Attendance Crisis

For both home games this season groups of 99 tickets have been available the week of the game.

Plenty of good seats still available for Saturday - let me know if anyone needs 99 together... #GoBlue pic.twitter.com/KHEeVJBPeC
— Mike Altese (@mpharmd98) September 11, 2014

Blocks of 99 tickets still available for Saturday - nice work @davebrandonad pic.twitter.com/CIXmXx3gWo
— Mike Altese (@mpharmd98) August 26, 2014

I tend to think this is a perfect storm of indifference:

• Coming off consecutive poor seasons
• Only one "successful" season since 2006
• Horrible home schedule
• Continual messing with the student tickets
• DYNAMIC pricing - and just pricing in general
• Getting shut out at Notre Dame

I predict an announced attendance below 104,000 this week.

Home Winning Streaks

As you know from my weekly prediction picks I like to tie things to if I've attended the game or not. Brady Hoke has started his head coaching career at Michigan with 16 straight home wins. The last home game of Rich Rodriguez tenure was the drubbing against Wisconsin. This means my current streak of attended home wins stands at 16. This is tied for my second longest attended home win streak.

Michigan won the first 20 home games I attended. The streak ran from Homecoming 1976 until my first home loss - in 1986 to Minnesota.

The other 16 game streak went from the 2002 blowout of Bobby Williams' Spartans to the tipped pass/fumbled QB sneak loss to Notre Dame in 2005.

The only other double digit streak was 12 games from Tom Brady's 1999 squad drubbing Northwestern ending with John Navarre's horrible performance against OSU in 2001.

It is a little surprising that I have only seen 4 streaks of 10+ consecutive wins. 

Better use of the Michigan Stadium videoboards

The MMB had a Willy Wonka halftime show this past weekend with prospective students getting the Golden Ticket and a chance to go to Michigan. The mistakes made by the kids in the book/movie are made by students who end up at other boneg schools. Charlie's little brother of course ends up at Michigan State but his complaint with Wonka and UM is the bigger screen they have at Spartan Stadium. The joke ends up being all the ads the Spartys have to include on the their bigger screen makes the bigger screen a wash. (Skip to about 7:50 for little brother.)

But Michigan doesn't actually take full advantage of their own big screen. I'm not asking for ads - I'm asking to leave it as a big video board - stop cutting a quarter of the screen off for stats.

I propose using the big screens in conjunction with the empty space on the luxury boxes/press box to provide the information cluttering up the big screen.

The important stuff - the score, time remaining AND a full video of the action/replay - are still on the big boards - but the auxiliary things, most of which we've only had since 1998, are still available just found in a different place.

North Endzone vs. South Endzone - Defense

My mom passed away in 2003. In May of that year my dad was in town for the 50th anniversary of his graduation from the Michigan College of Pharmacy. Coincidentally, Michigan Stadium was converting form a grass field back to artificial turf. Along with my sister we somehow got into the stadium and were able to place some of my mom's ashes in the South Endzone, just to the right of the goal post (the flag pole side). The turf had not been laid down, so her ashes are actually now covered by the turf.

My dad has asked me to determine if her presence in the South Endzone has helped make that end better defensively than the North End. Here are the results.

Date	Opp	North	South
8/30/2003	CMU	7	0
9/6/2003	Houston	0	3
9/13/2003	Notre Dame	0	0
9/27/2003	Indiana	14	3
10/18/2003	Illinois	7	7
10/25/2003	Purdue	0	3
11/22/2003	OSU	14	7
9/4/2004	Miami (OH)	7	3
9/18/2004	San Diego St	7	14
9/25/2004	Iowa	14	3
10/9/2004	Minnesota	10	14
10/30/2004	MSU	14	13
11/13/2004	Northwestern	10	10
9/3/2005	Northern Illinois	7	10
9/10/2005	Notre Dame	7	10
9/17/2005	EMU	0	0
10/8/2005	Minnesota	20	3
10/15/2005	Penn St.	22	3
11/12/2005	Indiana	0	14
11/19/2005	OSU	19	6
9/2/2006	Vanderbilt	7	0
9/9/2006	CMU	17	0
9/23/2006	Wisconsin	7	6
10/7/2006	MSU	7	6
10/21/2006	Iowa	6	0
10/28/2006	Northwestern	0	3
11/4/2006	Ball St	16	10
9/1/2007	Appalachian St	24	10
9/8/2007	Oregon	18	21
9/15/2007	Notre Dame	0	0
9/22/2007	Penn St.	3	6
10/6/2007	EMU	13	9
10/13/2007	Purdue	7	14
10/27/2007	Minnesota	3	7
11/17/2007	OSU	14	0
8/30/2008	Utah	16	9
9/6/2008	Miami (OH)	3	3
9/27/2008	Wisconsin	12	13
10/4/2008	Illinois	10	35
10/11/2008	Toledo	10	3
10/25/2008	MSU	14	21
11/15/2008	Northwestern	7	14
9/5/2009	WMU	0	7
9/12/2009	Notre Dame	31	3
9/19/2009	EMU	3	14
9/26/2009	Indiana	12	21
10/17/2009	Delaware St	3	3
10/24/2009	Penn St.	13	22
11/7/2009	Purdue	21	17
11/21/2009	OSU	14	7
9/4/2010	Connecticut	0	10
9/18/2010	Massachusetts	14	23
9/25/2010	Bowling Green	21	0
10/9/2010	MSU	3	31
10/16/2010	Iowa	21	17
11/6/2010	Illinois	52	13
11/20/2010	Wisconsin	14	34
9/3/2011	WMU	3	7
9/10/2011	Notre Dame	21	10
9/17/2011	EMU	0	3
9/24/2011	San Diego St	7	0
10/1/2011	Minnesota	0	0
10/29/2011	Purdue	0	14
11/19/2011	Nebraska	14	3
11/26/2011	OSU	17	17
9/8/2012	Air Force	10	15
9/15/2012	Massachusetts	0	13
10/13/2012	Illinois	0	0
10/20/2013	MSU	7	3
		694	623
			47.30%

