Michigan scheduling quirk we may never see again

Submitted by Wolverine Devotee on

With 2017's season opener being at a neutral site, it sure feels like Michigan doesn't open the season at home very often.

Also important to note that the 2018 season opener will also be away from The Big House, when Michigan faces Notre Dame and their first year head coach's first game next year.

In a 4 year span that began in 2015, Michigan will have played season openers away from Ann Arbor in 3 of the 4 years.

This also happened 130 years ago.

Season Date Opponent Result
1885 11/7/1885 at Windsor Club W 10-0
1886 10/16/1886 at Albion W 50-0
1887 11/12/1887 vs Albion W 32-0
1888 4/20/1888 at Notre Dame W 26-6

This trend would've continued but the AD is trying to cancel the Washington series in 2020-2021. Michigan would've opened the 2020 season at Washington.

Michigan also had 3 straight season opening road games from 1990-1992, but the 130 year old trend is much more interesting.

Brendan71388

August 31st, 2017 at 5:17 PM ^

That would suck if they cancelled the UW series. Once they cancelled Arkansas I was afraid they would cancel more of these future series against top P5 programs. I know it's a bit different since we're also playing VT the same year, but I'd still rather watch us play good teams and not more MAC teams.

Sleepy

August 31st, 2017 at 6:54 PM ^

B1G teams now play nine conference games.

UM wants at least seven home games per season.

UM needs all three non-conference games to be home games in odd-numbered years.

The cancelled Arkansas series was for 2018 (in Ann Arbor) and 2019 (in Fayetteville).

THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH NOTRE DAME. DAVE BRANDON FUCKED EVERYHING UP WHEN HE BENT OVER AND LET DELANY SEND MICHIGAN TO EAST LANSING IN BACK-TO-BACK SEASONS.

Blueblood2991

August 31st, 2017 at 5:24 PM ^

Not saying it's false, but the radio guy out of Seattle (who does seem to be pretty reputable) is the only single person that has reported that there was talks to try to get out of it. Even he says that it's still on at this point. His tweet just happened to spread like wildfire on the internet.

So I'll wait til it gets a little more smoke before I get upset. He also never said when the talks were to try and cancel. It's possible they occurred awhile ago when trying to get ND back on the schedule.

TrueBlue2003

August 31st, 2017 at 5:38 PM ^

cancel VT if we're going to cancel one of those series.

I'd still rather play them both, though.  If we play two tough non-conf games with a nine game conference schedule, we could afford to lose one of those non-conf games and still likely make the playoff as a conference champion with zero or one conference losses.

Which means the only way it hurts you is if you lose them both, and what are the odds of winning the conf if we lose them both anyway.

Jota09

August 31st, 2017 at 5:21 PM ^

Those are fun games everyone likes to see. I would imagine the players want to play them. I know I did when I was that age and an athlete.