A Game of Inches
Editor's note: Lo siento for a day short of content; I am going to New York for a sportsblogging conference, which yes what a strange life I lead. I may or may not have time to get something up in the late afternoon; tomorrow should be a regular day.
Instead of my content, here's a fun diary I've bumped. Actually, wait, this is extremely painful. Dammit.
Football is such a game of inches. If you could go back in time and gently nudge a single play in Michigan’s favor, which would you choose to change? I’m not talking about randomly adding 7 points to a game, but rather a minor change to an actual play that has a huge effect. This is my list:
10. Michigan v Nebraska, 2005 Alamo Bowl – Steve Breaston is RIGHT THERE and you don’t flip the ball to him? Oh Ecker. I would go back and have you make one little pitch. Although this game had no global impact or anything, it would’ve been nice to beat Nebraska.
9. Michigan v Northwestern, 2000 - Did we really deserve to win this game? Probably not. But we certainly would have but for one little fumble, almost an unforced error by Anthony Thomas (one of my favorite players.) If he just puts both arms on the ball in the waning minutes, Michigan wins an odd Big Ten shootout.
8. Michigan v Michigan State, 1990 – We got jobbed on the 2-pt conversion. If Desmond can hold on for just another .5 seconds, it’s good. This game marks my first sports bet. It, um, wasn’t my last.
7. Michigan v Ohio State, 2006 – How many plays in this game could’ve gotten us a victory? I’ll focus on 2, though both involve the same player, Shawn Crable. Crable had Beanie Wells for a loss in the backfield, and let him get by for 7. Then he gets the infamous penalty on Troy Smith, and if his head were just a few inches lower he’s probably in the clear and we have a shot at the win. This game isn’t on the list as a guaranteed win, but I’d just have liked to see us with the chance at the end. That’s why it isn’t higher.
6. Michigan v Texas, 2005 Rose Bowl – Vince Young loses if Dusty Mangum’s FG attempt is blocked. I forget which defender it was, but one Wolverine was literally an inch or two from blocking it. It certainly appeared to me that if he didn’t touch the football, he felt the breeze on his hand as it went by. Would’ve been nice to have won this one, and we were maybe an inch away.
5. Michigan v ND, 1990 – This game was on ESPN Classic the other day. Michigan was leading by 28-14 in the 4th quarter and driving deep in Irish territory. I’m thinking, how the hell did we lose this game? Then Elvis tossed a bad interception to Michael Stonebreaker, and the rest is history. If that ball is just tipped or dropped, or sails over his head, we kick a FG and win easily. Sigh.
4. Michigan v ND, 1988 – Mike Gillette’s field goal attempt sailed wide by inches. Lou Holtz goes on to win a MNC, and I generally hate life for awhile. This one was personal, though Michigan only lost 2 games (and tied Iowa) and had a great season.
3. Michigan v Appalachian State, 2007 – Shawn Crable, can’t you just block the guy? Seriously? Or Steve Brown, can’t you just tackle the guy in the first quarter? Really? Truth is you could probably pick 10 plays from this game an inch here or there and it goes the other way.
2. Michigan v Iowa, 1985 - If that damn field goal at the end misses, or one Wolverine hand gets on it, chances are Michigan wins a National Championship for Bo a year after going 6-6. Yes, Michigan tied Iowa, but I personally believe that if we’d topped Iowa we’d have beaten Illinois. Just the impact of that game alone warrants being very high on this list, but for me personally, well. We all have that first loss when you’re old enough to know what’s really going on and you’ve developed enough of a passion that it *matters*. This was that game for me personally. It hurt. A lot.
1. Michigan v Colorado, 1994 - I don’t even really have to say which play, do I? It would be nice to avoid sitting there in the stands for a half hour after the game just looking at the crumpled up freebie program and thinking about the meaninglessness of existence. Feel free to share your own, I'm sure I've forgotten a ton. And please let me know if you have a time machine I can borrow.
Instead of my content, here's a fun diary I've bumped. Actually, wait, this is extremely painful. Dammit.
Football is such a game of inches. If you could go back in time and gently nudge a single play in Michigan’s favor, which would you choose to change? I’m not talking about randomly adding 7 points to a game, but rather a minor change to an actual play that has a huge effect. This is my list:
10. Michigan v Nebraska, 2005 Alamo Bowl – Steve Breaston is RIGHT THERE and you don’t flip the ball to him? Oh Ecker. I would go back and have you make one little pitch. Although this game had no global impact or anything, it would’ve been nice to beat Nebraska.
9. Michigan v Northwestern, 2000 - Did we really deserve to win this game? Probably not. But we certainly would have but for one little fumble, almost an unforced error by Anthony Thomas (one of my favorite players.) If he just puts both arms on the ball in the waning minutes, Michigan wins an odd Big Ten shootout.
