Horror Recap, from Ace and EDSBS
http://www.everydayshouldbesaturday.com/2014/8/27/6074457/the-horror
I think everyone would appreciate this post from edsbs.com, to which Ace is a primary contributor.
Jane also wrote the Michigan preview piece to which Brian linked in a recent UV. In my opinion, she's a great writer and as fine a representative of the Michigan blogdom as anyone.
(Link to preview piece - http://www.everydayshouldbesaturday.com/2014/8/11/5982387/big-ten-previ…)
August 27th, 2014 at 1:10 PM ^
I remember that one time I shot myself in the face and died and afterwards thought I'd never want to think about that one time I shot myself in the face and died again.
August 27th, 2014 at 1:58 PM ^
okay now?
August 27th, 2014 at 2:22 PM ^
So yeah. #creatingthefuture
August 27th, 2014 at 2:59 PM ^
Check with me at about 3:30 on Saturday.
August 27th, 2014 at 1:17 PM ^
That was a good, if stomach-churning, read. Reminded me that my roomate (an Ohioan, no less) and our friend got me so drunk that night that we stayed up past midnight cheering for the Idaho Vandals to score a touchdown against USC. They did and we celebrated like the world was ending.
August 27th, 2014 at 1:30 PM ^
Sent from MGoBlog HD for iPhone & iPad
August 27th, 2014 at 1:24 PM ^
I remember on a late field goal attempt senior Shawn Crable blocked to the outside letting the inside man block the kick. I think that was the final nail.
August 27th, 2014 at 1:58 PM ^
Appalachian State's all time blocked kick leader - even before the Michigan game.
August 27th, 2014 at 2:41 PM ^
It didnt matter if he blocked it, that kick was headed into the student section, if it got that far.
August 27th, 2014 at 3:02 PM ^
August 27th, 2014 at 1:24 PM ^
I tried to get to the end of that article, I really did. It's wonderfully written, but I still just couldn't do it.
August 27th, 2014 at 4:37 PM ^
August 27th, 2014 at 1:25 PM ^
I was washing dishes (HS Summer Job) all day that day. Not even paying attention to the game. Turned it on in the fourth quarter at work. Couldn't believe my eyes. Then I was rushing home to catch the end, listening to the shitty AM station that went out when I took my foot off the gas. I was driving. And Michigan was driving. Field Goal position and everything. Red Light. The station goes out. Green Light. Pandomoneum. The kick was blocked. And somehow I didn't crash my car for the last 2 miles I had to drive.
August 27th, 2014 at 1:28 PM ^
WHY DOES JANE AND ACE HAVE TO RELIVE THE HORROR IN FRONT OF THE ENTIRE EDSBS COMMUNITY? YOU KNOW THE SCOREBOARD PICTURE WILL BE THE FIRST COMMENT. YOU KNOW IT HURTS FOR THEM [ALL OF US} TO THINK ABOUT THIS! PLUS YOU HAVE TO BRING UP THE OREGON GAME BECAUSE YOU CANT HAVE ONE HURT WITHOUT THE OTHER. WHAT DID ACE AND JANE EVER DO TO YOU DAVE!!
August 27th, 2014 at 1:27 PM ^
...I'm trying to avoid crashing into clinical depression. I have plans this weekend.
August 27th, 2014 at 1:28 PM ^
Here's a fantastic write-up of one not-so-fantastic day in Ann Arbor, courtesy of @cjane87 & @AceAnbender: http://t.co/ayEeuWbqAj
— John Dingell (@john_dingell) August 27, 2014
August 27th, 2014 at 1:29 PM ^
I love the site but this is brutal. I find that i feel like im on LSD when I read the comments though.
August 27th, 2014 at 1:32 PM ^
Reliving the Horror=
August 27th, 2014 at 1:39 PM ^
Total trip to think back on 7 years ago, and all the context before/during/after the game vs today. Here's to hoping we take this chance Saturday to put The Horror in the past.
August 27th, 2014 at 1:51 PM ^
I'll never forget that day either.
I went to the video store later that afternoon. I wasn't wearing any Michigan gear. I live in Ohio. The clerk said to me (without me providing any indication that I care about sports) "did you hear that Appalachian State beat Michigan"? Random video store clerks were talking abot the game. It was a resounding embarrassment. I work in the manufacturing business, and there was a safety meeting with a skit a couple of weeks later. The skit had a reference to the Appalachian State Michigan game. If you were living in the state of Michigan at the time, then you are probably blissfully ignorant of the massive shock wave that the upset sent through the country. You have no idea how much we were the laughing stock of the sports world.
