The defending national champion Michigan Wolverines looked for inspiration from an unlikely source this week but walked away with an unfortunate outcome.
Ahead of their biggest of the game of the early season against No. 3 Texas, Michigan brought in New York Yankees Hall of Famer Derek Jeter to give a locker-room speech the night before Saturday’s game. Jeter, who led the Yankees as captain for 12 years, was part of five World Series championships, including a stretch of four titles in five years from 1996-2000. Michigan is looking for a similar run after winning its first national championship since 1997 last season.
Jeter served as the Wolverines’ honorary captain on Saturday against Texas native Matthew McConaughey on the other side.
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But Jeter, who grew up in Kalamazoo, Michigan, as a lifelong Wolverines fan, admits that he may not quite have had it when it comes to giving a football speech.
“Having absolutely zero experience playing football in my life, I don’t know if anything registered with them,” Jeter said of his speech to the players during an interview on the Big Noon Kickoff Show on Fox.
Jeter said he aimed to give the team advice on what it’s like handling business as a defending champion and looking to stay on top. Despite the fact that Jeter enjoyed plenty of that repeat winning as a member of the Yankees, he acknowledges that it’s a very difficult thing to maintain.
“I think it’s just basically sharing a message, a message of when you’re on top, when you’re winning and trying to repeat, do it again. I mean, sustainability over time is very, very challenging, and they hope to do that this year,” Jeter said.
But Jeter wasn’t even sure what impact his speech would have on the team before the game. He said the result of the game would reflect how effective his advice was.
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“Let’s see how this game goes before you give me any credit,” Jeter said.
Michigan lost 31-12. The loss broke the program’s streak of 33 straight regular-season wins and marked its most lopsided regular-season loss since a 49-11 dismantling by Wisconsin in the COVID-shortened 2020 season.
McConaughey claimed bragging rights over the former Yankees captain for this one, and he exercised the rights very early in the day before the actor even landed in Michigan. McConaughey sent a video message from his plane to Jeter while on Big Noon Kickoff, bragging that he hoped and expected it to be a “long day” for Jeter’s Wolverines.
“Jeter, I hope and think it’s going to be a long day for your big blue,” McConaughey said.
Jeter was at one point a student at Michigan, but never played sports there, nor did he graduate from the university.
He took classes at Michigan in the fall semester of 1992 after playing in the minors for the Yankees, and registered again for the next fall. However, when the Yankees asked Jeter to play in the Instructional League in 1993, he withdrew from classes and didn’t return to college.
The defending champions beat unranked Fresno State, 30-10, in Week 1, but now must recover from this loss amid a season of distractions.
The program is still under investigation for alleged illegal sign stealing by former staffer Connor Stalions. The investigation started in the middle of last season and resulted in the suspension of former head coach Jim Harbaugh for the final three regular-season games.
After the team won the national championship against Washington, Harbaugh departed to take over the Los Angeles Chargers long before the investigations had concluded. But the NCAA recently announced a four-year show cause order for Harbaugh as a result of its investigation into Michigan’s impermissible contact with recruits and players during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Meanwhile, head coach Sherrone Moore, who was Harbaugh’s top assistant in 2023 and served as interim head coach during Harbaugh’s multiple suspensions, addressed his alleged relationship with Stalions two weeks ago. Moore has been accused of deleting text messages with Stalions.
“I’ll just say this: I look forward to them being released,” Moore said of his text messages with Stallions.
Michigan’s next game is against unranked Arkansas next Saturday, which comes before a big conference matchup against No. 13 USC on Sept. 21 in the first game between the two storied programs as conference rivals.
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