What is Your Favorite Michigan Bowl Game?
All of us here have seen some pretty spectacular bowl games that Michigan has played in and either won or come close only to fall by just a few. For me I have seen (in my teen years) the Wolverines play in quite a few Rose Bowls sadly to fall to both USC and Texas in 2005 which in my opinion is one of the greatest Rose Bowl games I've ever seen despite the loss. I was only 8 in 1997 but so my memories of the Rose Bowl game between Michigan and Wash St is still embeded in my brain and always will be. I consider that game to be part of my childhood but for me the greatest bowl win in my memory was the 2000 Orange Bowl vs Alabama. I was only 11 years old at the time but I remembered watching that game with my dad and how close it was at the end. Tom Brady blew us away in that game and seeing Anthony Thomas in his final game was also special. I loved the A Train. My first Michigan jersey was a blue #32. Beating OSU then going on to win against Bama. I went nuts when they missed the PTA as Michigan won in OT. One of the greatest games in Michigan history and my favorite bowl game.
The 2003 Outback Bowl, 2005 Rose Bowl and 2008 Capital One Bowl and of course the 2012 Sugar Bowl are in my top 5.
...especially if you have attended it.
1) For me, the 1/1/98 Rose Bowl has to be the standard.
2) Beating #5 USC in the 1/1/89 Rose Bowl has to be right up there. A great Bo team, lost to the #1 and #2 teams that year by less than 5 points total, and we were ranked #11 going into the game. That team was so close to a national championship season, they certainly had the talent.
3) 1/1/2000 Orange Bowl. That game was unbelievably epic despite the strange ending.
4) 1/1/2008 Capital One Bowl. At the time we desperately needed that win after the way that season started, as a good end to LC's career, and to shut up the SEC homers again.
Hope the beer went down smooth. very hot here in Mich today, perfect for a cold one!
I'll have to go with the 2008 Capital One Bowl. I was only 5 for the 98 Rose Bowl and don't remember it that well. Otherwise, that would be my top choice.
There was a great deal of satisfaction after that Capital One Bowl game. Seeing guys like Henne, Hart, and Long go out like that after the nightmare in the beginning of the season and the poor records against OSU/bowl games was amazing. It seems like nobody gave Michigan any chance of winning that game too. To top it off, Lloyd getting carried off by the team after the game still gets to me today.
This past Sugar Bowl win and also the bowl against Alabama were fantastic games, but that game against Florida brought a comforting closure to the Lloyd and Hart/Henne/Long eras.
2013 Rose Bowl
2008 vs Florida. That was easily the most excited I've been during a game.
2012 vs VT This probably should be No. 1 because it was a BCS game and we won in OT and I was there. PLUS I met Lloyd Brady! ( for the second time FYI)
Most gut wrenching losses were
2004 USC. I was a young boy who already knew that white QB aren't supposed to catch touchdown passes like that.
Also 2011 Mississippi game was just flat out embarrassing.
1986 Fiesta: Michigan defeats Nebraska and finishes #2. Great end to the season in my freshman year.
1989 Rose: Michigan defeats USC capping one of Bo's best years. Spectacular end to the season in my senior year.
2012 Sugar: First bowl game I ever attended in person. Sat in front row in the corner of the end zone with my son who attends Virginia Tech. We had a great time in spite of the difference in allegiances.
The 1981 Rose Bowl was great because Bo finally one there. The celebration, and the relief, were incredible. It also was during my sophomore year at UM, so it was a big deal to me.
The 2000 bowl win over Alabama was my favorite, because I was friends with an Alabama woman who insisted that there'd be a 'Bama walkover, a rout, a drubbing, by the superior SEC team against the poor slow Michigan team from the sad-sack B1G.
I guess our players hadn't read the manual! It felt delicious when Michigan won.