8. Michigan v Michigan State, 1990 – We got jobbed on the 2-pt conversion. If Desmond can hold on for just another .5 seconds, it’s good. This game marks my first sports bet. It, um, wasn’t my last.
7. Michigan v Ohio State, 2006 – How many plays in this game could’ve gotten us a victory? I’ll focus on 2, though both involve the same player, Shawn Crable. Crable had Beanie Wells for a loss in the backfield, and let him get by for 7. Then he gets the infamous penalty on Troy Smith, and if his head were just a few inches lower he’s probably in the clear and we have a shot at the win. This game isn’t on the list as a guaranteed win, but I’d just have liked to see us with the chance at the end. That’s why it isn’t higher.
6. Michigan v Texas, 2005 Rose Bowl – Vince Young loses if Dusty Mangum’s FG attempt is blocked. I forget which defender it was, but one Wolverine was literally an inch or two from blocking it. It certainly appeared to me that if he didn’t touch the football, he felt the breeze on his hand as it went by. Would’ve been nice to have won this one, and we were maybe an inch away.
5. Michigan v ND, 1990 – This game was on ESPN Classic the other day. Michigan was leading by 28-14 in the 4th quarter and driving deep in Irish territory. I’m thinking, how the hell did we lose this game? Then Elvis tossed a bad interception to Michael Stonebreaker, and the rest is history. If that ball is just tipped or dropped, or sails over his head, we kick a FG and win easily. Sigh.
4. Michigan v ND, 1988 – Mike Gillette’s field goal attempt sailed wide by inches. Lou Holtz goes on to win a MNC, and I generally hate life for awhile. This one was personal, though Michigan only lost 2 games (and tied Iowa) and had a great season.
3. Michigan v Appalachian State, 2007 – Shawn Crable, can’t you just block the guy? Seriously? Or Steve Brown, can’t you just tackle the guy in the first quarter? Really? Truth is you could probably pick 10 plays from this game an inch here or there and it goes the other way.
2. Michigan v Iowa, 1985 - If that damn field goal at the end misses, or one Wolverine hand gets on it, chances are Michigan wins a National Championship for Bo a year after going 6-6. Yes, Michigan tied Iowa, but I personally believe that if we’d topped Iowa we’d have beaten Illinois. Just the impact of that game alone warrants being very high on this list, but for me personally, well. We all have that first loss when you’re old enough to know what’s really going on and you’ve developed enough of a passion that it *matters*. This was that game for me personally. It hurt. A lot.
1. Michigan v Colorado, 1994 - I don’t even really have to say which play, do I? It would be nice to avoid sitting there in the stands for a half hour after the game just looking at the crumpled up freebie program and thinking about the meaninglessness of existence. Feel free to share your own, I'm sure I've forgotten a ton. And please let me know if you have a time machine I can borrow.
"We all have that first loss when you’re old enough to know what’s really going on and you’ve developed enough of a passion that it *matters*."
Indeed, and this happened to be Colorado.
2 plays in that game. The first half Michigan punt where our punter puts his knee down fielding a low snap, and the last 2nd Rick Leach drive that ends when the ball rolls over our running back's back (Huckleby?, Davis?) and into the hands of Michael Jackson for the Huskies. If we win, we're National Champs, no?
We would have barely won against an underdog Washington team, while eventual #1 Notre Dame crushed undefeated and then-ranked-#1 Texas. I think ND would have leap-frogged us in the polls even with a win.
The next year, though, a Rose Bowl win against USC without the Phantom Touchdown might get us #1. I think USC was #1 in one of the polls, Alabama in the other after a goal-line stand defeats then-#1 Penn State 14-7.
If only Prescott Burgess' fingers were a tad bigger.
Ernest Shazor almost blocked it in the backfield, and then Burgess barely missed it. Right in the end zone I was sitting in, too. Ugh.
Ernest Shazor almost blocked it in the backfield, and then Burgess barely missed it. Right in the end zone I was sitting in, too. Ugh.One game I'm not sure was mentioned yet is the 1986 game for the Little Brown Jug -- the last time Minnesota won it before '05.
Michigan, behind Jim Harbaugh, was ranked #2 going into that game, the last home game of the year, poised for a shot at the nat'l title. Favored by 4 TDs, all UM had to do was beat a mediocre Minnesota team before facing OSU (a game they won 26-24 after Harbaugh "guaranteed" a win). UM tied the game 17-17 late in the 4th, and it looked like a tie was inevitable when, on 3rd and long near midfield, Foggie ad-libbed a 35-yard run to put Minnesota within chip-shot FG range, which they got on the game's final play to win 20-17.
