Another vintage Michigan football item showed up this week on eBay, this time a post card celebrating Fielding Yost and his fine 1905 squad. The team is assembled in a line with Yost in the middle, standing on a large sign in the shape of a football that reads 'Western Championship'. Atop the photo is a block letter title, 'A HARD COMBINATION TO BEAT'.
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Stoned Wisconsin Badgers say, “I was there” (1981)
Here’s a look at an interesting pin commemorating Wisconsin’s 1981 victory over Michigan. Certainly, no one in Madison would produce a trinket today for a regular-season victory, but keep in mind that Barry Alvarez wouldn’t arrive for another decade and Badger football consistently had a place at or near the bottom of the Big Ten. The lowly Badgers and hadn’t defeated the Blue since 1962 and in the previous four meetings, Bo’s Wolverines outscored Wisconsin 176 to zero. Michigan was riding a nine-game win streak (including Schembechler’s first Rose Bowl victory) and that was enough for the pollsters to slot the Wolverines #1 in the preseason poll. This seemed to be an ideal opponent for the opener, held September 12, 1981, and Michigan came in as a 19 point favorite. Over 68,000 pickled fans witnessed the historic 21-14 upset. Longtime sportswriter Jack McCallum was on hand for Sports Illustrated: Last year Wisconsin didn’t score a touchdown until its fourth game. On Saturday in Madison, against a Michigan team that hadn’t yielded a touchdown in 5 games, Wisconsin scored two touchdowns in the second quarter and the gamer—on a 71-yard pass play. Quarterback Jess Cole throwing to Tailback John Williams—in the third. “This win is the best thing that ever happened to me,” said Coach Dave McClain. The issue? Michigan’s new…
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Tradition: Michigan Students Forming the Block M
The Daily [and MSC] noted earlier this week that the Michigan student section is going to attempt to form a block M within the student section at the game today: On Saturday, when Michigan plays Wisconsin, students and Athletic Department officials hope to add another tradition to the repertoire by coordinating a human version of Michigan’s iconic block ‘M’ in the middle of the student section. Volunteers from the Michigan Student Assembly will hand out several thousand shirts — some maize, some blue — to fans entering certain rows. I’ll join a few others in saying I’ll believe it when I see it. But best of luck. While the Michigan students have done a nice job wearing maize from week to week, I think we might end up seeing more of a smattering of blue dots that will loosely resemble a treble clef. The stunt is touted as a new tradition, but did you know Michigan students have formed block M’s in the crowd for nearly 100 years? From the cover of Historic Photos of U-M Football features the students at the 1916 Penn game doing their thing, not with t-shirts but with cards: And based on this postcard found at the Bentley Library we know the tradition dates back at least to 1908: UPDATE: Hey, they did it –…
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A Badger’s Prediction, and the Tyranny
Gilliam, a fellow prestigious Power Index pollster and die hard Wisconsin Badger backer passed along his prediction for Saturday. Somehow his cousin planned a wedding at 2pm [see below] so he won’t be seeing any live action. Either way, here’s his take on what’s going to happen: Our defense is weak, once you get through the line. We are BAD tacklers, especially the safeties. McGuffie should have a field day. Just run the typical “Michigan screens” (I’m not sure if that’s in Rich Rod’s playbook, but it should be), and get him into space on the corners, and buh-bye…. Unless your defense is horrible against the run (and you are playing at home, and desperate, so that helps), you should be able to contain us. Our QB is not bad….and our offensive coordinator is outstanding (especially making in-game adjustments), so we will put up points. Michigan 34 – Wisconsin 23 [Note: Gilliam, you’re defense better be really bad for M to roll up 34] In honor of Gilliam the Badger’s wedding situation I give you a selection from Nick Hornby’s Fever Pitch: “As I get older, the tyranny that football exerts over my life, and therefore over the lives of people around me, is less reasonable and less attractive. Family and friends know, after long years of wearying experience, that…
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Blue Books: Badgers Bungle Bo hiring
A couple weeks ago I looked back at Lou Holtz’s attempts to woo Michigan coach Lloyd Carr to South Bend and join his Irish staff. In late 1989 Carr had interviewed for the Wisconsin head coaching job which was eventually given to Notre Dame defensive coordinator Barry Alvarez. It was Alvarez’s departure that prompted Holtz to seek out Carr. Did you know that legendary General Bo considered an offer to take the reins at Madison back in the 60s? Indeed. Here’s an excerpt from John U. Bacon’s wonderful Bo’s Lasting Lessons, where Bo recounts what happened in Chapter Three titled ‘Wait for the Right Opportunity’: After we won our conference title in my third and fourth seasons at Miami–1965 & 1966–Wisconsin called. From the outside, it seemed like a pretty good job. Wisconsin’s a good school in a great league. It was about ten o’clock on a Sunday when I walk into this meeting room to face twenty guys sitting around–and some board member falls asleep, right there in front of me! Now what does that tell you? They also had a student on the committee, and this kid asks me how I would handle Clem Turner, a Cincinnati kid, who was always in trouble. Well, how the heck do I know how I would handle Clem Turner? I’ve never…
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Yost Wants a Real Wolverine, Dead or Alive
Fielding H. Yost's search for a real, live, wolverine mascot was a success. Well, kind of.
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Badgers win as Hart, Henne held out
There was a lot of question as to whether Hart and Henne would play in this one given that the game is essentially meaningless (thanks to ESPN for reminding us of that like 70 times during the game) to the team’s goals. Give credit to the Bagders because they played hard, with QB Donovan making some great plays but…it’s clear Michigan pulled its chips off the table for this one. It goes without saying but Henne and Hart would have played had the team wearing red was from Columbus. It’s a bit of a concern that no one on defense rested and at times Donovan and the Badgers sliced them up. Not a good way to go into the Big Game but what can you do? Obviously would have a been much different with H&H intact. As for Mallett, he started out pretty slow missing a W-I-D-E open Arrington that would have been a touch had the ball been within 20 yards of #16. Mesko could have punted the ball to Arrington. Mallett never really settled down; throwing some pretty weak balls and making some poor decisions. I don’t know what Manningham’s problem is but he’s got to understand that Mallett is going to make mistakes. His 97-yarder was pretty sweet and it easily became the longest TD catch in…
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Road Apples
One of the biggest knocks on Lloyd Carr’s program has been its inability to win the first road game of the year. Critics of Carr say the trend unmistakenly points to a lack of preparedness which falls on the coaching staff. Since the ’98 season the Blue have won only 2 road openers: 1999 at Syracuse and last year’s beat down in South Bend. That left a 6 year stretch from 2000-2005 where Michigan dropped the opener. Here’s the dismal record: Michigan Road Openers since 1998 1998 @ Notre Dame Loss – 36-20 1999 @ Syracuse Win – 18-13 2000 @ UCLA Loss – 23-20 2001 @ Washington Loss – 23-18 2002 @ Notre Dame Loss – 25-23 2003 @ Oregon Loss – 31-27 2004 @ Notre Dame Loss – 28-20 2005 @ Wisconsin – Loss – 23-20 2006 @ Notre Dame – Win – 47-21 2007 @ Northwestern In the past decade the first roadie has been a non-Notre Dame, non-conference opponent but it looks like that won’t happen again for quite awhile. Like it or not, Michigan will pretty much fill the pre-conference schedule with home games leaving the opener for either Notre Dame or, when the Irish game is home, the first conference opponent. A few other takes heading into the weekend: Pumping the Records Two major…
