DVR Alert: BTN at 9:00 EST – Illini 65 / Michigan 67 (2010 at The Big House)
Basketball on Grass.
Denard Robinson has 305 yards passing with 3 TD and 2 INT and 62 yards rushing – in three quarters! Roy Roundtree sets a Michigan receiving record with 246 yards. Tate Forcier leads a late 4thquarter drive to tie the game.
6th win of the season made us (wait for it...) Bowl Eligible!
The highest scoring game in Michigan history ends with a defensive stop in the 3rdOT.
Oh man that game. That fucking game gave me 12 heart attacks. Our defense was fucking terrible, but our offense, on that day at least, was a lot of fun.
easily the most clueless Michigan defense I've ever seen
A truly amazing game to be at. All over the record books.
for reposting that Zook meme!
Eh. This is a trivial question, in my opinion. We could easily look at the IU game from 2013 (and only the IU game) and say that that offense was just as effective. After all, we are only looking at one performance in each year. The 2010 offense also laid eggs against MSU, OSU, and to a lesser extent, Wisconsin. I think one thing that was forgotten about the 2010 offense is that while it dominated weak defenses, it struggled mightily against good ones.
Also, recruiting from the RR era was lacking on both sides of the ball. Or, at least, development and retention of the players that were recruited. I'm not sad with the way things have turned out.
The same D that gave up more yards in the Indiana game last year than this game?
RR scored 24 points on OSU in 3 years. Tressel figured him out right from the get go and beat him like a drum.
Richrod - noted offensive guru - managed just 24 points in 3 tries. Hoke has 102 in as many tries
Borges might've drove us all nuts, but when he was on, the offense was good
August 4th, 2014 at 10:09 PM ^
Sure, they were young. But that 2010 offense tore it up earlier in the year (making Denard the Heisman front-runner) and then seemed to regress, which shouldn't happen to a young team (a criticism that can also be leveled at last year's O).
Anyhow, you say "even the 2011 defense" as though it sucked or something. It improved 80-some spots in the national rankings. That probably doesn't happen with RichRod still here. What we ended up with in 2011 - a pretty good offense and pretty good defense - was enough to get us 11 wins, which was way better than almost anyone expected. Now we need to get back to that level.
August 4th, 2014 at 10:07 PM ^
Richrod's offenses never showed any signs of being able to anything against competent defenses. I know comparing Hoke's 3 years to Richrod's 3 years isn't precisely apples to apples, but the "he just needed one more year!" thing is also a tired argument. He was a failure here
August 4th, 2014 at 10:26 PM ^
I agree that Fickell/Meyer's defenses have been weaker than Tressel's, but I don't know if RR was ever going to figure Tressel out. After we hired RR, Tressel went to South Florida to study how Jim Leavitt's staff had defended RR's offenses (they beat WVU in both 2006 and '07 in low-scoring games) and pretty much copied his gameplan.
In five consecutive games against the Leavitt/Tressel scheme, RR's offenses scored 19, 13, 7, 10 and 7 points.
Doesn't change the fact that the offense was often completely absent in big games. We would've just lost to ranked teams 21-10 instead of 42-10
I'd rather not remember this game even happened. BTN replays it to death. And I remember going crazy for the fact that we were getting to A BOWL GAME. We had fallen hard at that point (not that we're back up yet now).
One of the things that still blows me away about this game, the amount of disarray in the defense aside, is that between ourselves and Illinois, there were 1,237 yards of offense in this game. That's perhaps twice, sometimes close to three times what we see in a game now under a different staff these days - typically, that is. Strangely, we gave up 561 yards to Illinois in the 2010 match, but 572 to Indiana last year, although there really isn't a meaningful comparison between the two games.
Well the game did go to 3OT, so the yardage is necessarily going to be inflated a bit, but not by much considering you start from the 25 each time
That game...crikey!
Quite a difference between that game and the next time the Illini came to Michigan Stadium.
A 45-0 Michigan win. Hell, even 2011 the defense did well with the 31-14 win.
143 points scored against illinois the last 3 meetings.
As Tater as Tate ended up being...Tate really did provide us with a number of Tate! moments/games during his time.
Taters gonna Tate and all that, but he brought a fair bit of joy during an otherwise bleak period.
Edit: quite sure I've misconjugated 'tate' a few times in the above. please forgive.
"Mistates."
running the same damn play! Classic. But the best part of that was watching the post game and Dave Revsine laughing his ass off . . .
COVER THAT DAMN WHEEL ROUTE
Most unfulfilling triple overtime win ever. I was there and the defense....there are no words.
I cheered the final play obviously, but that's the only time I've ever left the big house feeling sick after a victory.
Poor Don Shane getting knocked over on the sideline by Forcier in the 4th quarter. Didn't notice it live but saw it on the news that evening.
August 4th, 2014 at 10:07 PM ^
I couldn't disagree more. Sure in the grand scheme the win meant very little, but given where the program was at that point in time, and how the game ended the way it did in 3 OTs, in a true battle of attrition, it was one of the most exhilarating, exciting wins in recent memory.
August 4th, 2014 at 10:17 PM ^
I have to disagree. Hang on for your life to outlast a shitty team and only do so by selling out completely...full on win or lose (great call by the way). Luckily the dice fell right. Exhilritating yes. Exciting yes.
Versus OSU, one of the most ever. Versus Illinois? ... good......god.....the avoidance of a horror-esque loss.
Loved the win, celebrated well. But one of the most exciting in recent memory? If so, recent memory is embarassing.
August 4th, 2014 at 10:07 PM ^
was one of those players who seemed to be playing for almost a decade. Did he finally run out of eligibility at Illinois?
August 4th, 2014 at 10:08 PM ^
I went to the Manchester United/rReal Madrid game over the weekend. It was odd in a number of ways. One was that post game everyone was streaming out without much emotion. While a few may have had a vested interest in the outcome of a preseason exhibition game, most everyone didn't care.
I mentioned to my kid that it was the first time I'd left the stadium without being either happy or pissed off.
WolverineHistorian just reminded me of a time that I left the stadium feeling both.
August 4th, 2014 at 11:06 PM ^
August 4th, 2014 at 10:57 PM ^
The following game at the Big House was when I gave up on the RR experiment. Wisconsin ran the same play over and over again and we could not stop them. White and Ball combined for 354 yards rushing and 6 TD's...
August 4th, 2014 at 11:07 PM ^
was going to watch it to see who won, now thanks to you I can't watch it
I hate this game for many reasons, but the top reason was winning a bet. I bet an Lt in my squadron that if Michigan won, he would buy me a beer, and if Illinois won, he would give me his jersey to wear over my uniform for a day. Michigan obviously won, and I never got my beer, even after bringing it up to him at an event that the bar was open. Some people.