For me it's:
'08 Capital One Bowl - Nobody gave us a shot that year, and having our offense click and just explode was awesome, as was watching Tebow get pounded almost every play
'12 Sugar Bowl - My first ever Bowl Trip, everything was just perfect, from the trip (some quality time with my Dad), to the game end
'98 Rose Bowl - I don't remember much of it (I was 6), but I remember Woodson's pick
Worst ones?
'06 Alamo Bowl - PITCH IT TO BREASTON!!!
'05 Rose Bowl - Yeah it was a great game....but that was a gut-punch ending
'07 Rose Bowl - Getting curb-stomped by USC for the umpteenth time
1976 Orange Bowl against one of the great Oklahoma teams, lead by the Selmon brothers (Leroy and Dewey). This was the first non-Rose Bowl postseason game for the wolves, as well as Ricky Leach's freshman year. What a defensive struggle, but we lost in the fourth quarter. I was quite proud of just how hard we tried, and how evenly matched the two teams were when it came to hitting.
That game was the last time the team wore the all white jerseys until...last year's MSU game, sort of.
Not a favorite in the sense of 98 Rose or others most folks mention, but really memorable (I was 15). It was such a relief – and a novelty – to get to a bowl game besides the Rose. An inspired fourth-quarter comeback had come up short against a great Ohio team (Archie Griffin's second Heisman, I believe) in a game I attended. Better Michigan teams had been shut out of any bowl in 70, 72, 73 & 74. Against the Sooners it was such a hard-fought physical game.
That was the one time that, going into the game, I thought we had essentially no chance to win. Instead, Henne had the game of his life and the defense did just enough to slow Tebow down.
Runner-up would be the first time we beat Florida, the 02-03 Outback bowl, because I was there. For once, we didn't get Zooked.
1993 Rose against Washington: (I was at my grandma's house in Tecumseh, playing with my Christmas toys as Ty Wheatley ran over that D. Good memories of my childhood with the family. Wish I could go back to those days).
1998 Rose against Washington State: Thought Leaf was going to get one more play in before time expired.
2008 Cap One Bowl against the Gators: Being a Floridian now, I hate the Gators and did it feel good beating their asses. Wish we could have the three years back following that game but it was nice beating Urban Meyer.
I have many favorites, but any M win is a great game:
-1998 Rose Bowl, I was there sitting 5 rows up in the end zone, about twenty feet from where Woodson picked off that pass, game changer for sure!
-1981 Rose, Bo finally wins one and that team was the best team in the country at the end of the year, if there was a playoff, we woulda won w/the defense we had and AC, Wangler, Woolfolk, et al., probably one of the 2-3 best O-Lines we ever had.
-1993 Rose, Wheatley and exciting game to boot.
-1986 Fiesta, great team, like the 1980 team, probably the best team in the land at the end of the year.
-A plug for the 1994 Holiday Bowl, we won and I was there, good enough for me!
-2012 was good from a win standpoint, but it was a really tough game to watch, not entertaining except for the brunette part.
One's I hated:
-1992 Rose, me and my brother had tickets to the game but my dad died 2 days before the game, very depressing game to add to my misery that year.
-1979 Rose was a bunch of BS, wish they had replay back then.
-1979 Gator Bowl, Wangler getting hurt screwed us in that game that year, LT led that UNC team.
-1987 Rose, Harbaugh and crew had a 15-3 lead in that game and then we stopped playing for some damn reason.
...of experiences here. I am continually impressed at the diversity of ages and memory of Michigan football in the readership here. I suppose if you have over 100 years of something that lots of people care about, it shouldn't be that surprising.
Whenever talk of bowl games comes up, I am sometimes reminded of how much Bo struggled in the postseason. And then that reminds me of Bo, and possibly my favorite Bo obit written by Joe LaPointe, then of the New York Times. While he wasn't quoting him directly, Joe imagined Bo might say something like this:
If you grow up in the Midwest, you know that New Year’s Day is cold and the sun sets early and it’s dark and there might be snow on the ground and the wind is rattling the windows. And you sit in your house and turn on the television in the late afternoon and there it is, the Rose Bowl, in color, the warm sunshine, the green grass, the blue sky, the trees and the mountains around the field. And you think, “Darn it, that’s where I want to be!”
