by Mitch Albom | Nov 28, 2021 | Detroit Free Press, Sports
You can’t be denied what you will not surrender. That message was delivered with every lowered helmet, every busted tackle, every push behind a blocker or dive over the pile, every churning step that Hassan Haskins powered through with the football Saturday and that...
by Mitch Albom | Oct 31, 2021 | Detroit Free Press, Sports
EAST LANSING — In a game that has everything, it’s usually one thing that decides it. For Michigan football, the one thing was a mistake. For Michigan State football, it was a streak of lightning running back who hadn’t played in one of these intrastate wars...
by Mitch Albom | Mar 19, 2021 | Detroit Free Press, Sports
The NCAA tournament begins in earnest today, so you’d expect a certain level of excitement. But, truthfully, can you say there is a single team that the whole country is anticipating? A group of talent or arresting personalities that many have heard of but few have...
by Mitch Albom | Dec 13, 2020 | Detroit Free Press, Sports
I have news for Paul Finebaum of ESPN, Urban Meyer and Brady Quinn of Fox Sports, every football talk show in America and every furiously typing social media hound in the Maize and Blue universe. Nobody is going to fire Jim Harbaugh except Jim Harbaugh...
by Mitch Albom | Nov 1, 2020 | Detroit Free Press, Sports
Now that’s how you enter a rivalry. Ride into the other guy’s town, kick the doors in, and yell, “Howdy!” New coach Mel Tucker had exactly one performance under his belt at Michigan State, a forgettable seven-turnover loss to lowly Rutgers, before...
by Mitch Albom | Dec 1, 2019 | Detroit Free Press, Sports
This is the hardest column to read if you are a Michigan football fan, and the hardest to write if you like to be the bearer of good news. But we all saw it. And to deny it is folly. The Buckeyes are better. Say it and get it over with. Say it and spit...
by Mitch Albom | Nov 17, 2019 | Detroit Free Press, Sports
Just before the final snap of what he called “the state championship,” Michigan football coach Jim Harbaugh pulled aside his quarterback, Shea Patterson, and said, “This year, after you kneel down, keep the ball. Don’t throw it up in the air.” “I’ve got...
by Mitch Albom | Sep 22, 2019 | Detroit Free Press, Comment, Sports
That wasn’t a football game. That was Waterloo. Forget national playoffs, forget challenging the elite programs, forget even moving the bar higher than last season. The Michigan Wolverines on Saturday looked as bad as they’ve looked since Jim Harbaugh...
by Mitch Albom | Aug 18, 2019 | Detroit Free Press, Comment, Sports
It’s not that Michigan fans WANT to hate Ohio State. It’s that Ohio State keeps providing so many good reasons. Forget about the hiring of Urban Meyer as football coach, or the seven straight times he beat the Wolverines, or the fact that when he retired, the Buckeyes...
by Mitch Albom | May 23, 2019 | Detroit Free Press, Sports
People make this mistake about the Fab Five. They were not all the same guy. Not even close. Chris Webber and Jalen Rose, inseparable back then, were, personality wise, miles apart. Jimmy King and Ray Jackson were both from Texas, but the sameness ended there. And...