Favorite Michigan Team
Which team/era is your favorite? Let's take 1997 out of it, just to make it interesting. Probably, for most of us, it goes back to our childhoods, and indeed, it's difficult for me to resist the clarion call of Rick Leach, Gordon Bell, and Rob Lytle, and that dominant defense.
Still, I think my favorite team of all time is 1986, with Harbaugh, Kolesar, and Jamie Morris. (Even though they did better in 1985, for some reason 1986 was more fun). Just writing it brings back memories -- I loved that team.
Looking back at it all, it's a really tough call -- like, I loved the 1989 team, but Michael Taylor started 8 games at quarterback, which ... ugh.
So I'll stick with 1986. What do you guys think?
My favorite Michigan team is Michigan teams.
So 2003 or 2008 in football, no differentiation?
1984 or 1985, one brought you no more pleasure than the other?
Or in hoops - 1989 or 1999, whichever, whatever?
Weird
Fab Five - either year.
Loved watching them, especially their freshman year.
1976 Football, if we can just forget about the Purdue game. But what a team: 5 shutouts, including a shutout of Ohio State.
User name definitely does not check out.
For more people, I'm guessing their favorite team will be from their childhood or when they were at Michigan. That's when there's a sense of wonder and excitement that's difficult to replicate as you get older.
My earliest memories are of the Leach teams...as well as the Wangler/Carter years. Was at Michigan 85-90. (yes, I was on the five-year plan!)
The '89 Rose Bowl team might be my favorite...and, boy, was that a great winter along with the hoops national champions.
Treasure my "Triangle of Champions" t-shirt from that year!
Funny. You and I are clearly similar in age and geography. Same memories (except, obviously, a very youthful adoration of the quarterback who preceded Leach), and I also graduated (LS&A) winter of '89.
Quick memory. Seconds after Rumeal hit the free throws, the city is erupting, my phone rings. Stranger says, "are you in Ann Arbor, and did you just watch Michigan win the National Championship?" I said yes to both, and he said, "well, congrats, but I'm from Notre Dame, and you haven't won shit until you win a football championship!"
I laughed and said, "all right, all right, we'll see what happens next year, my man!" Sure enough, first game of the year a couple months later is against Notre Dame, and of course ... we lost. Being a Michigan fan involves a lot of that. :-)
a sparty "friend" of mine actually called me as rumeal was stepping to the line to bitch about the call. because, like most sparties, he's an obnoxious, alcoholic, little-brother prick.
does he charge you rent for living in his mind 24x7?
i actually hadn’t thought of it in years, dickweed.
you misunderstand - he is constantly thinking about YOU, hence you live rent free in HIS mind. He is a Spartan douche (redundant I know) - why would I assume you think about him?
Dennis, did you also end up at the riot on South U after the Rumeal game?
Somehow, so many people knew to go to that location...without the aid of cell phones, the internet, etc. to allow us to communicate with one another.
I'm '89 also
I was on South U. Wouldn't call it a riot but I remember people hanging from traffic lights. I was student teaching at Pioneer that semester. Was pretty bleary in the morning.
It felt like destiny once they beat Illinois on Saturday. I was pretty naive about how tough that last game would be.
~
Every time I seen the house in your profile pic I am startled by how much it resembles the house 9 of us lived in my senior year. Down near the athletic campus.
I still have me Triangle of Champions shirt, but it doesn’t fit anymore!
2006, makes me sick we couldnt stop Troy Smith for the 3rd time. That team was loaded on offense and defense. If we had tried to more five wide spread like against Florida in 2007 we probably could have won in a shootout.
I was most bothered by the unfortunate luck that team had. Manningham's injury vs msu only preceded by Bass's career ending injury before the season. Then the Osu game the call on Crable was still bs tic tac at best. Either way, just another bailout call in a long string of bail out calls or no calls going osu's way during their win streaks. That 06 team was a great team and Imo the wind came out of the sails after that. Still one of my favorite teams. That said, if we had a CFP imo I think we smoke the CFP, florida, Usc or Osu no matter who we play...