The only sports event that I have ever watched whose shock value exceeds this one was Buster Douglass knocking out Mike Tyson. Our grandkids will be seeing that last field goal block in the year 2101 when ESPN is recounting the greatest upsets of the century. Other upsets where the two teams were theoretically further apart will be forgotten about. That is why this is the biggest upset in college football in our lifetime. We were the first team with a pulse to ever lose to a I-AA team. it was only 10 years earlier that you would be embarrassed if your school even scheduled a I-AA team, much less lost to one.
It was epic, disgraceful coaching fail.
August 27th, 2014 at 1:53 PM ^
August 27th, 2014 at 5:49 PM ^
The Oregon game pissed me off more than the App St. game did, maybe because I was at that game, idk.
August 27th, 2014 at 2:02 PM ^
I was looking through the highlights of that game yesterday (not for fun, for work) and had the same "holy shit...this is really going to happen isn't it" feeling I had when watching the game the first time around.
Still not sure if it was good or not that game happened. Michigan had been teetering on the edge of something like that for a while with their propensity of playing down to the level of their opponent. That game exposed the rotten foundation of the program, and showed the need for change, but they've never really been able to fix it in the 7 years since.
What I wouldn't give for a typically bland 2-3 loss season again.
August 27th, 2014 at 9:29 PM ^
I still haven't accepted that we are actually going to play this game. I may just refer to them as the Brandon State Marketeers to avoid the reality.
And, by the way, you work for one sick bastard! I am pretty sure you can sure for emotional distress. Or just spit in his/her coffee the next time you have a cold.
August 27th, 2014 at 2:04 PM ^
was of the Appalachian Students going to their own football stadium, tearing down the goal posts, and marching them through downtown Boone, NC.
On a more positive note, I recall the Bowl Game later that year. We had an office pool to pick all the bowl winners. I was the only person in the entire pool to pick Michigan to beat Florida. I still have that hung up on my office wall.
August 27th, 2014 at 2:14 PM ^
I was sitting on my couch watching that game via ESPN GameCast on my dang computer that whole fourth quarter. I will never forget my reaction to reading the captions on that final play after refreshing the crap out of that thing just praying that freaking field goal would go in.
I can't imagine that it would have been more difficult and heartaching to watch that game live compared to how I was forced to keep up with the stupid game.. having to refresh the page over and over again in frustration while waiting for ESPN to update the dumb thing.
At least this time it's on TV! Ha.
August 27th, 2014 at 2:17 PM ^
I was dating a sparty girl and I had to live through that game while in East Lansing. I don't recall what happened after a certain number of beers but I remember being heckled by children. CHILDREN!!!!
August 27th, 2014 at 4:08 PM ^
I hope you learned a lesson about your taste in women.
August 27th, 2014 at 2:35 PM ^
My son had been born about three weeks before the 2007 game, and the Appalachian State game - which I also mistakenly thought would be a no-brainer as I walked into the stadium - was the first outing my wife and I went on since perhaps the middle of July (my son was an emergency c-section, and there had been issues since mid-July).
I don't know that it could be said much better than this article really, although seven years later it is still a bit difficult to get through. Actually, this right here sums up the psychological change that I think most of us experienced than this passage after Jane's remarks about the Dennis Dixon Show in the second week:
The floor for Michigan football, which was once "6-6 and a shitty bowl game," dropped out. Then RichRod happened, and losing to Toledo happened, and the stupidest NCAA violations ever happened, and the "Michigan man" thing happened, and everything just… changed.
I really don't think that "Michigan fan" has meant quite the same thing to me since those first to weeks of 2007, but I am one all the same.
August 27th, 2014 at 2:39 PM ^
I had tickets but sold them (so glad I didnt see it in person). Had to listen to the game on the radio because my cable company hadnt got the Big Ten network yet. Just a miserable day. I remember seeing a co worker (ohio fan) the next day at the county fair. I thought it was a "hey, how are you doing, good to see you", but instead, his first and ONLY words were "How bout App State". I just kept walking. so I wouldn't end up punching him in the face.
August 27th, 2014 at 5:30 PM ^
I'm proud to be a Michigan Alum. I often wear my Michigan hat and t-shirts, etc. But even with all the Michigan alumni in the Chicago area, that day was really crummy. Illinois fans, after all, wear a "Muck Fichigan" t-shirt. They see Michigan as a rival, and hate us. It was a nightmare that couldn't possibly have happened, and yet it did. At that time, I was still a stalker, and hadn't become a user at Mgoblog. The horror, the shame, still stings. Maybe the worst for me was going to Thanksgiving in Cleveland, with all of my wife's family being Ohio State fans. A few of them couldn't help but rub it in.