It's a pretty good read.
2012 sugar bowl forsure
2012 Sugar Bowl. My first year of undergrad was RichRod's first year. I felt I deserved it.
1989 Rose - Sophomore year and Bo's last Rose Bowl win
1998 Rose - National Champs - WSU can have those 2 seconds back if the ref throws his flag for offensive PI when the receiver shoves Woodson in the back to prevent the INT and make the catch at midfield
1991 Gator - Senior year domination of Ole Miss and MVP for the offensive line
1994 Hall of Fame - Wheatley runs wild again as UM pounds NC State
2005 Rose - Even though we lost, this was the best game from start to finish that I have ever witnessed with some of the greatest individual efforts - Breaston's returns, Braylon's TD catches and Vince Young running all over the place
On TV
1981 Rose
1986 Fiesta
1988 Hall of Fame
1993 Rose
2008 Capital One
2012 Sugar
Least favorites In Person
1992 Rose - Washington dominated us - at least Wheatley provided us with a glimpse of his greatness in the 4th quarter
2011 Gator
the 1986 Fiesta Bowl. Beating a Nebraska team, which at that time was still one of the premier programs in college football was special. Michigan struggled in the first half, but came out big after half time. The special teams play, including a blocked kick by the late Vada Murray is something to be remembered.
But only two really matter
1) 1998 - we won it all and Chuckie was the man the entire year
2) 1986 - we beat a damn good Nebraska team and we ended up #2 but we were the #1 team in the land
I personally hated the 1973 Rose Bowl where Jim Plunkett beat us...I think that bowl screwed Bo up in all bowl games....
The 1992 season (the 9-0-3 seaaon) Rose Bowl against Washington gets overlooked a little bit, but it was an amazing game.
What was amazing about it was that Michigan won a big Bowl game in a total shootout. That was something Michigan just didn't do up until then. We would try to keep games close in 10-7 defensive struggles, and if we got into a high scoring game and got 10 points behind, it was all over.
Washington (the co-National Champion the year before) would punch us in the mouth . . . and we would punch right back. We matched them score for score, big play for big play, until we pulled away at the end. That was something I never saw Michigan do in a Bowl before then.
thats a really good one too! I loved Gary Moeller and wish he was coach forever....he showed why that game
81 Rosebowl, Bo's first win, air wolverine with Wrangler.
76 Oragne Bowl, great hard hitting game, I was 13 way back then! Excited th big10 let us start going to other bowl games.
86 Fiesta.
89 Rose, Bo's last bowl.
98 Rose Bowl, wish they would have whipped WSU by 30 points so the coaches didn't have to pick Tom Osbornes NE team.
But I like all the games.
My worse was the 05 loss to NE. Seem like the team gave up.
The 1989 Rose Bowl was the last one Bo won. The 1990 Rose Bowl (which I attended) was Bo's last game, period. Unfortunately, it was a loss to UNC.
My favorite is Bo's 1st bowl win - 1981 Rose Bowl. I still remember the poem Ufer said on the radio (I think I'm close):
12 long years of waiting,
12 long years of pain,
they came, they saw, they conquered,
Bo's won the year's last game.
The Rose Bowl Game of '81
and fans will long remember,
will leave a tast so sweet
right through til next September.
Go Blue!
...favorite Michigan bowls, eh? Hmmm.... Probably the little-known Burnips Bowl.
#1 - 1997 Rose Bowl (obviously)
#2 - 1988 Rose Bowl (Bo beats SC)
#3 - 2008 Capital One (Lloyd's last win)
I'm going with the missed XP FTW. That game is probably tied with the 2004 3OT thriller against MSU as the two most exciting games I've witnessed. Totally cried like a little girl after they beat 'bama.
Bet $500 on the game, gave huge points and covered by halftime....good times!