Sun. Dec. 16, 2012
It is easy to start feeling down about your team early on a Sunday. When you have some of your studs playing at night and you go down big early on, it is easy to lose hope and forget why you call you call your best guys “studs.” Whether Mike gave up hope or not on a cold December 16th evening is not known, but we know now that he had nothing to be nervous about.
Losing 102.78-53.7 with three players left to play and his opponent still waiting for his defense on Monday Night Football, Mike scored 67.22 points in the Sunday night San Francisco/New England match-up. Tom Brady lead the way with a 26.82 point performance and Michael Crabtree and Frank Gore added 22.7 and 17.7 points respectively. The three performances were enough to give Mike a 120.92-102.78 lead as Sunday ended. Will’s 7 point performance from the Tennessee D the following night was not enough for Will to make a comeback of his own, and Mike advanced to Will Carter Bowl VI.
One week later, Tim would top Mike 101-98.38 to win the championship. Meanwhile, Will would score 139.34 points in the third place game, a point total that would have been enough to win the championship… had Tom Brady, Michael Crabtree and Frank Gore not knocked Will out and broke his heart the week before.