• Scuttlebutt no more: Shafer departs

    December 16, 2008 /

    News tonight that Scott Shafer has resigned as defensive coordinator. I’m a little surprised despite the heavy scuttlebutt that was abound in the last few weeks. mgoblog put out a brain dump on potential candidates tonight including Notre Dame’s current defensive coordinator and Michigan man Corwin ‘Cornflakes’ Brown. I just don’t see what Cornflakes has done this season to earn the shot at this gig. My two run-ins with Shafer this season. First, I interviewed him at the Spring Game while covering the event for a local paper. Seemed like a great guy and he was all business. The next was after the Utah game. It wasn’t a run in as much as it was a drive by. I kind of felt bad after posting this as it made some rounds around the blogosphere but oh well. He was hunched over the railing at the bottom of the press box waiting to get down to the field. As I said at the time, it looked like someone shot his dog: That probably wasn’t far off. Check out the quote from Angelique tonight: “Bottom line is, I take full responsibility for the demise of the Michigan program,” Shafer, 41, said by phone Tuesday afternoon. “I accept all the responsibility.” Wow. A little sarcasm on the way out? Not sure but let’s…

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  • Pushing the Rock

    September 14, 2008 /

    While there’s still a shot a getting to six wins and preserving two great streaks, this season is turning into an exercise of focusing on themes and trends inside games rather than the end result. A loss a Notre Dame is always tough to take and we still don’t know how good the Irish are, but I saw some good things out there Saturday. The comeback effort turned into a Sisyphean task, as a few times the Wolverines were on the brink of scoring a critical touch only to have a brutal fumble or pick wipe it all away. This game was obviously lost on the turnovers, the worst occurred before the rain came down, but that can be fixed. This offense isn’t quite ready to enough register points to overcome the kind of hole they put themselves in the first quarter, but certainly showed signs. After last week I never thought I’d say this but Threet looked sharp, didn’t he? I don’t mean sharp as in ‘much improved for a guy who’d be a third stringer on most teams’, I mean sharp as you want your quarterback to be. I haven’t seen the replay on that early screen to Minor that was dropped and picked up by the Irish- I assume that shouldn’t have been thrown but otherwise, didn’t…

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  • Blue Books: Holtz Courting Lloyd Carr

    September 12, 2008 /

    This week we’ll go again to the absolute definitive tome on the Michigan-Notre Dame Rivarly, John Kryk’s Natural Enemies. There are several anecdotes of interest in the book, some I’ve mentioned on these pages before, and I’ll revisit some of these in the future. Today, a selection from Chapter 11 ‘Extra Points’. Lou Holtz will be honored at Saturday’s game and they are unveiling a statue. I’m sure Jason Peter has some thoughts on how to decorate the Holtz likeness. I don’t know if Lloyd Carr will ever be honored with a monument at Michigan but I’m sure he’ll get his name on a facility or prominent street. An obscure street near Michigan stadium was the reward for Depression era coach Harry Kipke, who won national championships but was also fired at the end of the decade. But according to Natural Enemies, Lou Holtz wanted Carr to join him in South Bend on a couple occasions: In an interview for this book in 2003, current Michigan head coach Lloyd Carr revealed that in the 1980s Lou Holtz twice tried to woo him to his staff at Notre Dame. Carr said he believes that the first offer from Holtz came in 1986. “One night I was sitting at home and Lou called me. I was shocked, honestly,” Carr recalled. “He said,…

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  • Carty WTKA, Angel WDFN (audio)

    September 9, 2008 /

    Looking back at Miami, OH, looking ahead to the big one in South Bend this weekend. Here’s beat writer a rama…Jim Carty of the Ann Arbor News dialing into WTKA Monday, and Detroit News beat writer Angelique Chengelis: [display_podcast]

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  • Blue Books: The Yost-Rockne Feud

    September 8, 2008 /

    A new feature on MVictors, periodically I’ll take a look at a passage from one of the great books written on Michigan athletics. This week we’ll go to the absolute definitive tome on the Michigan-Notre Dame Rivarly, John Kryk’s Natural Enemies. There are several anecdotes of interest in the book, some I’ve mentioned on these pages before, and I’ll revisit some of these in the future. But for today, here’s are a few selections from Chapter 4 ‘Yost vs. Rockne: 1918:31’. [Note: These are selections from through the chapter, just trying to highlight the feud:] In a nutshell, here’s what each came to think of each other from 1923 to 1931. Rockne, then in his late 30s to early 40s, saw in Yost a “hill-billy” who was forever grinding the religious ax against Notre Dame, who was as crooked as a dog’s hind leg, who was selfish and vain beyond comprehension, who was blindly jealous of Rockne’s own success and ascension to national stardom, and who coached boring, neanderthal football. Yost, then in his mid to late 50s, saw in Rockne a coach who feared the regulatory confinement of a conference, who ran a renegade football factory at Notre Dame, who sought unfair advantages over his opponents, and who continually and deliberately broke football rules with his controversial offense. Kryk…

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