Favorite moments in UM/OSU history
Morning Folks!!
Clearly in the wake of the Hoop teams thrilling win last night, the pages are being turned and a Maize and Blue era will soon drape this great land. Wasn't that awesome last night!!!
Ok, we're 24 hours away from the osu game....and I want to hear people's memories.....both good and bad.....about this great rivalry.
I have so many....but right now, I would have to say 1989. We did not know it was Bo's last game at home, but it was. I was a 17-year-old senior in high school.
I got on the field as the closing minutes ticked off the clock, celebrated with the students and players over another Rose Bowl berth and got steamrolled by the police escort Bo had to get him off the field. Bo was grinning ear to ear as he watched one of the cops pick me up off the ground and he said 'kid, if you plan on being on the field, you better watch out.'
I met the man years later at a bar down in Florida and shared this story....he laughed hard, but said he couldn't remember.
I'll drop some more memories as the day gets going, but I want to hear everyone else's!!
Go Blue!!!!!!!
November 21st, 2008 at 9:49 AM ^
The 1993 game where we came into the game as a 1-point favorite even though we were 6-4 and OSU was 9-0-1.
November 21st, 2008 at 10:02 AM ^
Michigan destroyed them, paving the way for Wisco to go to Pasadena.....I remember someone the pregame show--perhaps Corso on Gameday--joke how much the line stinks because UM was favored....someone knew something that day, my friend.
That whole day is one of my favorite days of CFB....i was still down at IU as undergrad. Could not make it back home for the game, but we had a huge football party at my house.
After we crushed OSU, BC famously upset #1 ND.....and our party had a lot of ND fans.....except the three of us hosting it....i'll never forget going outside on our deck--me and my two roommates--to celebrate the BC win while all our ND guests were inside crying.
That whole day is memorable to me personally beyond that, and beynod the OSU-UM game that day.
Thanks for bringing it up!!!
November 21st, 2008 at 10:10 AM ^
That was, inded a great day for college football. Saw Michigan beat Ohio State 28-0 and then walked back to my house to watch the 2nd half of BC upset Notre Shame.
November 21st, 2008 at 2:21 PM ^
Woodson, coolest cat ever.
OR 2008. We shall see
November 21st, 2008 at 10:07 AM ^
Barry Pierson's punt return.
Billy bursting through a hole opened by Dan and Diablo driving their men and Garvie cutting Tatum, getting to the left sideline, and breaking tackles to get inside inside the 10.
November 21st, 2008 at 10:09 AM ^
growing up in Ohio, being a young kid, the 97 game is the first one i can truly remember. And how every year how upset all the buckeye fans would get, and how much fun it was to rub it in. I still remember waving a huge Michigan flag out on the main road in my town, and getting flipped off and cussed out. Man, i really miss those days.
November 21st, 2008 at 10:11 AM ^
It's absurdly obvious, but I started watching M Football after I had gotten my acceptance letter - which was 1995. So, the 1997 UM/OSU is the best, and the single greatest few seconds I have experienced ever, as a Michigan fan, were watching Woodson streak down the sideline with that punt.
November 21st, 2008 at 10:50 AM ^
Of course, I was there too....i have a lot of stories about that weekend, as I was in Ann Arbor all weekend.
But, about the Woodson PR.....i was channeling my inner Magnus and pink slipped him from punt return duties.....Russell Shaw had looked better doing that in recent games and I will always remember turning to the guy sitting next to me as the punt went up in air and saying we might get a bigger play out of Shaw....ooops.....the two of us were laughing our asses of big time as CWood came running towards our end zone.
Also, I got kicked out of the game as I entered because the cops found alcohol in my coat.....i cobbled together some cash and bought a scalped ticket on the street and made it to my original seats by kickoff.
Amazing day!!
November 21st, 2008 at 10:57 AM ^
That's awesome that you scalped a ticket to get back in.
I remember that I walked into that game absolutely loaded, and spent the prior 15 minutes to that play waiting in line for the bathroom. I gave up, ran behind a tree, and somehow pulled that off without getting noticed by a cop. I walked back in the stadium as that punt was in the air. Clutch.
I will say, I had been to 2 years of M football games at that point, and had always thought it was pretty quiet. The stadium was literally shaking when he got the sideline.
November 21st, 2008 at 10:11 AM ^
I'm also partial to Henson's TD scramble, and watching Navarre shake the monkey off his back in 2003.
November 21st, 2008 at 10:25 AM ^
I have to agree with Chitown about the best moment. That win was amazing.
