Michigan football countdown to kickoff: 46 days until 2022 season
There’s much anticipation heading into the Michigan Wolverines football season, and TheWolverine.com is counting down the days until the Sept. 3 opener against Colorado State. We’ll discuss current Michigan events, upcoming season and/or take a look at a significant number that correlates with how many days remain until kickoff, whether it be a player’s jersey number, a year, a date, a score, etc.
Michigan football finds itself 46 days away from the season opener vs. Colorado State. Today’s piece around the No. 46 is a game that, at the time, might have been the signature win of the Jim Harbaugh era.
No. 5 Michigan and No. 8 Wisconsin met on Oct. 1, 2016 at the Big House in Ann Arbor in a top ten showdown of Big Ten powers. Both the Wolverines and Badgers entered the game at 4-0 and looking for a huge win.
Michigan’s defense turned in a sterling performance during the contest, holding Hornibrook to 9/25 passing for 88 yards with one touchdown and three interceptions. One of the picks went to Jourdan Lewis, the Michigan cornerback who made the play of his time in Ann Arbor. The Wolverines held Wisconsin to 159 yards of total offense.
Inside the win
The game was every bit the slugfest it had the potential to be. There were only three scoring plays total in the contest, each coming in the last three quarters.
Fullback Khalid Hill got the game going for the Wolverines with a one-yard touchdown run with 14:56 to go in the second quarter. It would allow Michigan to take a 7-0 lead into the locker room at halftime. Wisconsin’s Dare Ogunbowale grabbed a 17-yard pass from quarterback Alex Hornibrook to tie things up at 7-7 with 8:03 to go in the third quarter.
What happened next is where 46 comes into play.
With a little under eight minutes remaining in the game, quarterback Wilton Speight made arguably the throw of his career, finding wideout Amara Darboh for a 46-yard touchdown to take a 14-7 lead, which would eventually be the final score.
Speight finished the day 20-of-32 passing for 219 yards with a touchdown and one interception. Darboh had six catches for 87 yards and the score.
Michigan finished this season with a 10-3 record with loss at Iowa and Ohio State and Florida State in the Orange Bowl.
Michigan football countdown to kickoff
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