• Wangs and the Red Jersey | Storytime with Sap

    [Ed. Steve “Dr. Sap” Sapardanis is featured here each postgame with Dr. Sap’s Decals.  You might know that his detailed knowledge of uniform tweaks since the Bo era helped spearhead the Uniform Timeline.    Bottom line – the Sap mind blended with the Sap archives is a Wangler-to-Carter-esque combination.    Here’s another great Bo-era story from the mind of Sap.]   Guest post by Steve “Dr. Sap” Sapardanis   Nowadays it’s commonplace for quarterbacks to wear red (or sometimes orange, /wink) colored jerseys in practice. This of course is a reminder to all players and coaches that they are not to be hit or tackled in drills. Last year, former Michigan quarterback Rick Leach told me that he never wore a redshirt at practice during his four years as Michigan’s man under center. I was shocked to hear that, especially when you consider two things: 1. Bo liked to hit in practice as much as possible and; 2. Leach ran Bo’s option offense and got hit quite a bit carrying and pitching the ball.   So all this got me thinking – who was the first QB to wear a redshirt at practice for Bo?  I know it wasn’t Tom Slade shown here at practice in 1972: And like Leach said, no redshirts here in 1976 when President Ford dropped by to…

  • WPW | Jimmy Orwig’s Righteous Swig

    Hump Day!   Wire Photo Wednesday leads with something near and dear to my heart, the Little Brown Jug: A great shot of a few men from Bennie Oosterbaan’s 1957 roster. Left to right I believe you’ve got: Stan Noskin (QB), Dave Brown (QB), ‘57 captain Jim Orwig (LT) taking a pull, Larry Faul (LG) and Jerry Goebel (C).   We don’t have a lot of information on this shot, but it looks like it appeared in the Minneapolis Star, making me think it was shot just prior to the ‘57 battle for the Jug.  The caption also says that’s a replica – which is looks to be (for starter, there are no scores down the side, at least on the side we can see…).   Good news – Orwig took back the real jug after Michigan’s 24-7 victory on October 26, 1957.   Fritz: “..and finally, we’re getting new helmets..with yellow wings on them.”   [Team breaks out in laughter]Fritz:  “Trust me on this one. Wings are the future. Wings I tells ya.” So I’ve seen this shot on eBay before but never noticed the significance of the date it was taken.  This is actually a pretty historically significant shot from March 28th—the start of Spring football back then.  This is probably one of, if not the first, published photo with Fritz Crisler…