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Check this out.  Michigan football maven John Kryk took screen shots of the stadium cam poised on the east side of the Big House renovation last summer.   All told, you’ve got 114 frames spanning from June 28, 2009, to September 19, 2009.

Love the progression of the construction, the shifting of the cranes & the flags and especially the different shades of color on the facade:

Refresh the page to watch it again.

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WTKA welcomed Dave Brandon with Handel’s ‘Hallelujah Chorus’ on air this morning.  Brandon said he got a lot of nice emails last night and was clearly happy how things ended up. 

Here’s the audio, give it a sec to load:

 Dave Brandon on WTKA 1050AM: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

A few notes:

• "I’ve run public companies for the last 22 years. I’ve gotten pretty good at managing expectations.    A way to exceed expectations is to manage them [laughs].  We were in a situation where it was absolutely unclear what the ultimate decision was going to be and I wanted to make that known that it was unclear and the fan reaction was very helpful and very important."
• He joked that he had 2006 U-M graduates emailing him explaining the importance of the OSU-UM rivalry.   "I knew that.."
• "I don’t know how you lay it out any better for Michigan."
• "We came out of this really, really well."
• On determining division rivals.  Brandon said they "went back and forth" but in the end, decided that overall conference record wins division.   Tie-breaker is head-to-head, division record, then BCS rankings.  [Take: I don't like using BCS rankings in tie-breakers.  Why let that goofy-assed system determine what we do in our league?]
• On the Notre Dame rivalry. "We’re going to contract out several years, probably to 2014 or 2015.."  There’s a "handshake agreement" with Jack Swarbrick to continue beyond that.  But Brandon noted the nine game conference schedule will be a factor.

On Saturday’s game:

• Joked about the condition of the roads.
• Be in your seats by no later than quarter after three.  (I’d suggest 20 minutes minimum.)

Check out all of the WTKA 1050AM podcasts here.

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This blogger rejoices over the news tonight.

So does this guy (below).  That’s Louis J. "Doc" Cooke, longtime Minnesota administrator who started Little Brown Jug rivalry by suggesting the teams play for the crock in 1909:

If you’re not ready to rejoice, take in the entire Little Brown Jug lore series:

Part I: What Really Happened in the 1930s
Part II: Spinning Myths
Part III: Getting it Right
Part IV: 2013: A Space Quandary
Part V: Red Wing Roots
Part VI: Is the Greatest Trophy in College Sports a Fake?
Part VII: Open Questions

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Via U-M Media Relations.  Needless to say I’m real excited they slotted Michigan and Minnesota together to preserve the Little Brown Jug rivalry, and more importantly, they stopped the overthink on the Ohio State-Michigan timing.  Great stuff.

Michigan Announces 2011 and 2012 Conference Football Schedules

CHICAGO, Ill. – The Big Ten Conference office announced tonight (Sept. 1) the football division alignments and conference schedules for the 2011 and 2012 seasons. The announcement was made during a live Big Ten Network special at 7 p.m. EDT.

The University of Michigan will compete in a division that features Iowa, Michigan State, Minnesota, Nebraska and Northwestern. The other division consists of Illinois, Indiana, Ohio State, Penn State, Purdue and Wisconsin. Each school will play the five institutions within its division and will face three teams from the other division, including one cross-division matchup guaranteed on an annual basis. Michigan’s protected cross-divisional rival is Ohio State. “The Game,” regarded as college football’s greatest rivalry, will continue to be played as the final contest of the regular season.

The winner of each Big Ten division will meet in the inaugural Big Ten Football Championship Game, to be played at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, Ind., on Saturday, Dec. 3, 2011. The championship game will determine the Big Ten champion and the conference’s participant in the Rose Bowl Game or BCS National Championship Game.

