MSU In Pictures

We left my parents' house for East Lansing at 12:30, after my brother got home from work. On 696, we got a call letting us know that we should avoid 96, that it was a parking lot starting at Howell. We headed up 75 and west on I-69. My dad dropped my brother and I off at Grand River and Abbott. I had a vague idea about how to get to the stadium from there, but it really helped when I stumbled upon the Spartan Marching Band, lined up to parade over.

Our seats at Spartan Stadium were right in the middle of the Michigan section, which was good for me. Now I could be that much louder without risk.

Pre-game was good, even if it was the abbreviated version. The backbend was perfect. One change was that the band exited the field by taking the M off onto the sideline opposite the press box.

I didn't notice at the time, but someone in the comments pointed out that one of the SMB snares fell over while doing kick-step, and I actually have a photo of it.

The cheerleaders entered the field ahead of our team, and did that whole "run around waving your flag in the other guy's face" thing. I don't really like that when other teams do it in our stadium, but it made for a good picture once they came over to the actual Michigan fans. Then we had a flyover of four F-16s. Note the wire for the ESPN skycam.

Our first play from scrimmage was obviously zone left. Long and Butler crushed their guys, Moundros had a good block on his man, and Mike Hart was into the second level. Arrington looks like he's solid on this too.

The only Michigan TD on our end of the field all day was the Butler reception. The sun made this a bit fuzzy, but you can see it.

The MMB did the Modern Broadway show again from the Minnesota game. Sparty wants to join our flags.

The band performed "Springtime For Hitler" from The Producers, "Dancing Queen" from Mama Mia (without the dance this time), and "Defying Gravity" from Wicked. I have better pictures of this show from the Minnesota game, and I'll hopefully get around to posting them this week.

The SMB performed a '90's rock show that was decent, if kind of bland.

Nothing good happened on our end of the field in the second half, but I had to pull out the camera again after the Manningham TD.

GLORIOUS VICTORY ACHIEVED! Additional pictures can be found here.