MGoHistory - The Year In Review - 1971

Nice work again.

This brings back fond memories of my days in Ann Arbor, while painfully reminding me that I am getting too damned old!

As a member of the MMB that year, I do have to correct that part of your historical perspective. William D. Revelli retired in the summer of 1971 and this was George Cavender's first football season as Director. Come Rose Bowl time, the band was oddly more in the news than the football team, in part because of controversy over the all-male composition and in part because of an injunction filed by the student council to keep the band off the field at the Rose Bowl. They were demanding that we perform an anti-war themed show of their design. They lost in court. Ah, the seventies.

Excellent writing here - keep them coming.

That's fine work. It's interesting for me to see how much I remember – I was 11 and sports fandom was just dawning on me. I don't recall the Ohio game but I definitely remember that Rose Bowl. Usually the most pristine grass field anywhere, it was a muddy morass that day. Stanford handled it better than Michigan did. The field goal at the end was a crusher – my first vivid Michigan sports memory. Thanks for bringing it back!

I'm really digging this series. Nice work

I just do not understand why Bo struggled so much out there. USC, long road trips, and bad luck I guess.

Junior year of engineering school and did go to my only Rose Bowl, so far. The fg was indeed devastating. Calculators were on campus for some students but banned from being used for blue books, since most students could not afford them, $400 rings a bell, serious money in '71. As well as the band being all men, I think it was still all men cheerleaders, but could be wrong. Turned 21 that year at the Pretzel Bell, tradition was to have your friends buy you 21 beers(10 oz.), and get to ring the bell if you made it without getting sick. Many years since that place closed. Good memories.

but still remember the anguished screams in my Grandpa's house after that field goal.  Excellent work; I would only ask you correct the finger slip: Title XI to the correct Title IX reference. (posterity and-the-like)

often spent at Mr. Floods Party.

Nice work.

It was only the second year that I went to all the games even though I was a senior. The enthusiam for the football team was building. Michigan expected to win and we expected a good conversation as we watched.

Bo was awesome as the coach but he was predictable. His philosphy was similar to Woody's "When you pass . . . two out of three times something bad is going to happen." This was my first Rose Bowl and you could see what was going to happen. The Standford team expected a run unless it was 3rd and long and defended Michigan by crowding the line. Don Bunce was the Standford quarterback and he picked apart the Michigan defense in the 4th quarter, I'm sorry to say.

I purchased my ticket to the game at the last minute at the stadium for $10. I sat surrounded by UCLA girls who were given tickets and could care less about the game. They were amazed by the cheering and spirit of the Michigan students. The M cheerleaders were mainly gymnatics guys and they did plenty of moves that were worth watching.

It was very warm that day (but rain the previous week made the turf soggy and slow to the benefit of Standford). I started out the day in a M sweatshirt and ended up without a shirt during most of the game. Beautiful weather and bad ending to a wonderful year.

Was one highlight of my freshman year, a school year that included the Michigan Supreme Court overturning the state anti-pot law, The Dead and Pink Floyd in Hill, John and Yoko (and many more) in Crisler for John Sinclair, the lowering of the drinking age to 18, and yes, Mr. Flood's Party, although I think I spent more time in the Blind Pig and the Del Rio.

I had great teachers, too, and I learned a lot in the classroom. These Kids Today don't quite get how much fun college can be, I don't think.

...is that it's attracting the 60s/70s era MGoBlogerati into the conversation. We need more of your perspective, gents.

(And I'm not just saying this because I'm in my mid-40s and I get called the old guy. Well, maybe that's part of my motivation.)

Please keep up this series.

We now take it for granted the 100,000+ attendance and being part of the 'largest crowd to watch a college football game in the USA." But here was a team that beat OSU and finished the regular season as 11-0 and could NOT sell out every home game.

The year I came home from my government sponsered SE Asian vacation. 

My main memory of the Rose Bowl is that for some reason the Stanford defense was nicknamed the "Thunder Chickens".

Very possibly the best one I could ever hope to see, at age 15.

Darden's purported interference was a very close call.  I remember thinking at the time, real-time, that Thom got away with interference, and that Woody had a pretty good reason to be angry.  On the replay later, I recall it looking better, not such a terrible call.  Particularly since Darden came away with the ball!  One of those weird plays that might have been decided by the fact that the defender has a right to try to catch a thrown ball and because he did make the catch, the kind of contact that might be called interference on a reach-in to break up a play was overlooked.

Woody Hayes had a different opinion.

It is a hard play to review now; for some reason only a poor-exposure copy of the game film exists.  The play is at about the 8:30 mark on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqOfmRUGxys 

expat in Atlanta that year, so I remember vividly that, other than the Rose Bowl, the MSU game was the only Michigan game televised nationally that year. It was thin gruel in those days. My dad occasionally brought back Ann Arbor News game articles from business trips up to Ann Arbor.

Of course one of them was beating Woody and finishing undefeated, preserving an outside shot at the national title. As a freshman, that was a pretty impressive way to start my in-person Michigan football fandom.

The other memorable thing happened at halftime. While while there was plenty of anti-war activism on campus, there were still frequent official public displays of support for the American military, including at football games.

I was standing on the very last row of seats at the top of the stadium in the north end zone at halftime. There was a tribute down on the field to the armed forces, especially for the numerous MIAs in SE Asia, and that's where my attention was directed.

With no warning, a group of F4 Phantoms flying a missing man formation screams directly over the stadium extremely low, from north to south. Nobody heard them until they were right over the stadium, and since I was at the top of the stands, I just about crapped my pants—it felt like the Phantoms were about 20 feet above my head. I've been to plenty of air shows over the years, seeing the Blue Angels, Thunderbirds, and the like, but I've never experienced anything more heart-stopping than that brief moment way up in the stands that November.

Here's little oddity from the 1971 season.   After our defeat of UCLA in game #3 38-0 we moved to #2 in both polls where we remained until we BEAT Michigan State in East Lansing 24-13 in game #5 which caused us to drop to #3.  We stayed at #3 in both polls until we BEAT OSU in our finale whereupon we dropped again to #4 even though we were undefeated.

Can you imagine the furor that would errupt today if we went 11-0 and dropped in the polls not once but twice after victories?  And people think the polls are messed up now.....