The Question:
Dave: What future non-conference game are you most looking forward to?
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The Responses:
Seth: As the usual question-asker I rarely get a chance to take the obvious response, in this case the 2020 trip to Washingon. So I'm gonna celebrate my good fortune with a top five list:
1. Seattle. Many U.S. cities are basically the same buildings, chain restaurants and NFL team just rearranged. Seattle is one of the few who are not that. Imagine San Francisco's waterfront, Brooklyn-like neighborhoods, and Portland's love affair with the 1990s. Then add 1000% more polar fleece, and coffee so good you should probably avoid it lest you spend the rest of your life as a Whole Foods shopper.
Seattle pier [me]
2. Michigan-Washington = classic football. In addition to the once-a-decade home-and-home we've been scheduling since the 1950s, we've met the Huskies four times in Pasadena, including Bo's first win:
(the only time in history "who wants it more" was probably a thing)
It's rare enough to keep them exotic, and familiar enough for a wealth of subplots, like the 1983 game where Michigan learned The Wave.*
3. Washington fans. Like other schools you can name with a rich football tradition, a healthy respect for academics, and who have survived Ty Willingham, Huskies fans are surprisingly tolerable. They remember Marlin Jackson like we remember Omar Lowe.
4. Gameday should be pretty good. It's one of the older programs in a gorgeous stadium on a gorgeous old campus in early September. In 2020 Chris Petersen would be in his seventh year, Harbaugh his sixth, provided both survive until then. No bets that far in the future are sure things in college football, but the two former quarterbacks are likely enough to have their respective programs consistently ranked by then.
5. Family. The moment the news broke last year that Michigan was going to Washington I secured a promise from the wife that we'd be there, then called my particularly awesome cousin in Seattle to book our room. This thing is stone; family members have received notification to keep all weddings and pregnancies clear.
* Michael Florek covered the history of this for HTTV '14. Short version is the Huskies stole it from some Vancouver hockey fans, then M cheerleaders picked it up on the '83 visit and taught it to Michigan Stadium, where the bowl was a natural fit (and Bo blew one). Michigan fans took it to Tiger Stadium in the 1984 World Series, and it went national from there.
[After the jump: somebody I used to know]
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Ace: To me, the non-conference portion of the season isn’t just about padding the playoff resume, it’s about including a traditional, heated rivalry or two—or even creating a new one—outside of the confines of the conference structure. Even if these contests can’t necessarily take place every year, it’s great to have a 1980s Miami, 1990s Colorado, or 2000s Washington filling a couple spots on the “future schedules” list. Rekindling an old rivalry is even better.
In that vein, I can’t wait to see Michigan host an old foe, a program they’ve played just once this decade, in 2016. A week before diving into the Big Ten East slate against those vaunted Scarlet Knights of Rutgers, the Wolverines face off against Wisconsin, and while you may be saying “hey, this is NON-conference” right now, you can’t convince me that two actual conference foes would go six years between football games.
I didn’t answer this just to get in a dig at Delany. While it’s probably for the best that Michigan hasn’t faced Wisconsin over the last half-decade, I miss seeing the Badgers on the schedule, and by the time 2016 rolls around this should be a pretty darn good game, and it should be a much-needed rise in competition after M opens the ’16 season with Hawaii, UCF, Colorado, and a bye week. (Ugh.)
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Dave: After losing a 'Who Can Claim a Game Faster' duel with Seth, I have to say that M's upcoming non-conf game I am most looking forward to is...in Fayetteville, Arkansas (2019)? Lolwut.
While there is still some appeal with VT (2020), Florida (2017), or even UCF (2016), I think playing on the road against Arkansas still presents the most intrigue. Yes, there are probably better states to go visit than Arkansas (like one the next year in the Pacific Northwest). And yes, in late August, it could be STUPID hot—maybe a night game? But there are a few things that might have me counting the days...
1). First road game at an SEC school since...yeah. In '85, M played at South Carolina, but that was before they joined the SEC. So, we'll say close enough and say 34 years at that point.
2). Bret Bielema...if he's still there. Which is probably. His contract recently got extended through 2020. M's had some fun games with him over the years. Add in his leaving the Big Ten for the SEC for...whatever actual reasons you believe. He's still been a whipping boy for a lot of people.
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| Bonus for Arkansas: non-zero chance of going to a kegger with Bielema afterwards. |
3). Actually, he's not doing too bad? 4/6 2014 conference losses were by a combined 22 points. He beat 2 Top #20 SECW schools, last year. And finished 7-6, despite finishing 7th (out of 7) in his division.
4). A couple first hand accounts say they have a reasonable fanbase who knows where they stand and who they are. And their mascot is a........feral pig? Which...is unique.
5). Plus, if you need some reasons to get hype and angry for the game, you can always think of the connections with Jerry Jones, Jimmy Johnson (football not NASCAR), and Bobby Petrino.
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Brian: I will agree with Dave here: I look at Michigan's upcoming schedules and the game I'm most likely to attend that is outside the state is the game at Arkansas. This doesn't have that much to do with the team, since projecting out to 2019 is a fool's errand. It's more about going to various college football places and finding out what they're like.
Arkansas promises to be the most interesting in that department. The only other road games they have scheduled before 2021 are at Utah—a team that we've played before lots in a city I've been to for ski trips—Florida at Jerryworld—NOPE—and at Virginia Tech. VT is very cool and I will definitely go to that, but something about the weirdness down in Fayetteville appeals. Woo pig soooie and Bret Bielema and a fanbase that make Michigan's obsessives look like mincing poseurs: I'm in.
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Adam: I have to echo Seth as I'm most looking forward to the game at Washington. I'm obsessed with two brown prolate spheroids, and being able to get (presumably) good versions of both makes Seattle the perfect away-game town.
Playing at Washington will rekindle memories of Perry and Walker and being sad because we lost. (A different feeling than the last seven years, which I've spent being sad because I expected us to lose.) I've already picked out some coffee shops I want to visit in Capitol Hill; that's significant coming from a guy who doesn't like to travel. That, and I can't earnestly pick a game played inside a sterile alien spacecraft in the heart of Texas.