Last week I posted about the longest pass plays in Michigan history (LINK).
Now it’s time for the longest kickoff returns. Surprisingly (to me), only one play in Michigan history has gone the length of the field:
- 100 yards – Seth Smith (1994 vs. Wisconsin)
- 99 yards – Dennis Fitzgerald (1960 vs. Michigan State)
- 99 yards – Tyrone Wheatley (1992 vs. Houston)
- 99 yards – Ambry Thomas (2018 vs. Notre Dame)
- 97 yards – Giles Jackson (2019 vs. Maryland)
- 97 yards – Grant Mason (2004 vs. Indiana)*
- 96 yards – Jehu Chesson (2015 vs. Northwestern)
- 95 yards – Desmond Howard (1990 vs. Michigan State)
- 95 yards – Steve Breaston (2005 vs. Minnesota)
- 95 yards – Giles Jackson (2020 vs. Rutgers)
- 94 yards – Darryl Stonum (2009 vs. Notre Dame)
- 93 yards – Desmond Howard (1991 vs. Boston College)
- 90 yards – Dave Raimey (1961 vs. Ohio State)
- 85 yards – Tony Boles (1989 vs. Purdue)
- 82 yards – Chuck Ortmann (1982 vs. Purdue)*
- 80 yards – Jamie Morris (1984 vs. Northwestern)
- 73 yards – Gil Chapman (1972 vs. Illinois)
*Did not score
The only player in Michigan history with multiple kickoff return touchdowns is the great Desmond Howard.
Here’s (almost) every kickoff return touchdown in Michigan history:
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Chesson’s return is about the best blocked kick return you are ever going to see. Stop the vid at 3:53 and check it out. We let two guys at the top of the screen through because we’re crossing the field away from them. The wall gets everybody in the middle. We have three guys … pulling … for lack of a better word, to kick out the outside guys at the bottom of the screen and two hats on probably the second guy from the outside at the bottom of the screen.
And a textbook study on why you stay in your lane on kickoffs. Stop the vid at 3:54 and you will see 10 Northwestern defenders to the right of the the nearside hashmark with the 11th about to cross over. We had to have seen this on Northwestern’s film. This play was designed for a team that floats wide to the ball.
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I’m sitting here laughing because the thing looks like about every off tackle running play in Jim Harbaugh’s playbook. It’s absolutely textbook Harbaugh.
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You’re right. On a lot of kickoff returns, there are broken tackles, missed tackles, etc. Not anything that REALLY slows down the kick returner, but you usually have to make someone miss in some way. Chesson basically just ran really fast like he did on his jet sweeps.
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