Sadly...that 2nd half was the top point of the RR defenses in Ann Arbor. That whole 30 mins of actual D.
in the first half the following week. (The rest of the Illini game...not so much. We were outscored 42-6 for the remainder of the game and lost 45-20.)
Steven Threet! His one shining moment!
Yep. I remember thinking Tressel was dead meat
I remember that the crowd booed at halftime when it was 19-0. I don't think that the crowd should ever boo our team regardless of circumstances but that half was painful.
The 1st half was epically bad. I think the offense has 18 total yards and rushing was negative. The only reason we weren't down 35-0 at half was because the defense actually bent but didn't break by giving up 4 or 5 FG attempts.
Even in a victory, that was one of the lower points of the RichRod offenses
Michigan's most recent win over a top-10 team.....
Most recent wins-
- 2008 vs #9 Wisconsin (W 27-25)
- 2007 v.s. #9 Florida (W 41-35) 2008 Capital One Bowl
- 2007 vs #10 Penn State (W 14-9)
- 2006 at #2 Notre Dame (W 47-21)
Very sad, indeed.
I'd say we're due for another top 10 win but that would sound privileged. Which I think is one our problems. Got to hand it to teams like Sparty, playing with a chip on their shoulder got them a Rose Bowl win.
To be fair, Michigan has only played 7 teams ranked in the top 10 at game time since then, and only 3 in the Hoke Era. Compare that to 13 games against teams ranked in the top 10 from 2003 to 2007.
Of course, Michigan was also 7-6 against those teams compared to 1-7 since so still pretty sad considering where the program came from before 2008.
This was my wife's first UofM game and first time in the Big House. I remember a ton of people leaving at halftime or shortly into the 3rd. By the time the 4th started, we had so many empty seats by us. Glad we stayed, that was one of the most incredible games to be at.
This game was ridiculous. I thought this was the turning point of the RR era, but it was anything but.
It's crazy to think that game was 6 years ago though. Seems like just 2-3.
Wow, I forgot how brutal this season was.
Wisconsin had no business blowing that lead. That team had just enough of the old talent left to overcome the coaching and system change debacle to win that game. They also beat a pretty decent Minn. team handily on the road that year...other than that it was a horrible season.
One of my more vivid Michigan football memories. Remember almost everything about this game.
I remember watching this and it was exciting to see the comeback. Unfortunately the only Wisconsin-UM matchup that sticks in my mind from that era is when they ran it like 10,000 straight times in the second half (2010?). Painful, the definition of.
The most interesting thing about this win in retrospect, at least to me, is that we did this despite having over 100 yards LESS offense than Wisconsin did. As I recall, we gave up something like 380 yards that day while having only about 270 ourselves.I think Threet and McGuffie were the rushing leaders that day too, and MuGuffie only had something like 40 yards on 15 or so carries.
"There isn't much noise in here anyway" -ABC announcer
Boy, has that changed. I may miss Old Michigan Stadium but those luxury suite boxes have done a great job of keeping the sound in.
Ah the good old days, when there was actually hope for the future.
and sadly, it isn't this one:
Except that we were 2-2 at that point and all expecting Rich Rod to be great.
where by halftime I was so absolutely certain Michigan had no chance to come back. I think there have been bigger deficits, but those were teams with enough talent where you knew a few breaks here and there and it could happen. It could have been 3-0 at half and I would have felt they were out of this game given how the offense played. This was the most shocked I've ever been at a Michigan win.
"Minor is major!"
I was like, okay that must be his other name...
about things? Woulda, coulda, shoulda..."Minor is major", soon to be followed by the great Wolverine stampede...
of memorable plays. Tate's keeper against Notre Dame, oh there goes Threet...that was great...
THAT is your favorite play, not one of the 1,000 things Denard did 2 years later?
I was bored out of my mind with the terrible Game 7 in the NBA so I was just browsing channels and happened to find this game. Good stuff here.
Because the offense is horrible because of the scheme. But when you look on the field, the players "LOOK" like MICHIGAN.
It's nostalgic. I know we're getting back to that, and we're still a year away. But when you look at everyone out on the field, it looks like a Michigan football team until you watch these guys try to run an offense they're not suited for.
Even the backups, the guys on special teams, they looked like "Michigan" players.
Now, look, it didn't matter if they looked like Michigan players or not, they were awful this year.
All I'm saying is when I watch, it looks familiar, it looks like the past when we used to just plug in, slow QBs, tall WRs, wide bodies, and thick lower halves like it was nothing.
