Your First Game at Michigan Stadium

1978 opener against Illinois.  Typical Bo crush-job of a vastly inferior opponent.  I believe it was a shutout, in fact.  I was in such total awe of the whole experience.  My roommate from Burlsey dorm kept talking about how it looked like the stadium was filled with hair balls.  Don't know why I remember that.

I have to say that my best game experience, however, was last year, when I took my boys (13 and 11) to the Big House for their first game, vs. Ohio.  One day they will answer a question like this talking about how awesome that was!

It was an insane downpour and was memorable for that reason alone. The steps were like a waterfall, but everyone had fun, chanted F BC, and tossed marshmellows. It was pretty cool, in retrospect!

It was bitterly cold and then the snow came.  We ended up fumbling something like 10 times and instead of destroying Illinois (which we probably would have done on a dry field), we ended up kicking a long field goal for the tie, 22-22 . . . which clinched the Rose Bowl.  Weird day.  Awesome experience though.

 

Woodson led UM to an upset over Colorado in the Big House.

That cemented my decision to pick Michigan as my undergraduate institution. No 3 baseball cap presentation was necessary on my signing day. Woodson chose for me.

2005 vs NIU

I was new to Michigan and I remember scalping tickets with my dad and sitting in the south end zone, completely in awe of the place.  I don't remember much about the game except a drunk fan repeatedly yelling "Viva Las Vegas!" for Elvis Grbac who had since been drafted.  Good times.

My dad took me when I was 6 years old to the Michigan - Virginia Pigskin Classic in 1995. 

Scott Dreisbach to Mercury Hayes! Hard to beat that.

Little did I know that it would be the beginning of a lifelong love affair.

Day I was accepted was the day of THE GAME, 2006. First game as a student was The Horror. : (

In September 1984, first game my freshman year.  I'd been a Notre Dame fan (due to both parents, 2 of 2 aunts, and 1 of 1 uncles, and 5 of 5 cousins) previously forever, and officially switched allegances in the March 1984 NIT championship game, which conveniently featured UM and ND.  And which UM conveniently won by 20, confirming I'd made the right call.

So my first game at Michigan Stadium was against defending national champions Miami and Bernie Kosar.  And led by our sophomore starting QB Jim Harbaugh, the good guys won 24-12.  Or something like that.  It was Kosar's worst college performance, he threw 6 picks.

(So much for omens.  And we proceeded to lose to Washington the following week, have Harbaugh break his arm,  go 6-5 that season, and lose the "national championship game" to Robbie Bosco and undefeated BYU by a late touchdown.  But the basketball team that year reeled off 14 Big10 wins in a row, or something like that, and wound up winning the conference and being ranked #1, IIRC... before crashing to Villanova in the 2d round.)

When I was 12, my dad remarried in 1994 to a woman from the state of Michigan.  My new stepmom as well as her entire family are all Michigan alums.  The weekend they married was the 1994 Colorado game, and that game ended right before we had the rehearsal dinner.  I was the only person in the room not rooting for Michigan that day, because my mom was a Colorado alum and I grew up a Buffs fan, so of course when that game ends I'm going nuts and rubbing it in to all of my new relatives faces and totally being a jerk about it (hey I was 12).  That was the first Michigan game I ever saw on TV.

So the following season my family decides they are going to start indoctrinating me in all things Michigan, and they bring me up to Ann Arbor for the Minnesota game, which Michigan annihilated MN 52-17.  That was the first of many games I went to, and it had a huge influence on me, resulting in my attending Michigan as a student.  My first student game was 2000 vs Bowling Green.

I was 10 for the game vs Randel El and Indiana in 1998 and got to sit in the 3rd row in the endzone.  A family friend took me because I would talk to him about each game of the 1997 season at church Sunday mornings.  He bought me 3 shirts for $15 at the mden and I treasured them!

I was a young impressionable 6 year old boy who didn't understand anything but hockey. My dad said we come here and root for Michigan because that's who we are.
A punt was kicked and a player ran in back into the end zone in which I was sitting. He did this wierd pose that I had to ask my dad about. He said that's Desmond Howard and that pose is called the heisman.
Been hooked ever since, don't regret a second.

 

Tony Boles had a 91-yard TD run in a 38-10 M win. I attended with my Dad and my Uncle, who was a law school grad of IU. We took a bus from Grand Rapids with the IU Alumni Association. My Dad and I were the only ones in Maize & Blue. I was 14 at the time.

My son's first game was 2005 Minnesota (loss).

My daughter's first game was The Horror.

 

2003 vs Houston. I remember coming back to my brother's house to find him asleep on the couch (he worked nights at the time). He woke up for a moment and asked, "What was the score?" I said, "50 to 3." He replied, "Shit. Should have bet on it after all." he went right back to sleep. What makes it funny was the fact that he doesn't remember this at all. Didn't even remember we were at his house. Can't wait to come back for UM/MSU this year.

According to the Bentley, it was September 14, 1974 - a 24-7 win over Iowa.  Don't recall a single play or anything else about that day - I was 10 months old.  First actual memories are Leach-era.

Michigan Vanderbilt '06. It was kind of boring (as MANBALL should be). I remember being astounded by how big the big house was since that was my first time ever really paying attention to Michigan football

My first game at The Big House was also my first game ever as a student: vs. Bowling Green. A nice little blowout.

Season opener of my freshman year.  Read up on Wiki, since I'd forgotten bits and pieces...remembered the second game of the season against UCLA and losing.  Beating Purdue later in the season to earn our Rose Bowl berth a week before losing to OSU (as they were also called then).  Running down to the brick wall after the Purdue game so we could charge the field and tear down the goalposts.

That was one of the seasons where there were unbalanced Big schedules, so U-M finished 7-1 in conf, OSU 6-1, so we had the better winning percentage.  Howls from Columbus.  Oh well.

Then went out to the Rose Bowl and got thrashed by UCLA

the western michigan game last year. rained out, but it was still fun. 

Aside from several in the womb, I am almost certain it was UCLA in 1990 as a preschooler.

1960 vs Illinois.  Bump Elliott faced his brother Pete, who was in his first year as the Illinois head coach.  Though I was only eight, I can remember that his return to Ann Arbor to face the Wolverines was a big story at the time.  

Michigan scored first and went for two.  Illinois went for one when they scored, apparently thinking they would score again.  Luckily, they didn't. Michigan won 8-7.

The attendance was 63,665: imagine that happening nowadays.  Before Don Canham became aggressive in marketing the maize and blue, the only games that sold out were MSU and OSU. Definitely a different era.

 

Last year was my first game. Second year of college at the age of 20. It was the absolute best experience of my life, and it made me wish that much more that I had the money to attend such a great university. I went to the San Diego game last year and had a blast.

I will be returning this season for the Iowa game, to watch Denards last home game. I will also be bringing both of my parents for their very first game in Michigan stadium as well.

Against Wisconsin, the game where RoJo set the all-time, single-game rushing record of 347 yards*.

It was brutally cold, with sleet most of the day. I will concede that part of Johnson's performance was due to him trying to stay warm.

*Note to young Mr. Rawls: I would dearly love to see this record fall sometime soon.