Culture

Michigan proved it can win ugly against USC. That’s all that matters — for now

Published

1 year ago

September 23, 2024

Michigan proved it can win ugly against USC. That’s all that matters — for now

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Kalel Mullings’ teammates used to tease him because he didn’t look that fast.

Mullings, a former linebacker, stands 6 feet 2 and weighs 233 pounds. If Michigan’s skill-position players lined up at the goal line and ran a 100-yard sprint, he probably wouldn’t win. He entered this season in the shadow of Donovan Edwards, the star of last year’s national championship game, and wasn’t mentioned among the best running backs in the Big Ten.

Late in the fourth quarter against USC, with Michigan running out of ideas to revive a comatose offense, the Wolverines finally landed on something that worked. They gave the ball to Mullings, who ran through the arms of USC’s John Humphrey for a 63-yard gain. They gave it to him again. And again. And again. With 41 seconds on the clock, Michigan faced fourth-and-goal from the 1-yard line, needing one more play to take the lead.

Hmm … what to call? Naked bootleg? Philly special? Or how about giving it to Mullings one more time?

!!!!!!! pic.twitter.com/HMTgB8YgGI
— Michigan Football (@UMichFootball) September 21, 2024
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“We all knew what was about to happen,” quarterback Alex Orji said.

Mullings took the handoff and plowed into the end zone, giving No. 18 Michigan a 27-24 victory against the No. 11 Trojans. This was Michigan’s most improbable win in years, sparked by a running back who wasn’t supposed to be the No. 1 option. It’s clear now that every week is going to be a struggle for this Michigan team, but sometimes the struggle ends with a celebration.

“I feel like that’s a representation of who we are, always straining until the very end,” Mullings said. “Throughout that drive, it was just grit.”

Before that last drive, Michigan had the ball five times in the second half without a first down. The Wolverines gained 6 yards in the third quarter and had 32 passing yards for the game. None of this is in the how-to manual for beating a top-15 opponent.

Somehow, Michigan found a way. That was largely because of Mullings, who ran for 159 yards on 17 carries, his second consecutive game of more than 150 yards. Michigan’s offense has very few things it can depend on, but the Wolverines have learned they can depend on Mullings.

“He’s done everything for us,” coach Sherrone Moore said.

If nothing else, Michigan’s attempt to build an entire offense out of linemen, tight ends and former linebackers will be an interesting test of the Wolverines’ offensive ethos. Michigan has been a run-first team for the past several years, but with Orji at quarterback, it’s now a run-second and run-third team, too.

What Michigan did Saturday, beating a ranked opponent while attempting 12 passes, is likely unsustainable. At this point, the Wolverines aren’t looking for sustainability. They’re looking for whatever can help them win on a given Saturday. If that means running the ball 40-plus times per game, Moore will be the happiest person in the stadium.

“That’s my dream,” Moore said. “Yeah, I want to throw the ball, but when you can run the ball effectively, it kind of brings (the defense) down a little bit.”

Saturday was USC’s first conference game as a member of the Big Ten. It delivered exactly what the Big Ten wanted when it added four teams from the West Coast: a great scene, great drama, a clash of two iconic programs with contrasting styles.

GO DEEPER

USC let Michigan off the hook, and now the Trojans’ margin for error is slim

Michigan’s advantage in the trenches was significant. USC’s passing game was explosive; Michigan’s was non-existent. The game had wild momentum swings, including Will Johnson’s 42-yard interception return for a touchdown and Kenneth Grant’s fumble recovery that was taken back by USC’s Woody Marks.

Michigan looked to be in deep trouble after Edwards coughed up a fumble and USC scored to take a 24-20 lead midway through the fourth quarter. The offense stalled in the second half, and the switch from Davis Warren to Orji at quarterback wasn’t looking like a dramatic upgrade.

Warren was reasonably efficient in the short and intermediate passing game but threw six interceptions in three starts. The Wolverines barely tried to throw the ball beyond the line of scrimmage with Orji, but he played turnover-free football and ran 13 times for 43 yards.

“A bunch of people were asking what I wanted out of my first start,” Orji said. “I wanted a ball-secure victory, and we got that.”

