![]() But what I'll focus upon as the meat of this piece is something I never have: Michigan's six interceptions that day. There is so much to write about that classic game and what has transpired since. "Then they could talk about all of those guys for 50 more years."Ĭurtis added, "Winning again would be a fitting end to our 50th anniversary celebration." Mandich was the team captain, and Caldarazzo and Curtis will take his place at the pregame coin flip while their teammates stand between midfield and the sideline.Īnother upset win for the Wolverines would make their reunion a smashing success. The returning 1969 players are scheduled to attend practice Friday before having dinner together. They haven't won for a long time (the last Michigan victory in the series was in 2011), Ohio State's on top, and we couldn't ask for anything better." 22, 1969, said of these Wolverines pursuing their own game to remember: "They're primed and ready to do that. 1)."īarry Pierson, a senior cornerback and the star of stars on Nov. "When we beat them in '69, they were the defending national champions, having won 22 in a row (and ranked No. "The setup for this year's game, with us celebrating the 50th anniversary of our game, is going to be so similar," said Tom Curtis, the All-America free safety. 10 Wolverines (9-2) are coming in with four consecutive wins, having outscored Notre Dame and three conference foes, 166-45. 12 and entered the game on a four-game winning streak, having crushed Big Ten opponents by a combined score of 178-22. 30) home game with Ohio State, and some eerie parallels exist between that matchup between the Wolverines and Buckeyes and this one. The surviving members of the '69 team will be honorary captains for the Saturday (Nov. However, let's start with just how connected this memorable group - the "ground zero" unit for Bo's "The TEAM! The TEAM! The TEAM!" concept - remains with Michigan football. And I will share some of my favorite quotes from current Wolverine radio voices Dan Dierdorf and Jim Brandstatter - both members of that team - as well as Mandich, Craw, Reggie McKenzie, Glenn Doughty, Don Moorhead and Dick Caldarazzo. So, what do I write? I've thought about it quite a bit. Odds are, this could be the last time I write about it to this extent. So, I've spent a great deal of time delving into that magical, sunny, cool, crisp, late-autumn afternoon at Michigan Stadium and the significance and special tales of what happened in that monumental game.īo Schembechler (left) and 1969 captain Jim Mandich Bo's youngest son, Shemy, wrote the foreword for the latter. But when we won, I knew it was big - real big."ĭuring the current decade, I wrote chapters on the greatest victory in the history of Wolverine football in two books: "Go Blue! Michigan's Greatest Football Stories" and "Miracle Moments in the History of Michigan Wolverines Football," which I co-authored with my son, Derek. "I was struggling with that team (being 3-2 at midseason). "I was just a young whippersnapper then," Schembechler, who was 40 in 1969, told me in 1989. ![]() Schembechler won the first of 13 Big Ten titles in his 21 seasons at the University of Michigan, and the Wolverines made it 19 conference titles in the next 36 years. Bo left us when his heart gave out for good 37 years after his first heart attack on the eve of the Rose Bowl his team reached by taking down 17-point favorite Ohio State. I wrote a 20th-anniversary piece on that 24-12 victory for the Detroit Free Press, and so many quoted in that story have gone on to what the late great voice of Michigan football, Bob Ufer, called "that football Valhalla in the sky." Tight end Jim Mandich, the co-captain and driving force, and fullback Garvie Craw, who scored two touchdowns, both died of cancer before they could retire. ![]() Fifty years have passed since Bo Schembechler's Wolverines dominated Ohio State and Woody Hayes in the upset that snowballed into a football dynasty for the Maize and Blue. ![]()
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