Back from Michigan Stadium .. observations

[Gopher07]

Decided to forgo the game in Madison this weekend and headed to Ann Arbor to watch Michigan-Michigan State with the girlfriend (who is a Michigan grad). Some observations:

The renovations are great. Seamless integration of the brick exterior around the old bland exterior. Having been there in 2004 and 2005, I can say that the new suites/press boxes definitely make it a lot louder.

It can fit 113,000 people only because they stack you one on top of the other. We had four tickets, only three of us in the group made it, and we still only had space for about two of us when we got to our seats (which were in the MSU section).

Their concession stands had *gasp* no cash registers and *gasp* volunteers running them with little to no experience. The concessions themselves were subpar. Still, people seemed to live with these facts. Also, despite the renovations, the lines for restrooms and lines to get into each section were atrocious. We stood in line for 10 minutes waiting to get into our section while missing the first drives of the game.

What I wouldn't give to have the pregame atmosphere that was there on Saturday for our home games. Walking to the stadium from about 9 blocks away before the game, it was shoulder to shoulder people, parties on every lawn, people selling t-shirts (favorite one: "Even LeBron hates Ohio"), people generally involved in the spirit of college football. Nothing like a rivalry game with a lot on the line.

As for the game itself, we should consider ourselves lucky if we hang within 20 of MSU. Their defense is fast, and their running game is really good. That said, Michigan's defense was intensely bad. They played one safety and man-to-man on the outside almost all game, and if MSU wanted to, they could've exploited it nearly every time. Plus, stacking the box obviously did nothing to help them out against the run.

Robinson will be decent in time, but he needed the ego check I think. We'll have a tough time against him over the next couple of years, that I can be sure of.

 

[GopherTwin]

I also attended the game in 2005. Your comment about waiting in line to get into your section was right on. I had the same experience, I left with 55 minutes before kickoff to go to the bathroom and barely got to my seat in time for the kickoff. When they announced the attendance of over 110,000, I turned to my friend and said "Maybe they could close off a few more entrances to the stadium and get a few more thousand people in the stadium." In my observation the stadium had one entrance per section for 2/3 of the sections. With each section having 95 rows. This makes for some long waits when trying to get to your seat.

Do they still have a number of port-a-potties around the stadium or did they replace them with the new construction? I also thought that the bathroom situation was very bad as well.

 

[Gopher07]

All the portajohns have been replaced by real bathrooms with the renovation. I didn't have to wait too long to use (as I left my "seat" with about 30 seconds to go before half) but by the middle of halftime the line for the men's room was enormous. Ladies room didn't actually seem too bad.

 

[alphagopher]

i know many have already said it, but it seems pretty clear that the michigan offenive scheme will not work in the big ten-it's okay for them to be middle of the road (4 non conf wins plus 2-3 big ten wins) in conf, but the big ten is much too physical, athletic and fast for dickrod's west virginia offense to work there-that is obvious after seeing an average msu defense completely shut it down and last yr is also case in point-at some point the michigan faithful will get sick of beating the bowling greens of the world while losing to the MSU, OSU, IA, Etc of the world

 

[RodentRampage]

How long does it take to get out of there? If it takes so long to get into there, it has to take a while to get out. It's got to take longer than it does here, and people here are leaving early to "beat the traffic". I just stay for the band at the end, and traffic is no problem. I remember in a game where the Gophers won big over Colorado State, I had poor seats, but spent the 4th quarter in prime seats because people had already left.

 

[TAW]

I'm going there for the first time in November. Any advice for pre-game festivities or anything else (other than leave for game early)?

 

[Gopher07]

How long does it take to get out of there? If it takes so long to get into there, it has to take a while to get out. It's got to take longer than it does here, and people here are leaving early to "beat the traffic". I just stay for the band at the end, and traffic is no problem. I remember in a game where the Gophers won big over Colorado State, I had poor seats, but spent the 4th quarter in prime seats because people had already left.

People were leaving fairly early to beat the traffic, and because Michigan was getting pretty thoroughly trounced late in the 4th. Definitely did not take that long to get out of the stadium though.

We parked about a 20 minute walk from the stadium, and getting out of Ann Arbor proper (driving north) was supremely easy. Didn't encounter any traffic. Getting in was a different story, everyone was trying to use highway 23 to get into town so we just went backroads and didn't encounter much of an issue.

I'm going there for the first time in November. Any advice for pre-game festivities or anything else (other than leave for game early)?

We didn't do much pregaming this time, but there's good times to be had in the Pioneer HS lots (right across from the stadium). Ann Arbor itself is a nice town with a good amount of bars/restaurants that will all be packed prior to game time if you're not going to do the tailgating thing. Just walk around and take in the whole scene.