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Before Michigan played Florida in the Capital One Bowl it was hard to get out of one's mind that the Wolverines had been beaten by a Division I-AA team. Maybe that's why many people, including me, didn't give Michigan much of a chance to win this game against a Florida team that had closed the regular season playing good football.

Well, the Michigan team that lost to Appalachian State (giving up 34 points) and to Oregon the next week (giving up 39 points) to start the season was not the Michigan team that showed up to play Florida.

No sir, this Michigan team was not Michigan at all.

It helped that MIchigan was healthy. Running back Mike Hart and quarterback Chad Henne in particular were banged up or not playing at the end of the year. It certainly had a big effect on how the Wolverines played offensively, especially against Ohio State in a late season loss.

But maybe because of the influence of incoming coach Rich Rodriguez who runs the spread offense, Michigan came out of the gate and surprised everyone by playing most of the game running a version of the spread, something it had not done all year long and it kept the Gator defense off balance all game.

Instead of coming out and trying to pound Hart to establish the running game, the normally conservative coach Lloyd Carr unleashed trick plays, end around plays, and most importantly, the Wolverines came out throwing to set up the run and they did so very effectively.

Florida's pass coverage in this game, to be charitable, was not good. It seemed like Florida was very loose in its coverage, and for whatever reason, the Gator secondary was continually burned on skinny post routes. The result was that Henne threw three touchdown passes for a career high 373 yards.

With the Gators having to respect the pass, Hart was able to find running room to the tune of 129 yards rushing and Michigan gashed the Gator defense for 524 yards of total offense. Early in the year, the Florida defense had trouble getting opponents off the field and that problem was very evident in this game as Michigan ran a staggering 86 plays and converted 10 of 15 third down conversions.

Are we sure we saw MICHIGAN run this offense???

Defensively, I believed the Wolverines would be exposed by a faster, more athletic Florida offense and while the Gators certainly scored enough points to win most games, the Michigan defense did an outstanding job of getting pressure on Gator quarterback Tim Tebow. From the second quarter on, Michigan's defense dominated the line of scrimmage and continually came at Tebow with various blitz and pressure packages. It seemed like they also wore Florida down as the game went on and Michigan even got pressure at times when rushing three or four players.

The result was a subpar day for Tebow; even though he threw for three touchdowns and ran for another, he passed for just 154 yards.

A more profound result might of what Michigan did defensively might be that a blueprint was formed for others to follow on how to defend Florida's spread attack. The Wolverines learned a thing or two from what fellow Big 10 member Ohio State did defensively...or didn't do defensively, last year against Florida, when the Buckeyes played a lot of zone and let the Gators attack them almost at will. Michigan's philosophy was clear; we're going to take chances, we're going to play a lot of man coverage and put pressure on the quarterback and we're not going to allow the Gator offense to get comfortable. For the most part, the strategy worked.

Give credit where it is due; Michigan used its large amount of time to prepare for this game to get healthy and come with game plans on both sides of the ball that the team executed very well. And, don't discount the fact that Michigan is loaded with talented senior players who played very well in this game against a younger and less experienced Florida team. Michigan needed those seniors to play well and they did.

For MIchigan fans, this win may not totally erase the stigma of losing to Appalachian State.

But it sure helps. This is a big win in MIchigan history because it helps secure Lloyd Carr's legacy...and in a weird way the normally offensively bland Carr's surprise use of the spread offense could help usher in the spread offense of the man who will take his job.

What would Bo Schembechler say to that?