• Denard Goes Schutt

    Nice try, Denard.  I’ve got uniform spies everywhere but even I caught this one.   This season Denard switched from a Riddell helmet, used the past two seasons, to a Schutt model this year.  Here he is in 2009 with the Riddell: And yesterday (from the nice photo gallery put together by Brad at MnB Nation), here’s the Schutt. A quick text to uniform guru Steve Sapardanis confirmed the switch.  Sap checked his notes and verified that indeed, Denard wore Riddell in the Gator Bowl but trotted out a Schutt at  the Spring game and at the Under the Lights press conference.  As I wrote last season, I’m partial to Schutt.  These are the helmets that are reconditioned and painted in Oxford, Ohio each year by a man named Russ Hawkins at a company called Capitol Varsity Sports.  More from my 2010 post: This May I asked Falk about how Michigan hooked up with Capitol Varsity and Hawkins and he told me relationship goes back to the mid-1960s.   Falk was the manager for his high school team in Oxford and naturally they used the local company for their reconditioning services.  This relationship followed Falk to college at Miami, OH when he handled the equipment under Redskins head coach Bo Schembechler. When he was reunited with Bo up in Ann Arbor in…

  • Ending Early

    From the official game release: This is the first Michigan football game to end before all 60 minutes of regulation have been played. Well kind of.  And I’ll clarify in a minute. It’s certainly not the first Michigan football game to end before the planned allotted time.   Most notably two of the most famous games in college football history ended early: The 1902 Rose Bowl (the first bowl game ever played) ended with plenty of time on the clock because Yost, Heston and crew were putting a colossal smack down on Stanford.  From the Bentley: With eight minutes remaining in the game, Stanford captain Ralph Fisher approached the Wolverine bench and offered to concede; Michigan consented. While this game yielded the Little Brown Jug, the great 1903 Minnesota-Michigan battle between the Western powerhouses also ended early.  The common story is that after the Gophers scored a late TD to tie the game, the Minnesota fans stormed the field and the coaches agreed to call the game. (I’ve heard other claims that approaching weather was a factor in the decision, but haven’t seen much evidence to back that up).  The Sunday November 1, 1903 Minneapolis Tribune says the game ended with “but a few seconds left to play.”  The Detroit Free Press from that Sunday said two minutes remained, headline:  Detroit…

  • Last Weather Delay (Photos from ‘06)

    Digging deep into the archive, here are a couple photos from the last time fans experienced a weather delay, at the 2006 Central Michigan game. First, a shot from Section 22 as fans waited out the delay:   After the delay, the teams went through a mini version of their warm-up routine:

  • Big House Seat Cushions

    I was concerned about how they’d affect the look of the stadium but they’re not too bad.  And they did take extra care to place maize seats in the area of the block M on the east side:   Follow MVictors on Twitter

  • Provisioning for Michigan Stadium – 2011

    [Webmaster’s note: Once again for 2011, re-examining the standard stadium gear for the upcoming season, with some tweaks.  “All In” Towel no longer required obvsly.] Ah, it’s that time of year. Many of you out there are no doubt running through your tailgating gear, grills, food, wares, etc., for the early start on Saturday.  It’s going to be a long day and that’s just before you get to the stadium. Any fan knows there’s some thought that goes into your in-stadium gear as well and this is a completely separate exercise. So here you go: 1. AM/FM Radio. Forget the latest incarnation of the radio that sticks on your ear, they are unreliable.  Bring in a radio you trust to listen to the play-by-play from Brandy and Beckmann. You’ll get injury reports, sideline observations, statistics and analysis of key plays that are under review (although Brandstatter always seems to think the replay will goes Michigan’s way).   Probably most critical: you can block out the blabber from an idiot nearby who won’t shut his Twizzler hole, as he gives his personal play-by-play and screams down to the coaches from row 87.  2. M Lid. While not an absolute requirement, it certainly helps to keep that sun from beating down on you.  For those in the North end zone or east side…