Her endzone is slightly better, just under  over 47% of the points Michigan's opponents have scored have come in the South Endzone.
The only score I can't account for is the 4th quarter score by AJ Harris of Northern Illinois. I can't find any second half highlights from that game and mgoblue.com doesn't have a working link to the pdf of the play-by-play. So this is the best I can do for now dad.

Thanks to jiMpossible for finding the M-NIU Michigan Replay from 2005.

After the rains came...

The weather got pretty ridiculous - I'm surprised WMU accepted the surrender terms. I would hope Michigan would not have in a similar situation.

Big Chill Free Skate

I was finally able to to get this off my phone and on to YouTube. Warning - watching may cause dizziness or vomiting...

Lights in the Big House

So, they are looking to put in permanent lights in at Michigan Stadium.  I can't say that I'm happy about it, but I also don't think it is bad, either.  Having a night game per year and being able to have good lights during the end of the October/November 330pm games is good.

But, when I saw that the cost is only $1.8 Million I have to wonder what has taken so long?

Hoot and Jimpossibles football joke follies

Not the most exciting video, but it is true to what happens 7 or 8 Saturdays in the fall.

Countdown to Kickoff - day 0

September 4, 2010

Michigan ____ - Connecticut ___

Predictions are in. The stadium looked great on my run by this morning.

Go Blue!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Beat the Huskies!

Countday to kickoff - 35 days

October 30, 1976, Michigan 45 - Minnesota 0

This game would not be on the list if it weren't for it being the first game I attended. Michigan was undefeated and ranked #1 in the country, Minnesota had little going for it except their QB from Jackson, Tony Dungy. Michigan's roster was full of the names I'd heard Bob Ufer talk so much about. Rick Leach, Rob Lytle, Jim Smith, Calvin O'Neal, Dwight Hicks, Harlan Huckleby...

This was my first time in Ann Arbor, They had a pep rally Friday night - it was homecoming and they still did things like that back then. I remember Bo was there, and some of the players. Then we went back to the hotel and saw some of the pep rally on the local news.

I don't remember much about the actual game. I remember coming into the stadium. It really was the case that because of the low profile - before the luxury box additions - the true size of the stadium was hidden until you got inside. I remember thinking "this is big enough for 20 Gladstones!"

My dad got us tickets through Pam Anderson(?), from Gladstone, who worked in the football office somewhere. We were in row A right behind the Minnesota bench. There was a lot of complaining about the players not sitting down so we couldn't see. It was raining throughout the game. And since it got out of hand we were able to move back a few rows to see more of the action.

I can remember a few Michigan games on TV before this, OSU in 74 and 75, Purdue in 74, The Orange Bowl against Oklahoma in 76 and as I mentioned I remember listening to games on the radio; but this made it real and certainly solidified my love for Michigan Football. I've been to bigger and better M games since (34 will be listed here) but none of them will ever be the first.

Tour of Michigan Stadium

Here's a link to some of the photos I took last night at Michigan Stadium.

The suites are pretty cool - I've never been to one in another stadium so I don't have anything to compare it to, but they seemed pretty close to the action, looked nice inside. I think the corners would be the best because they also have side windows....

Since I don;t have an extra $85,000 for a suite, the club seating is more interesting to me. The open general areas behind the outdoor seating is very cool. Both levels have outstanding sight lines. The cheapest club seats are $1500 + the tickets. Supposedly 80% of the $1500 is tax deductible. That is something to consider in the long-term I guess.

But at this point, I consider my seat the best deal in the house. 4 seats from the start of the seat license area, 3 rows below the club seating. And I save $1000-1500!

The hole that Ufer left

Here's some views of the stadium construction. The space where the press box used to be is still empty so you can see into the stadium.