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The Question: 

Games you remember watching in mortifying fear?

The Responses:

Ace: Before anyone protests, I suggested this because I have Cosmic Comeuppance For The Murderwolf Post, The Ulcer.

Seth: I wouldn't have suggested it because this game didn't for me. Even down 17-0 I figured Michigan would score the next 24 points.

Brian: I can no longer just assume those things. I also feel that ulcer games have to be wins? Is that crazy

Seth: There were a few minutes there when I wouldn't let Demorest's kid talk to me. That was it. The Michigan fans in that stadium were LOUD.

Ace: Yeah, I’ll be honest, I was pretty calm for this one.

Brian: Like the JT Was Short game wasn't an ulcer it was a crippling state of listlessness for months.

Ace: And yeah, ulcer games should be wins. The Horror is a disaster, Akron is an ulcer. Speaking of which, that game.

Seth: The Akron game was on Rosh Hashanah, and the second my brother and I left the stadium everything went alright. Sorry about doing that to everyone but we fixed it.

Brian: Well then how about most Northwestern games

Ace: Man this is gonna be a Lloyd-y list.

The Mathlete: The Halloween Minnesota game

Brian: You're supposed to win, Pat Fitzgerald's head keeps getting bigger, you're not even sure you want credit for the W afterwards. Mathlete, that is a superior choice. The Minnesota game featured Mitch Leidner getting extraordinarily lucky about five times and came down to a goal line stand after Minnesota frittered away two downs from the one.

David: Minnesota 2004 is another one for me. I kept thinking "We can't lose to Minnesota." But then we did...the next year.

Seth: UConn was an ulcer.

Ace: Thank you Desmond Morgan for keeping the damage limited to that. I’m not sure some of these Hoke-era wins count because they didn’t feel very inevitable, though. Like, at all.

Brian: I feel like there are two different categories here. One are games where you are dominating statistically but the scoreboard disagrees, and then there are games where the team is playing like inexplicable ass.

Seth: YES.

Brian: Or, in many cases, fairly explicable ass.

[After THE JUMP: Spleen]

Seth: Minnesota there wasn't a single moment when you thought Minnesota's next play would work out. It just kept on doing so.

 

Ace: I was going for any game in which Michigan entered as a pretty hefty favorite and needed a long, drawn-out comeback for whatever reason. And with that in mind, even though I was too young to develop an ulcer, may I nominate 1997 Iowa.

Seth: Unnnnggggghhhh.

Ace: Yeah, that’s the noise. I was on the concourse a little before halftime because we tried to beat the bathroom rush and the noise the stadium made when Tim Dwight housed that punt is forever stuck in my head.

Brian: I don't know how the Tavian Banks/Tim Dwight team finished 7-5

Ace: Banks was so good. Put up a good day against murderdefense.

But, Iowa.

They have always been here.

Seth: The game that year that I had a week-long ulcer for and didn't disappoint was The Game.

Ace: The second half was less fun than the first.

Brian: Yeah but that's not really what we're talking about here right?

Ace: No, any win in The Game is reason for unbridled celebration no matter how you got there.

Brian: The Buffalo Stampede game is what we're talking about.

Why are we losing to this goofy-ass team on a Friday night oh god oh lawd oh we won I guess?

Seth: Minnesota was undefeated. Or "undefeated" since they had played Penn State and four teams I hadn't heard of.

Ace: Most every Indiana win during the RichRod era. But especially the one that required the very sketchy Donovan Warren pick.

Seth: The blueprint for those games we always get into with Indiana began with Tom Brady.

Brian: My top Indiana Ulcer game is 2010.

In progress it felt like dying from a thousand paper cuts only to be brought back with the crashing thunder of paddles, conscious and fully aware you were about to do it all over again. The opponent holding the ball for 42 minutes might not mean much statistically, but it does make most of the game an agonizing slog.

I watched that in a sportsbar in Sedona. Michigan's defense was on the field for 98(!!!) plays. Then Denard would score in three and poor damn Craig Roh would be out there playing LB again.

Ace: Oh man, that’s a good one too.

Seth: I think that was the game that inspired Decimated Defense.

Ace: Wait, there’s another:

Meanwhile, Michigan has finally run out of people to throw at opponents on the defensive line. Michigan has a very good starting 22 but the defense goes about 16 guys deep before a cliff. Michigan has three ILBs and then… uh. They have four CBs and then nah. They have eight… seven… six… five DL, and if there is ever a wrong time to be short-handed on the defensive line it is against high-tempo, crazy-ass Indiana when they have a healthy Jordan Howard.

The “oh god Glasgow is out and they’re zone stretching us to death” game.

Brian: This is a tag right here: "we play the indiana game again"

The 2009 Indiana game was also waaaaay up there. That was Michigan's first experience with withering tempo and I hated it with every bone in my body. These are all against Indiana, Northwestern, and Minnesota.

Ace: How do we feel about 2010 Illinois in this category?

Brian: 67-65?

Ace: Yes. Added “benefit” of a QB injury.

Brian: Nah, expectations were so low by then and Denard got knocked out and it was just delirious.

Ace: Fair.

Brian: I remember writing a column about a ten year old in front of me whose mind had to have gotten blown

Seth: That kid can vote now.

Brian: I did not verify his age

Ace: This TWO gave me another ulcer.

Brian: Fan service: it's what we do.

Adam: One of you guys made my reaction to Jourdan Lewis's pick at the end of 2016 Wisconsin into an emoji so I think that's my ulcer game

Michigan outgained them by almost 200 yards and it somehow came down to that.

Ace: 2001 Iowa required this catch to stave off an unranked Hawkeyes team at Kinnick:

I feel like Kinnick games are generally either ulcers or worse.

Seth: So my case for 1999 Indiana is it was Northwestern 2018 in reverse. Michigan got an early 17-0 lead, which induced Lloyd to put away Tom Brady, and convinced Cam Cameron to unleash Antwaan Randle-El. Then it was tied. Then Indiana took the lead. Then we ran into a stacked box again. Like, that is the Lloyd Carr nightmare right there.

Ace: So… the Braylon Game? Also 2007 MSU if we’re going in that direction.

David: and 2012.

Seth: Everything in 2007 was post-Apocalyptic and beating Notre Dame and MSU was only cathartic because their fans knew App State better than their own crappy teams that year.

Ace: So the Braylon Game. Let’s do that one. That God-Damned Counter Draw was prominent for a while.

David: I knew a lot of ppl who left for that one. One guy I knew told me later: "When I could hear the game from CC Little, I knew I made a mistake."

Brian: I feel like MSU games are a different kind of thing since there is a real rivalry there

Ace: Pre-Dantonio or early-Dantonio MSU felt different. They’d only win if they had, like, an all-world wide receiver for some reason.

David: Also, Saban.

Ace: Or that.

Seth: That was Saban, and the some reason was there was no other D-IA school that would take Plaxico's transcripts.

David: Wow, sometimes I forget that. MSU had Nick Saban. There are some scary alternate universes.

Seth: Like the one where Pat White doesn't hurt his finger? Or the one where Michigan wins out in 2006, Lloyd retires, and Michigan hires the successful Cincy coach who got his coaching start under the Bo tree?

Seth: Future This Week's Obsession: Alternate Timelines

Ace: Only marginally less likely to damage one’s stomach lining.