Following are Michigan’s conference schedules for the 2011 and 2012 seasons:

2011

Oct. 1            Minnesota

Oct. 8            at Northwestern

Oct. 15          at Michigan State

Oct. 22          BYE WEEK

Oct. 29 Purdue

Nov. 5           at Iowa

Nov. 12         at Illinois

Nov. 19         Nebraska

Nov. 26 Ohio State

Off Schedule: Indiana, Penn State, Wisconsin

2012

Oct. 6            at Purdue

Oct. 13          Illinois

Oct. 20          Michigan State

Oct. 27          at Nebraska

Nov. 3           at Minnesota

Nov. 10         Northwestern

Nov. 17         Iowa

Nov. 24         at Ohio State

Off Schedule: Indiana, Penn State, Wisconsin

Statement from Michigan Athletic Director Dave Brandon

We feel really good about the outcome and the new divisional structure designed through the efforts of the Big Ten office, university presidents and athletic directors. My peers and I spent many hours together, or working by phone, to address every factor that each institution brought to the table.

I think we created divisions that are great for the Big Ten, each institution and the fans. We worked hard to ensure that all the traditions were maintained, while addressing the new rivalries that could be created with the inclusion of Nebraska and the conference championship game.

As Michigan Athletic Director, I’m elated by this new divisional alignment. Our goal entering the discussion was to preserve our great rivalries with Michigan State and Ohio State. We were able to do both and the best news is “The Game” will continue to be played during the final week of the regular season. We also added Nebraska as a member of our division which will create a great new rival for our team. As a bonus, we could face Ohio State again in the title game and play for the championship of the conference and a trip to the Rose Bowl. This is the best possible scenario we could have asked for at the beginning of this process.

I think we nailed it and scored a big touchdown for every school in the conference. Our great Michigan fans should be very pleased with this outcome.

Statement from Michigan Football Coach Rich Rodriguez

This is a great scenario for the University of Michigan and our football program. I commend the efforts made by Dave Brandon, President Mary Sue Coleman and their colleagues for working hard to reach an agreement and put together balanced divisional alignments. Dave worked to preserve our great traditional rivalry games – Ohio State and Michigan State – and got our newest member, Nebraska, placed into our division. It’s great that we could keep the greatest rivalry in college football, The Game, the regular season finale, and the bonus is we could still face Ohio State in the championship game.

I had a chance to talk to a few folks at Media Relations about Saturday’s pregame activities. 

It’s suggested you get into your seat at least 20-25 minutes prior to kick-off to be safe.  It won’t be a drawn-out process as there’s a TV schedule and of course a football game to be played. 

Here’s what you can expect (bulleted by design, specific order not certain):

• Video piece on the Stadium project
• Video piece on Brock Mealer
• Ribbon cutting (with Bill Martin, Dave Brandon, the Regents)
• Brock Mealer will lead the team out, walk under the banner.  The team will follow.
• Looks like two flyovers (sounds like MGoShoe has it right.) 
• TBD – but possibly some type of pyrotechnics(!)?
• There will also be set video pieces throughout the game

In and around the concourses there are a few new items (I’m not sure how much of this was in place for Fan Day):

• The Michigan Stadium ‘Art Deco’ lettering is now on the east side of the stadium, and Bruce Madej encouraged folks to check that out along with the goings on around the rest of the concourses.  He wasn’t sure if the other lettering set was going to put on the west side.
• There is also new permanent artwork in the concourse areas "honoring teams and award winners."

Other stuff to get you pumped:

New banners in the parking lots featuring different players.  (P.S. Hope the sky looks like this on Saturday, it’s almost cartoonishly nice out):

Freshly painted lines and parking spots in the lot.  Holder of this spot, you lucky bastard:

Ahh, nothing like rolling near campus and hearing the drumlines practicing and the band doing their thing:

Thanks to a tip from loyal reader James Joseph, check out this pile of Michigan and college-football related material (programs, media guides, books and more) currently up for bid on eBay. Better yet—the proceeds from the auction go directly to support the Cancer Kicker himself—the great Phil Brabbs.

Editorial:  Dude, I know it’s to cure cancer, but selling your copies of Natural Enemies and Bo’s Lasting Lessons?  Those books are sacred!

Here’s the full lot of items:  Read more…

Per a source at SAE, due to a student break during Homecoming (October 16), the annual Mud Bowl game will be played November 6.   Bummer.  Not only is it three weeks later (and colder), this game should be played on Homecoming weekend. 

