I remember when 10 years seemed like a long time. Not so much anymore.  And yet, I really don’t remember what life was like before we all got together. So, in a series of posts, I hope to jog your memory and bring a smile to your face as we review 10 years of tailgating, and 10 years of Michigan Football, opponent by opponent.  My apologies for any inside jokes lost on “outsiders,” but bear with us…you just might learn something about the greatest tailgate ever assembled.

We start with the Wisconsin Badgers…

2000 Michigan 13, Wisconsin 10:

At the tailgate…after downing a solid amount of liquid courage, 2 unsuspecting tailgaters decided to take on Captain Michigan in leg wrestling.  His dispatched of both of them quickly, and then ceremoniously retired from the sport for good…undefeated.  On the field, #9 ranked Michigan took on #14 Wisconsin and scrapped and clawed for a 13-10 victory.  The victory was Michigan’s 800th, making them the first team to reach this plateau.  Ten years later, and only six other teams have hit 800 wins.  Pictures.  |  Highlights

My first time in Madison, and I haven’t missed a trip since.  At the tailgate, I think I remember somebody from our group shitting in the woods, neglecting to wipe, and going to the game.  It is also the first time I walked fraternity row, affectionately referred to as “the gauntlet,” on the way in to the stadium.  It was intimidating.  They’ve calmed down since then.  On the field…we played really crappy the whole game, allowing Wisconsin to score 10 straight points in the 3rd quarter to tie it.  The 4th quarter was a 0-0 stalemate until Wisconsin muffed a punt with 10 seconds left.  Michigan recovered the fumble, ran the field goal team out, and Hayden Epstein punched it through the uprights.  From that week’s post…

I had more fun grasping the udders of a 20 foot tall cow with my mouth full of cheese curds than I had watching the brutal performance of the Wolverines on Saturday.

Amazing that I used to get pissed, even after victories…oh how times change.

I remember that we looked at each other in the Michigan section of Badger Stadium, laughed, and ran out of there…escaping with our #11 ranking intact.  Little did we know that would be the last time we would win there.  Pictures |  Highlights

It was the last home game of the season in 2002, and the banquet that followed gave us the single greatest picture in UMTailgate history.  Also, looking back at the pictures, I’m wondering why we had no EZ-UPs.  Did we tailgate tent-free back then?  On the field it was #11 Michigan vs. unranked Wisconsin for the second straight year.  Michigan had control of the game, but never really controlled the scoreboard.  Wisconsin had a punt return for a TD, and their other came by way of a short field, so ya, Michigan dominated but it didn’t show.  Pictures |  Highlights

This Madison tailgate weekend will forever be known as the one where The Godfather and Pammy rode to Madison in Gar’s Winnebago.  We finally got to hear exactly what goes on in “Gar’s World”, as The Godfather dished out story after drunken Winnebago story.  In the end, the only real conclusion that could be drawn was that Pammy is the most patient and understanding wife in the history of the world.  At the tailgate, we blasted 1000 watts of The Victors onto Lake Mendota and I faced off against a drunk female Badger fan who yelled at me at the top of her lungs, but was still inaudible over the Michigan fight song.  Wisconsin would get the better of us that day, knocking off Michigan for the first time since 1994, and beginning “the road curse of the 1000 watt victors” which still lives on outside of Evanston.  No, seriously, anytime I’ve hooked up the DJ speaker and blasted The Victors on the road, we’ve lost…except to Northwestern.  Bubba knows this, and will remind me of this every time I climb on top of my car to crank of the volume.  Pictures |  Full Game

It was a home Big Ten opener, so it was a victory.  That’s just about the only streak that has remained intact in these “lean” years.  Tied 10-10 at the half, Michigan went on to dominate the last 30 minutes, outscoring the Badgers 17-3 en route to a 27-13 victory.  From the post…

The Tex Mex tailgate went very well, with breakfast burritos, barbeque beef brisket, chili dogs, a plethora of chips and dips, and countless other Tex-Mex favorites.  Yucca also made its yearly appearence.