I'd take back any of a half-dozen plays from that game: Harbaugh's fumbles and INT; the game-ending FG; but esp'ly Foggie's run... If UM doesn't lose that game, they go to the Rose Bowl ranked #1 or #2, and maybe it ends up differently vs. ASU. (But then, we wouldn't have gotten Cooper at OSU for that glorious decade of dominance.)
I was thinking 2005 OSU and Gonzales catch....but... since that has been mentioned...how about:
2001 Msu game... Spartan Bob the time keeper and the longest 1 second in the history of football.
What if Desmond Howard's finger tips were one inch shorter in the 1991 Notre Dame game?
Then Elvis would have thrown the pass one inch shorter, obviously.
But seriously, continuing on that note, what if the field goal posts were a foot wider in the 2000 Orange Bowl versus Alabama?
I know it's easier to remember the devastation of losing by inches, but let's try to also count our blessings. Any other memories of Michigan winning by inches?
Further agonizing details.
One camera angle on the video replay (not that I watched it obsessively) shows the Michigan sideline starting to celebrate because they've seen (and possibly heard) the slight deflection, and it's clear the ball is wobbling like a wounded duck, and of course those partial deflections NEVER go through. Ugh.
More: There's an amazing photo that appears to show the deflection was caused by the INSIDE of Shazor's right elbow, meaning OMFG he actually was so deep into the backfield that the ball traveled BETWEEN his outstretched arms. If he hadn't been so quick, the ball would've smacked his right arm and we wouldn't be having this discussion.
I'd insert the photo here but don't know how.
There was some non-M-football discussion here, and my single biggest sporting reversal in my lifetime would be the C-Webb timeout. Yes, I realize in hindsight that we'd have to have formally vacated that National Championship had we scored on that possession rather than the utter disaster that ensued, but still.
I was 18 years old, an M fan for life, and I *loved* the Fab Five (my favorite non-M college team at the time was UNLV - that was the type of ball and style that I appreciated at that age; the Fab Five was a perfect storm of sorts for me).
The C-Webb timeout remains my single biggest sports nightmare.
The "Home Clock" game. What a friggin sham that was.
I'd say the Rose Bowl game against Texas is a huge one - just the bragging rights of having beaten Vince Young the hear before he beat USC for the NC.
But I think 2006 OSU would have been just as significant - had a great road team (from what i remember), and they were doing a great job of rallying. If they had less to overcome, M may have won that one.
Marquise Walker drops a sure TD that would have tied the game I think. We win that game, Tressel doesn't make good on his promise upon taking the job and I would say that he doesn't end up dominating the rivalry as he has for the past several years.
It wouldn't have tied the game. It was the third quarter and we were down 23-7. But as we ended up losing by six, that dropped TD (which was followed by a missed FG) turned out to be huge.
i just caught up with this thread. I'd say if we could have ND, Toledo and Purdue back from last year, it makes all the difference in the world. Now we'd be looking to improve on a .500 season instead of worrying that our program is a mess.
I both love and loathe this thread.
One game that sticks in my mind was the 2000 Michigan/UCLA game. This started a long string of young Navarre/Hayden Epstein debacles that haunted my dreams during my early years of Michigan fandom.
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/scores100/100260/100260379.htm#RECAPS
We had the ball down three on UCLA's 26 yard line, but Navarre threw an interception to seal the game. Epstein also missed an extra point and two field goals (I think). As a relatively recent Michigan grad, that was my first gut-punch game as a Michigan fan.
Wow, these bring back some horrific memories.
In addition:
Illinois 1993: A Rickey Powers fumble late as we were trying to run out the clock (a little too early, I might add) led to an Illinois victory.
Penn State 1994: We were the only team all year that had a legit chance to beat this Penn St juggernaut, and we blew our chance when Amani Toomer somehow got behind the PSU defense late in the game and just plain misjudged a deep Todd Collins pass. It landed right next to him.
Illinois 1999: Blew a 27-7 lead to lose 35-29. This is not so much a game of inches as it was a dismaying blown lead, led by conservative late-game play-calling.
Purdue 2000: We lost on a last second FG 32-31, but this was a game where we had a 28-10 halftime lead, and went into a shell offensively, like the IU game above. A late 3rd down conversion is all we needed.
Speaking of 3rd down conversions, I still can't help but think of the infamous Colorado game, which I attended. If only Che Foster hadn't fumbled when we were en route to a 33-14 lead (or at least 29-14). If only we had put more men deep. If only we knew how to defend a tip drill -- they ran the same play at the end of the 1st half, for Pete's sake. But the biggest "what if" was the false start penalty that turned a 3rd and 3 to a 3rd and 8 on UM's last possession. Biakabutuka ran for 7 yards on that play. A first down there, and Michigan takes a knee and runs out the clock.
I had bad dreams about that game for the next 7 years or so.
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