Trevor Keegan relives Michigan’s wild overtime win over Alabama: ‘It was a statement for ourselves’
PASADENA, Calif. — Monday night, the Michigan football team scored one of its greatest wins in modern history, as the Wolverines took down Alabama, 27-20 in overtime. And for Trevor Keegan, the moment was a dream come true.
After the game, the fifth-year left guard and team captain broke it all down, discussing snapping a bowl losing streak, beating Alabama, his view (or lack thereof) of Michigan’s goal-line stand to clinch the win, his message to the team before its game-tying drive in the fourth quarter and more.
Honestly, I don’t really care. I think it was a statement for ourselves. We haven’t won a bowl game in how many years? And the last two years we didn’t come out victorious in this game. Just saying to ourselves, ‘hey, we’ve got one more, and we’re going to give it everything we got.’
On his perspective of the goal-line stand in overtime
I wasn’t even watching. Me, Karsen, Sherrone and Zint, we were all kind of sitting there praying
I heard the crowd noise, and I threw my helmet like 30 feet in the air.
On what the postgame celebration was like
Just realizing (it happened) and just praising other guys’ success. We do the He’s a Jolly Good Fellow, and we did it for damn near the whole team. It was a whole team effort, whole staff effort. And even the fans, man. They had such an important role in this game. Get our momentum back, be loud. Momentum’s such a huge game, and our crowd really helped.
On what he told the team before the offense’s fourth-quarter touchdown drive
I told the guys ‘it’s our last drive together, and I’m going to give you guys everything I’ve got. I knew they were going to have my back, and I was going to have their back. We just needed to get a first down, and I felt we were good. Just stick to our roots. Keep doing what we’re doing, trust the game plan, and we had trust in one another, and it paid off in the end. Do or die, man. We needed it.
On JJ McCarthy’s game
Just him doing what he was doing. When he’s comfortable, making plays, being himself, we’re a pretty dangerous offense. So we just want to make sure he’s comfortable, getting into a rhythm, protecting. We had a couple (missed assignments), and we’re going to clean that up. Like I said, we didn’t play our best ball, there’s things to clean up. Which is good. And let’s get ready for the national championship.
On the offense’s struggles in the second half
We didn’t play our best football, we weren’t playing mistake-free football. We had a lot of mistakes, shoot, we didn’t really deserve to win. But the guys played for each other. We depended on each other, we trusted our coaches, our game plan and each other.
On Blake Corum’s game-winning touchdown run in overtime
It’s Blake, man, I saw it in his eyes. He had the devil in his eyes or something, the demons were coming out. We knew we had to be physical between the tackles, get our run game going, which we got away from in the second half.
On beating Alabama
We got asked a lot about, ‘Oh, Alabama has the five-stars.’ But we got walk-ons who play special teams who play their hearts out every play. We’ve got guys who play for Michigan, play for the guys who have been here previously.
