Michigan football's 'revenge tour' could end woeful road losing streak

Last week, Michigan’s players talked about beating Wisconsin in a rematch one year after the Badgers won in Madison. Then the Wolverines went onto the field Saturday night and made sure they backed up the talk.

After the game, senior defensive end Chase Winovich was already looking to the next opponent.

“The revenge tour has officially commenced,” Winovich told ABC postgame on the field. “We’re a hungry team. I can’t wait for Michigan State next week.”

This is always one of the biggest weeks of the year for Michigan. The stakes are only higher this year: whichever team wins in East Lansing will stay in the race for a Big Ten title. Whoever loses will have that much more difficult of a path.

This weekend’s game will be a chance for No. 6 Michigan to get several monkeys off its back: win another proverbial ‘big game,’ win against your in-state rival — and win a road game against a ranked opponent. Michigan State is ranked 24th. 

“It’s a great opportunity,” Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh said on Monday.

The Wolverines’ struggles on the road were well-documented entering this season, especially with three marquee games away from Michigan Stadium: at Notre Dame in Week 1, at Michigan State and then at Ohio State to close out the regular season.

Since beating then-No. 2 Notre Dame in 2006, the Wolverines are 0-17 on the road against ranked opponents. They’re 0-1 this year, after a 24-17 loss to the Fighting Irish.

Most of the players have said that stat, among others, doesn’t mean much.

“You just try to play every game and win every game,” senior defensive tackle Lawrence Marshall said.

But Michigan entered this three-game stretch knowing what it could accomplish by running the table. The Wolverines say they're a different team than the one that opened the season with a sloppy loss at Notre Dame. They'll have another chance to make their words count this weekend in East Lansing.

"We're viewed as a team that doesn't win a lot of big games on the road,” sophomore linebacker Josh Ross said. “But, of course, this is our time to silence everybody. Silence the critics.

“At the end of the day, somebody is always going to say something bad about our team and somebody's always going to say something good about our team. But how we feel in the locker room and how we feel on this team, as players with each other, is all that matters."

Contact Orion Sang: osang@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @orion_sang.

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