But my first experience in Michigan Stadium was great also. I was in high school and my dad took me, my brother and a friend to see The Game. We hit a fucking deer on 96 driving there and I thought we weren't going to make it. My dad came through though, and we got a rental car and made it in time for kick off. We sat in the end zone. I can still see the smile on Desmond's face as he did the heisman pose. That was priceless.
November 21st, 2008 at 10:56 AM ^
The PR was great, but I also remember the first big catch Woodson had. When he went in, everybody in the stadium knew he was getting the ball. The crowd was palpably excited, and the OSU players were pointing him out, probably frantically. Sure enough, pass to Woodson for a big gain. A PR and a David Boston scuffle later, the heisman was his. Amazing.
November 21st, 2008 at 10:59 AM ^
Even though we lost I still love the epic game from 2 years ago. The build-up to that game was unlike anything I had ever seen before in this rivalry. It's just a shame it ended the way it did.
:shakes fist at Michigan-hating God:
November 21st, 2008 at 11:06 AM ^
With a hat tip to what everyone has said about 1997, mine is strangely 1996. I was on North Campus and we were hosting a Sectional Qualifying tournament for quiz bowl. The game was on in the auditorium and my team was on bye. I distinctly remember, to the great annoyance of the opponent, a Bowling Green player calling a time out for his team so he could watch the last seconds of that game and watching his anguish as the Buckeyes were vanquished. The Griese miracle was a great way to end my first year as a student fan (well, OK, there was that Hall of Fame bowl, but still.)
November 21st, 2008 at 11:59 AM ^
Loved 97 and all those great wins during the 90's when I was a younger lad, but '96 was unexpected glory - the best kind. I think I was too nervous during the '97 game to truly appreciate it.
Also, as far as a pure MOMENT is concerned, the one that is coming to my head right now is Mike Hart scoring a TD in 2006 on a run right, getting over the goal line and then tossing a Buckeye on his back with one hand. Jawing all the time. Loved that moment.
November 21st, 2008 at 1:25 PM ^
Maybe in 2011 when TP is a senior, Forcier/Beaver is a junior, we will both be undefeated and playing in Ann Arbor and we can shake those Michigan-hating gods.
November 21st, 2008 at 1:44 PM ^
It's quite possible, and I wouldn't complain at all if this happened, that Toilet Paper skips his senior season and is off to the NFL by then. He seems like a show-me-the-money type.
November 21st, 2008 at 12:14 PM ^
as a frosh in '97, that Game will always be tough to top.
despite the outcome, '98 will also always be memorable - was watching at a friend's apartment and we got Faz from Hello Faz Pizza to drink a beer with us when he dropped off our pies.
November 21st, 2008 at 12:44 PM ^
The 100th Game. My first as a student at Michigan.
November 21st, 2008 at 12:46 PM ^
2003, the stadium wide "PERRY, PERRY!" chant that willed chris perry back to his feet after robert reynolds twisted his ankle under the pile.
robert reynolds, by the way, is the dirtiest player in OSU history. The same guy that choked jim sorgi in the wisco game, and payed for it dearly when the backup QB torched them for the game winning touchdown on an 80 yard bomb.
anyways, the perry chant, winning, rushing the field, going to the rose bowl. victory was sweet.
November 21st, 2008 at 12:59 PM ^
1)Sitting in a deer blind with my late father when Rick Leach and Michigan shut out OSU 22-0. Listened to it on a transistor radio, and we cried with laughter at Ufer's burial ceremony of Woody Hayes in the pressbox after the game.
2) Woodson's punt return. I simultaneously shit, pissed myself, vomited up a gyro omelette, bled out of my ears and stuck my tongue down my wife's throat I was soooo geeked. One of the greatest days ever.
Goddammit, I love Michigan football. This has been a painful year, and we may well lose tomorrow, but it won't dampen my devotion one bit.
November 21st, 2008 at 12:59 PM ^
Watching Jansen and company blow open holes against the No. 1 Buckeyes was simply breathtaking. Also, the 100th meeting was a fun one for me while I was in A2 for grad school.
November 21st, 2008 at 1:06 PM ^
winning. all of them
November 21st, 2008 at 1:23 PM ^
When I thought we had no shot at beating OSU with Greise & co.
Also up there is in 1995, when Eddie George came into town. The OSU fans were chanting "Eddie! Eddie!" to start the game. By the end of the game, the student section was chanting "Eddie! Eddie!" to taunt the Buckeyes.
