ANN ARBOR, Mich. – A college football analyst broke down a magical moment during the Michigan-Ohio State game when fans at the Big House galvanized the Wolverines after a devastating injury to Zak Zinter.
The two teams were tied at 17 with 5:35 remaining in the third quarter when J.J. McCarthy completed a pass to tight end A.J. Barner for an 18-yard gain.
Michigan was threatening to regain the lead in a game between two undefeated rivals. It was the biggest game of the college football season, and one of the most impactful chapters in the history of the Michigan-Ohio State rivalry.
But in that moment, the stadium went silent as Zinter, a team captain and star player, remained down on the turf.
“This was a moment that’s not a play in the game, but it’s a moment in the game that kind of changed the whole outlook of the game,” Fox analyst Joel Klatt said.
Klatt posted an extensive breakdown of the game on his YouTube channel, including a 10-minute anecdote specifically about the Zinter injury. It’s excellent, and you can listen to it by clicking here (the Zinter story begins at the 31:37 mark).
“This is, in a lot of ways, the heart and soul of the offensive line, of the offense, of the program, in some ways,” Klatt said. “This guy is a senior. He comes back to play this year. Could have gone to the NFL last year. He’s started 41 games. He’s started since he was a true freshman. … He has the respect of the defensive players. He has the respect of the offensive players.”
Zinter is one of the players whose decision to return for one more season snowballed into many others doing the same. He’s a key reason each of the past two offensive lines won the Joe Moore award as the best in the nation.
But on Saturday, his final game at Michigan Stadium, Zinter broke his tibia and fibula and had to be taken to the hospital for surgery. It was a devastating moment for a player who came back for another shot at the national championship and has a promising NFL future.
“When he went down, we didn’t show it to you because it was -- we knew he pretty clearly broke his leg,” Klatt said. “They were out there immediately with the cart. They were out there immediately with the air cast. The players that saw him immediately on the ground, they knew it.
“Let me just take you through the moment. So he goes down and the air leaves the building, and it is quiet. You can hear a pin drop, and there’s a lot of emotion from his teammates.”
Klatt’s recollection is accurate. It was jarring how fast the crowd at Michigan Stadium went from celebrating Barner’s big play to worrying about Zinter. It didn’t take long for the cart to come out, and that’s when everyone knew the injury was serious.
“When it’s quiet and he’s initially down and they’re pumping up the air cast before he’s on the cart, the team wasn’t out on the field yet,” Klatt said. “There was just an outpouring of emotion. (Trevor) Keegan was hitting the ground with his helmet, crying. Other guys, crying. You can just see state of shock. Even when we came back from break, you could still see that state of shock on their face.”
This wasn’t a normal-length injury break. Zinter was probably down on the field for close to 10 minutes. Players from both teams stood on their sidelines, helmets in hand.
“Then something happened that I’ve never experienced before calling games -- never experienced it before,” Klatt said. “Full disclosure, I’ve tried to tell this story in preparation for this podcast twice today, once to my wife and another to my neighbor, and I didn’t get through it without crying.
“I’m emotional when it comes to college football because I know how much goes into it for these guys. So every time a guy goes down and I know it’s an ACL or an achilles or a broken leg and it’s, like, ‘Hey, season’s done’ -- in particular when it’s a senior or a guy that I know is not going to play college football again like Zak Zinter -- I get emotional. I get really emotional. Maybe it’s just that I’m uniquely aware of -- I have a lot of empathy towards what they go through, what the teammates go through with them.
“If you’re Trevor Keegan, you’ve roomed with Zak Zinter. You live with him. You know where he came from. You know his struggles. You know what he went through to be here. You know what his hopes and dreams are. And now you see him on the ground and his leg is broken right in front of your face.
“So it’s an emotional time, and I get emotional when I see that stuff. So I’m in the booth, and during the commercial, I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh.’ I’m devastated. It sucks. I hate it, regardless of the team, anywhere, I hate it. I don’t like to see injuries.”
That’s when the chant started. I heard it first from the student section.
“And then something happens,” Klatt said. “Through my headset -- I have my headset on during the timeout, and it’s hard to hear the crowd unless the sound from the game is happening. In commercial, we kind of lose that natural sound. So it’s hard for me to kind of hear what’s going on in the stadium during commercial.
