For those of you who are season ticket holders and/or Victors club members, don’t fret about the recent totals in the Preferred Seats Donation (PSD) renewal mailer. I know that many of the mailers included screwed-up PSD totals; mine for instance showed 0.00. Sources inside Weidenbach Hall tell me that: a) there was a screw-up transferring the PSD totals from a spreadsheet to the mailer [they’re using the hottest technology I see], b) an email will be going out explaining this, and c) if you are worried about the location of your Capital One bowl tickets, I’m told that they were assigned according to your correct PSD. **Note: This site is NOT AFFILIATED in any way with the Victors Club or the University. If you have questions about your PSD or anything related to your ticket or Victors club status, please refer to the official site. Update: Speak of the devil…just got an email from Marty Bodnar of the ticket office explaining the mix-up.
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Reaction on hire from Drew Sharp & Valenti (audio)
Free Press rabble rouser and Michigan grad Drew Sharp filled in on the Sports Inferno radio show on WXYT. Here’s Sharp and regular host Mike Valenti’s take on the hire. I post this because neither of these guys is very popular in Wolverine circles. Sharp because he’s a jerk; Valenti because he unapologetically bleeds Spartan green. Me? I can’t stand Sharp but think Valenti is solid. Summary: Both guys like the hire. Valenti adds a huge “we’ll see” on the defensive side, rattling off six teams that will crush RR’s traditional defensive scheme. Here you go:
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If you’re waiting for an email reply from Martin…
Don’t hold your breath. All your emails were tightly filtered and placed neatly in the virtual circular file. Excerpt from MLive’s recap of the post press conference interview with Bill Martin: Q: What took you by surprise? Anything? MARTIN: The passion of Michigan fans. The absolute passion. I had to put filters on my e-mail, because of the number of e-mails I got on this search. Anything that said football was dumped and put into a bucket, and ultimately deleted so it couldn’t be FOIAed. It’s all gone. Gee thanks man. I hope no one wrote him to “donate millions to the football program”.
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Post press conference audio from Carr
For those of you waiting from some comments from Coach Carr, here’s some audio posted on MLive of Carr addressing questions after the Rich Rodriguez introduction press conference. Sounds like all the big Michigan beat writers were on it, Chengelis, Albom, etc: [display_podcast] Carr: “I’ll be there if he needs me.” Carr: “I’m happy for Bill Martin.”
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Shades of Yost: Is Rodriguez a Meechigan Man?
Rich Rodriguez isn’t the only West Virginian to walk the sidelines for a Michigan football team. Many of you may know that the great Fielding H. Yost was born in West Virginia. A quick scan of Google maps determined that the old coach’s birthplace of Fairview is a mere four miles down the road from Grant Town, where Rodriguez was born. [Ed 11/28/08: Per John U Bacon, Bo’s Lasting Lessons author, this is completely false. I read this in several places but apparently, Rodriguez was not born in Grant Town. Bacon interviewed Rodriguez, here’s a note from Bacon to a few folks that challenged Bacon’s assertion of RichRod’s correct birthplace: No matter how many sources list Grant Town as Rich Rodriguez’s place of birth, he was born in Chicago, and raised there until the middle of second grade. (I’ll take his mom’s word on that.) His family did leave their home late at night, and suddenly, and Rodriguez had not heard of West Virginia until they were leaving for the state that night, as the article says. Yost brought so much to this University, from starting a legacy of dominant football to building Michigan Stadium. Fans of great Michigan announcer Bob Ufer may know that Ufer referred to the Wolverines as “Meechigan“, a tip of the hat to old Yost…
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Rich Rodriguez Era Starts today, WVU coach Hired
Reports breaking minutes ago, Rich Rodriguez has accepted the Michigan job. As speculated here, looks like this was locked up on Friday. So what happened? 1. Martin went to Toledo to close the deal and not let Rodriguez out until he accepted. Looks like that happened. 2. Something happened after the Pitt game that turned Rodriguez against the WVU officials, not sure what. He kept them in the dark during this whole process. 3. Assume they worked out the details of the $4M buy-out, just like they did with Coach Beilein. If this money is also going to the West Virginia Foundation that campus is going to have some Thornton Mellon phat facilities soon. So what’s next? 1. Looks like Carr will of course coach the Capital One bowl game but Rodriguez won’t be coaching the Fiesta. Will Carr need to pull an Al Haigesque ‘I’m still in charge’ plea? 2. Should be interesting to see how Rodriguez uses the current players, especially Mallett. 3. Jim Carty has a Big East background and there’s talk (just talk) of some questionable recruiting incidents related to Rodriguez. If true, you can bet Carty will be looking into it. 4. Hopefully talk of assistant coaches will occur soon. I’d like to see him keep Fred Jackson, possibly Ron English but without knowing how…
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Michigan Memorabilia Vault: 1920-1939
A gallery of Michigan athletics memorabilia from around the web. Do you have anything from this era to share? Scan it in and send it over to me. Click to see full size:
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Rich Rodriguez not talking Saturday (audio)
Yes, I understand the irony of the title. Here’s audio from his press conference Saturday. You’ve got to love those beat writers. He instructs the media to that he only wants to talk about practice, the bowl game, opponent or recruiting. Check out how the writers try to push the envelope on Rich’s Rules.