My first time taking a camera to a Michigan game
We had a nice day for football, and I was joined by lead guitarist and strategist Andrew. For the first time in my 30+ years attending Michigan games, I brought a camera. It will not be the last. I brought just one lens, my Canon 70-300m F4-5.6L, which worked out quite well for shooting from the ninth row. I had a friendly drunken girl falling onto me much of the first half, but it was nothing like the obnoxious drunk guy who was falling on us the entire Notre Dame game a few weeks back.
Note Devin Gardner’s helmet hitting the banner while most players jump to reach it with their hands. DG has ups like I do.
Jake Ryan looking particularly huge among the four Michigan captains. Here’s to hoping we’ll see him back on the field Saturday against Penn State!
The kickoff team huddles before getting the game underway. I imagine they are debating blondes versus brunettes.
Here are some shots from the first half:
This play was rather entertaining to watch. Michigan’s Frank Clark (57) clearly has beaten his man and has a bead on the tailback.
The crowd is cheering wildly at this point as Clark buries the tailback and makes the tackle for loss.
There is, however, one minor problem, which you may have noticed in the photo above: the quarterback still has the ball. As you can easily see the photo below, the Michigan defense is panicked and trying to recover as the Golden Gopher quarterback heads for the far sideline with the two Michigan safeties the only players nearby. The crowd doesn’t catch on until he’s being tackled all the way over to the sideline. Oops!
Greg Mattison thought it might be worth reminding the defense to watch the ball.
During the timeout, I noticed this professional photographer shooting something intently. Since he was probably only thirty feet from us, we could easily track the angle of his lens.
It’s pretty clear he’s shooting the legs holding this up:
Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Note the almost comic-book massiveness of Jake Ryan’s arms in the background. Anyway, back to football.
This guy, who I think must be a backup offensive lineman, actually had three kick returns in the game, and, as near as we could figure, averaged about 7.5 yards per return.
There was a storm trooper in the area. Cool.
And, no, they did not call holding on Minnesota on the play below.