November 21st, 2008 at 1:43 PM ^
The Tai Streets 60-some-yards TD catch on a slant route is the one moment that sticks in my mind above all others. I don't know why. I think it's because OSU was heavily favored and one of their dumbass receivers, Glenn or Boston or one of them, had done a pretty fair amount of jawing before the game. '96, I think that was.
November 21st, 2008 at 1:49 PM ^
That would have been '96.
November 22nd, 2008 at 8:55 AM ^
Actually this was 1997, when Boston talked alot before the game. This is also why you see him, after he scores the TD that Woodson fell down on, turn around and run backwards into the endzone holding the ball out - he had talked all week about how over-rated Woodson was, and how OSU's main CB (I forget if it was Springs or Antonio Winfield) was better.
After the game, Woodson said a particularly good piece of jawing about how he felt like beating Boston was "teaching a little kid a lesson", but I can't find the verbiage.
November 22nd, 2008 at 10:34 AM ^
"I was like a father out there, chastising his son for talking to the wrong people."
[Edit: here's a fuller, slightly different version of the quote]
"I was like a father chastising his son for running off his mouth to the wrong people. I told him he was soft. A foolish man talks every time he has something to say; a wise man talks only when he has to."
November 22nd, 2008 at 10:39 AM ^
Bingo.
November 22nd, 2008 at 2:56 PM ^
Both Terry Glenn and David Boston talked smack before games in Ann Arbor. Glenn, in '95, said something like "Michigan is nobody. They down where they belong and we gonna keep them down."
Boston, in '97, said a couple of things. First he dogged Woodson ("He ain't all that. He ain't no Shawn Springs") and then said "If our offense and defense are clicking, we'll win by two or three touchdowns."
November 21st, 2008 at 2:52 PM ^
Lots of good ones mentioned here but I was at the 1997 game & the atmosphere was the best I've seen in the stadium. Great players making great plays with so much on the line.
It doesn't get much better than watching the team win a ticket to the Rose Bowl, rushing the field, then pulling off a share of the MNC during your senior year.
Of course coming home from Crisler after we upset Duke few weeks later & hearing that Woodson won the Heisman was pretty sweet too....
November 21st, 2008 at 6:44 PM ^
It may not rank up there with many of the other great games, but it's a favorite of mine.
I traveled from Chicago to go to the 2003 OSU game with my brother, who was a UM student at the time. He arranged to get another student’s ticket, so I could sit in the student section. The game and atmosphere were great, and the OSU student behind me was quickly shut up.
After the win, fans (mostly students) rushed the field. I never had an opportunity to do that before, hesitated a bit, and then went over the wall with my brother. The only time in my life that I ever wanted a camera phone was when I was standing on the block M in the middle of the field looking around me.
Incidentally, it was also the 100th anniversary game of the rivalry, a record crowd (112,118) and the last time we beat OSU.
November 22nd, 2008 at 12:15 AM ^
Well, there was John Cooper's first game against Michigan at the shoe. On Michigan's final drive, just before the game-winning touchdown, one of the announcers said, "Well, a win today will definitely appease the alumi base; they'll be happy." Ball heaved deep into the endzone, Kolesar grabs it -- touchdown. You can hear the announcer chuckling. Little did they know...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpmkPy5T7NE
November 22nd, 2008 at 11:07 AM ^
Kolesar had about a 60 yard kickoff return after Ohio State scored the go-ahead touchdown. I think Brown threw one incompletion, then hit Kolesar with the game-winner.
Kolesar also came up big in the '85 game. OSU scores a touchdown to come within 3, 20-17. Next series (possibly the first play after the kickoff), Harbaugh hits Kolesar on a 77-yard bomb to put the game out of reach.
Great shot of Cooper waving his arms around at the end of that clip, too. Ah, how I miss him.
November 22nd, 2008 at 1:01 AM ^
When I was young, I was mostly a baseball an hockey fan, didn't get into football until high school. So, the first Michigan games I clearly remember watching are during the 2001 season (Washington, clock gate, first few minutes when the Tennessee game was close), therefore by default 2003. Whenever I do not want to go to the gym, I go to Wolverine Historians youtube video of that one.
November 22nd, 2008 at 1:47 AM ^
This is just a strange coincidence, but both the 1997 and 2003 games were played on November 22 as will today's game. That's a good sign right? Oh, all right, I give up.
November 22nd, 2008 at 2:58 PM ^
The loudest single play (other than game-winning plays) I've ever heard the stadium was Braylon's 87-yard TD in 2003 that ended up being called back. I think we were up 28-7 at the time and the crowd smelled blood.