Born on this day, November 3, 1958
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Getting to Minneapolis
I’m heading out to Minneapolis tonight and it’ll be my first time there for a game. Check back in for updates Saturday and Sunday. Looking forward to it of course and I’ll have a camera or two in tow. Elsewhere: * Hello, Angelique: Don’t miss the Angel’s epic tale of artist Jil Gordon and yours truly and our relationship with The Little Brown Jug in the Detroit News today. They even borrowed, with permission of course, my photo of Ms. Gordon from last year: Jil is also a friend of mine and even an MVictors sponsor – check out trueblue365.com STAT! * Hamming it up. Check out The Blockham’s caption contest involving a bevy of U-M media middleweights. Craig of HSR’s entry: * New Sponsor. Flagstar Bank recently announced their extensive relationship with U-M. I’m happy to say they’ve also now got a relationship with this site, thus the new spot on the sidebar.
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TWIMFbH: Avenging Ithaca and Forming the League (1894)
This Week we take a peek at Team 15 back in 1894 at the pair of battles against Cornell- one played in New York and the other back in Detroit at the DAC field. It’s a pre-Yost, pre-Jug, pre-The Victors and heck, even pre-Big Ten look at Michigan Football history: [display_podcast] As always, listen to the WTKA’s Countdown to Kick-off four hours before kickoff on 1050AM or on iHeartRadio. You can catch all of the This Week in Michigan Football History clips here.
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Electrifying Game
We know the October 31, 1903 game Michigan played at Northrop Field in Minnesota spawned the Little Brown Jug rivalry. It was also the hottest ticket in town. The accepted attendance is an even 20,000, although Northrop Field only sat 8,000 in its 33 row grandstand. That doesn’t include the short stands in the end zone but that doesn’t explain how an extra 12,000 got their peepers on the famous 6-6 tie. Thanks to this shot the folks at Minnesota media relations forwarded over to me tonight, you get a sense for the lengths folks went to see this one: I think I need that on my office wall. Righteous Stub So we know approximately 20,000 witnessed the famous clash and we do know that the gross receipts for the game were precisely $30,933.50 (with the Wolverines netting a $13K cut). Assuming the ducats, based on others from that year, were probably about two bucks, it’s fair to assume Doc Cooke’s athletic department produced somewhere between 12,000 and 15,000 tickets. This leads to one missing piece of Jug Lore—I’ve never seen a ticket stub to the 1903 Minnesota-Michigan game. I polled a couple of the most famous U-M memorabilia collectors. Jack Briegel, who owns a ticket to every game played in Michigan Stadium and many more emailed me confirming that…
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Joining the Brotherhood of Jugsmen
Just in time for Minnesota week, I’m happy to welcome the latest member of The Little Brown Jug Club—Mr. T.C. Thorton. He joins these fine gents in the Brotherhood of Jugsmen, Local 1903: Brian Snider – The Jug Brotherhood +++ Eric Mierzwiak – 2009 post, Not Available in Stores Mark Foster – 2010 post, His Own Little Brown Jug (v2) Dennis Dail – 2011 post, Jug Club +1 Daniel and his wedding crew – 2011 post, The Eleven Jugsmen Check out Thorton’s handiwork: Here’s a few words T.C. shared on this life changing experience: Didn’t take long at all, and once you get started, you really look forward to working on it. I had trouble finding an original Red Wing jug that wasn’t the $600+ that antique collectors were asking for it. I ended up have my uncle who is an artist, make a replica out of clay. I ended up speaking to an old high school friend who works with Mark Foster, one of the original jug makers from your site. After emailing him and getting some pointers, I went to town on it. Took me awhile to decide on the perfect colors, probably dwelled on it longer than I should. Biggest trouble came with the Minnesota M. Their M is shorter and more spread out than our Block…
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Depth Perception (Nebraska 23, Michigan 9 2012)
When the trainers were attending to Denard in the first half I wasn’t concerned. Probably for the first time in the many, many times he’s gone down in the middle of a game I wasn’t worried. It didn’t look like there was any serious impact to his arm and we’ve seen him so many times miss a series or two before returning seemingly full strength. Turns out both my skull and Denard’s right arm went numb about the same time and that was that. As Denard sat there watching the game it looked like Bob Lopez and a couple of other guys on the staff actually got him to laugh—but he must have been dying inside. The team has repeated over and over that every game is a championship game but that was as close as U-M has actually seen this year. The captain and 101% of the offense had to sit and watch his boys get crushed. You watched the second half perhaps with some hope that Spring Game Bellomy would emerge but save for a few late first downs it wasn’t really even close. I swear I caught Jeremy Gallon staring off into space after the RS freshman was calling a pass play early in the second half and remember thinking, “Gallon knows this ain’t happening…” That…
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Dr. Sap’s Decals – Nebraska
Ed. Steve Sapardanis aka “Dr. Sap” is back with his decals. This week I added the Editor’s Pick & Fan Award. Here are the picks from Week 1, Week 2, Week 3, Week 4, Week 5, Week 6 and Week 7. Context: Back when Bo was coaching the Michigan Football team, he awarded decals for individual as well as TEAM accomplishments. He also selected Champions each week. Not only were the obvious categories (offense, defense, special teams) selected, but Bo also made it a point to recognize the not so obvious ones – Scout Team Champions and Team Hustlers – each week. Here are the picks this week: OFFENSE NONE DEFENSE DESMOND MORGAN – The defense shut down Nebraska’s offense for most of the game and Morgan played a big part with nine tackles, one TFL and one PBU that resulted in an INT. Without Denard, the UM defense may be asked to score points now! SPECIAL TEAMS BRENDAN GIBBONS – Three weeks in a row that a UM kicker has made three field goals? Unheard of! Might have to go back to the days of Jim Brieske to see when that was last done. Gibby’s 52-yarder showed us that his leg is not just a medium range one – NICE! HUSTLER / SPARKPLUG ROY ROUNDTREE – Seemed to be…
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TWIMFbH: Huskers Here, Huskers There (1905, 1911, 1917)
Shot from the 1911 game at Lincoln via HuskerMax.com – check out the full shot here For this week in Michigan football history we step back to October 27, 1917 when Michigan faced Nebraska in Ann Arbor and include a look at the 1905 game and the last trip to Lincoln, the road trip on November 25, 1911. Enjoy: [display_podcast] More more on the 1911 game here and as always, listen to the WTKA’s Countdown to Kick-off four hours before kickoff on 1050AM or on iHeartRadio. You can catch all of the This Week in Michigan Football History clips here.