Ty's Favorite Michigan Football Games: October 20th, 2018

Michigan was supposed to start their 2020 football season tomorrow. They were going to play at Washington, then that got scrapped due to the pandemic, but the Big Ten released a full new conference only schedule that had this weekend as the start, and then a few days later, they canceled all fall sports. I could go into the decision making, how messed up the Big Ten has been in their response, how the new commissioner has done a not so good job at handling all of this and how stupid it is that the "president" has been trying to get them to play, he is a god damn doofus and a nuisance. But all of that has been talked about, or I have dealt with in my own way. I'm going with what Kwity Paye said yesterday, and I am not going to read anything or get my hopes up for any new news that floats by my phone or computer. I will only believe there is a season when I see them play, be it in November, the Winter, Spring or 2021. Whatever happens happens now. They have screwed with my head and emotions far too much.

Instead of doing a full NCAA football preview, because this season is going to be very wonky, have stops and starts and be a total mess, and not very good on the field, with all the opt outs and lack of big time programs, I'm going to talk about ten of my personal favorite Michigan games. This isn't in any particular order, these are just games that I remember, games that I enjoyed watching and games that made me happy to be a Wolverines fan.

Today I am going to start with a fairly recent one. When Lloyd Carr resigned, Michigan went through a bad period. They had their worst season the very next season after Carr's resignation. Rich Rodriguez and Brady Hoke did way more bad than good for the team, each in their own way. And Michigan was being bullied by their rivals. They still can't find a way to compete with the University of Ohio State, but back then, Notre Dame, Minnesota and Michigan State also had their way with the Rodriguez and Hoke led teams. The Michigan State one was the toughest for me to take. They are cheaters, they play dirty, their former head coach is an asshole and they tried to rub it in how great they were. And they definitely handled Michigan with ease. Under Rodriguez, Michigan was soft, and wouldn't fight back. When they got knocked down, they let it get to them. They didn't fight back. They were not a good football team. Under Hoke, they were undisciplined and not well coached. They had so many mental errors, it was hard for them to put together a complete game.

Then Jim Harbaugh took over and brought back a sense of what it is to be a Michigan football player. He instilled the power to be tough, but be fair. He made them work. He got every inch out of the players he had, and has, and they have become a much better team. Believe me, I'd much rather complain about a ten win season than go back to not even getting a bowl game. Year one though didn't work out so great against MSU for Harbaugh. They had the win in hand, and then botched the punt, as every person who knows me always reminds me. Then they went up to East Lansing the next year, with a much better team, and won, but it was a bit too close for how good they were. Year three, they were on their third string QB, the game was in a downpour, and MSU barely won, even though they got seemingly a million turnovers. From my point of view though, I could see the tides turning. I could see that MSU's coaching and dirty tactics only worked against coaches that didn't know what they were doing, or didn't have a full plan yet. Michigan could have easily won two of those games, and they should have won all three of them.

Going into the 2018 year, with Shea Patterson at QB, Karan Higdon at running back, a solid enough O line and a monster of a defense, they were expected to win. Sure, people pointed out the record, that it was a road game against a ranked team, of which Michigan had done very poorly in recent years, and how they may be overlooking MSU that year. There were also some critics saying that Mark Dantonio was still a better coach than Harbaugh. Then we had the pregame incident. Michigan had some of their defenders out on the field warming up. When you travel you have to pick certain times for guys to go out and get loose. At this time, Devin Bush was out there. Well, Dantonio, in his ignorance and arrogance, decided he was going to line up his whole team, have them link arms and walk across the field without stopping. They did as instructed and ran into Bush. Bush, never being one to back down, yelled at them and started to scuff up the Spartan at midfield. I got home from a race that day to see it, and I was loving every second of it. It was what I was hoping I had been seeing the past three years. Michigan wasn't going to get bullied around, especially by a team that wasn't close to their talent level. The media played it up like Bush was the villain, because the media hates Harbaugh for some reason, and Bush ran with that anger and intensity on the field that afternoon. The game even had a weather delay, but it didn't matter after MSU thought they could punk Bush. He was not going to let his team down that day. The game started slow too, it was 7-7 going into halftime. But it just had the feeling that Michigan was in control. Michigan's defense was playing lights out, MSU's only score came on a trick play after a fumble by running back Chris Evans back at Michigan's 20 yard line or so. MSU was already set up in the red zone. Then, in the middle of the third quarter, Shea Patterson connected on a deep ball to Donovan Peoples Jones, who broke a tackle and walked into the end zone for a 79 yard TD. He even posed as Paul Bunyan afterward, the trophy they play for. At that exact moment I knew Michigan was going to win because I knew the defense wasn't going to give up another point. The defense bullied the Spartan offense, causing them to constantly go three and out, and holding them to next to no offensive yards in the second half. Bush was great. So was Chase Winovich and Rashan Gary and David Long and Lavert Hill. They owned the MSU offense that afternoon. Karan Higdon went for 144 yards on 33 carries. Nico Collins got one of his first TD catches. The Michigan defense only gave up 79 passing yards on 7 of 28 attempts. They gave up only 17 net rushing yards. They dominated this game from start to finish. People who read this, then look up the final score to see it was 21-7 might be confused as to why I think it was so dominant, but they didn't watch it, and I did. I soaked this game up so much. It was that turning point moment I had been waiting for, and seeing in the previous matchups. Michigan dominated that day to return Paul Bunyan to his rightful home, and they retained him last year, blowing the goddamn doors off MSU. I don't think it is a coincidence, coupled with the fact that he clearly let players get away with awful, awful things, that this game was a signal to Dantonio that his "reign" was over because Jim Harbaugh can coach some football. He saw the writing on the wall that afternoon in 2018. I hope they get to play again sometime soon, because I think Michigan is a much more talented team, and returning to regularly dominate MSU. But, I will always have this game as a reminder of when Michigan was fed up with the talk, fed up with the bullying and took back this rivalry that they absolutely should own.

October 20th, 2018 was a very, very cleansing game for me to watch. It was near perfection. 

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast.

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