Related:
SAE Mud Bowl 2009: Recap & Photos
Kids Having Fun: Mud Bowls and Protests

’94 Michigan grads Randy and Jason Sklar guest-hosted Jim Rome’s radio show Friday and as they do, brought a little Michigan feel to the show.  In the second hour they were joined by Desmond:

 Desmon Howard on Rome: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

They discussed the timing of the Ohio State-Michigan game, the BCS in general, Reggie Bush giving his Heisman Trophy back and NCAA violations, on the upcoming season, his sleeper team in the Big Ten (Wisconsin), and the outlook for Michigan and Rich Rodriquez (needs 8 or 9 wins, or seven with Ohio State), "no doubt in my mind they will score points."  Howard also joked about Bill Martin disappearing earlier than originally expected.

Love the outro music.

I got a chuckle out of this, from WTKA 1050AM yesterday.  Jeff Passan of Yahoo! Sports is apparently an old friend of AnnArbor.com’s Mike Rothstein.  When word got out that Rothstein dinged the luxury sled belonging to new athletic director Dave Brandon, Passan pounced on his old pal:

 Prank on Rothstein [2:14m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

I hope Passan dropped something like, “Mr. Rothstein, you do know that Mr. Brandon is a very powerful man, right?”

Michigan held its ‘Beanie Bowl’, a full team scrimmage in the Big House including band, PA announcer and the whole deal.  A few videos released:

Stonum took the opening kick-off back.  Good and bad I guess, right?  Line drive kick, taken at the 10 and no one touched him:

Also (via a tweet from Victors_Valiant), here’s Frank Beckmann talking on the Huge Show during the scrimmage, you can hear the PA announcer and the band in the background.  Frank "Blue Skies" Beckmann.

While Wolverine fans tend to toss any great individual performance that occurred during a loss in the circular file, there are a few that stand out.  One of those is tailback Jon Vaughn’s 201-yard rushing performance in Gary Moeller’s coaching debut, a thrilling 28-24 loss in South Bend in 1990. 

Thanks to eBay, we now also know that Vaughn had a little more than game film and the occasional ache/pain to remember that great effort.  Evidently Vaughn was the game’s ‘Offensive Hustler’:

Yes, apparently Coach Mo not only dealt out helmet stickers, he also handed out Little League second place trophies for individual efforts.  Per the auction description:

Very rare one of a kind John [sic] Vaughn offensive hustler award for the game on sep 15 1990 vs the notre dame fighting irish. The trophy stand approx 14 inches high. The trophy does have some wear in areas. Please note that this trophy does not specifically mention his name. However i just recently purchased a memoribilia [sic] grouping from John [sic] Vaughn.

Vaughn earned more prestigious honors at the end of the season, particular co-Big Ten Offensive Player of the Year.   Against Moeller’s advice, Vaughn bolted to the NFL after the season and had a short career in the bigs. 

Other Hustlers eBay
Here’s a couple other guys who deserved the distinction of Michigan’s offensive hustler, call it a Hustler lifetime achievement award.  

Let’s start with the great Bob Chappuis, here featured in this incredible photo currently up for bid.  He’s leaping over Michigan State’s Lynn Chandnois (or Jaws for James Bond) and both men signed the shot, very cool:

There’s always a bunch of cool stuff featuring all-time Hustler Tom Harmon, but this one was pretty nice.  It’s some sort of card featuring a photo of Harmon on the front with 98′s career stats on the back:

I don’t know if you can read that, but one thing stuck out–Harmon attempted 94 passes in 1940 and had 11 picked off.  Yikes.  That of course didn’t stop Harmon from taking home the ultimate college football Hustler award. 

Finally, this photo deserves a good home.  It’s 1920s revolutionary Wolverine footballer Benny Friedman on the sidelines from 1939:

This was more than a decade since his days in Ann Arbor, and at the time he coached at City College of New York (some folks wanted him to return to Ann Arbor to replace Harry Kipke).  As noted in the wire photo caption, he also strapped on the helmet for a local pro team named, naturally, the Wolverines.   From Murray Greenberg’s Passing Game: Benny Friedman and the Transformation of Football:

Richard Retyi of U-M media relations posted a nice story recently on mgoblue.com, talking about the first touchdown in Michigan football history, widely attributed to a gent named Irving K. Pond.  From the piece:

The team photo features 13 handsome gentlemen with team captain Dave N. DeTar standing in the back row with his mates. The team did not have a head coach until 1891. Hand written notes on the back of the team picture read:

"All except Collins H. Johnson were in Chicago for the game with Racine College on May 30, 1879. Petit was substitute and did not get into the game. Touchdown by Pond. Field goal by DeTar."

