McClintock and his teammates had expected to learn when they gathered two months earlier for training camp.

Coming off an Outback Bowl victory over Florida last season, the team believed it could challenge for a national championship. The media agreed, placing Michigan at No. 4 in the preseason Associated Press poll.

Trouble started in the fourth game, when the Wolverines lost, 31-27, to Oregon largely because they surrendered touchdowns on a punt return and blocked punt.

Special teams faltered again two weeks later, giving up more long returns and another blocked punt, all of which added up to a 30-27 loss at Iowa.

“We always knew this team was bound for greatness,” offensive lineman Tony Pape said. “Those two losses stunned us.”

A few of the seniors, including quarterback John Navarre and linebacker Carl Diggs, spoke up in the locker room after the Iowa game. In a calm tone, they told the younger players not to give up.

“We had our backs to the wall,” Coach Lloyd Carr said. “But they didn’t point any fingers or make any excuses.”

Nor did they get their message across.

The next week, Minnesota running back Marion Barber III rushed for 96 yards in the first half, and the Michigan offense struggled again to get started. The Wolverines were 30 minutes from a meltdown.

“People were angry,” Diggs said of the locker room. “Very angry.”

Asked for specifics on what was said, defensive end Larry Stevens smiled: “You want the censored version?”

Even Carr got into the act with a cutting choice of words.

“He didn’t tell us we were getting outplayed, he told us we were getting outmanned,” Edwards said. “When someone questions your manhood, that’s where pride comes in.”

The emotion that fueled Michigan’s turnaround is in contrast to the way USC responded to its lone defeat, a 34-31 loss in triple overtime at California.

“I don’t think anything really needed to be said,” offensive tackle Jacob Rogers recalled. “We realized the significance. We knew it was a playoff situation where we had to win every game after that.”

No speeches were given. There was a players-only meeting a few weeks later, but no one recalls much of what was said.

Some might argue the Trojans could have won the Cal game with aggressive play calling at the end.

The players see it differently. They had a new quarterback and underclassmen at the skill positions. For them, responding to defeat was simply a matter of improving each week.

As Coach Pete Carroll put it: “We didn’t have an epiphany. We just ran the ball real well after that.”

Compare this nonchalance with the way Michigan players speak, in nearly reverential terms, of their transformation.

They talk about the oft-maligned Navarre scoring on a trick play and passing for two more touchdowns in the second half at Minnesota. They talk about a defense that held Illinois to 14 points the following week.

Subsequent victories over No. 10 Purdue, No. 9 Michigan State and No. 4 Ohio State featured improvements not entirely explained by schemes or strategy.

The Wolverines practiced harder and looked crisper on Saturdays, committing fewer turnovers and missing fewer assignments.

As for the defense, McClintock suspects USC will notice a difference in film of late-season games. “The defense is flying to the ball,” he said.

Defensive coordinator Jim Herrmann calls it “party” play.

“There’s the ball, there’s a party over there, get your butts to it,” he explained. “And don’t be late.”

His analogy is appropriate, if only because the Wolverines were one loss away from having the door slammed in their faces.

Now, a new determination has brought them full circle, back to the No. 4 ranking as they enter Thursday’s game. Perhaps it is a quality best acquired in an angry visitors’ locker room, in mid-October, under the most dire circumstances.

“After that,” defensive lineman Stevens said, “a lot of players started believing.”

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Michigan Turnaround

Comparing Michigan’s first six games with the last six:

*--* W-L Pts. Opp. Pts. Rush Yds. Opp. Rush Pass Yds. Opp. Pass Turnovers First 4-2 36.3 15.8 193.5 111.7 264.5 143.3 12 six: Last 6-0 38.0 17.2 179.5 129.6 277.0 190.8 6 six:

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