I'm really looking forward to guys like Dukes and York, Bars and Godin, McCray and Stribling getting older. Because it's going to be nice even the guys who may be backups "look" like Michigan. Again, we still may suck...I hope not, I don't think we will...but I just miss being bigger than everyone else. I miss that stat line where they put Michigan's OL weight vs. the other team's DL weight. Or Michigan's WR height vs. the other teams CB height.
I'm so over this "in between" phase, I just hope we see some true promise. Unlike most people I'm willing to give Hoke one more year as long as I see true promise, and obviously a decent season with a couple big wins. 2015 though...no excuses, I will officially be over any sympathy for youth or inexperience. The schedule is in our favor. Guys will have grown up. And the AJ Williams' and Tom Strobel's of the team should at least provide us with solid depth to go along with the starters. We should have experience, size, everything. Nonetheless, we better see some big time progression and promise this year.
I wish they would "look" like a team that could win more games. I don't give a shit if they trot out 11 midgets on offense and 11 chicks on defense as long as they win.
I hate the whole "looks like a Michigan team" thing almost as much as I hate the Michigan Man thing. A Michigan team is one that can play with any team in the country and dominate the lesser ones. They look like a Michigan team when they walk off a winner. Just give me good football players of any dimensions.
But I didn't say either of those things so your analogy is invalid.
My post had nothing to do with "Michigan needs a Michigan man as coach and needs to look and play (a certain) way."
Just because you're tired of hearing that - something that literally NO ONE says anymore because EVERYONE is just tired of losing and doesn't care about Michigan Man or what the team looks like - it doesn't mean that is what I (or anyone else) is actually saying.
And for the record...it's the people that complain about the "Michigan Man" thing who make it annoying and a negative thing.
It was never intended to be some type of inbreeding "our way is the only way" mentality. It was just a way to honor our history and have the current folks live up to it.
For example, I'd call Beilein a Michigan Man...but he wasn't realted to ANYTHING Michigan before he got here.
It just got blown out of proporiton when Rich Rod was the coach because Rich Rod was an asshole and/or a crybaby in the eyes of many...one who didn't win like those people expected him to. But even if he did, I don't think everyone would be rushing to claim he's a "Michigan Man" because to many, he never seemed to eat/breathe/sleep Michigan the way Hoke/Mattison/Beilein do.
It was all about perception, no one knows for sure, Rich Rod could've bled Michigan more than those 3 combined, but it was perceived that he just wanted to win with his system and say "I told you so" and he didn't care if he did it at Michigan or OSU or PSU. I mean, come on, the guy wore red wristbands...oh the devil! (sarcasm)
Then when the coaching search happened, the only candidates that people even felt like were realistically going to come that year were Harbaugh, Miles and Hoke. All Michigan guys. But there was no Charlie Strong. Every outsider that year wasn't any better than Hoke (Ferentz, Schiano, Edsell)...so if they're all the same, take the Michigan guy. But there was no James Franklin, Charlie Strong, Jim Mora, or Will Muschamp to out of the network and get. We picked a horrible year to fire a football coach.
(I've said this over and over...we got our 2nd choice and got Hoke, Texas got it's 9th choice and got Strong...that sums up how bad of luck we had. OSU had Urban fall into their laps. PSU had their choice of 3 PSU guys and spurned them all for Franklin.)
Rich Rod and this coaching search are really what changed everything. But before those two events, it wasn't something that was so snotty...it was more of a pride thing.
Instead, it's overblown just like the #1 jersey and people thinking you have to earn it is overblown.
A round of applause for this guy.
I've said that multiple times. Coaching searches a lot of times invole a ton of luck. Alabama is lucky that they fired Shula when they did and Saban was looking to get out of Miami. Ohio State had to fire Tressel and put up with Fickell for a year but there was speculation that Meyer would coach OSU for basically the whole season. You could add South Carolina into the mix as well that they managed to land the Old Ball coach who has gotten them 3 or 4 straight 11 win seasons in a row and I don't believe they ever won 11 games before he got there.
IF Hoke has a bad year and is let go I really don't know who would be a good choice to go for now that Franklin and Strong have been picked up. I would say Mora Jr but I don't know. DB would probably pussyfoot around and not offer him enough. Maybe Bronco Mendenhall? David Shaw? Gary Pinkel?
And I said that...
This team looked "like" a Michigan team, but they weren't any good.
I, too, would rather have a team that looked nothing like what we grew used to if it won.
All I was saying was that it was a nice moment where it reminded me of the days when we were actually, you know, GOOD. That's it.