GO DEEPER

Alex Orji is a ‘one in a million’ athlete. Now it’s time to prove he can play QB

Despite its struggles, Michigan is 3-1 with a loss to No. 1 Texas and a win against a USC team that was regarded as a College Football Playoff contender. That’s not a bad first month of the season. Looking at how the Wolverines have won the past two weeks, it’s hard to feel confident that what they’re doing now is going to translate over a full season. But if Michigan can beat USC without a functional passing game, the Wolverines should be able to beat a few other teams, too.

Nothing’s going to come easy for Michigan this season. The Wolverines are going to have to get comfortable with winning ugly. They don’t have a great answer at quarterback, and their best hope is to put their trust in Orji and help him out however they can.

Giving the ball to Mullings is a great way to do that. As good as he’s been, he could still use more touches. The Wolverines are a tough team to play when Mullings is breaking tackles and Michigan’s defense is flying around, as USC discovered in its first taste of Big Ten football.

Beating a ranked team with 32 passing yards isn’t something Michigan is likely to replicate. But success on the ground with Mullings is repeatable, and Michigan’s final drive was perfect repetition.

“Whether you run it, whether you throw it — (people) say you should throw it more — we won,” Moore said. “We beat a good team. For us, that’s what it was all about.”

(Photo: Junfu Han / Imagn Images)

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Culture

Video: 250 Years of Jane Austen, in Objects

Published

5 days ago

December 18, 2025

Press Room

Video: 250 Years of Jane Austen, in Objects

new video loaded: 250 Years of Jane Austen, in Objects

To capture Jane Austen’s brief life and enormous impact, editors at The New York Times Book Review assembled a sampling of the wealth, wonder and weirdness she has brought to our lives.

By Jennifer Harlan, Sadie Stein, Claire Hogan, Laura Salaberry and Edward Vega

December 18, 2025

Culture

Try This Quiz and See How Much You Know About Jane Austen

Published

1 week ago

December 16, 2025

Press Room

Try This Quiz and See How Much You Know About Jane Austen

“Window seat with garden view / A perfect nook to read a book / I’m lost in my Jane Austen…” sings Kristin Chenoweth in “The Girl in 14G” — what could be more ideal? Well, perhaps showing off your literary knowledge and getting a perfect score on this week’s super-size Book Review Quiz Bowl honoring the life, work and global influence of Jane Austen, who turns 250 today. In the 12 questions below, tap or click your answers to the questions. And no matter how you do, scroll on to the end, where you’ll find links to free e-book versions of her novels — and more.

Culture

Revisiting Jane Austen’s Cultural Impact for Her 250th Birthday

Published

1 week ago

December 16, 2025

Press Room

Revisiting Jane Austen’s Cultural Impact for Her 250th Birthday

On Dec. 16, 1775, a girl was born in Steventon, England — the seventh of eight children — to a clergyman and his wife. She was an avid reader, never married and died in 1817, at the age of 41. But in just those few decades, Jane Austen changed the world.

Her novels have had an outsize influence in the centuries since her death. Not only are the books themselves beloved — as sharply observed portraits of British society, revolutionary narrative projects and deliciously satisfying romances — but the stories she created have so permeated culture that people around the world care deeply about Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy, even if they’ve never actually read “Pride and Prejudice.”

With her 250th birthday this year, the Austen Industrial Complex has kicked into high gear with festivals, parades, museum exhibits, concerts and all manner of merch, ranging from the classily apt to the flamboyantly absurd. The words “Jane mania” have been used; so has “exh-Aust-ion.”

How to capture this brief life, and the blazing impact that has spread across the globe in her wake? Without further ado: a mere sampling of the wealth, wonder and weirdness Austen has brought to our lives. After all, your semiquincentennial doesn’t come around every day.

By ‘A Lady’

Jane Austen’s House, Chawton, England

Austen published just four novels in her lifetime: “Sense and Sensibility” (1811), “Pride and Prejudice” (1813), “Mansfield Park” (1814) and “Emma” (1815). All of them were published anonymously, with the author credited simply as “A Lady.” (If you’re in New York, you can see this first edition for yourself at the Grolier Club through Feb. 14.)

