What is your most disappointing Michigan Bowl Loss or losses
CLEARLY this is nothing I would rather do that think of bad memories.
where I genuinely believed the refs repeatedly lost the game for Michigan. Not just here or there, but all over that game with the pass interference calls and such.
Still, LATERAL THE BALL TO BREASTON ARRRRRRRRRRGH. The one time the refs kept the hankies in the pockets (at least to call it on Michigan, Nebraska was flagged for too many on the field ala Stanford).
Even if we had managed to score on that play, it would have been called back because half of our team had wandered onto the field by the time that play was dead.
half of Nebraska's team was also on the field so it would have stood as a touchdown
Even so, there would have been offsetting penalties and a do-over. Any way you slice it, the play would not have stood.
Michigan has never played Nebraska in the Outback Bowl. I believe you mean the 2005 Alamo Bowl.
That one still hurts so bad.
EDIT: Didn't see the bowl/title game caveat.
Mississippi State, then.
Though App St. was still the worst loss I've sat through.
Being from Mississippi and an Ole Miss student but raised a Michigan fan because of my dad, watching MSU mop up Mich hurt me in so many ways.
2004 Rose Bowl - thought we could show how good we were against a very good team. Didn't plan for it very well IMO
2005 Rose Bowl - Vince Young. Sigh.
2007 Rose Bowl - Thought we could show just how good we were that season, but just awful game, mostly the second half.
Before my time, but:
1972 Rose Bowl - Had the lead, but gave up 10 points in the 4th quarter, including a FG with 12 seconds left. Could have gotten a share of the national title
1977 Rose Bowl - USC, again.
1978 Rose Bowl - Washington hadn't been to a bowl game since 1964 and although they had Warren Moon, they were 7-4 coming into the game while we had only lost one. If we had won, possible title share. Notre Dame jumped from #5 to #1 after the bowls despite Bama being ranked ahead of them and destroying OSU. We probably would have won the title had we just won that game.
1979 Rose Bowl - phantom touchdown, possibly cost us a share of a title.
So close quite a few years.
You have definitely captured my lifetime of Michigan pain.
Going into the bowl games, Nebraska was 12-0 and ranked #1, and played #2 and 11-0 Alabama in the Orange Bowl. We were 11-0 and ranked #3 and played #10 Stanford in the Rose Bowl. Nebraska pounded the snot out of Bama 38-6, while we managed all of 10 points against Stanford. Even if Rod Garcia misses that last-second field goal for Stanford, there is no way the major poll voters would have given us a share of the title over Nebraska.
There were still like 7 different polls out back then, so I imagine we would have gotten at least one. And thus a claim to a national title. We were voted #1 in two polls in the 73 season IIRC. Yes, Nebraska would have definitely won the AP and Coaches poll. But I don't really view human polls as valid, especially in an era where not every game was televised and nobody could have possibly watched every game.
There only polls that anybody gave a damn about were the AP and UPI polls. The schools that are claiming national championships (like MSU in '55 and '57) because some minor dipshit pollster that nobody's ever heard about selected them are being kind of ridiculous.
I'm pretty cynical about college football national championships. If you finished the season with the same record as the top team and played a fairly similar schedule in terms of difficulty, you're a national champion in my mind. Polls are pretty idiotic IMO, though I think they're a better system than the BCS from 1998-2013. Just because a poll is obscure, doesn't mean it has any more or less merit in my mind unless they use a more ridiculous system than human opinion. I don't care what the majority gave a damn about. 1971-72 Michigan team wins that bowl game, they're a national champ damn it.
And who is to say that Michigan wouldn't have topped one of the polls? Who saw ND jumping Bama in the polls in 78 after Bama shellacked OSU? Shit happens with human beings making decisions.
Not to mention the fact that in those days, the final coaches' poll vote was taken before the bowl games.
first posession, we move across mid field, punt. but John Anderson dropped to one knee to take a low snap and we gave Washington the ball at like, our 38
last posession, chance for great comeback win, Leach rolls and flips a pass to Stan Edwards...a clean catch and run and he scores, but he juggles the ball and drops it onto the chest of a flat on the ground linebacker, who gets credit for a game saving interception.
ugh. feeling sick again.
