What a night. While a gameday experience can’t cover for a loss, that’s about as close as you could come. But of course, we won. Well done by the students who are bringing it two games in. And the fans who bothered to wear maize. And the athletic department for arranging all the accouterment. And to the team: had we lost this one it would be remembered as a crap sandwich with extra maize mustard. But this night, this event, these tributes, this party, was about good as it gets. Even a salty, hardened vet like mgoSeth was brought to tears.
The sights and sounds were aplenty, here are a few:
Afterburn me: Talk about sight and sound. Flyovers have become ubiquitous but brother this was awesome. [Thanks to reader Zach Lee for the clip]
Historical Notes: via #1000SSS. Corum and Haskins both compiled 150-plus rushing yard performances — the first Wolverine duo to do so since Karan Higdon and Chris Evans vs. Minnesota (Nov. 4, 2017). This marks only the third time in Michigan history a duo has rushed for 150-plus yards in a game.
We all see it, we all see it. “Blue.” Two major Uniform Timeline updates tonight.
- PANTS: The team wears blue pants at home (vs. the traditional maize). This is the debut of blue pants under a Nike contract, and the first appearance of the all-blue uniform since October 11, 2014 (adidas) vs. Penn State. It’s all a matter of personal preference but they did make a cool contrast against the maize fans, particularly when shot from ground level:
- HELMET: The team wears a red, white, and blue sticker honoring the 10th anniversary of the September 11 attacks. Placement is affixed to the middle stripe on the back of the helmet, The decal is an inverted depiction of a USA flag with Twin Towers emerging from a city skyline along the bottom, along with the date 9-12-01:
Also, the team was awarded an all-time win #965 sticker for the Western Michigan game (above, right).
U-S-A! How about a 50,000 square foot flag to get your patriotic juices flowing? It would have taken a small army of Betsy Rosses to sew that beast (via mgobue.com)
#WoreMaize. Dang. a mildly maizer performance versus a few years back in a mid-October “maize out” game where a punt situation thing happened. The pom-poms helped and that feels weird to type. Yes, this is a real photo from that previous maize out:
America’s a Pimp. The Goodyear Blimp flashing Old Glory was cool until the 50,000 ft flag was revealed on the ground.
MMB. Well done by the band for working a great routine to cover the moment, and to use the darkness to light up the show (they turned the Big House lights down at half). All in all, fun to watch and….not just because we won:
Hutchfest. Gold jacket Hutch who actually lives with Landyn, was honored in the north endzone.
But Football Webber bobbled this one – that HOF’er Hutch is NOT related to current captain Hutch, for the record.
Mood. +10, to Eighty. There are still many of you out there who are unconvinced until we play a truly worthy opponent (Wisconsin) but it has to push up this week:
1980 B1G/1981 Rose Bowl Champs. These studs were honored on the field Saturday. Around 50 of them made it here which is awesome and they even repped the Maize Out with their custom shirts (well done!):
Banner Night. 11 seconds of the banner from the field if you want to know how this feels (H/T: Brady Bonus)
Go Blue!
2 Comments
H.S. '94
Mood 76, tops. Only two offensive players had banner nights. The O-line does get credit for its role in that, but it wasn’t imposing its will consistently all night. That game said more about how bad Washington is turning out to be this year than how good we are. Cade gets a pass (no pun intended) for his off night; play calling was heavily stilted toward the run game anyway because it was clicking. But we’re going to have to dial it up to 11 for the likes of Wisconsin. Nothing yet convinces me that we’re among the best in the B1G. Mood 80+ should be reserved for a win in Madison, which I still don’t see.
MVictors (Greg Dooley)
I get this sentiment for sure, especially given recent (well, more than recent) history.