62-39.
Michigan remembers that score well, and a few Wolverine players have been keeping it in the front of their minds as they prepare for this year's edition of The Game.
“It fuels us,” senior linebacker Khaleke Hudson said. “We know what happened last year, we know what we did that we messed up on and what we’re gonna do this year to fix the problems. The score last year is what it is, can’t nothing change it."
Michigan has specifically set its focus on how it finished the game – the last 19 minutes.
The game may have finished with a lopsided score, but it was actually a one-score game late in the third quarter. Then, the wheels fell off for Michigan.
With 4:43 left in the third, Ohio State blocked a punt and returned it for a touchdown, beginning an avalanche of Buckeye points. Ohio State added four more touchdowns in less than 20 minutes to burry the Wolverines. If not for a Michigan touchdown in garbage time, the score would be even more lopsided.
The Wolverine players remember that feeling.
"Personally, I can think about that, because I’m part of those last 19 minutes,” senior defensive Carlo Kemp said. “You can't erase none of that film. Whatever’s out there is what happened. I’ve been thinking about those plays and those 19 minutes that (Don Brown) talks about, and I take it personally, because I was a part of it and I wasn’t able to help nobody that played for Michigan that day."
This year, with the highly-ranked Buckeyes heading to Ann Arbor for another heavyweight showdown, Michigan is using that memory as motivation as they strive for a different result.
“It’s fueled us a lot, just knowing that the last 19 minutes didn’t go the way we wanted it to,” Hudson said. “We’ve been doing everything throughout this whole year and we’ll do everything throughout this week to change that – to play 60 minutes to the best of our ability.”