While the win against Florida was great, I think if I could do it over, I'd take the win over Appalachian State in a straight up trade for a bowl loss to Florida. I don't know. Those kinds of thoughts are stupid and pointless, but I hate the loss to Appalachian State, and really hate the rematch game. Not worth the money to me.
August 27th, 2014 at 3:14 PM ^
August 27th, 2014 at 3:34 PM ^
I could se DOOM looming and I decided I did not want to be a witness to history.
August 27th, 2014 at 3:27 PM ^
August 27th, 2014 at 3:29 PM ^
but then history finally caught up with all the miracles, under Lloyd Carr's watch.
I mean Lloyd 's 13-year HOF career as head coach began with one of those come-from-behind late August opening game sojourns that wrenched all the emotions possible, until Mercury caught that ball in the corner. And then on another scorching August Saturday, Phil Brabbs kicked the Big House into hysteria redeeming himself with a straight and true boot from deep that brought frenzy and sent the Washington Huskies home in a funk.
Under Bo, there was rarely need for last-second heroics, except Wangler to Carter as Ufer went nuts with his horn, or Kolesar's killer catches against the Buckeyes.
Sure, there had been the impossible nightmare loss to Colorado in 1994 better known as simply the Hail Mary game when a pass that seemed like a punt bounced off flailing hands and the ball found itself caressed by a wrong shirted guy in the Michigan end zone.
But that was the Moeller era. Certainly, Lloyd's time would be different and less sad. And mostly it was. There were golden times and a season of Woodson, supreme defense and Griese.
And then Michigan started coming up against spread teams and found that power football, control of the LOS and having fleet receivers who could get it all back in a few plays, didn't necessarily work against spread teams if you could only hope to contain but never stop them. Those who played fast and in space to take away your power and leverage will steal championships or make you pay more dearly for them, we all learned.
So, when Anthony Thomas, one of Michigan's all-time rushers dropped a ball he safely carried to a first down, almost certainly ending an offensive slugfest in Evansville, it was more than a dong punch --but a precursor of things to come.
I do believe what is described as the Horror and was coined by Brian Cook, which is a borrowed line from Francis Ford Coppola's epic Viet Nam classic, Apocalypse Now, with Marlon Brandon, whispering the words, "The horror, the horror," before his doomed refugee village is blown to smithereens through his command allowance--the loss to App State was a literal coda to the Lloyd legacy -- the great, the bad and the ugly. The Michigan empire came crashing down because the last second Lloyd magic finally ran out.
The final moments against that team whispered all the last -second heroic performances Michigan had so often gotten --and maybe taken for granted in the past. Henne hit Manningham deep. It was almost a reminder of other great finishes -Braylonfest or Penn State revisited.Gingell would repeat what Brabbs had done, and turn a rollercoaster upset into a heart-pounding but sigh of relief win.
But then, there was a missed block and the kick was blocked. And the bomb to Manningham was a glimmering afterthought The same guy who had missed the block had been flagged late against the Buckeyes along the sideline with a personal foul in the Game of the Century only 10 months earlier. That was a tough hard-fought death. We went from college football pinnacle to the dumpster doom of humiliation after another sad Rose Bowl. This doesn't happen at Michigan, or now, maybe it does.
Anyone who knew anything about the makeup of App State and their qb Armanti Edwards should have been at least concerned. He was just like Troy Smith, except lefthanded, he could run and pass. He ran an offense that Michigan had never proven it could handle effectively.
It was a stunning loss. It was historic. Everyone said so, it had to be. It was awful.
And to me, I still think of it as one of the most entertaining games you'll ever see in college football. But afterward, Lloyd had to be revived by Noah, whocame from the Great Down Under to buck up the coach atter losing to Oregon as Michigan took revenge against Notre Dame in a battle of old gladiators. The win was nice. But the pain was still heavy.
There is no doubt "The Horror" transformed the program. So, here we are after Three and Out, Freepgate, the legend of Denard and now uncertain challenge of the Fergodsakes era we are here reliving the past and trying to make sense of a repeat visit by a small North Carolina mountainj school to the Big House on Saturday. What does it mean to play this team again? Revenge, remorse, guilt, guilty pleasure, what?
How about just another game and the opener for Team 135 and the first glimpse to see whether lessons are learned and players are ready for prime time and the chance to not redeem but reclaim a legacy. For those in their last go-around, how about showing up how those who stay will be champions.