2012-13 basketball
Amazing start that had a disappointing regular season and BTT (winning neither, not even a share) but that NCAA tourney was so, so satisfying up until the very end (block was clean). Dominating VCU and Tennessee, obviously Kansas, and smothering Syracuse made the entire season.
And absolutely pounding Florida.
I came here to say the same thing. The party on campus after The Shot versus Kansas was amazing. Easily best sports memory of my time in school.
Of all the Michigan teams out there, University Of is my favorite, by far. Of all those I'd have to say it's difficult to choose. I couldn't say if I enjoyed watching Harbaugh qb behind those classic dominant Michigan O-lines Bo would field, or Desmond making his own special brand of magic carving up defenses under Mo, or the early Carr years more, but football remains my #1.
Disagree about the 1985 and 1986 teams. 1985 was more enjoyable, both teams beat Ohio State. But 1985 won the fiesta bowl against Nebraska and I believe finished 2nd in the nation. 1985 was a surprise based on how they came into the year. 86 was expected to do good and lost to a Cooper led ASU team in the Rose bowl.
For Me this year's team has been the most satisfying since 97.
Before we won the game I had already fell in love with this team. The unexpected delirium of beating Ohio and winning the Big Ten...Yea, this was a special season
I completely agree. Michigan football was extra special in 1985. Hammerstein and Mesner were a joy to watch on defense. It was even more special because of the debacle in 1984.
2005 Softball
Jennie Ritter!
Becky Marx/Keogh
Samantha Findlay!
My senior season at Michigan 84-85 was Bo's worse season. After I graduated, I got season tickets through '89, my last year living in Michigan. So, 1985 was my favorite team. They bounced back with defense! I liked the '86 and '88 teams as well. '89 I had to watch the Rocket run back two KO returns against Bo's special teams but we got to see Elvis make his appearance. Since 1990 I've only been able to make it to one home game or road game due to work and living over 1000 miles away from Ann Arbor.
1986 was probably better for you than 1985 because it was a Rose Bowl team and the bigger games were much more Hollywood like in how they ended. Notre Dame missed a last second field goal that would have beaten us. Ohio State missed a last second field goal that would have beaten us. (Though we played stupid down the stretch and should have never let either team even be in that position). At the big house, Mike Gillette kicked a field goal on the last play to beat Iowa and Minnesota....did something similar to us later in the season that I'd rather not get in to. In 1985, the wins were more in the bag early and much less nerve wrecking.
The run the 1989 team went on after the Rocket Ismail disaster was really great, despite your ugh feelings towards Michael Taylor. JD Carlson kicking the game winner against UCLA, the goal line stand in the 4th quarter against MSU, Tony Boles going 90 yards on the first play from scrimmage in a critical game against Illinois in Champaign. Beating Ohio State 28-18 was great but the score could have easily been 42-18 if we hadn't lost two fumbles after driving deep into OSU territory twice. There was some drama after beating Purdue 42-27 because the boilers passed for four touchdowns on our defense, which according to M Replay had never happened before until that point.
The 1985 and '86 teams are obviously very similar. And don't get me wrong -- 1985 was amazing. But I'll take the 1986 home win against Iowa, which had me as delirious as I can ever remember being as an adult at a Michigan football game (rivaled only for the AC TD against Indiana, obviously). Gillette hitting that kick, after what happened the year before, was ... sublime.
Cool you mention that UCLA game. People who haven't seen it should watch the highlights. It was amazing. I actually thought of talking about the most unexpected/important wins we've ever had, both in terms of pre-game anxiety (a tie, for me, between this year's OSU game and the 1997 Penn State game, which I watched in a state of absolute stunned shock), and in-game experience (a game I thought was lost that we somehow pulled out). That UCLA game -- late night, watched with good ole Michigan ice storm raging outside, in a half-empty Rose Bowl, with Keith Jackson doing the commentary -- may be the most surprising/stunning win I can remember.
