A Look Back at the Hoosiers' 1987 14-10 Win Over Michigan with Former Coach Bob Morris
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IU Archives
Written by Sammy Jacobs (@Hoosier_Huddle)
It has been 32 years since the Hoosiers last knocked off the Wolverines. We were able to talk to former Hoosier assistant coach Bob Morris. Morris coached defensive backs for Bill Mallory from 1983 to 1993 and worked with Coach Mallory at both Colorado and Northern Illinois before landing in Bloomington. Morris coached at the college level until 2001 which included stops at Purdue (1994-96) and Akron (1998-2001) before landing as a scout with the Cleveland Browns (2002-2010) and the San Francisco 49ers (2010-2019). Currently, Morris is the Manager of Analytics and Statistics for the Dallas Renegades of the XFL.
Coach Morris was gracious enough to share his stories from the rainy, loud and victorious day in Bloomington. Here is the Q&A we had with him:
Take us through the feeling leading up to that day. The team was coming off of a win at Ohio State and a one-point win over Minnesota, what were the feelings leading up to the game?
“I really can't remember the feeling up to that week. As we were practicing. I know we had a veteran team that was very confident,
basically took care of themselves. I do remember the walk. We stayed out at the National Park. State Park was the town. And we walked in the rain, and it was like okay, 'are we really gonna go out and walk in this?' And it turned out because I mean that was our tradition to walk around the grounds and we came back and ate breakfast. Our shoes were wet.
But we were focused and ready to play Michigan. I mean
we wanted a piece of them. We'd already beat Ohio State. Like I said, we had a veteran group and they believed in themselves and it's just a matter of executing the game plan.”
Did Coach Bo Schembechler really complain that it was too loud at Memorial Stadium?
“This is funny. College football was Michigan you couldn't play good football unless you did it the Michigan way. That was the only way to play football and back then they didn't have any crowd noise rules and so if, particularly if the Michigan quarterback ever thought it was too noisy. He would step back and make sure that the officials would make the crowd go down the noise go down for the quarterback, you know do his signals you know football was so different back then, it's unbelievable.
So it was I think it was a second quarter. When this happened, and the quarterback stepped away, and our crowd got louder. And so Bo complained to the officials 'my quarterback cannot get to take a snap until the crowd gets down and we can do football the way football supposed to be done,' and our crowd just kept getting louder. Finally they made him snap the ball, but it was awesome.
I mean it was it was a bad day. It was rainy, but our fans were into it and Michigan didn't know what they were getting into is just to see Bo, you know, he's got his 100,000 at Michigan and I am sure when a visiting crowd up at Michigan and was trying to get the crowd to to settle down so they could take a snap I'm sure the officials didn't get them to say, Alright, today we're giving Michigan that day. But that was, that was, that was it. That was a good piece of history in that game to see Bo complain that the crowd was too loud. That was awesome.”
Take us through that game, it was 14-10. What happened?
“It was, it was a defensive battle it was sloppy day. At the start of the game I don't remember the rain blowing really hard but it was raining. The wind was was coming from the south at the start. We got a block punt in the second quarter to kind of, you know, give us momentum or get a feel position.
Billy Reisert, one of my favorite players on that team. One of our core special teams player block the punt, we got the ball, I think inside the 20-yard line. Then Dave Schnell hit Ernie Jones on a post for a touchdown, which gave us to lead Michigan countered and I believe they had a 10-7 lead at halftime.
In the third quarter we came out we chose to have the wind at our back. We were moving south to north at that point. And we ended up having for us in that year with a classic eight minute drive with Anthony Thompson running the ball. Short passes to Ernie Jones, to tight end Tim Jordan.That offensive line which featured Eric Moore who played in the NFL.
You know, they pushed the Michigan defense around.
Our really only dr of the day, and Dave Schnell scored a touchdown on a quarterback option to make the score 14 to 10. After that our offense struggled to move the ball. And it was a matter of us holding off Michigan.
One of ther eally peculiar things about this game with everybody that was that that game will remember the wind started to blow harder and I am sure meteorologist would say, 'well, what happened is the front just went through', but in the third quarter we had the wind in our back. And it was coming from south to north going south to north. And so, when the quarters changed, It was like God shone down on the Hoosiers and said 'okay, Michigan is you're so good you get to go with the wind in your face again.'
And so, sure enough, they flipped the field down harder, the rain, the wind started pulling harder now the winds blowing from the north to the south. The rain is coming down harder. So the whole fourth quarter Michigan is trying to move the ball against us, and score the winning points into that way another defense was in our defense constantly went out on the field and made plays. You know in the videos they showed Joe Huff with a couple of sacks quarterback out from behind obviously we had Van Waiters on the other side who was pushing the ball back to Joe. On the defensive line, Walt Harris, Doug Schlereth, Nolan Harrison, I mean we had some beasts in front. Then the secondary or throw the ball. Remember on a third and six. And I coached the secondary so that's what remember this in our nickel back Andre Hall, who I had on patrol earlier that week because he missed class. And we had a laugh at it you know after the game, but he knocks down a pass on third-and-eight. He takes a great drop into the curl and knocks down a pass. I don't know if it was the last drive, but it was one of the, one of the drives at the end of the game that stopped Michigan again, and then we ended up winning the game.”