President Barack Obama has given his condolences to Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh following the Wolverines’ stunning loss to Michigan State.
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His co-host, Mark Packer, cut him off and asked about going for it on fourth down. High school seniors can have a number of reasons why they commit to a university. “I’m just trying to play to my gunners really well and get the ball back there and get it to where we want to be”.
“You don’t know Blake like we do”, Harbaugh said of the graduate transfer, who played previous year at Weber State.
“No”, said O’Neill. “I’m happy to play for Michigan football, and you choose to play at the college level, you take the good with the bad”.
The Spartans rushed O’Neill with 10 players and sent no one back to field the potential kick. Not only did the punter, O’Neill, fumble, but there weren’t enough Michigan blockers surrounding O’Neill to stop the wall of Spartans from getting to the ball once it came loose. “You make errors in a football game, you learn from them, and you move on”. And you nearly certainly don’t know he left a successful modeling career behind in Australia so that he could use football as a means of earning an American education. He looked like a reverse Bill Buckner, stooping over and chasing the bouncing ball until the rush engulfed him.
On how he handled the quarterback situation at Michigan: “I think the takeaway is, and you can see it with a few of these guys who’ve gone into jobs with ready-made quarterbacks”. But many supporters – those who understand the vital nature of it being a team game and others with ties to his playing days in Utah – swiftly came to the punter O’Neill’s defense. Albeit, the series is much closer since 1950 as the games before that year were played mostly in Ann Arbor – about 90 percent of them – and that’s where about half the Wolverines’ all-time wins have originated from.
Harbaugh says one play never decides a football game.
No. 1 Ohio State improved to 7-0 and 3-0 in the Big Ten last Saturday with a 38-10 win over Penn State to remain in the hunt for a playoff spot and defend their national title.
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Blake O’Neill may well be immortalized for botching a punt that could have sealed a win for Michigan against in-state rival Michigan State, but he will not let it get to him. “My guess is his natural instincts took over and he thought he could get the kick off. They do that 20 times a game with something similar, and it just didn’t go his way this time”.
