Way Back When-sday Was Just A Freshman

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October 8, 1994: The group picture before a 40-20 Michigan victory over the Spartans. Straight out of the box score: “With Tyrone Wheatley's 153 rushing yards on 23 attempts (6.7 yards per carry) and Tshimanga Biakabutuka's 141 rushing yards on 15 attempts (9.4 yards per carry), this backfield duo became the first Wolverines to run for 100 or more yards in the same game since Ricky Powers (151 rushing yards on 26 carries) and Jesse Johnson (104 rushing yards on 21 carries) ran for a combined 255 rushing yards against Illinois in 1991. The Wolverines racked up a total of 349 rushing yards, marking the first time that Michigan has run for over 300 yards since the Wolverines had 308 yards (including a 15 carry, 235-yard performance by Tyrone Wheatley) in a 38-31 victory over Washington in the 1993 Rose Bowl.” Head over to the game page here for more pics from this 29 year old gameday.

VICTORY!!!! Michigan 31, Rutgers 7

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No, he’s not wearing hulk hands. those are his real hands ladies.

A beautiful day that was 10 degrees and some cloud cover from being perfection. Pajama participation was low, because nobody likes fun. I’m sure if I told the tailgate crew to wear Michigan colors they’d show up in red. But the boozy brunch was a success, quite festive for a noon kick, and all that orange juice I drank made me feel like I had a B12 shot. I think I might have done a light jog coming back from the game. As for the game itself, nothing like still being in the concourse when the opponent takes an early lead. It had all the traps and mistakes that help the stars align for an upset, yet Michigan won running away once again. Time for a runza-filled business trip. Onward. More from today and a lot of other Rutgers experiences on the game page.

Way Back When-sday Inducted the Captain

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September 29, 2001: Captain Michigan retires (for the first time) from leg wrestling, and becomes the first person inducted to the UMTailgate Hall of Fame before Michigan’s 45-20 victory over the Illini in the 2001 Big Ten opener. BJ Askew ran for 2TDs, John Navarre threw for 2 TDs, and the Bin Lotto rolled over to the following week (if you know, you know). Pics from the rest of that day are on the game page.

Underserved: Michigan 31 - Bowling Green 6

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I would have rather missed this Saturday’s performance than last, but alas, Godmother didn’t make me one drink, so I remained lucid and aware of the fact that Michigan gave us the kind of performance that would have resulted in a loss with any of the remaining teams on our schedule. Ah, but if I had gone full blackout, I would have missed that light show. I enjoyed the blue, especially the one with the Woodson interlude. Not so many things are directed at in-game fan experience these days, so I’ll take it. In the end an epic day of BBQ followed by Michigan playing that survive and advance card we’ve come to loathe yet appreciate from time to time, moving to 3-0 on the season, and 3-0 all time against the falcons, with all meetings falling within the UMTailgate timeline. So check out the game page here, and pop in on the photos from BGSU 2010 (The Bacon Tailgate!) and 2000 (Anthony Thomas AND Chris Perry had TDs, as did Ronald Bellamy and David Terrell)…gotta be a trivia question there somewhere.

Way Back When-sday Blanked the Irish

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September 13, 2003: 20 years ago today the group posed before a banner day where Chris Perry had 3 TDs, the defense got QB Carlyle Holiday benched for freshman Brady Quinn, and Michigan had a 19-play, 80 yard drive that took 10:25, still a school record. Michigan destroyed Notre Dame 38-0, and later that season would go on to beat Ohio State in the 100th edition of The Game en route to an outright Big Ten Championship. The rest of the pics from that day are on the game page here.