Lions coach Dan Campbell walked to the podium holding the game ball after the team’s first victory of the season. He announced the Lions are awarding it to the victims of the Oxford High School shooting.
“I want us to not forget these names: Madisyn Baldwin, Hana St. Juliana, Justin Shilling, Tate Myre, John Asciutto, Riley Franz, Elijah Mueller, Kylie Ossege and Aiden Watson and Molly Darnell, who’s a teacher,” Campbell said, via Edward Sutelan of the Sporting News. “Those names for all those will never be forgotten. They’re in our hearts and our prayers and all the families and not to mention all those that were affected by all of this. The classmates, brothers and sisters and cousins to teachers, everybody, coaches.”
Four students were killed and seven others injured Tuesday at the school located an hour north of Ford Field. Jared Goff, who threw the game-winning touchdown on the final play, wore an Oxford hat to his postgame news conference.
“Sometimes special things happen in special circumstances and I think you saw yesterday what Michigan did against Iowa, and then us today getting our first win in what is it 12, 13 weeks,” Goff said. “I hope they were all watching today and were able to enjoy that win and we could take their minds off it for whatever it may be, three hours. I think any time that we can do that, it’s a lot bigger than our sport; it’s a lot bigger than us and I thought today was one of those special circumstances that we were able to rise to the occasion and make something special happen.”
The Lions honored the victims before the game with a moment of silence, and they wore Oxford decals on the back of their helmets during the game. Lions safety Jalen Elliott memorialized Myre, an Oxford football player, by wearing Myre’s name with his jersey. Myre’s jersey number was 42, the same as Elliott’s.
“We talked about this yesterday morning. I mean we just really kinda dove into it, kinda the depth of all this and just wanted them to know exactly what we were going to represent today,” Campbell said. “The shirts, the hats, the decals, the people that are affected. And some of our players know of someone that was affected, and so yeah, I mean I think there was some of that and I think all of them as well like to me, I just my thought was, ‘Hey man, if we can for three hours just ease their suffering a little bit, that’s worth it. That’s worth it.’ So that’s kinda how I thought of this, and we did a great job. Players, they responded, played well.”