Pond described the feat in his autobiography:

My touchdown was made towards the end of the first half and involved a long distance run to where the ball must be grounded directly behind and between the goal posts … To Avoid being tackled I was forced to mount the bleachers and run eastward along them until I was opposite the goal when I stopped suddenly and — fearing that a touchdown in the bleachers would not count– jumped over the heads of my pursuers to the ground."

You’ve got a few sources claiming that Pond scored the first Michigan touchdown that’s certainly the accepted history.  The ‘DeTar’ who made the kick in the description above is David DeTar, captain of the ’79 squad. 

Racine’s Version
Fast forward to early last year.  In January I was researching the history of the 100th anniversary of Michigan Football (in 1879-1979) for this mgo-guest post for Brian in 2009.   While digging around at the Bentley Library, I came across a transcript of an article published in the Racine Advocate describing the first game, and its only score, much differently.

From a June 7, 1879 report that described the 1-0 Michigan victory, titled "RUGBY FOOT BALL – RACINE COLLEGE VS MICHIGAN UNIVERSITY":

Our Club [Racine] won the first "kick-off" and Mr. Parker sent the leather covered oval high in air and far over the field.  There was a burst of applause from the grand stand which stilled as Campbell of the Michigan caught the ball, and at high speed rushed with it toward Racine’s goal.  From this time on our boys had the worst of it…

This article even described the injuries (in the first period Racine had a man with a "nose bleed" and another with a sprained ankle).  Despite the Michigan dominance the game was scoreless.  They took a 15 minute break and then resumed.  Here’s how they described the only tally of the game:

In the second struggle the goals were reversed, and the same tactics were employed as before, the Ann Arbor Club on the offensive and our boys simply endeavored to defend their goal.  Mr. Chase made an excellent catch from a Racine kick, placed the ball directly in front of the Purple’s goal and Mr. D Tarr [sic] kicked the oval ball high and clean over our goal just as time was called.   This ended the game in favor of Michigan…

I wrestled with this type of scenario when researching the Little Brown Jug.  You’ve got an accepted version of the history, with a lot of people through time repeating that version, but some other accounts (and witnesses) that contradict or at least alter the events in the accepted story.   But this is interesting—you have the Racine paper describing the score as a kick that broke a scoreless tie at the very end of the game, with Pond not even mentioned.    Pond of course later his heroic and historic TD great detail, occurring "towards the end of the first half." 

If his run were indeed that spectacular, you think it would have found a place amongst the descriptions of nose bleeds, high kicks, and excellent catches in the Advocate.  Heck, Pond might have knocked the sportswriter over during his scamper down the bleachers.

It’s tough to say what to believe in this case.  The Bentley Library has the score of the game 1-0, implying a mere kick settled the game.  I couldn’t find a definitive guide to how score was kept back then and I’m not sure these teams would be following a standard set in the East.  This said, there was a focus on kicking back then and a precedence for ignoring touchdowns and only counting kicks, as described in this recap of the early days of Harvard-Yale Football from the period:

Harvard bowed to Eugene Baker’s request to play only eleven men on a side and to ignore touchdowns in the scoring. Sure enough, Harvard pushed over three touchdowns but missed all the following goal attempts. Yale made a single successful kick to win the game, 1-0

It’s tough to say.  I do know that over time there’s something to say for the accepted version of the history, but often the commonly understood story that endures is the one preferred and delivered by ‘the victor’.   Given Pond’s success in his career (designer of the several college Unions including U-M, and a life worthy of a published autobiography) and his willingness to talk about it, it’s not a surprise that his version survived and hasn’t been seriously disputed.  On top of that, you can imagine that the athletic department is reluctant to rewrite history after a nice story has been established.  How much luck do you think I’ll have with the athletic department when I show the true origins of the Little Brown Jug rivalry?

Postscript: If they indeed did not score in that 1879 game, the first touchdown would have occurred in 1880 in that season’s only game—a 13-6 victory against Toronto played in Canada!  

Want more?  Check out MGoShoe’s excellent post on Pond here.

mgoTim’s presser notes from yesterday.