Now I’m hungry.  And thirsty.  February is too early to have the itch.  Pictures |  Highlights

We did Madison up right in 2007, conquering Jim Delaney’s steakhouse, Essen Haus, and State Street Brats in a whirlwind Friday night.  Exiled from our regular space by the lake, we found our new regular Madison tailgate spot in the parking lot of a Catholic church.  We made nice with some Badger fans, and on the walk to the game, I drank boxed wine hanging from a bungee cord on somebody’s porch.  From the post…

They get us every time. No, not on the football field, where the Badgers 37-21 victory managed to increase their win-loss record to just12-48 all time against us (and just 5-21 at home). It’s in the war on the streets. It’s in the bars, the pubs, and the restaurants that Madison manages to outshine the rest of the Big Ten. Make no mistake, they will out drink you, they will out eat you, they will out party you. And they don’t care if they win or lose, or if there is even a game.

Yep.  The game wasn’t much of a contest.  The Badgers ran all over us.   Pictures |  Highlights

So now were finally getting into games that you might remember.  This is a special one.  We thought it was a sign of things to come.  It wasn’t, but it was still spectacular…and it was the greatest comeback in Michigan Stadium history.  It was also the 500th game in Michigan Stadium history.  From the post…

On this day of the 500th contest on the field that Yost dug, a group of boys wearing Maize and Blue made you impatient for the future…then reminded you not to forget about the present

I remember that we had apple pancakes and bacon for the German themed tailgate, and there was plenty of beer and sauerkraut to go around.  Good stuff, and a big win for Rodriguez in his first Big Ten game.  Little did we know that 2 years later, we’d only earn two more Big Ten victories.  That even hurts to type.  Pictures |  Highlights

The party started in New Buffalo and a stop at the Four Winds…then on to Madison where the Badgers hung 45 points on our defense, the most points ever surrendered to a Wisconsin team in all 63 meetings.  Unfortunate? Yes. But dammit…we were still in Mad-town, and we took on das-boot at Essen Haus with vigor.  In fact, we might have hit it a little too hard on Friday night.  The Godfather complained throughout the whole tailgate that we didn’t bring or prepare any food, but it had been a long season, and I was on vacation…and hungover.

Hitting Frank’s Diner in Kenosha on the way home almost made up for the loss…no it didn’t.  Pictures |  Highlights

Enter the Wisconsin Badgers, who have decided to drum up a limited skirmish in Madison next February featuring the fair Wolverines.  The contracts are all but signed, and let me tell you, as Madison is my imaginary second home, that they will fill that stadium.  The drinking abilities and spirit of that town, coupled with the rabid traveling posse that would follow the Wolverines anywhere…even Columbus…and you’ve got yourself a recipe for a record crowd watching a hockey game.  That’s going to take the record away from Sparty, and there’s nothing wrong with that.  They’ll be left with their record low number of Big Ten football titles, so ya, nice.

While we the Wolverines will have enjoyed participating in the two largest crowds ever to witness ice hockey, we also enjoy filling our own stadium with 100,000+ every football weekend.  Ahem, that’s every weekend since 1975.  So we’ve decided that we will allow Badger Stadium to enjoy their record crowd…for 10 months.  After 10 months, when we’re coming off of a seven game home football slate showcasing our new stadium, and making plans for a BCS bowl game, we will host our own hockey game, capacity 108,000.  When the ice dust has settled, Michigan will once again be #1, and unbeatable until they find a way to host a hockey game at MIS.  Michigan will have played in front of the #1,#2, and #3 largest crowds in ice hockey, which basically reminds the sports world that WE ARE THE SHIT.

The truth?  We stole that game.  Beating the #9 (overrated) Badgers was big, and unlikely.  And make no mistake, beating Illinois would be just as big, and is just as unlikely.  While everything you saw looked and felt like turning the corner on to the highway of Big Ten championships, it was really just a u-turn.  On Saturday, we have to go back and do it all over again.  That’s the hard truth.  The easy truth?  Looks like it might be fun to watch, which is a far cry from what you thought it was going to be after 6 quarters and 11 turnovers.

Pictures from the German Themed tailgate are available here.

I thought I was done being surprised by Michigan Football.  It’s almost an impossibility when you are constantly expecting the unexpected.  I’m arrogant enough (being a typical Michigan fan) to think that I have seen it all.  In short, I lived through the Navarre years.  However, on Saturday, they managed to floor me twice.

To say that the first half was abysmal would be a huge compliment to the performance on the field.  The turnover problem that plagued us at Notre Dame was not solved by two weeks of practice surrounding the bye, in fact, it somehow got worse.  5 turnovers…20 plays….20 yards…..negative passing yards.  The announcers came back from the half and explained that they would like to show a graphic of Threet’s first half performance but they couldn’t because their software can’t process negative passing yards.  We had a pretty lengthy discussion in section 30 about how difficult it is to have negative passing yards.  The result of the discussion?  Pretty goddamn difficult.

