OT: What's the best Non-Michigan game you have ever been to???

It must have been 2006- both teams were decent, but that wasn't why it was so amazing.  For Maryland fans, they didn't really get that football is a different cheering environment than basketball.  They were shouting specific insults at specific players even though they were in row 30 or whatever.  It was truly a basketball crowd in a football stadium- very funny to watch, and though Wake won (and in doing so, crushed Maryland's hopes of winning the ACC that year), it was a surreal fan experience.

Coming from a place where all the cheers are carefully orchestrated and all done together, the basketball crowd was just hilarious.  At the time it was louder at that stadium than it was at Michigan games, which, well, at least they were enthusiastic.

The best game I have been to that is non-Michigan was hands down Game 5 of the 2004 NBA Finals when the Pistons destroyed the Lakers to win the NBA Championship.

The crowd was going nuts the entire time because the Pistons jumped out to such a big lead and coasted to the championship.  It was quite a site to see and the celebration was awesome. 

I always consider that game, and the 3OT UM-MSU games the 2 best games I've ever been to.

Florida at Florida State.  The game featured Spurrier coaching and Heisman winner Chris Weinke playing.  Doak Campbell was crazy.

Pass interference....  I had just moved out there and cheered my ass off for the U.

19-17 at Northwestern in 1997.    What made it truly spectacular was the last play of the game.   Michigan State lined up for a game-winning 28 yds FG on the final play of the game.  It was blocked!!  The look on Saban's face was priceless (see Brian Kelly 2010).

Sparty was 5-0 before the upset against the Wildcats and things didn't get any better for them the following week at home against Michigan, the game featuring 6 interceptions by Michigan including Woodson's iconic leaping one-hander near the sideline.

Ah, good times.

Luckily my Dad scored some tickets through work for game 4 of the ALCS. That atmosphere was amazing, never seen a more excited crowd for a baseball game. Best game I've ever been able to attend.

during the early 2000s. Both teams were ranked in the top ten. Michael Bennett had 3 TD runs of 50+ yards and Joey Harrington, in a moment of foreshadowing, sealed the loss with an interception to Jamar Fletcher on the potentially winning drive.

The 04 game was when Aaron Rodgers started the game by completing his first 23 passes and ended up going 29 of 31.  Cal drove down to 1st and goal at the 9 yard line and couldn't get the winning score, losing 23-17. 

In 05 it was Maurice Jones Drew leading the way in a 47-40 UCLA win.  He had 5 TD's that game 3 rushing, 1 receiving and 1 on a punt return.  That Cal team had DeSean Jackson, Marshawn Lynch and Justin Forsett on it. 

Harvard beat Yale 1976

2007: Number One Appalachian State was undefeated and had defeated a highly-regarded I-A team earlier in the year. They trekked to Spartanburg, SC to take on the Wofford Terriers, who defeated them 42-31. According to Wikipedia:

The Terriers outgained the Mountaineers 431 to 320 in total yardage with running back Kevious Johnson accounting for 104 rushing yards.

It was a fun day.

Mets-Diamondbacks in the '99 NLDS game.  Todd Pratt hit a pinch hit, series winning home run in the bottom of the 10th,  just beyond the reach of a climbing Findley.

http://newyork.mets.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20080922&content_id=3527165&vkey=news_nym&fext=.jsp&c_id=nym

High 5's all around for the 3 other mets fans on this board.

2007 Wake Forest @ UVA.  UVA won the game on a last second field goal.  I was sitting on the lawn, so I had a pretty cool view of the game-winning kick.

Too many to choose from (non football - Stars/Red Wings or Rangers and Cliff Lee sweeping Yankees) but for football...

Midland Lee Rebels (Cedric Bensen's high school) vs Odessa Permian Panthers (Roy Williams High school) Think Friday Night Lights and imagine 22,000+ at a regular season high school football game in west Texas. phenomenal atmosphere and incredible game. It really is a religion out there.

I went to a the UGA v. UF game at Jacksonville in 2002 with some friends. Since I had no rooting interest it was fun to see the Florida rednecks (or necks as they are called in JAX) have verbal battles with the preppy Georgia fans. Keep in mind most of the Fans had been there since the Weds. before the game when the RV's were allowed to park at the stadium, so everyone was extremely drunk. I never thought that many overalls had been sold, but apparently they had.

I just realized that, if the list is restricted to college football, I've seen almost nothing.  That would be Ball State vs. EMU at Rynearson many years ago.  With the exception of the players, the atmosphere was depressingly minor-league.  (I mentioned the players specially because if you're good enough to play football at the MAC level, that's still really good.)

