As Michigan football fans prepare for the start of another exciting season next Saturday, they do so with the faint memory of dark days looming in their minds. In just his third season as Michigan Head Coach, Brady Hoke is well on his way to turning the Wolverines back into National Championship contenders, but he yet to erase the scars left during the three-year tenure of Rich Rodriguez.
Rodriguez led Michigan during a 3-9 season, a 5-7 season, a loss to Toledo, a 6-18 Big Ten record and one 38-point bowl shellacking at the hands of Mississippi State. In three losses to rival Ohio State, Rodriguez boasted a combined score of 24-100, the worst three-year stretch for Michigan in the rivalry since 1934-6 when the Buckeyes posted a 93-0 score.
Michigan fans are still trying to recover from the worst era of football since Bo Schembechler graced the sideline of the Big House, but one underappreciated player has turned the page and made the best of the past two seasons.
Though the 2010 season left plenty of horrifying memories for the maize and blue faithful, the most embarrassing part was not the pummeling in the bowl game or the 17-point defeat against Michigan State in Ann Arbor.
It was the complete ineptitude of the kicking game.
Michigan placekickers converted an abysmal 4 of 14 field goal attempts on the year; a success rate of under 30 percent. The main reason for Michigan's inexplicable failure to put the ball through the uprights? Brendan Gibbons.
Gibbons was successful on only one of five field goal attempts in 2010, a measly 24-yarder during the rededication of the Big House against Connecticut in the opening game. He followed that kick with a missed extra point on the Wolverines' next score, and surrendered the starting job to Seth Broekhuizen just one week later after missing two field goal attempts in South Bend.
Gibbons' only other attempt of the season was a missed 35-yarder in the Gator Bowl, a fitting end to one of the worst kicking seasons in Michigan football history. 2010's ugly display of special teams would have forced even Lloyd Carr to consider attempting a fourth down conversion inside the red zone, something Rodriguez tried several times during Big Ten play.
When Brady Hoke recruited Matt Wile during the 2011 offseason, it seemingly signaled the end of the line for Gibbons. Wile was the highest-ranked kicking recruit for Michigan since Garrett Rivas in 2003. The prospect was known for his 63-yard field goal in high school and Gibbons was known for his missed 30-yarders in college. Everything pointed towards the true freshman taking over the starting job, but amazingly, Gibbons survived.
During the 2011 regular season the redshirt sophomore was pretty solid, converting 10 of 14 field goal attempts for a much-improved rate of 71.4 percent. However, his 40 percent rate on attempts over 39 yards and unproven ability under pressure still raised questions about Gibbons' reliability.
In Michigan's Sugar Bowl victory over Virginia Tech, he answered every one of those questions.
Gibbons converted both of his field goal attempts during regulation in New Orleans, and in the biggest moment of his revamped career he punched the game-winning 37-yarder through the uprights in overtime to send the Wolverines back to Ann Arbor with a BCS win.
During the postgame press conference, Gibbons downplayed the importance of that kick, saying that he had kept his composure by "thinking about brunette girls" before clinching the victory. This new-found confidence made the kicker seem like a whole new person compared to the frustrating freshman that had 100,000+ fans participating in a mutual groan every time he trotted onto the field.
In 2012, his confidence vaulted him to a new level once again.
Two years removed from being the laughingstock of special teams in the football world, Michigan kicking headlined the Big Ten special teams awards in 2012. Few were surprised when Will Hagerup won the Eddleman-Fields Punter of the Year award, but when Gibbons received an honorable mention for the All-Big Ten team it really put things in perspective for the veteran.
Gibbons made 16 of 18 attempts in 2012, putting him just a shade under 90 percent in field goal success rate. He converted all 45 extra-point attempts, bringing his streak to 97 in a row dating back to 2011, second in Michigan history to J.D. Carlson’s record 126 straight. The redshirt junior also answered lasting questions about his range in the loss to Nebraska, nailing a 52-yarder during the first half.
In 2010, Gibbons had one of the worst years on the Michigan team. Last season, he may have been the MVP.
En route to a disappointing 8-5 record, the theme of Michigan's 2012 football season was the inability to make a play when they absolutely needed it. In South Bend, Michigan turned the ball over six times during a seven-point loss to the eventual BCS-runner up Fighting Irish. Denard Robinson's five turnovers cost Michigan a chance to derail undefeated Notre Dame, and despite outplaying the home team the Wolverines fell short.
Against Nebraska, the battered offense failed to score a single touchdown, and despite holding a powerful Cornhusker team to just 23 points, Michigan was defeated and surrendered the lead in the Legends Division.
Michigan ended the season with two five-point losses to undefeated Ohio State and top-1o ranked South Carolina. Despite controlling second-half leads in both games, Hoke's squad couldn't make the late play to pick up either win. At the end of the season, Michigan fans were left with a bad taste in their mouths, thinking about what easily could have been a 10-win season.
What they should think about is what could have been a six-win season.
In a year when the clutch moment devastated the Wolverines week after week, Brendan Gibbons quietly took over as one of the on-field leaders of the entire team.
On October 20, Michigan State took a 10-9 lead in the Big House with under six minutes remaining in the fourth quarter, and Michigan appeared to be well on their way to another heart-breaking loss. However, with five seconds remaining, Gibbons blasted a 38-yard field goal through the uprights in front of the student section to give Michigan a 12-10 win and end the four-game losing streak against their in-state rival.
Three weeks later, during the frantic final seconds of regulation, Gibbons came on and sent the Northwestern game into overtime with a 26-yard field goal. Michigan went on to win that game, the biggest gift of the season.
Without those two kicks, Michigan's season could have been a whole lot uglier. Gibbons' remarkable improvement is one of the precious few rays of light still shining from the Rich Rodriguez era.
In 2013, Michigan won't have to worry about the kicking game, because it has a proven kicker, a proven leader and an unsung hero that won't take success for granted.
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