• Michigan Football Lost Luggage in 1914

    There’s been so many great items auctioned lately and this one is really nice. A pre-WWI scorecard from the Wolverines trip to play Harvard. The piece consists of 4 pages: the cover, an layout of the starting line-ups, a scorecard and roster, and finally a list of key college football rule changes for 1914. Pretty cool. It fetched a sweet $366.50 on eBay. Check it out: Rule ChangesOne cool thing about scorecard is the back cover lists ‘Important Changes in 1914 Football Rules.’ You could tell the college football rulesmakers were concerned solidifying some of the rules around the game’s latest innovation: the forward pass. Two of the key rules listed in the scorecard related to the quarterback position. It didn’t take folks long to realize that a QB shouldn’t be able to dump the ball to avoid a sack: 3. A penalty to 10 yards is inflicted on the team attempting a forward pass, and, finding the making of the pass impossible, intentionally incompleting the pass by grounding the ball. While taking away the ability to ground the ball, they knew back then that they’d need to protect those precious quarterbacks: 4. There shall be no roughing of the player who has just made a forward pass. Street Clothed WarriorsThe trip to Cambridge was a big one from the…

  • Nine Timing Bastards (Michigan-Penn State 2007)

    The Bizarro World 2007 season continues as the Blue takes down Penn State again. The same Nittany Lions team that many folks felt had the inside track for the Big Ten title. It was a classic conference battle where the two teams seemed to pick up where they left off the past couple of games. Big hits, quarterbacks running for their lives and some tense moments down the stretch. In the end, Penn State couldn’t break through Michigan’s defense and never found a way to stop Mike Hart. Nine times in a row Michigan has sent Penn State packing. Now Michigan is right back into the conference picture and will have two weeks to progress as Northwestern and Eastern Michigan should [should!] offer no challenge. Semi-stale takes on this battle: Appalachian Nightmare: Most have heard by now that App State lost today to Wofford. Whatever. I’m more concerned with this little scenario that Jim Carty presented in today’s Ann Arbor News: Let’s say Michigan beats Penn State, Penn State beats Ohio State, and Ohio State beats Michigan. All three teams end up with one conference loss. In that scenario, the Lions win a tie-breaker over Michigan and Ohio State because those teams played I-AA opponents. That’s right, playing a I-AA team can eliminate you from the Rose Bowl. It’s a…

  • Happy New Year – Go Blue!

    Ahh, New Year’s Day is here with a full slate of great games headlined by the much-hyped Rose Bowl. Speaking of the hype, wow, the ABC/ESPN machine really went after it in the past couple days, huh? How about that coundown to the Rose Bowl running on ESPN? I told the gang here I wish they’d do that for every Michigan game. As far as the game, I’m thinking Michigan will have a little too much for J.D. Booty and the Trojans and will win a tight one: 26-20. The keys? Getting pressure on Booty and containing Jarrett. It’s been so long since the Ohio State game and I’m looking forward to seeing David Harris fly around the field and see what trouble Woodley and Branch can cause up front. Prescott Burgess is completely healthy and it’ll be interesting to see his impact. Here’s some more New Year’s Day predictions for you, against the spread: Wisconsin +2 over Arkansas Tennessee -4 over Penn State Nebraska +1.5 over Auburn Georgia Tech +9 over West Virginia Oklahoma -8 over Boise State

  • The Winner By Knock-out

    Wolverines grind out tough one in State College ANN ARBOR MICHIGAN OCTOBER 14, 2006 Michigan passed the biggest test of the season thus far, dropping Penn State for the eighth straight time by knocking out the Lions’ first and second string QBs. The PSU fans wore their lily whites in support of JoPa, and Lloyd Carr called it the loudest crowd he’s ever played in front of (sorry Oregon, but Carr would never acknowledge such an honor to a non-Big Ten stadium). Here are the takes on this game: – Sack Men. Seven sacks, along with 9 other Tackles for Loss, 2 quarterbacks knocked out. Penn State didn’t know what hit them. The third string QB had absolutely no chance, the screen pass for a touchdown was a fluke. Chalk this win up to the defense. The M ‘D’ remained the #1 against the rush in the nation, with all the sacks and the domination of Tony Hunt netted PSU negative yardage on the ground. Here’s a link I found from the official NCAA site that updates team and individual statistics very quickly, and provides comparisons against a team’s league and all the other NCAA teams. – Drops. If there was one downside to the game it had to be a the drops. Michigan had a few drops both by…

  • Henne Finds Manningham to Sink Penn State 27-25 (2005)

    Michigan reverses fortune with the final second winSALINE, MICHIGAN OCTOBER 15, 2005 This team is getting pretty frustrating to watch. Nothing is coming easy for them, so it’s nice to take this one away as a win. The three loses clearly could have gone either way, and now Michigan’s two big wins are in the same category. Chad Henne drilled a pass through the Penn State secondary on the final play of the game, right in the hands of Mario Manningham for another glorious Michigan come-from-behind 27-25 win. This presents another chance for Michigan to redeem themselves and somehow the downtrodden Blue is still in the Big Ten race, at least for a share. A lot of this they control: Michigan needs to beat Iowa, Northwestern and Ohio State and hope for at least 1 more loss out of Wisconsin or Penn State. PSU hosts Wisconsin on November 5th. My take: Michigan will stumble again. Takeaways:– This Season. It seems every major game is coming down to the final few plays, and in most cases, seconds. It really shouldn’t be, Michigan should be putting these teams away. M is getting into a cycle of surrendering double digit leads and having to attempt a comeback. Twice they’ve pulled it out (MSU, Penn State), and twice they’ve failed (Minnesota, Wisconsin). I can’t…