This Week In Michigan Football History, as played during the WTKA 1050AM ‘Countdown to Kickoff’ held November 7, 2020 before the Michigan-Indiana game.
Topics: Bob Ufer’s passing and the onfield tributes, Bo’s disdain for both Illinois (after firing Gary Moeller) and for Illinois’s head coach Mike White. For all these reasons and more, Bo and crew dropped 70 on White and the Illini:
For more: Bob Ufer Official site
This post is brought to you by my friend Nick Hopwood, CFP at Peak Wealth Management.
Full script:
Good morning Michigan fans, today we head back THIRTY NINE years to this day in 1981, when General Bo George Patton Schembechler’s #12 ranked Wolverines welcomed the University of Illinois.
Normally a crisp fall football Saturday in Ann Arbor is met with great joy, but on this day there was a somber mood in town. This was the first home game since the passing of the iconic Meeechigan radio voice Bob Ufer. Ufe was honored by the student athletes when the coveted GO BLUE banner was redesigned to bear his name. The Michigan marching band joined the tribute, forming his name UFER on Canham’s carpet.
But as certainly the iconic Ufer would have understood, there was other business at hand on the gridiron — and this was a big one. You see, Bo did not care for opponent on November 7, 1981. The Illini had fired his friend Gary Moeller in 1979 and Bo didn’t think Mo got a fair shake in Champaign. On top of that, Schembechler didn’t like anything about the man who replaced Mo– Illinois’s new head coach Mike White.
Bo felt strongly that White used shady recruiting practices – a feeling justified when in 1984 the NCAA SLAPPED Illinois with a 2 year probation.
But Coach White and all-conference QB Tony Eason stunned the 105,000 on hand by jumping out to a 21-7 first quarter Illini lead. At that moment Bo glared at his men, and then at the East sideline – and UNLEASHED THE HOUNDS.
Michigan proceeded to drop NINE touchdowns on the stunned Illini, enough to make Coach White WINCE.
While Bo was not known to pile on teams, rest assured the gas pedal was pressed firmly down until the final whistle. Anthony “The Human Torpedo” Carter had 6 catches for 154 yards and a pair of TDs, and the Wolverines amassed over 400 on the ground in the beating. When it was said and done, Michigan hung SEVENTY on Mike White.
Somewhere up in Football’s Valhalla old Ufe’ certainly smiled as he relentlessly squeezed the George Patton scoring horn after each of his beloved Meechigan’s TEN touchdowns.
We still miss you Ufe!
Go Blue, Beat the Hoosiers and for more, check out MVictors.com and WTKA.com – for the KeyBank Countdown to Kickoff this is Greg Dooley.
