Program-defining moments come in all shapes and sizes.
But few arrive as loud and fierce as the one delivered from Terrance Taylor's prodigious mouth at halftime Saturday at Michigan Stadium.
Michigan trailed Wisconsin, 19-0, and that was actually better than could be expected.
So Taylor simply let his team, particularly the imploding offense, have it.
"If anyone's lacking, we feel as a team we can call them out and they'll respect that, so that's what we do," he said of his halftime rant in which he looked every player in the eye and not one responded. "This is a family."
Suddenly, it was a family that came together, rallying for the largest U-M comeback in Michigan Stadium's 500-game history, knocking off No. 9 Wisconsin, 27-25.
Either inspired or scared by Taylor's speech, the offense responded with a final burst that will be talked about for the next 500 home games.
Beginning with seven minutes to play in the third quarter, the Wolverines (2-2, 1-0 Big Ten) began churning. A first half with only one first down, just 21 yards of offense and five turnovers -- enough to draw halftime boos -- suddenly vanished and was replaced by the 27-point offensive monster U-M coach Rich Rodriguez had long imagined.
A 14-play, 80-yard drive, capped by freshman Kevin Koger's 26-yard touchdown catch.
A 10-play, 85-yard drive, finished by little-used veteran Brandon Minor's gut-busting 34-yard touchdown run.
A tipped interception to lead-footed linebacker John Thompson that ended with him celebrating in the end zone.
And finally, there was the insurance drive that would mean everything in the final minutes.
The one where battered U-M quarterback Steven Threet, who committed three first-half turnovers, broke out for a 58-yard run, setting up a short touchdown by tailback Sam McGuffie.
The one that ensured this game will be a memory none of the 109,833 in attendance will forget, on either side.
Everyone on the Wolverines already had a comeback story -- Rodriguez's West Virginia program-making win over Louisville, defensive coordinator Scott Shafer's Stanford upset of USC in 2007 and Northern Illinois over Alabama, the U-M veterans' stunning 2005 win over Penn State, coincidentally, 27-25 -- but as Taylor said, this was unforgettable.
"It's probably No. 1 right now," he said. "Being down by that much, no hope, no one's counting on you, everyone's counting you out, to fight back like that, having so many things go wrong as an offense, and as a defense keeping everybody together, keeping enthusiasm.
"It was really a team effort, especially on defense, and I'm so proud of everybody else."
Dealing with five sudden-change situations in the first half -- the pain of five turnovers by the Michigan offense and special teams -- the Michigan defense had to keep hope alive and did, holding Wisconsin (3-1, 0-1) to field goals.
"I'd like to tell you things looked OK at halftime, but they didn't -- wow," said Rodriguez, who had water dumped on him by his players. "There was no panic. We were just trying to make some corrections, but if there was a hole to crawl into, I'm sure a bunch of us, including myself, would have liked to crawl in that hole. But we didn't. ... That's why I felt we had a chance at halftime, because our defense was playing so well."
The memories will be long from this one. But few will remember Wisconsin tying the game after scoring a touchdown and converting the two-pointer because, after a Badger penalty, the two points were taken away, and Wisconsin failed on its next two-point-conversion attempt.
Fans probably won't remember the early disaster and near crowd mutiny, but instead that the fans stayed and energized them during the historic comeback.
Taylor said all week these are the games he returned for, Big Ten games.
Yet even he couldn't have imagined this.
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