Another classic night up at old Yost. After surrendering an early goal to the Spartans, the men in Maize never looked back, dominating the puck and tallying six unanswered goals beating their rivals 6-1. Other than the Wolverines’ offensive awesomeness that chased Spartan goalie Jeff Lerg to the bench late in third period, the game was defined by a handful of scrums that sent two Spartans home with game misconducts. Minutes after one of the Spartans was tossed, the Yost crowd participated in the annual Teddy Bear Toss, where fans pepper the ice with plushy toys for kids at Mott Hospital. After the bears were tossed (highlighted by with a half dozen impressive tosses from section 22, row 12 up and over the protective netting by MVictors guest columnist BiggieMunn), scraped from the ice and counted, the kids of Mott walked away with a record 1272 toy animals. The loot: But not so fast my faux furry animal loving friends. While counting isn’t an exact science, methinks they probably missed a few toys that didn’t make it to the icy hardpan below. A few generous fans had big hearts sadly backed up by girlie-man chicken arms: Once the Yost Arena crew fish these out of the netting I’m guessing that’ll bring the final tally to around 1278. Related: – Michigan…
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Ripped Ohio, (Cont.)
Thanks to the readers of this site for the great comments as of late. Check out the thread on the Dantonio Imbroglio post for a little back and forth between in-state rivals. And readers Chris and Bonus rolled up there sleeves and rolled out some passion-filled thoughts on this season in the days following the Ohio State game. The highlight for me, a former Michigan Marching Band member ‘jeffgoblue’ gave a little inside pool on the history of the MMB creating the script Ohio: I’m a former Michigan Band member (89-92). The first script Ohio has long been a part of MMB lore. Mind you, the ’32 band did not actually perform the cursive writing Script Ohio drill as the OSU band has done since 1936, they just made the formation. In the 1970’s, MMB director George Cavender, charted a Script “State” formation that the band marched to while playing the OSU fight song. The announcer’s script read something along the lines of “We taught you how to spell OHIO, now we’ll teach you how to spell STATE.” Here’s the photo from ABC last Saturday:
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Michigan Football’s Worst Season Ever? 1934.
Well, quite a few in the media are pounding the most-losses-in-129-years drum. That’s true of course but Rich Rodriguez’s 2008 debut will not be the worst season in Michigan football history. The percentage of games in the loss column is certainly among the worst but consider that Michigan didn’t consistently play more than eight games for the first 62 years of its existence. If we’re going to toss around the 129 years number, the worst season record-wise belongs to the 1881 team that played and lost three games, scoring just four points to 28 for our opponents (Harvard, Yale and Princeton). But since there wasn’t a coach or a conference or any known photos of the 1881 team, we’ll have to look a little further down the line for a comparable loser. Harry Kipke’s 1934 outfit is probably the definitive low point for Michigan football [see my post ‘The Fall of 1934‘ for more on this season]. The Gerald Ford-led team went 1-7, scored just twenty-one points while being shut out in five of the games. Kipke’s 1936 team also went 1-7 but played just five league games and scored a few more points than Ford and company. What’s remarkable about the 1934 skid was that Kipke’s teams had lost just a single game in the previous four seasons, winning…
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Rich’s Arse (YouTube)
Check out this guy
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WTKA Moves Huge Show to 6-8pm slot, on delay
For those who listen to 1050AM WTKA may have noticed that the Dan Patrick Show has run the last couple days in the slot that used to be occupied by Michigan radio host Bill ‘Huge’ Simonson. WTKA has moved the Huge show out of the drive time slot and onto a 6-8pm window and on delay. I called the station to ask about the decision. Sounds like it came down to a ratings and perhaps a few complaints from listeners. While Huge is technically a local show, the frequent focus on Central Michigan athletics I think wore thin on some Ann Arborites. So they’re moving Dan Patrick into the slot. I didn’t hear Huge’s reaction to the show (because Dan Patrick was on!) and I didn’t hear the delayed show. I’m sure he’s pissed but sometimes radio hosts downplay setbacks like this. A few quickly scribbled thoughts: * I’m not a fan of the Dan Patrick show. To me, Patrick is still a witty teleprompter highlight reader and not a radio host. The cute frat boy towel whipping humor is really for the birds. * I’d prefer a local host, Huge included, cover this critical slot especially during football season. I still miss Dennis Fithian [MVictors interview] and without knowing the financials behind the decision, think it was a big…
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HBO’s The Rivalry Released on DVD, Review
Glad to hear that HBO’s documentary on the Michigan-Ohio State rivalry is now available on DVD. You can get a copy here from Amazon.com or head over to your local Borders. I really enjoyed it; here’s my review from last November (with a few tweaks): ———————————————- With the hype building for Saturday it was a great night to watch the premiere of HBO’s first documentary dedicated to sports: The Rivalry. Initial review by those that at pre-screening event was that it was slanted toward the Buckeyes and didn’t mention Lloyd Carr. I went in with an open mind: – The content definitely slanted toward the Buckeye side of the house. I’d say the last half of the piece was 80% focused on Ohio State fans and Woody Hayes. – Overall it was well done. While they didn’t have any mention/picture/video of Lloyd Carr, they didn’t exactly spend a lot of time on Tressel. But the Carr omission was a little weird. I mean, they showed footage of John Cooper and a lot of Earle Bruce, but and didn’t mention Carr? – The quotes from Bo were great. They talked about the gold pants that each OSU coaches and players gets if they beat Michigan (and later show up on eBay). One thing that never occurred to me is that Bo…
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Coach, Mention The Jug
The original Little Brown (White?) Jug, from Historic Michigan Football Photos. Surely Coach Rod has a lot on his mind and the history of the Little Brown Jug is likely not one of those things. Just after the hire last December I wrote the following: Count me as a one who will be disappointed if during his Monday press conference on November 3, 2008, Coach Rodriguez fails to recount the history of the Little Brown Jug, as Coach Carr did each year during his tenure Here’s to hoping we’ll get some mention of the Jug today. Update: Here’s today’s press conference broken down into clips thanks to MLive. Mention of the jug? Yes but barely. Rodriguez mentioned the jug as something that they have to play for this week and said that it’s “neat”. It’s really NEAT man!: Video: “11/3 Monday Press Conference Rich Rodriguez from MLive”
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Take a Slice: Michigan fans, where do you stand?
I spoke to Power Index pollster Lew a little bit during the Purdue game and suggested that at this point in the season, Michigan fans had pretty much settled on their opinion of Rodriguez and his staff at this point (no matter what happens the balance of the season). Well, if that point wasn’t hit before or during the Purdue game, we’ve definitely hit it now. Win or lose to Minnesota, Northwestern and Ohio State, I think the fickle Michigan base has settled in with their opinion of Rich Rod and staff for the rest of the season and into the longest off-season we’ve had in 33 years. I think it breaks down into about six categories, and here’s my toss of turf in the air at where the Michigan football fan population fall: A few notes:* The strongest group of Michigan fans (30%), are that loyal group that are on board no matter what. They would have been fine with a DeBord hire, for instance. You won’t hear from them too often on blogs, on the radio, message boards.* I think there’s a lot of people out there (20%) that wouldn’t fall into that loyal no matter what category, but are fully on board with Rodriguez and allowing him to do what’s he’s got to do (the ‘In Rod…
