my visit to ND
So three buddies of mine went to the game yesterday and here's what I saw:
Complaints about ND:
1. Ushers hassled us a lot, they made my cousin take off his "Charlie Weis tried to eat me" shirt and threatened to kick him out; my buddy got threatened to get taken away from the game for a long time if he didn't stop playing his cowbell.
2. The stadium itself is right between our old one and my high school stadium. Crappy benches, no video on the scoreboard, no stats on the scoreboard, the announcer screwed up Roundtree and JT Floyd at least twice.
3. Indiana sucks almost as much as ohio.
As far as the game went, the whole crowd was completely tense the whole game, you could feel the previous years struggles just preventing anyone from getting excited. Both sides were like this. I think that even when we scored with 20 seconds left I was thinking man I wish it were 9 seconds. The defense played much better than we thought they would despite the gaffs that led to the touchdowns. The refs seemed to call a lot on Michigan (the hold on Molk looked like bs to me as it was 20 yards from the play and irrelevant) and miss a lot of calls on ND. There wasn't one horrible call (except for maybe the fumble on the touchdown that went unnoticed, we thought so in the stands but without the video boards you can't tell much) but lots of cheap holding/late hits on us that were not returned.
After we won the ND people took a really long time to leave although they didn't really get into their post game, just went through the motions. No one at ND knows the words to the fight song, maybe 20% know the chorus but the rest nobody sang. They self-proclaimed it to be the best fight song about 5 times.
They like Kelly there and he does a lot of things similarly to Rich Rod. He now has the players walk through the student section for warm ups and they have an entrance to the field.
Brock was at the game too, he was a few sections over from us but we saw him walk in with his 1% shirt on. I think he sat with a ND fan. Overall the game was classic and I was thrilled to be able to go. Definitely recommend making the trip if you get a chance.
September 12th, 2010 at 9:50 AM ^
Did you stay long enough to see them replace touchdown Jesus with touchdown Denard?
Would someone please re-post that picture
September 12th, 2010 at 10:05 AM ^
see the ND fans in unison singing and dejected like that every year? It's nice that even in one of the darkest times in Michigan's last 50 years, we still have beat ND two years in a row. Next year is back at the Big House, and our D will actually be good. Plus, Kyle Rudolph and Michael Floyd will be in the NFL by then...
September 12th, 2010 at 10:35 PM ^
We are no longer in that dark time. That ended on Sept. 4.
September 12th, 2010 at 10:07 AM ^
he is, purely, simply, the brighter of the two men.
September 12th, 2010 at 10:15 AM ^
something of a jerk to his players when they made poor decisions - definitely not the same tone as RR.
September 12th, 2010 at 10:08 AM ^
We had a great visit to South Bend and obviously the victory made it even better. It was our first time in Notre Dame stadium and I thought it was old school all the way, which I will always have an appreciation for. As far as the fans, we were lucky to have some knowledgeable and thick-skinned fans sitting around us, except for one guy who had his panties in a bunch for most of the game. The blue-hairs behind us were great, even when we stood up. They gave us a nice history lesson and seemed to know quite a bit about football, which was nice. EVERYONE I spoke to was impressed by Denard.
The nasty Irish fans really came out of the woodwork at the end of the game, but a, "you stay classy Notre Dame" response by a fellow Wolverine really sealed the deal for me. Too funny. Scoreboard bitches, scoreboard...
September 12th, 2010 at 10:16 AM ^
Ann Arbor is a whore before the game, but they couldn't come up with much after we threw back some "then why didn't you get in" at them....
September 12th, 2010 at 10:51 AM ^
I have been looking for this photo since 0:00 went up and the Crist tossed it into the band. The photo should look excellant on a few co-worker's desks....GO BLUE
September 12th, 2010 at 11:04 AM ^
Here's a link to both views in larger format if you want them.
http://i1001.photobucket.com/albums/af138/BeerLeaguer/100_2552.jpg
http://i1001.photobucket.com/albums/af138/BeerLeaguer/100_2551.jpg
September 12th, 2010 at 10:24 AM ^
This will never get old for me:
"Charlie Weis tried to eat me"
As for this:
"... my buddy got threatened to get taken away from the game for a long time if he didn't stop playing his cowbell..."
Taking a cowbell into an opposing team's stadium *and* (presumably) playing it after good Michigan plays takes ba11s, so points for your buddy. Personally, I cringe whenever I hear one of those things within a few rows of me. One year I had to sit near that lardass with the cape.
September 12th, 2010 at 10:59 AM ^
I had the cowbell taken from me at the Michigan Boston U hockey game last year....
September 12th, 2010 at 11:00 AM ^
I did see quite a few "Michigan Sucks Denards" shirts, which are really just nonsensical (I still don't know what that is supposed to even mean.)
We walked around quite a bit before and after the game and not a single ND fan said anything negative toward us. In fact, we got several, "Hey, good game today guys!" and ND fans shaking our hand after the game. We even got invited into this ND tailgate in one of the parking lots as we passed by, and they asked us to come on in and have a beer with them (we did!)
September 12th, 2010 at 1:22 PM ^
Is "Denards" supposed to be like "nards," as in 80s slang for balls? (i.e. "the wolfman's got nards!")
September 12th, 2010 at 11:16 AM ^
My gameday experience at ND was similar - except add on hassles in the parking lot from the ND fun police measuring alcohol consumption.
September 12th, 2010 at 2:37 PM ^
"They self-proclaimed it to be the best fight song about 5 times."
This really stood out to me when I went to the game there two years ago. It really left me with a "methinks thou dost protest too much" feeling. We KNOW our fight song is the best, which is why we don't go around saying it all the time like that.
September 12th, 2010 at 4:50 PM ^
I was there as well. I don't mind ND fans all that much, of course anywhere you go you'll get some heckling, but the fans in general have always seemed pretty nice. With that said...This is my 6th time being there and it really just reminds me of a "little" big house. It was modeled after it i know, but it really does seem small. The game was crazy though....I thought i was going to have a heart attack towards the end.
September 12th, 2010 at 7:35 PM ^
but I came away with a different impression -- I was honestly pretty impressed with the ND fanbase. I was able to have some civilized conversations with people before and after the game, and anytime I was hassled about being a Michigan fan, it was mostly good-natured ribbing. Security guards, ushers, and stadium people were all very courteous.
Yes, of course there were a few morons that I would've loved to hit with a two-by-four, but they were few and far between. After having to deal with the ND fans who came to Michigan Stadium last year (I sat near the top of their section and it was an all-out douchefest), I definitely hate ND a little less now than I did then.
It's a shame NBC's coverage of ND is so biased and preachy ... it makes their fans seem like a bunch of arrogant pricks, but they really didn't seem that way to me.
September 12th, 2010 at 7:49 PM ^
The announcing was TERRIBLE. They confused Roy Roundtree with JT Floyd and announced a penalty on defense that was on the offense (or the other way around?) Also, they would repeat verbatim what the refs announced. I didn't realize how irritating bad announcing is/could be until yesterday.