This is Home: Michigan 34, New Mexico 17

When you’ve been doing something a certain way in a certain place for 15 years, you kind of have it down. Arrival timing, ins-and-outs, food prep, packing, towing, unpacking, cooking, clean-up…I know that space at Pioneer High School like the back of my hand. But as the 2024 season came to an end, we blew it up. I mean, I blew it up. Nobody batted an eye as I told stories of a new place that almost no one had seen—and that a group of dozens of people didn’t even have the address to until three days before this weekend’s kickoff. Faith, I guess.

Making the roadshow a home show seems easier, and I’m sure it will be, but it has been a harrowing summer. As the construction team struggled with permitting and timing—and one set of workers waited for the next to finish—I wondered if we were going to make it, and what we would do if we didn’t. But the deadline was met at the buzzer, with the major work completed only last Thursday. Then came the disappointment of knowing the finishing touches just weren’t going to be there. A handful of tremendous people chipped in: my Sparty neighbor, who got a crew to lay the base for the turf; Cooper, Bryan, and Brian, who hung the TV and assembled a grill; Adam, who put together outdoor furniture; and Linda and Pammy, who cleaned the inside of my house. The Team. The Team. The Team. And while I sweated the details, the reality is, nobody cared about any of them. A friend told me today that I could have sent map coordinates to a back alley and folks would have come and had a good time with me. That means more to me than you could possibly imagine.

Yeah, in case you haven’t followed the exploits on social media, the Tailgate has a house now. A place to eat, drink, relax, and celebrate (or cry). Our place. It is, in fact, not a dark alley somewhere. It served us well in week one with just a couple of easily remedied hiccups, and an extremely bright future of expansion: partially weather-controlled space, large fences to keep the neighbors happy, and even an indoor bathroom. So much still to do, but so happy with the debut. And a nod to the cleanup crew. Maybe exchanging loading and unloading a trailer for having to clean up after ourselves is a net increase in work? I wouldn’t know. I came back to vacuumed field turf, trash in the cans, equipment wiped down, and a space that was ready for the Bacon Tailgate in a couple weeks. Thanks again to Bryan and (a one-footed) Pammy. Wow.

FULLER / MGOBLOG

And speaking of happy debuts and so much to do—Michigan took the field with a serviceable quarterback for the first time since walking out of Houston with the National Championship in January 2024. Bryce Underwood passes the eye test—previous QB mediocrity bias and cupcake opponent considered. Justice Haynes broke a couple big ones, giving him the best stat line for a UM running back debut in 55 years. The game was a little too competitive on the scoreboard for my liking, as defensive penalties (one of which in particular was bullshit—upheld bullshit at that) and a couple of concerning third-down conversions by the Lobos had it a 10-point game into the fourth. But Michigan prevailed, put nothing on tape for the impending tussle with the Sooners, and got a mistake-free game under Bryce Underwood’s belt. Box checked. Plenty of questions remain, and next week a good number of them could be answered. We’ll see what Michigan’s new offense (in particular the line) can do against an elite Sooner defense, and what the Michigan defensive backfield can do to stop a dude who went 30 of 37 for 392 yards on Saturday. See you all in Norman…or the following week for CMU!

GO BLUE!