“Even though my headset’s on, I hear the stadium start to come alive. They’re pumping up the air cast, the team is devastated, and the Big House starts chanting -- if I get emotional, I’m sorry -- ‘Let’s go Zak! Let’s go Zak!’ And it’s not just one section. It’s not just one area. It was the whole stadium. It was loud. It was so loud I took my headset off to hear it, and I was blown away.
“I’ve never heard a stadium that loud in a commercial break, ever. Ever. Save for, like, the Jump Around for Wisconsin or something where it’s a manufactured song. This was completely human element driven. No music. No band. No PA announcer.
“The Michigan fans just start chanting for him. I got emotional in the booth, and right then, here’s what happens: The team goes from devastated to unified when this tsunami of emotion from the fans pours out onto the field. It was freaking loud. Again, I’ve never experienced anything like this, and what I hate is that you didn’t experience it at home. Like, you can’t experience that. And anybody that was there will tell you what I’m telling you. That crowd, with no music or anything, lifted -- I’m telling you this was wild. This team was devastated and lifeless for a moment watching one of their leaders get his leg put in an air cast.
“Once that chant started in Michigan Stadium -- and it was loud, and the energy was palpable -- the team rose up, they stood up, and they walked out onto the field. So when you come back from commercial, that’s what you see. You see all the players, and now they’re up. And now they’re standing there, so this is after the chant, and the chant, I’m telling you, that crowd at Michigan Stadium lifted Michigan up off the mat. They did. The team did not have it during that break until that chant. And then you can see them start to get resilient.”
When Zinter finally got up onto the cart, he raised his fist several times and gave a thumb’s up to the crowd as the medical team drove him into the tunnel. But his devastation was obvious.
“Then you see him get put on the cart, and now the stadium comes back alive, and now his fist goes up, and now they start to cheer, and now the players are, like, galvanized,” Klatt said. “Now, all of a sudden, his team is, like, ‘Alright, let’s go do this for 65, Zak Zinter.’
“Then what happens on the next play? Next play: Bam. Touchdown from Blake Corum. It was incredible. I’ve never seen anything like it in my career. Never seen anything like it. Then, as Blake Corum runs into the end zone -- it’s the loudest I’ve heard Michigan Stadium in a long time -- he runs right up to our camera and flashes the six-five.
“Zinter’s parents were there. It’s Senior Day. They’re getting hugs when he gets carted off, and then Blake Corum, boom. He breaks off a run. … And then, boom, six-five, right in front of our camera. Oh man. That was a pretty remarkable little sequence there, and a sequence that I got a bit emotional in. When we came back from commercial, I had to turn away from the field. I did not want you guys to hear on the broadcast my voice crack because I was getting emotional, so I turned from the field in the booth. I started looking at some of my charts and trying to re-center myself to not only talk about Zak Zinter quickly … but also not get choked up because we’ve got a game to play.”
It was an incredible moment inside the Big House, and Corum’s touchdown was one of the most important plays of the game. It broke the tie and put Michigan ahead for good.
“That crowd used to be a nervous energy crowd at Michigan when I first started doing games at Michigan,” Klatt said. “It was always the, ‘When is this going to go wrong?’ crowd. And I get it. They’ve had moments throughout the years where they get jaded and let down. But it was always kind of that feeling in 2017 and 2018 and 2019. It was always that, ‘OK, when is that play going to happen that’s going to break our back?’ Again, it was a nervous energy crowd, and I felt like, at times, that nervous energy even seeped into the team.”
Klatt is spot on here. Since the Rich Rod and Brady Hoke days, Michigan crowds had been groomed to dread the worst. The trouble with the snap game against Michigan State. The double overtime heartbreaker in Columbus. All those gut-wrenching losses when the stakes were highest.
But that’s not the case anymore.
“Something happened in the fourth quarter against Ohio State in 2021,” Klatt said. “That crowd had that energy, but then all of a sudden they realized in 2021, it’s, like, ‘Wait, we’re going to win.’ Then from that point forward, now it’s a crowd with an expectant energy. They expect domination. They want domination. They know they’re going to get domination. It has totally changed.
“To see that crowd and experience what it was prior when I first started going there and to then what I experienced Saturday in the booth with Gus (Johnson) -- it was wild. I’m telling you right now, that fan base, with no prompting, that stadium lifted that team up off the mat. The team walked out on the field. They all of a sudden were galvanized. All of a sudden it’s a touchdown. Blake flashes the six-five, and it was really loud. In a moment which could have gone the other direction.”