lolrefs

Gary Moeller was still looking for his first Rose Bowl victory after the '92 season [Bentley Image Bank]

Previously: Krushed By Stauskas (Illinois 2014), Introducing #ChaosTeam (Indiana 2009), Revenge is Terrifying (Colorado 1996), Four Games In September I (Boston College 1991), Four Games In September II (Boston College 1994), Four Games In September III (Boston College 1995), Four Games In September IV (Boston College 1996), Pac Ten After Dark Parts One and Two (UCLA 1989), Harbaugh's Grand Return Parts One and Two (Notre Dame 1985), Deceptive Speed Parts One and Two (Purdue 1999)

This Game: Full broadcast with original commercials(!), condensed every-snap videoWH highlights, box score

Welcome to the 2020 fall football season, as best we can provide it. I've put together a tentative schedule of classic games loosely based on Michigan's original slate for this season (and which videos can be found in full). I'll be writing these posts during the week, then streaming the games on my Twitch channel at noon each Saturday. The tentative schedule:

Sep. 5: Washington (1993 Rose Bowl)

Sep. 12: Notre Dame (2011)

Sep. 19: Miami (FL) (1984)

Sep. 26: Wisconsin (2008)

Oct. 3: Penn State (2005)

Oct. 10: Michigan State (2004)

Oct. 17: Minnesota (2003)

Oct. 24: Purdue (1992)

Oct. 31: Northwestern (M00N) — Halloween Bye Week Special

Nov. 7: Maryland (1990)

Nov. 14: Rutgers (2016)

Nov. 21: Indiana (1996)

Nov. 28: Ohio State (1997)

Yes, it's a little weird to start with a Rose Bowl, but I wasn't able to get a full copy of the Brabbs Game, which is surprisingly impossible to find online, in the midst of a move. (Oh, right, I moved last week, which is why you didn't hear from me.)

It's January 1st, 1993. For the second straight year, Michigan faces Washington in the Rose Bowl; the Huskies won handily the previous season on their way to a shared national championship. The Wolverines enter the Rose Bowl undefeated yet out of the national title picture after going 8-0-3 with ties against Notre Dame, an unranked Illinois squad, and Ohio State—the latter two in the regular season's final two games.

That's narrowed Michigan's focus to achieving one of the few goals they haven't marked off during a special five-year run of consecutive Big Ten titles: winning the Rose Bowl. From the Michigan Daily:

skewed goals? at Michigan? well, I never. 

Washington, meanwhile, ranked first or second in the polls for the first nine weeks of the season before dropping two of their final three games, capped by a 42-23 Apple Cup upset at the hands of Wazzu. Beyond the losses, this hasn't been the victory lap legendary coach Don James anticipated; starting quarterback Billy Joe Hobert was ruled ineligible in November because of a $50,000 loan, while reporters—and the NCAA—are looking into potential major violations by the program. 

ABC is carrying the Rose Bowl with Brent Musburger and Dick Vermeil on the call. Before we get to any talk about the game, however, we get what's in essence a five-minute ABC News segment on the state of the Washington program:

We'll be circling back around to this after the game.

[After THE JUMP: Football!]

"Flight of the Bumblebees" on double tempo, thank you [Marc-Gregor Campredon]

Previously: Krushed By Stauskas (Illinois 2014)

We've come to know and love Indiana as the Big Ten's agent of chaos, excepting the butt-clenching three hours most every year when they play Michigan close wire to wire before falling short. The Hoosiers haven't beaten the Wolverines during my lifetime, yet they've come inches away from providing some of my most painful sports memories. This is the essence of modern Indiana football.

In 2009, we didn't know it was going to be like this. The programs hadn't played since 2006, a Michigan blowout. The Hoosiers hadn't ended the game within a score since 1999, when they had generational talent Antwaan Randle El. Their last win was in 1987. Yes, Michigan was coming off their worst year in... ever. They had a quarterback now and a win against Notre Dame. This was still Indiana. Michigan made it their homecoming game.

Our introduction: “The Wolverines and Hoosiers have already won three games apiece. That’s as many games as both teams won all of last season.”

Indiana had beaten Eastern Kentucky, Western Michigan, and Akron. The first two were one-score games at home. Those technically count, I guess.