Where the Magic Happened

Janice Chung for The New York Times

Placed near a window for light, this diminutive walnut table was, according to family lore, where the author did much of her writing. It is now in the possession of the Jane Austen Society.

An Iconic Accessory

Jane Austen’s House, Chawton, England

Few of Austen’s personal artifacts remain, contributing to the author’s mystique. One of them is this turquoise ring, which passed to her sister-in-law and then her niece after her death. In 2012, the ring was put up for auction and bought by the “American Idol” champion Kelly Clarkson. This caused quite a stir in England; British officials were loath to let such an important cultural artifact leave the country’s borders. Jane Austen’s House, the museum now based in the writer’s Hampshire home, launched a crowdfunding campaign to Bring the Ring Home and bought the piece from Clarkson. The real ring now lives at the museum; the singer has a replica.

Austen Onscreen

Since 1940, when Austen had a bit of a moment and Greer Garson and Laurence Olivier starred in MGM’s rather liberally reinterpreted “Pride and Prejudice,” there have been more than 20 international adaptations of Austen’s work made for film and TV (to say nothing of radio). From the sublime (Emma Thompson’s Oscar-winning “Sense and Sensibility”) to the ridiculous (the wholly gratuitous 2022 remake of “Persuasion”), the high waists, flickering firelight and double weddings continue to provide an endless stream of debate fodder — and work for a queen’s regiment of British stars.

Jane Goes X-Rated

Tony Cenicola/The New York Times

The rumors are true: XXX Austen is a thing. “Jane Austen Kama Sutra,” “Pride and Promiscuity: The Lost Sex Scenes of Jane Austen” and enough slash fic and amateur porn to fill Bath’s Assembly Rooms are just the start. Purists may never recover.

A Lady Unmasked

Jane Austen’s House, Chawton, England

Austen’s final two completed novels, “Northanger Abbey” and “Persuasion,” were published after her death. Her brother Henry, who oversaw their publication, took the opportunity to give his sister the recognition he felt she deserved, revealing the true identity of the “Lady” behind “Pride and Prejudice,” “Emma,” etc. in a biographical note. “The following pages are the production of a pen which has already contributed in no small degree to the entertainment of the public,” he wrote, extolling his sister’s imagination, good humor and love of dancing. Still, “no accumulation of fame would have induced her, had she lived, to affix her name to any productions of her pen.”

Wearable Tributes

Tony Cenicola/The New York Times

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a Jane Austen fan wants to find other Jane Austen fans, and what better way to advertise your membership in that all-inclusive club than with a bit of merch — from the subtle and classy to the gloriously obscene.

The Austen Literary Universe

Elizabeth Renstrom for The New York Times

On the page, there is no end to the adventures Austen and her characters have been on. There are Jane Austen mysteries, Jane Austen vampire series, Jane Austen fantasy adventures, Jane Austen Y.A. novels and, of course, Jane Austen romances, which transpose her plots to a remote Maine inn, a Greenwich Village penthouse and the Bay Area Indian American community, to name just a few. You can read about Austen-inspired zombie hunters, time-traveling hockey players, Long Island matchmakers and reality TV stars, or imagine further adventures for some of your favorite characters. (Even the obsequious Mr. Collins gets his day in the sun.)

A Botanical Homage

Created in 2017 to mark the 200th anniversary of Austen’s death, the “Jane Austen” rose is characterized by its intense orange color and light, sweet perfume. It is bushy, healthy and easy to grow.

Aunt Jane

Jane Austen’s House, Chawton, England

Hoping to cement his beloved aunt’s legacy, Austen’s nephew James Edward Austen-Leigh published this biography — a rather rosy portrait based on interviews with family members — five decades after her death. The book is notable not only as the source (biased though it may be) of many of the scant facts we know about her life, but also for the watercolor portrait by James Andrews that serves as its frontispiece. Based on a sketch by Cassandra, this depiction of Jane is softer and far more winsome than the original: Whether that is due to a lack of skill on her sister’s part or overly enthusiastic artistic license on Andrews’s, this is the version of Austen most familiar to people today.

