Ann Arbor – Thirty years ago in Michigan Stadium, the Wolverines were underdogs to No. 2 Ohio State, its roster bursting with talent like eventual Heisman Trophy winner running back Eddie George, receiver Terry Glenn and tackle Orlando Pace.
The Buckeyes needed to take care of Michigan and then win in the Rose Bowl and claim the national championship. That was their plan.
Plans change, though. And on Nov. 25, 1995 in a packed Michigan Stadium with 106,288 in attendance, Tshimanga Biakabutuka and the Wolverines’ offensive line overwhelmed the Buckeyes in a 31-23 upset that bumped the Buckeyes from the Rose Bowl – Northwestern went instead – and their postseason goals.
“Most people do not realize how dominant that game was and how it could have gone off rails,” said Rod Payne, Michigan’s starting center in that game.
The No. 15 Wolverines are underdogs again this year as top-ranked defending national champion Ohio State comes to Ann Arbor. They play Saturday at Michigan Stadium in the 121st edition of this game, 30 years after Biakabutuka and the Wolverines’ offensive line blistered the Buckeyes.
In that memorable performance, Biakabutuka set the tone early with rushes of 22 and 19 yards on the first two plays of the game and finished with 313 yards on 37 carries, the second biggest total in a Michigan game since Ron Johnson’s 347 against Wisconsin in 1968. George was held to his second-lowest rushing total of the season, 104 yards on 21 carries.
“I had a calf injury, and it was nagging me since the Purdue game (two games earlier), and so in practice, I was not going as fast as I normally go,” Biakabutuka said. “Coach (Lloyd) Carr kept picking at me. So that night, I was watching film, and on my way out he was still in the office, and he said ‘Are you gonna be ready?’
“And I said, ‘Coach, just be there. You’ll see.’”
Fred Jackson, Michigan’s long-time assistant coach who handled the running backs and works with the current team’s backs as an analyst, also was the offensive coordinator at that time.
“I remember like it was last yesterday,” Jackson said. “I remember the beginning of the game. I remember the night before the game. I remember the game. Eddie George was this big, big deal for Ohio State, and everybody was talking about Eddie George. Tshimanga told me Friday night, ‘I’m going to be the best back on the field tomorrow.’”
Joe Marinaro, a captain that season along with linebacker Jarrett Irons, was the starting right guard for the Wolverines. He had been part of Michigan’s upset of Ohio State in 1993 when the Wolverines beat the No. 5 Buckeyes 28-0 and kept them from playing in the Rose Bowl. Just as in that game, Marinaro said Michigan, on paper, had no business winning in 1995.
“If people ask what my favorite game was, it’s that one,” Marinaro said of the 1995 win. “It was a collective offensive effort. It just happened to be the last regular-season game of my career, and there’s no more gratifying thing than to go out beating Ohio State the way we did.”
Biakabutuka said his performance was all because of the offensive line. The goal every game for the offensive line was to block well enough so that Biakabutuka would ended up being one on one with a defender.
“Typically, one on one, I was able to win,” said Biakabutuka, who finished with 1,818 yards and 12 rushing touchdowns that season. “I was 215, 218, and it’s kind of hard for a DB to bring me down. So one on one, I’m winning eight times out of 10 times. But if it wasn’t for (OSU’s) Shawn Springs, I would have had 400 yards. Man, he was so fast.
“But we had a good offensive line and those guys did a good job all year, but for whatever reason, that game with Ohio State, they were just knocking people back to a point where even the pursuit couldn’t get in on time. That made it easy. My calf was a problem that game, and I couldn’t really push off of it, but I didn’t need to push off. I had a great game and that tells you the line was just doing it. Eddie George would have had the same yards behind that line the way they blocked that day.”
Payne talks about the 1995 game with a fire as though he just walked off that field.
“You can show me a Michigan team has beat Ohio State by more points since that game, but you cannot show me a more dominant, bully, punch-your-ass in the face, beatdown in the trenches than that game,” Payne said, who the following season would be named Michigan’s most valuable player.
Every Friday night after the team dinner, usually steak and potatoes, the Michigan players would have vanilla ice cream with chocolate sauce. The offensive linemen, however, carried on a tradition of “The Holy Grail.” They had a chalice that was really just a glass from the hotel ballroom and it would be passed around, lineman to lineman. Each would stuff ice cream and chocolate sauce in the glass.
“You were to not eat your ice cream,” Marinaro said. “You were to donate it to the Holy Grail.”
One of them would smash all of it together, and with a napkin wrapped around its base, one by one, each would take a drink from the “chalice.” Then would begin the individual performances.
“You passed the chalice around, and it was about who could outdo the last person in terms of the effect that the concoction had,” Marinaro said, adding he believed the tradition started with center Steve Everitt. “If there were cameras at the time, it would have been quite entertaining. It was a bonding thing. It was pretty dramatic, pretty fun to take part in the Holy Grail, a tradition that we carried on and we took very seriously.”
Perhaps it was the deciding factor why Michigan upset Ohio State in 1995.
“I’d like to say that had something to do with it,” Marinaro said, laughing. “We were nourished with whatever was in the chalice.”
Payne recalled young Michigan cornerback Charles Woodson’s two interceptions that game, and also quarterback Brian Griese throwing three interceptions in the game. After the third pick, Payne stormed off the field and flung his helmet into the brick wall separating the stands from the field. There was a scramble to fix the helmet while Payne said he said some choice words to the coaches about sticking with the run game.
“We just knew we could kick their ass,” Payne said of Ohio State. “We were pounding those guys off the ball, and we had a running back with the quickest feet I’ve ever seen. His feet were like a jackrabbit.”
As Payne told the coaches, there was no reason to throw the ball, not with Biakabutuka in the zone and the way the offensive line was handling OSU defensive line.
“I just remember every single time Tim touched the ball,” Marinaro said, “getting off my block, getting off the ground, and picking my head up and still seeing him scamper, watching him make people miss and just run down the field and people chasing him. As an offensive lineman, it was surreal, because you’re used to like, three or four yards and the cloud of dust saying, and that wasn’t the case. I can’t ever remember being in a game quite like that. Just complete dominance offensively running the ball as a unit.”
Michigan linebacker Jimmy Rolder on Saturday’s Ohio State showdown
Jimmy Rolder says “we’re going to play a Michigan brand of football, brand of defense” against top-ranked and unbeaten Ohio State on Saturday at Michigan Stadium.
Jon Jansen started at right tackle for the Wolverines in that game. He thinks about that 1995 game and then the next year in Columbus when Michigan was the underdog again and pulled off another upset. And then there was the 2021 game when the Wolverines snapped the Buckeyes’ eight-game winning streak in the series, and last year’s game, as three-touchdown underdogs, pulling off a 13-10 win.
“For the greatest upsets in that rivalry,” said Jansen, now on Michigan’s radio broadcast team, “two of them I played in and I’ve had a front-row seat to call the other two.”
In Marinaro’s home office, there’s a photo of him and Irons at midfield of the 1995 game for the coin toss with George and OSU quarterback Bobby Hoying.
“It’s something I look at every single day,” he said. “It’s always good thoughts, usually around Tim’s performance.
“When I always talk to my kids or anybody that cares about Michigan football, that’s the game that I always point to. It’s the most memorable game, because that was the pinnacle as an offensive line. You dream of those situations, and to do it against Ohio State when they should have beat us, it was just phenomenal.”
achengelis@detroitnews.com