Outside college football?

* This game: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/gallery/featured/GAL1163948/22/22... (Kobe vs. Antwan, basically ... statistically significant.)

* In the early '90s I saw Glen Rice (in the Miami Heat years) beat the Stockton/Malone Jazz on a buzzer-beater.

Bedford vs. Ann Arbor Pioneer

I can't remember the exact year or the exact score but we had a great time.  This game occured a week or two after Wisc beat Michigan and there was a stampede that crushed a few students.  Of course I was rooting against OSU.

My friend was going to school at marquette in milluakee (i know its spelled wrong) and he was not planning to go to the game but I like to go to games whenever I can, so when he got in the car to go to dinner, I drove him to Madison.

We got loaded and lost our tickets so we went to the ticket taker with $40 folded up about the size of the ticket and got in the game.  Ticket takers were more fun then.  I got into the michigan vs boston college game in boston this way also but have not had much luck recently with this method.

Anyway we both wore michigan hats and sweat shirts which was even funnier because I am 6' 180 and my buddy was 6'2 240.  He had to wear my clothes it was so f*&n cold.  I had on 2 pairs of long underwear, jeans and sweat pants.  People in the section we sat in hollered "wrong game" at us for a while but then we broke out the jack we brought to the game and everyone was cool.

As you can imagine, we woke up in a strangers living room sleeping on couches.  Then we hopped in the car and drive back to milluakee (i know damit).

St Louis Rams at Cincinnati Bengals....2000, I think...maybe 99......  Was supposed to be a bengals win against some terrible team in st louis that had a qb starting cause the starter just got hurt in preseason.  Yeah, some qb named Kurt Warner was starting who the yr before was playing for the iowa barnstormers in arena league.......

That to this day is the best offense I have ever seen in the nfl games I have went to.  They shredded the bengals defense (hey back then lots of teams did) but they could have scored 70pts with ease if they wanted to.....it was flat out ugly for me as a bengals fan but man stlouis was fun to watch......

Yale-Harvard in 2005 at the Yale Bowl. Harvard won in triple OT. It was intense.

Yale-Harvard games are the only non-Michigan football games I've ever been to. This is what I get for growing up in Connecticut with no big time college football around...if only this was the 1890s...

I went to the 03 Motor City Bowl to watch Northwestern take on Bowling Green.  The matchup didn't sound very interesting but it was something to do with the family the day after Christmas so we went to root for the Big Ten.  We easily got great seats too. 

It was actually an interesting back and forth game with Bowling Green winning 28-24. 

I attended my college's semi final playoff game in 2004 when Linfield (the small college I attended in Oregon) beat Rowan 52 - 0 and the following week we went on to win the DIII National Championship.  During the Rowan game the Linfield QB set the all time NCAA record for most TD passes by a QB in one season.  If memory serves me correctly our QB  threw for 63 TDs that year.

Linfield also holds the record for most consecutive winning seasons at 54.

Aaron Brooks led Virginia to a 21-0 lead in the first half, but Quincy Carter, Champ Bailey, and the Georgia Bulldogs came back to take a 35-27 lead late in the game. Then Brooks breaks off a 30+ yard scramble for a TD. UVA couldn't convert the 2 point attempt but recovered the onside kick and had a shot to win the game with a 50 yard FG that missed wide by maybe two or three feet.

nothing compares to being on the field at The Stadium last year, congratulating hideki matsui the moment the yankees clinched the world series. nothing.

Best non-Michigan football game: last year's Iowa/Penn State game in State College.  I went to Michigan undergrad and Iowa for graduate school (and live in Iowa).  The game itself was okay but was well punctuated by Claiborne's blocked punt/touchdown.

Non-CFB: Game 3 (the clincher, back then) of the Royals/Tigers ALCS -- the crowd chanting afterwards "Bring on the Cubs," who were up 2-0 on the Padres at the time.  Never made it to the World Series but drove downtown from Ann Arbor for the celebration after Game 5 (and didn't turn over any cars).

I'm from East Lansing, so I've been to a few MSU football games.  A good one there was the ND game at home with Charles Rogers with all the late action, I was around 12 years old. The Northwestern game just a few years back where, needing a touchdown in overtime, MSU threw incomplete passes on 4 consecutive downs instead of giving the ball to Javon Ringer was pretty damn hilarious.  

Stanford @ Notre Dame. I can't even tell you how gratifying it was to watch the Irish get spanked into submission.

The pain on the Irish fans faces.... Priceless

Army-Tulane at Michie Stadium in West Point. Army scored on a last second 36-yd passing play to push the game to overtime, then the Tulane Kicker missed a FG to give Army the win.

