It’s confirmed that Michigan’s head of compliance, Judy Van Horn, will be leaving her post officially in January 2011.  Here’s the official statement from Michigan AD Dave Brandon: “Judy Van Horn served the University of Michigan well during her nine years.  We wish her well in her new career pursuits.” Van Horn started at Michigan in 2001, mainly overseeing the athletic department’s Compliance Services office. Van Horn currently serves as the University’s primary liaison with the Big Ten Conference Office, NCAA and Michigan’s Office of the General Counsel for compliance issues and is a member of the athletics department executive staff. She was of course a central figure in the NCAA investigation of the football program and the missing CARA forms.

The Big Chill at the Big House is just a month away and the athletic department has begun to distribute the tickets and they are sweet: The ducats are made of plastic (like a thick credit card) and come with a hole up top to hang from a lanyard or the plastic string they come with.  Don’t have tickets yet?  Stubhub has plenty ranging from $27-$109 all around the stadium: Of course the topic of the Big Chill will come up more and more as we approached the big day, and John Bacon brought it up to Tristin Llewellyn and the white-suspenders-and-pencil-thin-moustache-rocking Scooter Vaughn at The Arena on Tuesday on the Red show.  They each played it down as just another game, but hinted things would be pretty special playing in front of all those fans.  That’s certainly just what they are supposed to say, you can bet these guys are geeked.   Other stuff from the coaches show: * ’81 alum Roger Bourne offered a few great stories and noted that the team used to stay over on road trips on Saturday night and tore it up in the opposing town (but had to be ready to leave 7am Sunday).   Yes, there was an incident when a couple guys missed the flight home. * Red was out attending an NHL/college…

After the 2009 Purdue game – this was the best shot I got At today’s presser Rich Rod was asked about the postgame incident with Purdue Coach Danny Hope last year.   RR dismissed it and served up his go to Lion King line, "It’s in the past." If you don’t remember, when Rodriguez and Hope met to shake hands after the game, the Boiler coach brought LG Zach Reckman along with him to meet RR.  Why?  Reckman was suspended by the Big Ten for the Notre Dame game earlier that season.  This happened the week after the conference suspended Jonas Mouton and Rich Rod threatened to review film of other games to find questionable plays to submit for conference review.   Hope obviously believed that RR submitted something that got Reckman shelved for the Irish game, and wanted to stick it in his face. Here’s Rich Rod talking about it in the 2009 postgame presser, just after it happened: [display_podcast] I’m guessing/hoping it’ll come up again later this week.

A few photos from the battle between SAE and Phi Psi this morning, and a few from the halftime battle of Kappa Kappa Gamma and Sigma Kappa.   Oh, and the final score: SAE 12, Phi Psi 6.  The men of Minerva prevail again in the slop.   In the halftime sorority battle it was Sigma Kappa 6, Kappa Kappa Gamma 0. My favorites: This was a completed pass – I got chills: Full gallery:

Here’s the next entry in ‘This Week in Michigan Football History’ to be played Saturday on WTKA 1050AM’s Key Bank Countdown to Kick-off pregame show before tomorrow’s battle against the Illini. This week is a darker episode as we look back at the end of Harry Kipke’s coaching career in 1937 as he squared off against the Maroons of the University of Chicago. [display_podcast] You can check out more on Kipke’s firing including his ties to henchman Harry Bennett here. An excerpt: Those “Private Associates”. This was aimed squarely at Kipke’s pal Mr. Harry Bennett, henchman/head of security at Ford.  Henry Ford sent his problems to Bennett and they disappeared.  Or were buried up north.  Think Joe Pesci in Casino, or perhaps Winston Wolf from Pulp Fiction…in fact Bennett looks quite a bit like Mr. Wolf and Pesci, no?: Bennett on the left, with mucho resemblance to the Wolf and Pesci Search and you’ll find anecdotes about Bennett on the web, a favorite of mine: When a Detroit child was kidnapped, Ford, who had a great love for all children, told Bennett to get the child back.  Before he could do anything, the father paid a $20,000 ransom and the child was returned. Some hoodlum acquaintances of Bennett got the money back by torturing the kidnaper.  The kidnaper went to…

Super Dave Brandon joined Ira and Sam this morning on WTKA.  Here’s the audio, starts about 1 minute in: [display_podcast] At the end he talked about apologies.  Brandon: “We apologized yesterday because we made mistakes.  I’m kinda waiting for somebody from the media to apologize for mistakes they made.  And I’m not sure that’s ever going to happen, but that would be a nice thing, wouldn’t it?” Judging from the stories out today from the Free Press you can bet Brandon’s not holding his breath for a phone call.   Later this morning on WTKA John U. Bacon made the point that folks will read into the NCAA findings what they will to benefit their point of view, a ruling Rorschach if you will. What do you think?  Here’s Sharp: Michigan believed it scored a victory when the NCAA accepted its impassioned argument against the fifth and most serious allegation — that Rodriguez willingly fostered an atmosphere of non-compliance, accepting the different conviction that the coach wrongly failed to monitor his program. It’s like the thief that’s caught stealing your watch, but is relieved he didn’t get nailed for taking your wallet as well. And this headline from Snyder/Rosey: We really wanted to know two things out of this announcement—whether the NCAA would accept Michigan’s self-imposed sanctions and whether they’d drop…