Former Players: How Was Ohio State Week Different?

Submitted by Eastern Wolverine on

For Mgobloggers who played football at Michigan, how was Ohio State week different from others? Did you feel extra pressure to perform? Did you sense coaches feeling under the gun to win The Game? Were you honestly glad the season was almost done and you could soon return to a more normal student life? Did your team's practice intensity rise higher than other weeks? Was The Game buildup more of a media phenomenon and less so for players? Please share what you can with those of us who will never experience preparing as a player for college football's greatest rivalry game.

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EGD

November 23rd, 2015 at 10:41 PM ^

So, some years ago at a karaoke bar in Chicago, a friend of mine gets up to sing "Eye of the Tiger." Little did he know that the words on the screen were some god-awful Japanese translation. So the song starts, and the words come up: "Liesin' up, back on the street. Took my time, took my tenset." For some reason your post reminded me of that.

Joined: 09/16/2009

MGoPoints: 35199

buddhafrog

November 23rd, 2015 at 11:24 PM ^

I've been there, but much, much worse.

Had to sing karaoke at a wedding reception in Korea. I was the only non-Korean in the room, and my dear wife literally got up and ran out of the room when the host was trying to get me up on stage. She ditched me in my helplessness.

I weakly argued that I didn't know any songs in the karaoke booklet. He wasn't buying it. So he chose a fun song that everyone knows and loves: 

THE BENGALS, "I'm Your PENIS"

Every damn time the song was supposed to say "Venus", my screen reads "Penis". Trying to sing through tears of laughter was tough. The crowd had no idea what was going on and I had no means to explain it to them since I didn't speak Korean in those days.

And I rolled with it. "Penis" all the way.

I'm your PENIS, I'm your FIRE. Your DESIRE.

You know you want me.

Joined: 09/28/2009

MGoPoints: 21358

LSAClassOf2000

November 23rd, 2015 at 10:07 PM ^

There are actually a few who post here with varied degrees of a regularity, and many who just lurk (I've talked to a few on Twitter actually). There is at least one regular, in fact, who played concurrently with Jim Harbaugh, come to think of it, or so I would understand from the discussions I've had with him. 

Joined: 01/07/2011

MGoPoints: 130561

carlos spicywiener

November 23rd, 2015 at 9:58 PM ^

I felt more pressure to perform. I sensed the coaches felt under the gun to win The Game. I was honestly glad the season was almost done and I could soon return to a more normal student life. My team's practice intensity rose higher than other weeks. The Game buildup was more of a media phenomenon and less so for players.

Joined: 05/03/2014

MGoPoints: 25160

MGoRedemption

November 23rd, 2015 at 10:02 PM ^

When you're the qb of an 11-0 team, you really just have to tune out all the outside noise and focus on the task at hand. Keep level headed and just manage the game like you usually do.

Joined: 08/11/2014

MGoPoints: 13187

Swayze Howell Sheen

November 23rd, 2015 at 10:03 PM ^

and what it was like was amazing, but also humbling, and then, in only the slightest way, regurgitating, if you know what i mean.

mostly we ate ham sandwiches during the week.
but then, saturday morning, woo-hoo, pancakes boys!

but ah, the game.

don't let 'em tell you different: we put on our shorts the same way they do - backwards and one leg at a time, or was it frontwards? I forget.

then we sometimes measured the heights of the field goal posts, and coach was like "it's the darned same as every other darned field you evah played on!" and we were like "huh?"

most important thing to remember was the pre-game speech. I remember it like it was 1955 (which is odd because it was 1974). Coach walked in and said "it's simple boys, WIN. THE. GAME." and we all agreed, except Jed, who wasn't the quickest let me tell you.

but otherwise it's all the same, except in the early days we only played in black and white so honestly you couldn't even tell which team was which unless you had x-ray vision or something.

 

Joined: 10/05/2008

MGoPoints: 46877