There are actually some select regular season losses through the years which I would consider more painful, first and foremost, such as 1994 vs. Colorado. Stewart's catch was particularly painful coming off such a dramatic win against ND the week before.
I may have to go with a couple others here and say the 2002 Ctrus Bowl stands out statistically if you ask this question, at least among the bowls in my adult life. I think Casey Clausen put up about 400 yards of passing offense on us, and the 21 unanswered points by Tennessee to start the second half were pretty deflating.
There were some bright spots in that game, as I recall. Larry Foote and Victor Hobson did some good work on defense at points - Hobson made some great stops. I believe Navarre threw for over 200 yards and 2 TDs as well, but there were four sacks too, which certainly didn't help matters.
I would have to throw the 2005 Rose Bowl in the mix too probably, no thanks to Vince Young and, in the end, Dusty Magnum's leg.
The 2005 loss to Texas made for a long flight home as well...
I was at that game at the 1990 Rose Bowl against USC which was the worst loss.
Sitting through the Tennessee Outback Bowl was the least fun football game I've ever been to.
I was there and it was the worst bowl loss that I witnessed. Bo's last game. He should have gone out a winner. Plus I had $100 bet on that game.
1972 loss to Stanford, 13-12, was pretty terrible. I took losses a lot harder then.
1990 Rose Bowl gets my vote too because it was Bo's last game. 1983 Rose Bowl gets my second place vote because I was there. 1984 Sugar Bowl in third because we lost on late field goal and didn't give up a touchdown.
I hate every loss.
L's vs. Ohio and S. Carolina
L vs. Louisville
All of those games listed above hurt... as did the infamous Webber time-out. That one left me stunned for days.
For a long time, Michigan just didn't lose games by more than about 10 or 14 at the absolute most. U-M got absolutely trucked in that game, including a TE (Jason Witten) outrunning the entire secondary. We had to deal with the "SEC speed" bullshit from SEC fans for months as a result of that play. Coupled with the 34-9 Iowa game the next year (worst home loss in 30 years), it made a lot of fans wonder what the hell was going on. Fire Lloyd, etc. Before App State and the RR years, those were earth-shattering losses.
Sorry autocorrect
It was awful to watch, but ironically given the relative roster strengths (2001 was Lloyd's least talented team and only 2008 has had less talent since, while Tennessee would begin a decline they have yet to recover from the next season) it is actually one of Lloyd's more forgivable losses.
Contrast with the 2007 Rose Bowl, where Michigan was loaded and lost in startlingly similar fashion.
Tennessee was very much in the national championship picture that year until the last week of the regular season, when they lost the SEC Championship Game to LSU. Michigan, on the other hand, had already lost 3 times, so that game was a mismatch.
I was wondering if anyone else was going to list that one. There were worse beat-downs (Tennessess, Miss St), more embarrassing ones (App State, Toledo) and bigger hose jobs (79 Rose Bowl, Alamo Bowl vs Nebraska) but nothing as gut wrenching to me than watching that game live.
(Cool story bro alert)
That was my senior year and I ended up leaving for Peace Corps right after that, having avoided ever watching a replay. 2+ years later, I had, living in the jungle with people who had never heard of college football, succeeded in blocking that out in my mind. I was on the flight home and of course the first thing on the inflight entertainment is an ABC sports promo of the UM-CO AA rematch with of course a replay of that play.
God I loved watching CU get stomped by UM that year.
As a side note, I coaching at the AZ state track meet, watching shot put as one of our throwers was competing against Westrbrook's daughter. Then I look to my side - and there is Michael Westbrook - took everything in my person not to saying something classless like Sparty would.
I still watch the replays hoping one day he drops the ball.
I was at that game as a 14 year old. I remember that everyone in our section went wild when time expired, and it took us a while to realize that Colorado scored on that play and that there were no flags (no video boards in the stadium in those days). Never felt worse after a Michigan loss.