You, like me, have had several conversations about this game with friends and co-workers, and from the box score reader or casual fan, you might have fielded the question “Wow, what do you think Rich Rod said to them at halftime to get them fired up?”  Well, I don’t have time for the debate on the overrated effectiveness of speeches, but I can tell you two things…#1 Rich Rod told the reporter in the postgame that he didn’t say much….#2 We still sucked big time for a large portion of the third quarter.  So…what did it?  What flipped the switch on a group of young men that got booed off the field by their home crowd louder than they were booed upon their field entrance AT Notre Dame?  (P.S. shame on you assholes that booed)

I don’t know.

That first touchdown was only a medium spark.  In fact, at 19-7, I remember being pissed as a fan that they were going to drag me into caring again, when I was CERTAIN that we didn’t have the horses for this race.  But then that second touchdown came, and it was a one possession game.  It was at this point that I awakened from the offensive funk just long enough to realize what the defense had done to that point.  I had spent so much time with my head up my ass thinking about how we were never going to win another game with this offense, that I didn’t realize that we were owning theirs.  And we were getting stronger.  Penetration was increasing, receivers were covered, PJ Hill wasn’t worth a shit against our front.

Enter confidence, which spread like wildfire thru the Maize-clad faithful and down to the sideline, where they wondered what took us so long to believe.

The defense then picked a perfect time to score, letting the offense know that they would do it themselves if they had to, and after a failed 2-point conversion, it was 20-19…Michigan leads.  It all happened so fast.  Then Threet gave us a repeat rendition of his magic trick, leaving Brandon Minor to be sawed in half as he scurried on borrowed legs for 58 yards…the longest play of the RichRod era.  McGuffie, who shined a bit less without the help of the porous defense of the golden domers, still managed to pound it in, giving the Wolverines an 8-point lead.

The Badgers would not go quietly, getting an 11-play, 63 yard drive followed by a 6-play, 64-yard drive in their last 2 possessions.  The first of which ended with a Brandon Graham forced fumble, the second ended with a touchdown.  But a mysterious (to those at the game) inelligible receiver penalty forced a re-try of the two-point conversion.  The pass sailed high.  Wisconsin, who if they had reviewed our game films should have realized that booting it deep is a viable way to recover a football from our special teams, instead opted for the onside kick.  Not ten yards…out of bounds…pandemonium.

On this day of the 500th contest on the field that Yost dug, a group of boys wearing Maize and Blue made you impatient for the future…then reminded you not to forget about the present.

Michigan wins 27-25.

Pictures from the German Themed tailgate are available here.

• German apple pancakes and bacon
• Potato pancakes with chicken paprikash
• Brats
• Bratchos
• Cheesy potatoes
• Sauerkraut cookies
• Sauerkraut lasagna
• Beer Beer and more beer

See you there, and GO BLUE!!!!!!

34

34

34…cue wikipedia…

34 is the ninth distinct biprime and has four divisors including unity and itself. Its neighbors, 33 and 35 also are distinct biprimes having four divisors each, and 34 is the smallest number to be surrounded by numbers with the same number of divisors as it has. It is also in the first cluster of three distinct biprime, being within; 33,34,35, the next such cluster of biprimes is; 85,86,87. It is the ninth Fibonacci number and a companion Pell number. Since it is an odd-indexed Fibonacci number, 34 is a Markov number, appearing in solutions with other Fibonacci numbers, such as (1, 13, 34), (1, 34, 89), etc.

and…

34 is also:

• the traffic code of Istanbul, Turkey
• a song by Dave Matthews Band, titled “#34“
• the magic square puzzle in the 1970s 34 Skidoo
• part of the title of the 1947 movie Miracle on 34th Street, remade in 1994
• the number of the French department Hérault
• the code for international direct-dial phone calls to Spain
• the lucky number of Victor Pelevin‘s protagonist Stepan Mikhailov in the novel “Numbers”, published as part of DTT(NN) [Dialectics in Times of Transition (from Nowhere into Nothing)]
• in the book The Count of Monte Cristo, 34 is Edmond Dantès prisoner number.
• an internet subculture joke, rule 34, which states: “If it exists, there is porn of it. No exceptions.”, meaning that any fiction or nonfiction has had an erotic drawing/parody made of it.
• the number worn by famous baseball player David Ortiz.”
• American football player Walter Payton’s number

How dare they leave off Hayes Grooms.

