If you could change the result of one game
Which would it be and why?
Mine: we win The Game in 2006. Would be Big Ten Champions and at the very least the BCS title game runner-up if not win it.
Lloyd retires after the season as opposed to a year later.
honorable mention: 1996 OSU. The season was a failure being 8-4 anyways and we did sort of better the next year. I would trade this win if it meant OSU never fired John Cooper or at least didn't fire him after 2000.
The Game 2006 or 2016, you pick. That's the thread right there.
2016 stings the most for me currently so I'll go with that. If we win we have a Harbaugh win over OSU in Columbus and a Big Ten Championship appearance, and sky is the limit from there.
Then again, 2006 would have been a better chance for a title and we would've won it for Bo.
These are hard top two games to choose from.
I should know. I was there.
bc Nick Sheridan winning in Columbus would have been hilarious
where we stop OSU on 4th and 1. If we would have beaten OSU we would have won the B1G east, since we beat PSU head to head and we would have beaten WI again in the B1G championship game. Just getting into the playoffs would have made for a lot more excitement for our team nationally. Harbaugh would be a couple years ahead of transforming our program back to a perennial top 10 team in the country.
Interestingly, I actually agree with you here. There are several games that I could name - 2006 OSU, 2016 OSU, etc.... - where if the end result were different, my day, and much of the next month, would have been happier. That said, I don't know if I would necessarily be the fan I am today - rather, that I would appreciate the good times as much - if I didn't have such disappointments in my life.
Plus, that was the game where Devin had broken a bone in his foot, so I wonder if the play call wasn't limited by what he could physically do.
But damn, that was one gutsy final drive. If life was fair, he'd have shoehorned that last pass in for two points and gone out a hero.
But as that game proved, life ain't fair.
Non Michigan football related. Cubs bartman 2003 game 6. This was not bartmans fault at all, but it is the bartman game. Complete implosion after that, error on a routine groundball and then getting waxed in game 7. I don’t think I spoke for a week
The trajectory of the rivalry is different as Harbaugh would’ve proved he could beat Meyer. The respect from OSU fans would finally be there, as currently all that’s there right now is pity. That game was a golden chance to elevate the status of the program nationally, and they just couldn’t finish it off.
This is obviously the correct answer.
If I had this kind of power, I would change my first wife.
It was a day after Bo died- I felt like we just had to win that one, then we didn't. And we WOULD have beaten Florida.
"And we WOULD have beaten Florida."
Wow. I think it's much more likely that Florida would've beaten us as badly as they beat OSU.
As usual, I can't believe the amount of tears that are shed for the 2006 team. It had significant holes on defense and a slightly better-than-average offensive line. No way was it on a national-championship level.
and Florida specifically. We beat Florida who had many of the same players the following year. Chad Henne wouldn't have put on 25 pounds of fat between The Game and playing Florida like Troy Smith did.
2016 OSU is a popular pick because we should have won that game, but I think 2015 OSU would have been more impactful. We got blown out and it was demoralizing. Had Harbaugh unleashed the Kracken as I thought he was going to and beat OSU, we would have had momentum and would have won 2016 and 2017. As it was, OSU has a perceived invincibility only backed up by their cheating two years ago and whatever you call last year.
Yes, I prefer NWO slavery as well.
2016 with fair refereeing.
2006 if the helmet to helmet on Crable (which was an arguably fair call) didn't get called, or he didn't perperate it. Ironically the very same play happened in the USC/UCLA game the next week and didn't get called.
I'd rather see what the team could have done under those variables, than just say "oh, the team won the game". But those variables changed, would make the game more competitive in our favor.
In 2016, I don't think there's much chance we lose if they call the rape of Darboh when we're driving over midfield in the first quarter, the offsides on Hurst after the 2nd INT (making it 1st and 15, instead of 1st and 5) That was an atrocious backwards call by the refs that would have likely led OSU to a FG attempt instead of an easy TD. But the most important horrible call of that game was the late PI on Delano Hill against Curtis Samuel, when OSU was 3rd and long and backed up in their end with like 4 minutes left. That call was absolute garbage and a response to the booing in the crowd. It was perfect defense, and if the ball had been horrible overthrown it would have been easier to see Hill's timing was good. Not even going to mention how we didn't get the same call in OT.
Football: 2006 OSU is an obvious choice. Carr owned Florida and the reason the OSU/Florida game was a blowout would have been neutralized by Jake Long. 2016 is the other obvious one. One I haven't seen mentioned is the '99 MSU game (or Illinois the same year). If we win either of those games, which we easily could have, we've got a good shot at the title game (we were fifth to end the regular season) against a fairly weak champion. I think to this day that in a four team playoff we win that year.
Basketball is the Louisville game.
Hockey is either the '97 Frozen Four because Red's best team or the Minnesota-Duluth title game.
If we would've won that game, we split the national title with Miami.
USA losing to Germany in the 2002 World Cup.
Did I do this right?