I got a chuckle out of this, from WTKA 1050AM yesterday.  Jeff Passan of Yahoo! Sports is apparently an old friend of AnnArbor.com’s Mike Rothstein.  When word got out that Rothstein dinged the luxury sled belonging to new athletic director Dave Brandon, Passan pounced on his old pal: [display_podcast] I hope Passan dropped something like, “Mr. Rothstein, you do know that Mr. Brandon is a very powerful man, right?”

Michigan held its ‘Beanie Bowl’, a full team scrimmage in the Big House including band, PA announcer and the whole deal.  A few videos released: Stonum took the opening kick-off back.  Good and bad I guess, right?  Line drive kick, taken at the 10 and no one touched him:   Also (via a tweet from Victors_Valiant), here’s Frank Beckmann talking on the Huge Show during the scrimmage, you can hear the PA announcer and the band in the background.  Frank "Blue Skies" Beckmann.

Richard Retyi of U-M media relations posted a nice story recently on mgoblue.com, talking about the first touchdown in Michigan football history, widely attributed to a gent named Irving K. Pond.  From the piece: The team photo features 13 handsome gentlemen with team captain Dave N. DeTar standing in the back row with his mates. The team did not have a head coach until 1891. Hand written notes on the back of the team picture read: “All except Collins H. Johnson were in Chicago for the game with Racine College on May 30, 1879. Petit was substitute and did not get into the game. Touchdown by Pond. Field goal by DeTar.“ Pond described the feat in his autobiography: My touchdown was made towards the end of the first half and involved a long distance run to where the ball must be grounded directly behind and between the goal posts … To Avoid being tackled I was forced to mount the bleachers and run eastward along them until I was opposite the goal when I stopped suddenly and — fearing that a touchdown in the bleachers would not count– jumped over the heads of my pursuers to the ground.” You’ve got a few sources claiming that Pond scored the first Michigan touchdown that’s certainly the accepted history.  The ‘DeTar’ who made…

mgoTim’s presser notes from yesterday. On the quarterback competition, here’s a clip where he explains how tight the competition really is (even tighter than last year when he played three in the opener).  He hoped he’d have the reps split 60-40 by now, wasn’t able to do it. [display_podcast] He also scoffed at the notion that he needs to settle on one guy and fans won’t know until kick-off of the UConn game (does that mean we’re taking the ball?). I’m taking RichRod’s lead and declaring I’m done worrying about the quarterback situation.  Tate rebounded, Devin’s much better than he looked in the spring and Denard seems to be the leader and the team favorite.   I don’t think we’re going to get anything else.   The big question for me -  How does Denard fare in the pocket when pressured?  We’ll find out September 4.

[Ed. With word out per Alvarez that Iowa and Wisconsin will be split, a revision]: Assuming they add that special rule that requires Michigan and Ohio, (and now, Iowa and Wisconsin?) this also protects 9 of the 13 traditionally recognized rivalry games with a trophy (including The Game).  If Iowa and Wisconsin are split, seems to follow that Iowa would hang in the division with Nebraska so they can have their annual corn war. * Indiana-Purdue (Old Oaken Bucket) * Indiana-Michigan State (Old Brass Spittoon) * Iowa-Wisconsin (Heartland Trophy via special rule) * Michigan-Michigan State (Paul Bunyan Trophy) * Iowa-Minnesota (Floyd of Rosedale) * Michigan-Ohio State (“The Pride of Rose Bowl” via special rule) * Michigan State-Penn State (Land Grant Trophy) * Illinois-Ohio State (Illibuck) * Illinois-Northwestern (Sweet Sioux Tomahawk/Land of Lincoln Trophy) Left out, unless they work in some deal like Ohio State and Michigan for the first two, are: * Minnesota-Penn State (Governor’s Victory Bell) * Michigan-Minnesota (Little Brown Jug <shakes fist>) * Illinois-Purdue (Purdue Cannon) * Minnesota-Wisconsin (Slab of Bacon/Paul Bunyan’s Axe) If you really want to optimize the rivalries, take the structure above and swap Minnesota and IU, and protect the Indiana-Purdue cross-division game.  This will hold 10 of the 13 rivalries each season not to mention Michigan-Penn State and Iowa-Nebraska:   * Indiana-Purdue (Old Oaken…