August 27th, 2014 at 3:47 PM ^
I always felt like Lloyd's occasional late game joys were payback by the football gods to me for all of Bo's god awful late game losses. In between his prevent defenses, sitting on unsafe 4th quarter leads, inconsistent kicker recruiting, and terrible clock management, I lost track of all of the infuriating losses that racked up in the Bo era. It spilled over into the Moeller era too -- that guy blew game after game after game with 4th quarter chokes.
August 27th, 2014 at 3:30 PM ^
August 27th, 2014 at 3:42 PM ^
Mork has the distinction of losing to a team that lost to a 1AA team. So, applying transitive logic we can saw Appy State was better than MSU because they beat UM who defeated MSU.
August 27th, 2014 at 4:00 PM ^
The sunburn I endured from that game was a lasting reminder of the horror I had seen going into my first week at Michigan.
August 27th, 2014 at 4:38 PM ^
August 27th, 2014 at 4:58 PM ^
I've lived in Austin since 2004. We tailgated with Longhorn friends at their stadium. They were in the center of it all - in a sea of burnt orange. My wife and I always purchased the bright maize (they may have been highlighter yellow by then) student t-shirts to wear amongst the orange. We were easy to spot.
After the final play and the horror completed, we bailed. In walking from the heart of UT tailgating to the outskirts of campus, you walk by hundreds if not thousands of people, all in burnt orange, all knowing exactly what just happened, all knowing that Michigan was only 1 spot behind them in the preseason ranks, and now they see bright yellow walking down their streets. I know I'm not a part of the team and what took place on the field, but that didn't make it feel any less embarrassing.
The next week, we did it all over again as Oregon blew us away. The heckling accelerated. Michigan was done.
The next week we came back and did it all over again. It was a turning point. The same people that heckled us came out of their tailgates, shook our hands, offered us drinks, BBQ, tacos. They acknowledged the loyalty and fandom that we had for not only Michigan, but for college football. And then we beat the hell out of Notre Dame!
Grant it, I would much rather Michigan not lost in the Horror part I, but perserverance won out in the end... especially when we smoked Florida in the bowl game!
Go Blue and beat the hell out of App State and everyone else on the schedule!
August 27th, 2014 at 6:41 PM ^
Hey friends, aritcle below claims 9 players (secondary and linebackers) were partying late into the night and smoked before the game.
thoughts?
August 27th, 2014 at 7:41 PM ^
August 27th, 2014 at 8:17 PM ^
I wasn't a Michigan fan until I arrived as a freshman in 2006. I was informed that Lloyd Carr was basically a deity in Ann Arbor and Michigan was always good. We proceeded to go 11-2 and we were preseason #5: expectations solidified.
I can still vividly the sequence of the long pass (Manningham? Breaston?), the field goal setup, and then the block and the stunned silence in the stadium as he returned it, partially covered by the euphoric screaming coming from the pockets of App State fans all the way across the stadium from the student section. When we lost, very few left immediately. Most of us just stood there and stared at the field. After some began to leave, those of us still around just sort of sat around for a bit. It was just mind blowing for everyone in attendance that that actually happened. A team we were all hoping was going to get us our first national title since 1997 just lost to a I-AA team.
The epic pantsing by Oregon the following week completed the shattering of what I perceived to be Michigan Football, there was the greatness of beating MSU and Florida that year, but it's largely been struggles ever since then
August 27th, 2014 at 8:16 PM ^
So in hindsight, The Horror wasn't exactly THAT huge of an upset. But the extra 'A' to 'D-1A' made the loss look 1000x worse.
August 27th, 2014 at 8:19 PM ^
I think technically the Stanford upset of USC that year was a bigger upset as far as Vegas gambling is concerned, but even if App State would've gone 9-3 in D1 play that year, it'll (probably) always be the biggest college football upset ever - reinforced by the shock value of us being the 1st team to go down like that
August 27th, 2014 at 9:20 PM ^
Those comments at EDSBS are laughable, it is just a bunch of trolls. I can't believe MSU and PSU fans talk shit about App St when they lost to Michigan that same year.
August 27th, 2014 at 9:24 PM ^
August 27th, 2014 at 9:29 PM ^
The thing about that loss is that the expectations were so high. It makes me physically sick that Henne, Hart and Long never beat Ohio. My son was about 4 months old and he vomited all over the maize shirt I was wearing. I don't know where that shirt is, and I don't care. Like Dan Dierdorf, I just want Michigan to be "back" again, which for me is winning Big 10 titles and beating our rivals most of the time. As has been said ad nauseum, it's been awhile since Michigan football was anything resembling fun, although we did get a taste in 2011.