The New Year’s Day Outback Bowl between Michigan and South Carolina had the most futile offensive first half of the whole season, by at least one metric.
Michigan-South Carolina is the season's first game between Power 5 teams with neither team gaining 100 yards of offense in the first half. #OutbackBowl
— ESPN Stats & Info (@ESPNStatsInfo) January 1, 2018
The score was 9-3, Michigan, at halftime. The last play of the second quarter was the third field goal of the game by Wolverines kicker Quinn Nordin, this one from 45 yards.
How he celebrated:
When you have personally scored nine of the 12 points for the entire game, you deserve to whoop it up a little bit, I think. Nordin’s leg was almost the entire Michigan offense in the first half. (The rest of it, really, was South Carolina muffing punts and committing turnovers to set up two of Nordin’s three field goals.)
There are those who will be furious about any player grabbing his crotch, and there are those who will be even more upset that a kicker would make such a gesture.
I am not one of those people. Happy new year, Quinn.
Nordin is the kicker who once hosted Jim Harbaugh on a sleepover, while Harbaugh was recruiting him to the Wolverines. He was 18-of-23 on field goals this year after his buzzer-beater at the end of the second quarter.