America 2013: Day Nine - November 30 | Michigan Ohio State Football #GoBlue

Hail! to the victors valiant Hail! to the conqu'ring heroes. Hail! Hail! to Michigan, the leaders and best! Hail! to the victors valiant. Hail! to the conqu'ring heroes. Hail! Hail! to Michigan, the champions of the West!

- Michigan Fight Song

Put it like this, we had some issues with the condition of our room at the Super 8 in Kalamazoo that we discovered – actually, Lauryn did – after I wrote yesterday’s blog. The less I say the better, but understand that if we hadn’t been staying there literally for only a few hours en route north to Ann Arbor, I’d have had a few things to say about the hotel. As it was, we got enough sleep and were on our way, joining a heap of other cars decked out in Michigan colours for the 90-minute drive north to the stadium.

There isn’t much Midwesterners love more than college football in the fall, and there aren’t many bigger games in this part of the country than the annual collision between hated rivals, the University of Michigan Wolverines and the Ohio State University Buckeyes. Their game today was the 110^th meeting in their storied rivalry, which is appointment viewing around the country. We were lucky enough to be in Michigan Stadium – The Big House – amongst 113,000 other people to see what ESPN has called the greatest rivalry in college sport.

Everything about Michigan Stadium is big. The crowd, the scoreboards, the marching bands, queues for food, the level of hatred towards Ohio State – it makes a Collingwood vs. Carlton game seem like nothing in comparison to this rivalry – and the passion of every single fan who packs into the stadium. Today was the 250^th consecutive game where Michigan Stadium has held a crowd of more than 100,000 people. Consider that they have 6-7 home games a season, and you can see how far back they’ve been packing people into the stadium on Main Street.

Michigan vs. Ohio State

The only thing that isn’t big is the space between ‘seats’ on the benches in the venue, which are far less comfortable than the proper seats I’m used to at pro sports. Sitting down, you’re pretty much jammed in like sardines. Like Trev said, you wouldn’t want to be claustrophobic! It’s a little tight, especially with everyone rugged up in multiple layers against the cold. Not that it mattered too much: we stood for just about every play of the game.

Everyone stands at Michigan football, and they make all sorts of noise to try and put the Ohio State offense off. There’s singing and chanting and booing and cheering. You pick up the “Go Blue!” chants pretty quickly, and as the game’s momentum swung back and forth, it was very hard for even novices in the crowd (like two of my three travel buddies) to not get carried away in the moment.

Michigan Cheerleaders

In the long and storied rivalry of this series, the 2013 edition of the game, which ended with an unpopular 42-41 Ohio State victory, will be remembered as one of the classics. There were big plays, controversy, points, tremendous individual efforts on both sides and a brawl in the first half that saw three players ejected, two from Ohio State and one from Michigan.

 

The game really was a gripping contest- one of many being played around America on another big day, actually. Better, the weather was perfect. We wore many layers and were actually hot in the warm sun, despite the thermometer hovering around 2 Celsius. All things considered, Lauryn and Trev could not have seen a more thrilling contest for their first ever live game of American football. There’s nothing like being in such a big and passionate crowd when such an important game – the most important of the season for both teams – is on the line. It’s louder than the MCG has ever been.

Massive Crowd

The trip back from Michigan was about 4 hours, including a dinner stop at Battle Creek, Michigan, home to Kellogg’s. We dropped Lauryn off to the Alley’s and came home to watch the last few games of football. Big day tomorrow: sightseeing in the city with Jamie and Will before 16 of us head down to Outback Steakhouse – where else? – for our Chicago farewell. Should be a good, if emotional day.