I was a Demetrius Brown fan, much more than Michael Taylor, during that period when they rotated at QB. (1988 Hall of Fame game was a lot of fun, with Taylor subbing in to screw up a third down, then Demetrius being brought back to save it all on the last play of the game).
Fun story -- I had a good friend in common with Brown, who said that every time Brown started talking big, about anything, he would say to him, "really, D? Seven interceptions? Seven? In one game???"
Brown would put his head down and start grumbling.
2012 Volleyball
2021 Women's Gymnastics
1880 football
🧐 Wow, you go waaaayy back on your football choice! 🤪
They were 1-0, which, if we were Alabama, would qualify as a National Championship. Great choice, and great job with the natty! Go Blue!
2003 football. My freshman year. ‘Twas magical.
1985 was a surprise season. Nobody was expecting our defense to improve the way it did. Most of the experts were predicting 8-4. We shutout sparty in East Lansing 31-0. I think if Bo would have blitzed more against Chuck Long we would have won that game. OSU blitzed the shit out of Long and he had horrible game and OSU blew out IA. We had a nice win against OSU. And beat Osborne's NE team (back when NE was a national power).
31-0 over MSU at Spartan Stadium despite Harbaugh throwing 3 ugly interceptions. The final score should have been way more lopsided than it was.
Just four minutes into that game, it was already 14-0 thanks to Sparty fumbling a snap and Dieter Heren blocking a punt which was recovered in the end zone.
Steve Kornacki started off the Ann Arbor News recap of this game by saying, "Spotting the University of Michigan two touchdowns is like giving Carl Lewis a 20-yard head start."
Dunno if it’s truly my favorite but that 11-1 Hoke squad kept me from completely imploding so I’d have to at least nominate them.
I think you mean 10-2 and then 11-2 with the bowl game.
That’s the one
1986 a good season but it should have been a great season. We had some great wins through that season and were moving up the polls to number 2 in the nation and then we had to lose at home against unranked Minnesota. It was probably the worse I felt leaving a Michigan game, even after attending the 2019 OSU game at home. I don't know what happened to the team, I think they just thought the game would be a cake walk and could not adjust to the spread QB Foggy. The defense was playing better in the 2nd half but that final drive by MN was a killer. Harbaugh had an off game.
Ohhhh, I had forgotten that damned Foggy game. Yeah, it was a cold/miserable day, and the team just laid an egg. Such a disappointing result against a patently inferior team.
My favorite has to be the 1980 team that delivered victory in the Rose Bowl, the first one under Bo. The '78 Rick Leach senior year team was a close 2nd.
I still believe the '80 team was the best college football team in the country by the end of the season. Wangler, AC, Butch, and one HELLUVA defense that only gave up 9 points over the final five games (three consecutive shutouts [@IU, @Wisky, and vs #16 Purdue and Mark Herrmann], just a FG vs osu and Schlister, and 6 points in the Rose Bowl to Washington).
The problem in 1980 was that we started the season slow and Bo went with Rich Hewlett at QB over John Wangler for game one (we struggled to a home win 17-10 over lowly Northwestern) and game two @ ND (Wangs finally replacing the ineffective Hewlett with us trailing 14-0 in the 2nd quarter). Damn that Harry Oliver after phony penalties on ND's final drive!!
Then game 3 we led 14-3 but went flat after halftime and lost to the 'Cocks and George Rogers, making us 1-2 at that point.
But 9-0 to finish the season, if only...
Agree. And Hewlett over Wangler was classic Bo at the time -- picking an only-moderately-talented running qb over a guy who could actually throw the ball. I loved Wangler.
Team 101 is my favorite too
The '85 team went down an kicked some Cock ass. Frank Broyles sounded depressed the way the Michigan defense handled those cocks.
Bring back those Maize pants!
My favorite football team was the 2011 squad. From the under the lights game to beating Ohio st for the first time in forever and winning the Sugar Bowl. Absolutely loved Denard Hemingway and Kovacs. Felt like M was getting back on track at the time. Just an electric season.