While Michigan had easily beaten Eastern Michigan and—oh, hey—Western Michigan, Notre Dame had exposed some serious holes in the defense. It wouldn't take the Hoosiers long to find the gaps; after taking the opening kickoff, they went 80 yards in 11 plays, scoring on a fourth-and-two option pitch to receiver Tanden Doss. Doss easily broke the contain of redshirt freshman walk-on safety Jordan Kovacs, making his first career start.

It took Rich Rodriguez's offense all of 23 seconds to knot it up. Tate Forcier threw a flare screen to Carlos Brown and, well, let's just say Brown didn't have to deal with much contact:

Upon closer inspection, Martavious Odoms made one of the Mountain Goat Blocks of the Decade:

Pahokee forever.

[After THE JUMP: Even more Carlos Brown! Bad Forcier! Good Forcier! A Denard cameo! "Simultaneous possession"! Gum flying through the air!]

Juwan Howard, understandably beside himself after the late flagrant. [Marc-Gregor Campredon]

I hate writing up games like this.

It's not the loss. I've been writing up football games since 2012, after all. If you told me heading into tonight that Michigan would lose a close game, I wouldn't have dreaded writing this, even though I would've planned to skip the comments section.

I hate when the refs force me to choose between summarizing the game like an "objective" blind person or being a "homer" for saying that, yes, bad officiating sometimes has a direct outcome on the result.

So let's start here: the officials—Terry Wymer, DJ Carstensen, and Paul Szelc—were awful all around tonight. What started as a typically physical Big Ten game became a wrestling match by the second half with all sorts of contact going uncalled on both ends. This was a game for brutes. Kaleb Wesson was responsible for half of Ohio State's offense. Austin Davis was Michigan's second-leading scorer.

Big Country's 11-point, 4-for-4 performance wasn't enough for a win. [Campredon]

While cold shooting accounted for a lot of the poor offense in the first half, I don't know how anybody could be expected to finish a contested shot in the paint with the way the game was called. Players bumped ballhandlers out of bounds, grabbed whatever limbs they could while chasing rebounds, and brought their arms crashing down on shooters. The Buckeyes made under 44% of their two-pointers; Michigan connected on only 34% of theirs. There's letting the kids play, but you have to let them play basketball.

Fitting such a contest, both teams fought hard. The lead changed hands 19 times. The game was tied for nearly ten full minutes of action. The margin never reached more than four points for the duration of the second half. Wesson played a tremendous game, leading all scorers with 23 points on 15 shot equivalents, pulling down 12 rebounds, and dishing out three assists against zero turnovers, including a feed to Duane Washington Jr. for a three that put OSU up one point with 54 seconds to play.

Then the officials decided the game. I don't know another honest way to put it. Zavier Simpson drove to the basket after getting switched onto big man Kyle Young, crossed over to his left hand, and drew an obvious shooting foul on Young with 33 seconds left. While parallel to the ground, after getting fouled, Simpson grabbed Young's jersey to break his fall; this tore Young's uniform, though it wasn't enough to even bring him to the ground.

Kaleb Wesson decisively won the battle of the bigs, outscoring Jon Teske 23-3. [Campredon]

Despite not calling anything on Simpson initially, the officials hit him with a flagrant foul after a review. Simpson still received, and made, his two free throws attempts, but Young was able to cancel them out with two free throws of his own and OSU got the next possession. Michigan had no choice but to foul, CJ Walker made both free throws, and a well-designed play for Eli Brooks resulted in a missed corner three with 0.5 seconds to play.

Michigan went from having a chance to get a stop to force the Buckeyes into desperation foul mode to being in desperation foul mode themselves because of an atrocious call that wasn't made in real time. Yes, it also matters that the Wolverines couldn't slow down Wesson. Yes, it also matters that they made only 10-of-31 three-pointers. As with any close basketball game, you can point to a huge number of moments that could've turned the results of the game.

But the moment that swung the win probability more than any other was a review that resulted in a mindblowingly bad flagrant foul. That stinks now, it'll stink when we see these same guys blow calls the rest of the season with seemingly no consequence, and it'll really stink if Michigan comes up short on Selection Sunday. At 13-9 overall and 4-7 in the Big Ten, they're running out of margin for error and Michigan State comes to town on Saturday.

[Hit THE JUMP for the box score.]