I had the opportunity to go see the Michigan Wolverines play Indiana Hoosiers in Ann Arbor, Michigan, for my birthday. My birthday is in November, and I said to my wife, “This is what I want for my birthday. What if I buy a ticket to watch Michigan play. I believe I can get a rather “cheap” ticket, and let that be it.” She thought for a moment, and I did a little bit more research on ticket prices. I saw a ticket for sale for $35.00, shared the information with her, and she was sold. The trip from Cincinnati to Ann Arbor is roughly 4 hours maybe a little less. Not a bad drive really. I made sure I layered up due to going up north in November, and I was set to go.
Kickoff was set for 4:00pm, so I didn’t have to wake up at the crack of down to make a Noon game. Somewhat took my time to drive and plan ahead. When I got up to the stadium, it was about 2:30pm. I didn’t make it to Forest Hill Cemetery where many Michigan University and Ann Arbor residents are buried, including the legendary coaches Bo Schembehler, Fielding Yost, and legendary Michigan sports broadcaster Bob Ufer. The cemetery is nearby and has many Who’s Who from the area. I wanted to go the Schembechler Hall’s Towsley Museum, but that will be for another trip. The museum has a lot of history in it–jerseys, trophy’s, and artifacts. One of the things I wanted to see was the wall that has a football on it representing for each win Michigan has won throughout the years. It’s called the “Win Wall.” “The Win Wall features footballs marking each of the program’s 900-plus victories. The wall also contains a video screen that can be seen outside from State Street.” Cool place to go to that’s free before a game at Michigan, but just didn’t make it. Here’s a video of walking through the museum and the explanation of the creation: You Tube video of the museum.
Michigan is the winningest Division 1 college football team with 953 wins as of November 2018. Michigan Stadium, often called “The Big House”, had an average home attendance in 2017 of 111,589 ranking first. The stadium is unique in that its shape does not necessarily go straight up. The seating and shape goes more out. When you go into the stadium to your seat, you might have to go up to your seat. All I’m saying is it is big, but the structure does not go straight up like most stadiums.
On this day, Michigan would be playing Indiana in the last home game of 2018. It was Senior Day, which allowed the seniors acknowledged along with their parents before the game started. Indiana has given Michigan fits in the past, and today they gave them a challenge again. In the past, the great Wide Receiver Anthony Carter scored a last second touchdown against Indiana. You can hear the great Bob Ufer make the call in this video, the explanation from Bo. What you don’t hear in that video that well is the jeep horn that he would sound with every Michigan touchdown (you can hear the horn after the touchdown in 0:50 seconds of this video). This Big Ten Conference game did not have a rival trophy attached to it, which was something I wished I could see. The conference has many games that has a trophy going to the winner.
The kicker for Michigan, Jake Moody, set a single-game record for making 6 field goals in the game. Obviously, points are good to get regardless of how you get them. He kept him in the game. Both teams had a high totals in passing yards, rushing yards, and total yards. Michigan ended up grinding the game out and winning 31-20. This made Indiana having to win their final game the next week against their in-state, Big Ten, rival Purdue. The winner of that game will get bragging rights and Old Oaken Bucket trophy. Michigan would roll into Columbus, Ohio, the next following week to play against their rival, Ohio State Buckeyes. The winner of that game, not only would have bragging rights as well, would be the champion of the Big Ten East division and would play the Big Ten West division champion in Indianapolis, Indiana, for the Big Ten title.
Video of the whole game I found. Here are the highlights of the game from Fox Sports.
Box score of the game from Michigan’s website. Post game notes from Michigan’s website.
This summer, 2015, my daughter started playing a traveling lacrosse middle school tournament team. One of the tournaments we had was in 
Recently, my wife and I went to the first Kentucky game of the 2007 season. Since we live about an hour away from Lexington, KY, we went to the first game of the year against Eastern Kentucky University. 
College Football Junkie 