The Teams: 1999
1 hour and 59 minutes
Michigan historian Dr. Sap and I have started a new podcast on the lore of Michigan football. The plan is to bounce around doing one season per episode, talking about the players, the games, that year's place in the pantheon of Michigan teams, and usually having one segment with a guest.
The Sponsor:
It is sponsored by HomeSure Lending. If you're buying or refinancing your home, this is the guy to talk to. He'll work on your loan directly and walk you through a process that can get really confusing really fast. He did my loan, Brian's loan, and a lot of MGoBlog readers' loans.
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1. The Setup: Brady or Henson
starts at the beginning
Now two years removed from a championship team and in Year 2 of the most touted freshman class in school history, do they go with the stud sophomore with all the talent in the world or the backup from '97 with the intangibles? A review of the college football landscape. Also the K-Mart incident from inside.
2. The Season
starts at 0:23:09
We go through the games and the great moments, like Troy Nunes running around without an escape, David Terrell at cornerback, stuffing Ron Dayne, the comeback at Penn State, and of course beating Ohio State and Alabama to end the season.
3. Interview with WLB Ian Gold
starts at 1:04:24
How he found out he's playing defense. The speed of the linebacking corps. The Orange Bowl. Toughest opponent they faced? Who knew Tom Brady was going to be the GOAT? Jim Herrmann deployed a 3-3-5 to beat Drew Brees and Purdue. Penn State and the "best linebackers in the history of college football" and how the chopped liver felt about being the underdogs. Similarities between Don Brown's defense and the one Ian played in. Gold talks about celebrity culture around modern players and how that distracts players from how good they could be.
4. Wrap
starts at 1:35:08
Offensive and defensive MVPs: Seth talks about the design of the defense and how they used Dhani Jones to solve their option problem. Greatest moment: The Brady comeback, Alabama missing the extra point, or time running out on Ohio State?
MUSIC
- “Across 110th Street”
THE USUAL LINKS
- Helpful iTunes subscribe link
- General podcast feed link
- Direct download link (right-click/save-as)
- What's with the theme music?
"We knew the real Ron Dayne. We knew if you hit this guy before he got going, he'll quit."
January 30th, 2019 at 11:59 AM ^
Given all the talent the '99 team had, the overall season was kind of disappointing. We let IL come into the house and beat us. Then the debacle on the road at MSU. But at least the '99 team defeated OSU (though OSU had a bad season, they were not even ranked in the top 20) and won their bowl game against AL.
January 30th, 2019 at 12:29 PM ^
Thank you for this summary. Regretfully I knew very little about 99 having gone on a junior year abroad in Germany. Double Regretfully, I am just hearing about this Syracuse banner event. I attended Syracuse for grad school in 2003 and although it was an intense program I should have sought out the banner. Only after two years did I even begin to socialize (if watching Michigan sports counts then I did that) so I hope the learned commentators can forgive me for not actively seeking the banner's return.
January 30th, 2019 at 1:22 PM ^
That was a real good sparty team we lost to.....on the road. Nothing to be ashamed of there. That game was brutal to watch. could not cover plaxico with anyone.
The Illinois one is the one that hurt big time.
January 30th, 2019 at 7:03 PM ^
I think Michigan was a better team. Brady did not start playing well until the 2nd half. I think their last scoring drive took over 8 minutes. They had the ball on their own 4 and drove down to score a TD to cut the MSU lead to 34-31 but only 2:30 was left in the game. The onside Kick failed and and MSU ran out the clock. Must of been a big blow to the team to lose to MSU as the #3 team in the country. They fell flat at home the next week and lost to a sub .500 IL team at home.
January 31st, 2019 at 5:46 AM ^
just saying its hardly a debacle to lose to a top ten team on the road.
Illinois was the debacle.
January 31st, 2019 at 8:11 PM ^
Yes, if remember correctly Michigan had a 27-3 lead at half time. I think the team thought they had this game all wrapped up but IL slowly came back. I think it was a Henson INT that blew any chance of Michigan coming back after trailing 28-27. I remember watching this game when I lived in Lubbock, TX. The next year I drove up for the Purdue game and Michigan lost on a last second FG. It was the Drew vs Drew battle, and it was one of those get a 10 point lead by the 4th and play conservative Lloyd ball!
February 4th, 2019 at 6:44 AM ^
The lead was 27-7. Illinois rallied to go up 28-27 and then the finish was weird. We were driving for the winning score when our center snapped it over Brady's head for a huge loss. Illinois then scored an insurance TD to go up 35-27 which actually helped us - they could have run out the clock. We drove again but Brady was picked off in their endzone. The DB tried to run it out, retreated, and got safetied. We had one final chance (just a few seconds left by this time) but ran out of time.
January 30th, 2019 at 1:23 PM ^
You won't see his name on the MVP list but my Cousin Andrew was on that team. One of my favorite years of my life. Such a fun team to watch play.
January 30th, 2019 at 1:47 PM ^
My first year watching a game completely unknown to me. Thankfully I watched the UM-Purdue game with a few friends who were kind enough to explain it to me.
My Saturdays, Sundays, some Thursdays and Mondays and September - January has never been the same since.
I have also been disappointed most of the years since. Winning the last two games and coming to sniffing distance of the Top Two/Three finish? Has never happened in this century.
January 30th, 2019 at 2:47 PM ^
Where is the video of Brady taking the delay of game at the end of the PSU game at?
January 31st, 2019 at 9:04 AM ^
Here you go: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUWfhSLSx-I
It's right at the beginning of the clip. Mussberger & Danielson don't pick up on it until later in the drive. Even the TV graphic shows Michigan as calling a timeout, when they actually didn't. BRILLIANT!
January 31st, 2019 at 9:52 AM ^
Great video and thanks for posting. Regarding the timeout, what happened exactly? Did the officials assume they called a timeout and thus didn't throw the flag on delay of game?
Watching that clip I can't help notice that some things never change. UM is down by two scores with less than four minutes remaining and is huddling up and taking its good old time between every snap. We're lucky that we had Tom Brady on that day.
January 31st, 2019 at 12:17 PM ^
The '99 team was one player away from the national championship - William Peterson. He was our best cover guy but couldn't stay out of trouble off the field. Without him, we were destroyed by Plaxico Burress in the MSU game.
February 1st, 2019 at 10:33 AM ^
Greatest moment? Alabama missing the extra point. I also remember M being down late, Brady getting sacked on third down, the team facing fourth down and a mile, and went for it...and got it because Brady was, mentally speaking, the toughest, meanest, coolest, most competitive mofo on the field. Since that day, all he has ever needed to dissect a defense was enough time...and not that much.
February 27th, 2019 at 11:16 AM ^
You talk as though Ian Gold was a recent shift to LB---He was a reserve LB on the 1997 team, played a lot in the Rose Bowl.
February 27th, 2019 at 12:26 PM ^
True story: I was living in Alabama then, and I recall the preview in the local paper. Two key points that I still remember from that article:
1. Even though Alabama's corners were young, they matched up well against Michigan's receivers.
2. Bama's place-kicker was much better than Michigan's.
I really wanted five minutes with that sportswriter after the game!
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