Ace

April 22nd, 2011 at 4:50 PM ^

Welcome week tends to do that. After my first at U-M, I thought college was going to be one long combination of drinking, football tailgates, more drinking, and making random friends via drinking, with a little bit of class thrown in.

Wait...

Emily Litella - Never Mind

RONick

April 22nd, 2011 at 12:50 PM ^

This was actually the first game I ever went to at Michigan stadium!  Strange year, too, as Michigan started the season with a B1G opponent.

Sopwith

April 22nd, 2011 at 2:44 PM ^

Dreisbach holds a special place for me because the first Michigan game I ever attended was the season opener in 1995 vs. Virginia-- the 18-17 comeback complete with walk-off TD to Mercury Hayes (I was in the same corner endzone with the catch). 

Awesome memory.  I think I'll go watch it now-- Wolverine Historian probably has it somewhere.

EDIT:  WH has the longer highlights, but here's a grainy clip of just the last play.  Still marvel at Hayes' footwork and the perfect arc by Dreisbach.

 

Bando Calrissian

April 22nd, 2011 at 5:39 PM ^

He was running right at the goal line our seats are even with, and all I remember about that play is thinking "Damn, this is taking forever...  Just get there already!"

I also may or may not have a #12 jersey somewhere signed by Scott Dreisbach.  A jersey I purchased soon after the start of that '95 season, and what seemed like a mere week or so before the freak thumb injury that all but resigned him to injury-riddled obscurity.

st barth

April 22nd, 2011 at 6:07 PM ^

Yeah, but it was his injury-riddled obscurity that seems to make him something of a curiosity to me & some of my classmates.  When seemingly every other M QB went on to at least some success in the NFL (Harbaugh, Brady, Grbac, Griese, etc) Driesbach somehow missed out.  We had this weird little idea that we might find him running a sports bar in the North Campus Commons or something weird like that...because, of course, nobody would be hanging out at a sports bar on North Campus.  It just kind of seemed like the perfect destiny for a nearly forgotten football star who faded into obscurity.  Caught in a kind of odd limbo between trying to move on but still clinging to  shreds of glory while leaving the university with the odd dilemma of figuring out what to do with him.

Hopefully he is doing much better than that.

Wherever you are, Mr. Driesbach, thanks for the memories.  Those were great wins.

Sopwith

April 22nd, 2011 at 6:31 PM ^

But never had "success" per se.  Never saw the field, but personally I think hanging around the NFL for 4 years on various rosters is pretty impressive.  That's a damn small fraternity of dudes.

FWIW, from Wikipedia:

Dreisbach drew interest from professional scouts despite not starting a game during his junior and senior seasons, and was signed as an undrafted free agent. Between 1999 and 2003, Dreisbach spent time on the rosters of three NFL teams, the Oakland Raiders, the Buffalo Bills, and the Detroit Lions, but never saw any regular season action. Dreisbach played in NFL Europe for the Scottish Claymores in 2002 and from 2003 to 2008, he played in the Arena Football League. Dreisbach is currently retired from playing football and works as Vice President of Sales for McCoy Floor Covering in Houston, Texas