Games you've been to with bad weather?

It was a long drive back to Chicago in my soaking wet clothes. Major downer of a game, but got home in time to see the end of USC's shellacking of Ohio. Coming up for UTL II next week to get some more positive memories of UM-ND.

My two memories are:

• At the last minute before leaving home that morning, bringing a ziploc baggie, which saved my phone when we got completely soaked in the second half.
• Being incredibly frustrated that the monsoon hit once our offense started clicking.  I still think that if it hadn't started raining, we would have won that game.  ND never had anything going on offense other than the one bomb to Tate, and they couldn't stop us when we held onto the ball - it just became impossible to do so in the second half.

As a 17 year old townie, I sat though the first half of that Purdue game, spent the second half with my fake ID at Skeeps. 

At the opposite end of the spectrum.

I was at this game too.  It was just viciously hot.  People were collapsing in the stands.  The lines were so long for water that they let us dip our hats into huge buckets of ice and water just to help cool off.  It was hard to get back to my seat after halftime because people didn't want to leave the tunnels and go back into the sun. Then we lost. However, the fans at UCLA were terrific and accommodating.  Very classy.

and I go way back with Michigan football.  My wife and I hung around to the bitter end of this debacle for whatever reason I'll never know.  95% of our entire part of the stadium was empty by the end of the game.  The guy next to us, who is even more of a fanatic than me was still there too.  I think it was kind of a macho thing:  "If he's not leaving, neither am I!"  By the time I left, I think I had borderline hypothermia.  We got back to the car and discovered we were low on gas and had to stop at a station on the way home.  Not good.  I was shivering while pumping the gas and was worried the nozzle would fall out of my frozen hand.  When we got home, we changed clothes, put warm blankets around ourselves, and started pouring the whiskey.  At least that numbed the effect of a horrible football game.  

And for the '06 NW game, which was something Biblical (seriously, I don't know WTF was coming out of the sky that day). I remember quite a few shit weather games in November, but nothing tops those two. 

The only "good" part of it was we got to move down to row 5 at halftime on the 50, home side. I love it when the players can actually hear the things I yell.

It was my freshman year and it was probably the worst I have ever felt about football or life or ever having toes again. Having grown up doing outdoorsy type things in northern michigan every fall, I thought I would be ready. I used layers (including a poncho and cold gear) and it worked for a while. Then halftime and the sleet came, I am not sure if I have ever been colder or miserable in my life. And the game was awful. We all knew the lose was coming and slowly it did.

However, I am glad I stayed until the bitter cold end because it really can never get worse

I wasn't an MGoBlog reader then, but when I came across Brian's write-up, it was just pitch perfect: http://mgoblog.com/content/perverse-joy-abject-stupidity

After the game I had to drive through the snow for 5 hours back to Toronto. That was awful, too.

If it was 2008, it was NW. That game is burned into the memories of the 30k or so that stuck it out. It was by far the most consistently soul crushing sporting event, beginning to end, that I've had the bad luck of experiencing.

There are only three games that really stand out,  weather-wise in my lifetime.

1. 1968 vs.Wisconsin.  As mentioned, the famed 347-yard rushing performance by Ron Johnson who didn't even play late in the game.  I was there; it was the worst dicomfort I have ever experienced in Michigan Stadium.  Maybe it was because I was so young, or maybe wasn't properly dressed for it.  But it was really bad.  Rain, sleet, snow, sleet, more rain.  Everybody I've ever known who was at that '68 game thinks it was the worst they've ever seen.
2. The 1995 Purdue 5-0 game.  I missed that game.  If it was worse than '68, in the view of somebody who was there for both, then I'd concede the issue.   I'm sure that it was terrible.
3. 2011 vs. Westrern.  The lightning game.  I think the fact that it was the unprecedented called-off game says it all.  I was angry with the way the whole thing was handled at the time.  But driving home after the game there was ferocious lighting all around us in every direction.  What else could have been done?  It was a freak lightning storm.   I hope I never see another one like it ever again on a football Saturday.  At least we got in a round of golf in the morning before the game.

2011 Western wasn't even that bad, just rain and thunder. 

That's the one I have to go with too. The conditions were not the worst I'd ever seen, but it was more the insult to our pride. This was Long, Hart and Henne. Manningham, Arrington and Matthews. And they were banged up and demoralized and, lets face it, defeated before they even kicked off. And it just never stopped raining while, thankfully, Tressel clammed up.

2007 Oregon was pretty bad, as far as a miserable game experience goes. The weather was great though. 

This was the game that I immediately thought of also. I remember anything capable of holding water was allowed to fill and then used by the students in a massive water fight. Oh the good times!

I went to that game with a friend. I wasn't prepared for weather, and was wearing glasses--by the third quarter I basically couldn't see. There was absolutely nothing dry to clean my glasses with, and every inch of my body was soaked. Easily the wettest I have ever been without actually swimming.

If I recall correctly the worst of the rain actually came around halftime; I remember that some of the worst stuff missed the players. The clouds were so dark that the one light that ABC had set up in the southwest corner was inadequate to illuminate the field.

It was a weird time period. That was the same month of the "HuronCane," a tropical cyclone-like weather depression centered over Lake Huron.

But I vaguely remember thinking that was cool. Once you're wet you can't get any more wet.

Brian Kelly was Central Michigan's coach that day.  How the times change.

God that was terrible.