Cultural Currency

Steve Parsons/Associated Press

In 2017, the Bank of England released a new 10-pound note featuring Andrews’s portrait of Austen, as well as a line from “Pride and Prejudice”: “I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading!” Austen is the third woman — other than the queen — to be featured on British currency, and the only one currently in circulation.

In the Trenches

During World War I and World War II, British soldiers were given copies of Austen’s works. In his 1924 story “The Janeites,” Rudyard Kipling invoked the grotesque contrasts — and the strange comfort — to be found in escaping to Austen’s well-ordered world amid the horrors of trench warfare. As one character observes, “There’s no one to touch Jane when you’re in a tight place.”

Baby Janes

Tony Cenicola/The New York Times

You’re never too young to learn to love Austen — or that one’s good opinion, once lost, may be lost forever.

The Austen Industrial Complex

Elizabeth Renstrom for The New York Times

Maybe you’ve not so much as seen a Jane Austen meme, let alone read one of her novels. No matter! Need a Jane Austen finger puppet? Lego? Magnetic poetry set? Lingerie? Nameplate necklace? Plush book pillow? License plate frame? Bath bomb? Socks? Dog sweater? Whiskey glass? Tarot deck? Of course you do! And you’re in luck: What a time to be alive.

Around the Globe

Goucher College Special Collections & Archives, Alberta H. and Henry G. Burke Collection; via The Morgan Library & Museum

Austen’s novels have been translated into more than 40 languages, including Polish, Finnish, Chinese and Farsi. There are active chapters of the Jane Austen Society, her 21st-century fan club, throughout the world.

Playable Persuasions

Tony Cenicola/The New York Times

In Austen’s era, no afternoon tea was complete without a rousing round of whist, a trick-taking card game played in two teams of two. But should you not be up on your Regency amusements, you can find plenty of contemporary puzzles and games with which to fill a few pleasant hours, whether you’re piecing together her most beloved characters or using your cunning and wiles to land your very own Mr. Darcy.

#SoJaneAusten

The wild power of the internet means that many Austen moments have taken on lives of their own, from Colin Firth’s sopping wet shirt and Matthew Macfadyen’s flexing hand to Mr. Collins’s ode to superlative spuds and Mr. Knightley’s dramatic floor flop. The memes are fun, yes, but they also speak to the universality of Austen’s writing: More than two centuries after her books were published, the characters and stories she created are as relatable as ever.

Bonnets Fit for a Bennett

Peter Flude for The New York Times

For this summer’s Grand Regency Costumed Promenade in Bath, England — as well as the myriad picnics, balls, house parties, dinners, luncheons, teas and fetes that marked the anniversary — seamstresses, milliners, mantua makers and costume warehouses did a brisk business, attiring the faithful in authentic Regency finery. And that’s a commitment: A bespoke, historically accurate bonnet can easily run to hundreds of dollars.

Most Ardently, Jane

The Morgan Library & Museum

Austen was prolific correspondent, believed to have written thousands of letters in her lifetime, many to her sister, Cassandra. But in an act that has frustrated biographers for centuries, upon Jane’s death, Cassandra protected her sister’s privacy — and reputation? — by burning almost all of them, leaving only about 160 intact, many heavily redacted. But what survives is filled with pithy one-liners. To wit: “I do not want people to be very agreeable, as it saves me the trouble of liking them a great deal.”

Stage and Sensibility

Austen’s works have been adapted numerous times for the stage. Some plays (and musicals) hew closely to the original text, while others — such as Emily Breeze’s comedic riff on “Pride and Prejudice,” “Are the Bennet Girls OK?”, which is running at New York City’s West End Theater through Dec. 21 — use creative license to explore ideas of gender, romance and rage through a contemporary lens.

Austen 101

Tony Cenicola/The New York Times

Austen remains a reliable fount of academic scholarship; recent conference papers have focused on the author’s enduring global reach, the work’s relationship to modern intersectionality, digital humanities and “Jane Austen on the Cheap.” And as one professor told our colleague Sarah Lyall of the Austen amateur scholarship hive, “Woe betide the academic who doesn’t take them seriously.”