Incredible game, great atmosphere, perfect fall day. If you ever have a chance to see a game at Michie, take it. It's one of college football's must see events.

Bearcats won 45-44 on a last second TD, after Pitt botched an extra point attempt with 1:30 to go, to complete an undefeated regular season.  It was the first Saturday in December and was snowy and cold in Pittsburgh -- great football weather.

Went to my second game at the Goatshoe (my first was the 2006 THE GAME OF THE CENTURY which was a double dong punch, God bless Bo's heart) at the 2008 OSU-PSU game where PSU basically won the Big Ten right there.. I think PSU was ranked #3 and OSU was ranked #9, but Pryor fumbled the game away right at the end which was nice. Schadenfreudtastic.

1985 NFC Championship game   da Bears v. Rams (I think).  yeah  Ditka, Jim McMahon, Walter Payton, and the "Fridge".

College  -  my old college roommate grew up in South Bend ... so I got to see Penn State (w/  Curt Warner) beat ND (1982 ish) and saw Pitt beat ND too (don't have a clue when that was ... ok - I'm old)

However - nothing is remotely close to a football Saturday in Ann Arbor !!!

Go Blue !

The greatest comback in the history of the NFL. 92-93 Buffalo Bills vs Houston Oilers playoff game.  Bills trailed 35-3 early in the third quarter.  Tons of fans left early, but thankfully my father and uncle were too intoxicated to leave and decided to stick around to sober up only to witness the greatest comback in the history of sports IME with as much on the line that there was.  I've never seen anything like that since then and I don't think I ever will.

Close second Buffalo Sabres against the Ottawa Senators brawl on ice game on february 22nd 2007.  After a cheap hit on Sabres captain Chris Drury early the retaliation included an entire team on ice brawl that included both goaltenders which is something not seen very often in this day and age.  Incredible game that ended in a shootout where the Sabres won 6-5. Incredible!!

But nothing, will ever trump a Michigan game to me.

I think the best non-mich football game I've been to would be either the MSU-ND game this year (free tix as well) or back in 1992 (?) HS regional playoff game of Arthur Hill vs. Grand Ledge. 

I've been to a couple decent Tigers/Pistons/Lions game (MNF vs. Atlanta in late 90s), but nothing really too outstanding.

For me it was last years Purdue - OSU game where Purdue beat then #7 OSU. We rushed the field and it was pretty amazing. Always great to see OSU get beat, but especially when they bring so many fans to West Lafiesta and they act like they own the place with all the red and O-H-I-O chants.

OSU- Washington in Seattle.  Huskies rolled 40-7.  Nice to see the Buckeyes get smoked, by anyone, doesn't matter who. 

2000 Red River Shootout game Oklahoma-Texas at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas. If you haven't heard the details: Game takes place in the middle of the fair grounds during the Texas state fair.  50-50 ticked split.  A few hundred thousand people packed into a few square miles, drunk, and downing fried everything until they burst.  Put it on your to do list for college rivalry games.

Upstart Oklahoma hung 63 on pre-season top 10 Texas on their way to a perfect season and a National Championship.   I ate a corn dog 5 feet from Bob Stoops and his staff post game,  before he became BOB STOOPS.  Oklahoma cancelled class the following Monday for an extra day of celebration.

The National Title was a quantum leap for a team that was around .500 the prior year.   hmmmmm.

First off it was pouring all day and game...my buddy lived at Indian Village right behind the stadium.  Brutal fights busted out between Miami and FSU fans...blood was every where... it was crazy. Never seen anything like it. Miami won the game but lost the tailgate!

The game was awesome as well.  ROSCO PARRISH HIT! BOOM! awesome!

I've been to several Purdue/Notre Dame games that were a pre and post game blast, but none of the games really stand out.

I obviously went to a ton of IU games in the early 1990s, but none of the games were classics or memorable.

But I have seen something awesome. I saw Ohio State lose on the final play of the game in the Horseshoe. So, that's my final answer. The Buks were hosting Iowa in 1987, and the Hawks hit TE Marv Cook in the end zone from 25 yards or so out on the final play.

BOOM HAWKEYE'ED!!!!!

For me its the 2009 Georgia-LSU game in Athens.  That place was rockin'.

cc vs brother rice 2 years ago was insane. br kicker made a 51 yard fg with 1 second left after br erased a 10 point deficit in the final 2 minutes. it was unreal

best hs game iv ever seen

I went to two Grand Valley State University Div. 2 national title games because I knew some guys on the team and had a lot of fun.