On the quarterback competition, here’s a clip where he explains how tight the competition really is (even tighter than last year when he played three in the opener).  He hoped he’d have the reps split 60-40 by now, wasn’t able to do it.

 Rich Rod on the 3: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

He also scoffed at the notion that he needs to settle on one guy and fans won’t know until kick-off of the UConn game (does that mean we’re taking the ball?).

I’m taking RichRod’s lead and declaring I’m done worrying about the quarterback situation.  Tate rebounded, Devin’s much better than he looked in the spring and Denard seems to be the leader and the team favorite.   I don’t think we’re going to get anything else.   The big question for me -  How does Denard fare in the pocket when pressured?  We’ll find out September 4.

[Ed. With word out per Alvarez that Iowa and Wisconsin will be split, a revision]:

Left out, unless they work in some deal like Ohio State and Michigan for the first two, are:
* Minnesota-Penn State (Governor’s Victory Bell)
* Michigan-Minnesota (Little Brown Jug <shakes fist>)
* Illinois-Purdue (Purdue Cannon)
* Minnesota-Wisconsin (Slab of Bacon/Paul Bunyan’s Axe)

If you really want to optimize the rivalries, take the structure above and swap Minnesota and IU, and protect the Indiana-Purdue cross division game.  This will hold 10 of the 13 rivalries each season not to mention Michigan-Penn State and Iowa-Nebraska:

Left out, unless they work in some deal like Ohio State and Michigan for the first two, are:
* Illinois-Purdue (Purdue Cannon)
* Iowa-Minnesota (Floyd of Rosedale)
* Indiana-Michigan State (Old Brass Spittoon)

—————————————————————————————————————–

[Original post:]

Brandon went before the Detroit Economic Club today and didn’t do much to squash the talk of moving the Ohio State game or keeping Michigan and the Buckeyes in different divisions.  With all the talk from DB, Delany, Alvarez…don’t you think this is this pretty much it?  

Left out, unless they work in some deal like Ohio State and Michigan for the first two, are:
* Illinois-Northwestern (Sweet Sioux Tomahawk/Land of Lincoln Trophy)
* Minnesota-Penn State (Governor’s Victory Bell)
* Illinois-Ohio State (Illibuck)
* Michigan-Minnesota (Little Brown Jug <shakes fist>)

That’s 69% of the rivalry games protected without any further tinkering each season.  If you consider Ohio State-Penn State and/or something like a Iowa-Nebraska rivalry, that obviously adjusts the figure.  Did I miss anybody? 

Not sure how you ever get to preserving 85-90% that Delany mentioned but season-to-season, factoring for non-divisional games, you’ll get close to that.  The big losers, to me, are The Little Brown Jug and the Illibuck games.

This slotting also keeps in place 6 of the current 11 pairings of opponents that are currently locked in on the conference schedule (i.e., Michigan with Ohio State, MSU). 

‘The Game’ penalty
I saw friend-of-blog Craig Ross today.  He seemed less concerned with moving "The Game" and more concerned about sorting out how to fairly determine division champion.  If Ohio State-Michigan meet every year, naturally over time that means these teams will face a tougher path.  I guess that’s the case today anyway, but we’re all fighting for one spot at the top.  If division champion is determined by overall conference record, then there’s an a bit of an extra hill to climb for these teams vis a’ vis the rest of their division.  Ross is still tinkering with it, but suggests weighting the division games higher (maybe ’2′) versus the non-division conference games (maybe ’1′).  

[ed. Shortly after posting, Ross explained further in the comments:]

Here’s what bothers me. Take two teams in one division.

Team A goes 5-0 in division and plays the best three teams in the other division, winning 1. That team is 6-2.

Team B goes 4-1 in division and plays the bottom three teams in the other division, going 3-0. That team is 7-1.

Team A has crushed Team B. Call it 48-7.

Team B "wins" the division, or so I assume.

Here’s a potential solution. Each in-division win counts 2. Out of division wins count one. Now the above teams each have 11 points. Team A has beaten Team B. They win the division on the ordinary tiebreak. Justice prevails. All is good with the world.

Is there a problem? Well, it seems like there must be.
-CR
I admit I haven’t thought it through so Brian Cook will call me “Tony Saragusa.”