KALAMAZOO, Michigan -- From the front door of Waldo's Campus Tavern you can see into Western Michigan's football stadium. It isn't technically on campus, despite the name, but it might as well be. At its backdoor painted on the walls is "No shoes, no shirt, no sense of humor, no service." Inside is the type of crusty wood-paneled dive bar that can only exist in a college town.
Great college watering holes serve as anchors for a campus community. It's a common place students take their graduation pictures in full cap and gown. It is thankfully frozen in time and has survived since 1981.
People in this community have thought a lot about time in the last few weeks. For 15 blissful seconds, Western Michigan had a historic victory over Michigan before the whistles started and head coach Lance Taylor was forced to call his enraptured team off the field. The replay review took about 90 seconds to determine there was still one remaining, that Michigan deserved another chance to win the game – which it then did.
Some think it was a phantom second or the byproduct of a hidden clock. The broadcast graphic's clock, supposedly synced with the Big Ten's embedded system, may have only been off by a few tenths of a second, but that was all it took to change history. Western Michigan's team, its university and its fans are still dealing with the fallout and processing the disappointment from what is officially another loss to Michigan.
A home game Saturday against Boise State is the Broncos' biggest in a decade, and could be the main bullet point for a potential College Football Playoff resume down the line. But the committee, just like those in the community, will have to reckon with what exactly to do about the ending at the Big House. Eric Bowler went to Western and graduated in 2009.
He used to work at the school before working at Waldo's. Now he's the bar's general manager. It was here he watched one of the last great Western Michigan football moments, the Cotton Bowl after the undefeated 2016 regular season, with coach P.J.
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