Victory! Michigan’s road to San Antonio began today with a thrilling 6-4 victory over Iowa that featuerd a 12-minute field goal drought for both teams combined. Prediction for tomorrow’s game against Wisconsin (noon, ESPN): Michigan 7,000, Wisconsin 5. Suck on that, BAD-gers. Zing!

Here here…by all means Barry Alvarez, suck it.

Amazingly enough, Iowa still cares about athletics, and they are somewhat perturbed with the loss. Here’s Black Heart Gold Pants for ya…

That just happened. Not exactly a “march” on San Antonio. Perhaps “stagger” back to Iowa City is more fitting? The loss today was every bit as ugly as the entire season. You could show today’s game to someone who hasn’t watched a second of Iowa basketball this year and they would know. They’d just know. The inconsistent defense and turnovers may not have been enough to lose it today, so we added a new weapon to the mix. That weapon? Getting Cyrus Tate to the free throw line 17 times. See, this is bad, on account of Cyrus being one of the worst free throw shooters in school history. We went over 16 minutes in the second half with no field goals — none — and just 8 made free throws. It was hard to watch, like the entire season, and now it’s mercifully over.

I have a funny feeling I might be using the same words tomorrow. For now though, we continue to visualize what it will be like when we win that lottery, and thank god we’re not Northwestern…

69 NCAA Tournaments and we STILL have yet to qualify. Fun times.

Well, at least they live a world without expectations.

You may find yourself posing as an extra in a reality version of Beerfest, neck deep in a liter mug of authentic German swill at the Essen Haus, thinking that no one is possibly having more than one. But when you order your second, someone from Madison has just guzzled their fifth to chase three bratwurst and a brick of cheese. Those liter mugs…the dishwashers can’t get them clean fast enough. On the night we arrived, they were out of “the boots”, which hold what I would estimate as twice as much as the liter mug.

You may also find yourself exploring the scene that is State Street. Nothing like the Ann Arbor version, Madison’s State Street is more akin to Bourbon Street. I can only imagine what goes on when the weather is warm. But based on the outfits of your average coed, which were just north (or south, depending on where your standing) of naked…my imagination doesn’t have much room to move around. They must hand out skirts at orientation…and neglect to warn people of the dangers of frostbite. There are lines at every establishment, and they appear long. However, the speed of the lines is uncanny, most likely due to the fact that there is amazing turnover of customers going to other bars. The options are nearly endless. You are only limited by your imbibing abilities. And no matter how well you think you handle the bottle…you are not ready to go toe-to-toe with these people.

Once you have filled yourself to the brim with cocktails, you may long for a little something to soak it up. In comes the street carts. They are everywhere, and there is a variety of cuisine, from Afgan Mediterranean to fried chicken and fish. It looks as if a street fair moved in to town. So many carts, all with lines, turning out food from midnight to 3am, and probably doing enough business on Friday and Saturday nights to make a living. Actually, though I’ve never spent a Sunday through Thursday in Madison, I doubt that it is all that scaled down…they probably do well every night.

The real evidence that drinking is the number one varsity sport at Wisconsin? It’s the student attendance at the other varsity sport, football. With 11 minutes to go in the first quarter, about 50% of the student section sat empty. And while you may think they were all weak and nursing hangovers, the truth is that they were still drinking from the night before. Friday night bar hopping rolled over into early morning tailgating, and (gasp!) an 11am local kickoff. Nice.

Also inexplicably absent from the game…the Michigan Wolverines. Whether it was looking ahead, missing Mike and Chad, or a general lack of care about a game that meant little with regards to post season aspirations…it was a loss. And while it is disappointing that we are not going to be a recovery story for the ages, there is still peace of mind available to us next Saturday. In a year marred by the worst loss ever, that’s going to have to be enough.

The Tailgate…nice and quick and simple. Having been discouraged by the “alcohol free zone” at our usual Madison site, we managed to find ourselves a new tailgate spot due to some cunning undercover work at the Essen Haus. The beanbag game made a road appearance as we filled up on kitchen sink breakfast burritos with sour cream and salsa, cheesy potatoes, brownies…and beer.

Pictures from the weekend are available here.