1973 Ohio State vs. Michigan football game
Midway through the fourth quarter, Michigan's defense held, and the offense was able to start the tying drive with great field position.Dennis Franklin threw a 35-yard post-out pattern to tight end Paul Seal to get inside the red zone.Franklin faked the inside hand-off to Shuttlesworth, and then slipped through the tackles running ten yards for a touchdown, to tie the score at 10-10.Three plays later, Michigan kicker Mike Lantry attempted a 58-yard field goal, but the ball missed the left goal-post by a few inches.Ohio State took over, but the backup quarterback, Greg Hare, threw an interception that was returned to the OSU 33 with 52 seconds left.According to Michigan coach Bo Schembechler's 1989 autobiography, the Big Ten was nervous because the conference had lost the previous four Rose Bowls, and Franklin's injury may have been a deciding factor.[citation needed] Schembechler said he had spoken with Illinois coach Bob Blackman, who said his athletic director, Cecil Coleman, would vote in favor of Michigan.Footage from the documentary had audio and printed admissions from Coleman, Iowa's Bump Elliott (Schembechler's predecessor at Michigan), Minnesota's Paul Giel, and Michigan State's J. Burt Smith, who told a crowd at an MSU football banquet on November 28, 1973 that he had voted for Ohio State because he felt they "best met the definition of the most representative team.[10] Until his death in 2017, Wayne Duke continued to vehemently deny that he influenced the vote in any way, saying the athletic directors followed the procedure in place and that he was merely the messenger.Schembechler had pushed for that reform, claiming that the athletic directors were not qualified to decide which team would better represent the conference in the Rose Bowl.Notre Dame ended up as AP national champions by defeating Alabama 24–23 in the Sugar Bowl, leaving the Buckeyes second in both wire-service surveys.