Ann Arbor, Mich (UHND.com) — With their offense floundering and their National Championship dreams hanging in the balance, Michigan was finally going to reach the end zone and cut into the Notre Dame lead. Notre Dame didn’t give up and let the Wolverines into the end zone, instead Chinendum N’Dukwe recovered a Chad Henne fumble that needed to be reviewed. As the official announced the play was indeed a fumble, Michigan fans reacted with class — they threw anything they had onto the field.
While the call was questionable, the last replay showed that Henne did fumble. Michigan fans weren’t done doing their University proud however. Moments later as Brady Quinn scrambled to his left to avoid the Michigan rush, he lost control of the ball after he was down. The play however was ruled a fumble and again, after a review the call went in Notre Dame’s favor.
Now, the first review was much more questionable, so I gave the astute Michigan fans who threw their bottles on the field a mulligan on that. The second one however was very, very clearly not a fumble so they don’t get any forgiveness on the second field.
The purpose of instant replay is to make the calls right and that is exactly what happened in the game today. Yeah, it was unfortunate for Michigan fans that those plays were, at least momentarily going in their favor, but in the end they were made right.
Some people will say that instant replay removes the human element from the game which I never really understood. It’s easy for a Notre Dame fan such as myself to be a fan of review after today’s game, but today’s game showed why instant replay is good for the game.
Michigan fans may wish it wasn’t a part of the game after today, but there will come a time when they will benefit from it as well and will be loving it then.
Michigan fans may wish their student section behaved more mature even more than they wish instant replay wasn’t involved however. The few who decided they needed to throw things on the field give the other 111,000 fans who were in attendance a black eye.
Maybe if those fans who threw their bottles spent time throughout the game oh I don’t know — CHEERING, those plays might not have been as important as it was. The Big House was rather quiet today, even in the beginning. In watching both the ND-Michigan game and the Ohio State-Texas game, it was very clear that the fans in the red and grey were making a lot more noise than those in maize and blue.
Notre Dame took the crowd out of the game early and then didn’t really hear much from them until the 4th quarter. For 111,000 in attendance, the Big House was not nearly as intimidating a place to play as it could have been Saturday.
Maybe the noon start time was a bit too early for those who had a few too many the night before. Ohio State’s game did start 8 hours after the latest chapter in the Notre Dame-Michigan rivalry, but still come on Michigan fans — make some noise!
The loss today hurts Michigan, but it’s only one game, but the lack of class shown by a few of those in student section however will be remembered.
