It doesn’t matter who started the chat. No one can seem to remember anyway.
It doesn’t matter who got added when, or where. That fades in and out of memory too for the seniors of the No. 1 Michigan football team. It doesn’t even matter who said yes first.
It had the desired effect all the same. The old guard was coming back.
“Really it was just the amount of unfinished business we left,” senior defensive lineman Kris Jenkins told The Michigan Daily. “We didn’t feel like we left enough of a legacy that we felt confident in before we left. It was just the fact that we had some unfinished business to do. We all felt that way.”
It was a lofty goal. Achieving the first Big Ten Championship for the program since 2004 in 2021 — and then another in 2022 — as well as capturing Michigan’s first two berths to the College Football Playoff in back-to-back years, the now seniors and graduate students of the Wolverines had already ascended to nearly the highest of heights.
But clearly it wasn’t enough for them.
As each player reflected on their time at Michigan, they couldn’t stop nurturing the same sore, sour tastes: unfinished business, embarrassment, more to give, meat on the bone. A litany of phrases, all that communicated the same message.
Despite being the reigning champions of the Big Ten, after a trouncing at the hands of Georgia in 2021, then a rollercoaster of a loss against TCU, the job — as any of them will tell you — felt unfinished. There was simply something missing.
“We knew, especially in that last game we played with TCU, we didn’t play the game that we knew we could play,” Jenkins said. “We didn’t feel like we left it all on the table like we should have. Especially being in moments like that, we definitely wanted to come back and prove to ourselves, really just leave everything out there as a team, as players, as brothers, as a family.”
So a group chat was made. And the results came in spades.
“It was really like one person started (saying yes), everybody really followed suit,” Jenkins said. “I can’t remember exactly who said ‘yeah’ first but everyone was really comparing with each other just weighing how they felt with each other and everybody agreed with that. We felt like we were all in the same problem.”
It was a weighty decision, whether to stay, go onto the NFL, or lead a life outside of football entirely. For a group that had seen the lowest of lows — a 2-4 2020 season, a pay cut to their head coach, and a litany of doubts — walking away so fast wasn’t easy. In fact, it just felt off.
As the group discussed back and forth about their feelings, hopes and decisions to be made, it didn’t matter who said yes first. That fact is likely lost to time, or at least, the recesses of a group chat that spent its purpose nearly a full calendar year ago.
One yes came in, then another, and another, and another. And then the whole dam broke loose. Unfinished business, once a sour taste in the mouth of the Wolverines, became a rallying cry.
And while the original creator of the chat may be lost, its ramifications live on stronger than ever.
“Honestly, I have no clue,” Jenkins said of the chat’s maker. “I just got added on that jawn, I was like (wow). I was glad because it was at the right time because, I wouldn’t say it was a stressful time, but it was a time with a lot of questions.”
Though each player had the same question, it came with different equations.
For Jenkins, it was the allure of a degree — coupled with slight pressure from his mother. For others like graduate defensive back Mike Sainristil and graduate linebacker Michael Barrett, it was about leadership, camaraderie and more. For graduate interior offensive lineman Trevor Keegan and senior Zak Zinter, it was about rejoining a back-to-back Joe Moore award winning offensive line. The reasons, variable and numerous, could apply to one and all.