Was the spring game cancellation unnecessary?

Submitted by Broken Brilliance on
The weather channel app on my phone says no rain in Ann Arbor until 11 tonight. I haven't stepped outside since this morning when it was pouring here in western Wayne County. What is your amateur weather report? I guess we all have alcohol and Seinfeld reruns to occupy us this evening but I wouldn't mind football because nothing beats football.

Enjoy the submarine until August!

UPMichigan

April 14th, 2018 at 3:42 PM ^

I drove from Ann Arbor back to the UP starting at 10am this morning. Cars are doing 45-50 mph on the interstate. I’m only to Gaylord if that tells you anything.

SkyPanther

April 14th, 2018 at 4:34 PM ^

When my high school team played West Iron County (Iron River, Michigan) one year, there was no snow on the ground during warm ups. It started snowing at the beginning of the game. By half time there was 8 inches on the ground. By the end of the game there was well over a foot. Never a thought of not playing. The snow seemed to help WIC. They won 16-6. Knocked us out of ranking.

 

I think it was the potential for lightening today that canceled the game.

corundum

April 14th, 2018 at 5:22 PM ^

Your story is embellished. Snowfall rates of 2" per hour are extremely rare and confined to convective sysytems that reach freezing levels at 850mb or convective thundersnow via unstable lake effect processes. Deformation banding can produce rates close to 2" per hour. Snowfall rates of 4" per hour have never been recorded in human history, so your story is bs unless your game lasted 6+ hours.

corundum

April 14th, 2018 at 8:00 PM ^

Yes, those two events are due to extraordinary rare circumstances including extreme lafe effect convection and an atmospheric river, neither of which are geographically possible in SE Michigan.

ST3

April 14th, 2018 at 3:55 PM ^

I spent the morning watching Swamp People on the History Channel. A colleague was just giving away his Swamp People Troy Bobblehead for free so I grabbed it for my collection. I felt obligated to watch a couple episodes. It's very strange how they edit the show. I don't understand why they can't show the Swamp People blowing the heads off of gators with shotguns. They show a clearly staged shot and a clearly dead gator, but they never show the actual scene.

samdrussBLUE

April 14th, 2018 at 4:06 PM ^

I ran 4 miles this morning in Ann Arbor in the rain. Afternoon has been pretty tolerable here.

Gatekeeper

April 14th, 2018 at 4:21 PM ^

in worse weather. A few years back, it was 35 with 50 mph winds and sideways freezing rain

 

but it's OK. They were just going to practice anyway. They don't make the necessary plans to make the event what it could be.

LabattsBleu

April 14th, 2018 at 4:32 PM ^

can't blame them for cancelling based on the forecasts.

however, they could have rescheduled if they had wanted too, but chose not to.

i think it was a missed opportunity for Michigan, especially to get recruits excited about the program.

however, at the end of the day, the biggest recruiting tool is winning games...not spring practice games

rob f

April 14th, 2018 at 5:19 PM ^

would have meant waiting until after exams, which I believe I read are held starting in the coming week.

It's because U of M believes in "playing school" that we're locked in to holding any kind of spring game/scrimmage by mid April, weather be damned.

RoseInBlue

April 14th, 2018 at 4:29 PM ^

Honestly, I think Harbaugh was perfectly fine to take any excuse to cancel the spring game.  I mean, they haven't quite gone back into the submarine from his 1st year but there's certainly less coming out of spring practice this year than last year.  We're not even getting fun snapchat videos of awesome spring plays being made in scrimmages this year.  *sigh*  It's going to be a long offseason.

Fezzik

April 14th, 2018 at 4:46 PM ^

I agree with you. Canceling and immediately following that with it will not be made up in any way I think shows a bit of Harbaugh's feelings towards the spring game this year. Maybe coach doesn't want notre dame to see what we're replacing the pep spread offense with?

Fezzik

April 14th, 2018 at 4:36 PM ^

Nothing would of stopped me from being there. The weather sucks nearly every year for the spring game. I wish they'd at least have and televise a mini scrimmage. We have a full sized indoor practice field don't we?

jmblue

April 14th, 2018 at 5:46 PM ^

Cancelling a football game is not a decision you can make at the spur of the moment - it has to be announced a few days in advance.  The weather isn't fantastic at the moment anyway.  It was raining earlier, and the temperature's been dropping.

 

rob f

April 14th, 2018 at 5:28 PM ^

scheduled for today has been postponed.

And with them proving to be our consistently toughest team, pound-for-pound, and not playing today, why should we expect to see a football practice, no not a game but a practice...

Don

April 14th, 2018 at 5:43 PM ^

is going to decline to commit here simply because we're not having a spring game. C'mon people.

Right now it's 35 degrees, overcast, and anywhere in the stadium is going to be wet with standing water in places, and will only get darker and colder. Those are pretty miserable conditions to watch a glorified scrimmage.

Considering the large crowds at spring games at southern schools, from an optics standpoint it's better for us not to have one that's sparsely attended in shitty conditions.

goblue16

April 14th, 2018 at 6:54 PM ^

Not beating your rivals, not making the playoff, countless talented players coming and going without winning a damn thing but ya canceling the spring game is what’s hurting Michigan football. We have so much work to do. Wasting time on a silly scrimmage is pointless. WIN ALL THE GAMES!!

goblue16

April 14th, 2018 at 6:56 PM ^

How many people would have showed up in this weather anyways? Couple thousand it’s really depressing outside

LSAClassOf2000

April 14th, 2018 at 7:52 PM ^

The lack of rain aside for the moment, the falling temperatures and the persistent wind definitely would have kept some folks away all the same, and probably have altered the plans to some degree even if it were still happening. It would have been nice to see the team, but I applaud them for thinking of everyone's convenience and safety. In any case, the way the forecast looks right now, some folks may have had the damnedest time getting home either late tonight or tomorrow. 

mfan92

April 14th, 2018 at 8:34 PM ^

Harbaugh doesn't want the country to see Patterson running our new offense. Two things he can keep away from everyone else. We all know how secretive he likes to be

blueday

April 14th, 2018 at 8:37 PM ^

We cant even  get "FANS" that post here as "fans" to even go to games,  They sell their tickets for chump change to osu  ...   If you know someone that sells their ticket, they are not Michigan. They are fakes. 

charblue.

April 14th, 2018 at 9:28 PM ^

in front of 55,000 in Death Valley, showcasing the No. 1 qb recruit in the country. I guess there's a bit of optimism there. Duke, meantime, played its spring game before a nearly empty stadium in Durham. Just the difference between two ACC schools with night and day programs in football and basketball.

rob f

April 15th, 2018 at 7:31 AM ^

since about 10:15 last night, so in hindsight yeah, it makes total sense to me that they cancelled.

Got an email from the power cord that estimated restoration time is by 8 am, keeping my fingers crossed...

Mike420GoBlue

April 15th, 2018 at 12:16 PM ^

In this day and age if it were Bo, he’d be loving that he didn’t have to show anything. I think this team feels it’s up against a wall, and I personally wouldn’t want to put a Wolverine up against a wall. We’ll show everyone at N.D.