Here’s RichRod from this evening’s press conference. A couple interesting off the field items came up: He validated what people suspected—the all blue helmets that are seen on some players including Tate Forcier are indeed a motivational tool. There are some players that need to earn their "wings". He was asked if any WR might earn the coveted #1 jersey this season. RR clearly doesn’t want to talk about the #1 jersey anytime soon and said the jersey was "semi-retired". Full audio: [display_podcast]
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Mike Martin (08-16 press conference audio)
Looked great, says he feels great. Guessing his helmet has wings. [display_podcast]
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Patrick Omameh (08-16 press conference audio)
Mr. Omameh, who says he’s gained 50 pounds since arriving in Ann Arbor: [display_podcast]
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Crisp, Clean and no Michigan in between
[ed 8.17 – Got a call from Bruce Madej at U-M Media Relations on this. He advises that this logo is not “new” or a change and in fact, the Block M with the blue outline is used in certain media/TV situations and is still at midfield today. Madej did confirm that there is an effort to have a more consistent look to the logo. For the record.] I have a friend that does some work with the athletic department and he told me that this year he was provided a subtle change to the Block M design on his products. The previous version of the logo included an outline of blue around the M, and you’ve seen the older editions that have MICHIGAN across the middle. A rundown of the trademarked M images is found here. I spoke to Erin at IMG who confirmed that the athletic department is going with the all Maize look and that the move “was made when Dave Brandon, Michigan’s new Athletic Director, took office in March.” Voila: I guess it shouldn’t be a shock that one of Brandon’s first moves was to usher in a consistent look and feel to the iconic M logo. I like it. I like it a lot. What is interesting to me is that there wasn’t any…
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I’m Partial to Schutt (Reloaded)
[ed. 8/15 – After a few reader comments and questions, I revised this post. Gotta love Michigan football, where questions about helmet paint get the blood pumping.] I hope you had a chance to catch longtime equipment manager Jon Falk in a recent edition of ‘Countdown to Kick-off’, discussing reconditioning of the Michigan helmet. In the video Falk notes that there are two brands of helmet at Michigan, Schutt and Riddell (although a few varieties of styles are available for each company). Back in May I swung by Schembechler Hall to catch one batch of helmets just as they were being scooped up from the folks from Capitol Varsity Sports, the folks who recondition the Schutt equipment. Here’s a few of the facemaskless helmets sacked up about to be loaded on the truck to Oxford, OH: As wonderfully highlighted in the Countdown video, the man who cares for the Schutt gear once it arrives in Oxford is a man named Russ Hawkins. While the folks at Riddell use a mold to define the maize wing pattern, Hawkins sets the paint boundary by hand. To watch him work his magic is a sight to be sure: Sorry Riddell, give me a Schutt. This May I asked Falk about how Michigan hooked up with Capitol Varsity and Hawkins and he told me…
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NCAA hearing Concludes; Brandon Statement
The hearing dragged on most of the day, perhaps a bit longer than the media hanging outside the committee room expected. Hot news? Beyond the AD dropping a few Dominos pizza pies on the press (hopefully topped with coffee beans) the timetable for the official NCAA decision is unclear. Oh, and count the Alabama game as officially a "maybe", and Michigan and Notre Dame are still working out the details of the future of their football-playing relationship. Statement from Super Dave Brandon, via U-M Media relations: Statement from Dave Brandon Regarding NCAA Hearing We feel that the committee gave us a full and fair hearing today. Our statements today were similar to those we provided the NCAA earlier this summer: We own the mistakes we have made, we fixed some process and communication problems that caused them, and we’re keeping a close eye on this so it doesn’t happen again. I’m proud of the extra effort everyone has been putting into compliance these past several months. Rich and his staff – in coordination with the compliance group – have been working together to keep us on the right track. We will await the committee’s decision and we will not speculate about the outcome – we must let the process play out. We won’t comment further on this matter until after…
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Restocked & Loaded
A little magazine restocking at the Meijer in Bay City, Michigan. Before: After: Don’t have HTTV ’10? Get some at Meijer in Bay City and all over Michigan or order online. Thanks to passionate MVictors reader Bay City Bob for sending this over.
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Donny Hardknocks
Did you check out the first episode of HBO’s Hard Knocks? Damn good. Rex Ryan is a real beauty and I laughed out load every time they told Mark Sanchez this is "his" team – it’s clearly pretty far from that dude’s team. If you’re like me, you’re also watching to check out David Harris and especially the travails of Donovan Warren. They weren’t profiled in the first episode but I think that’ll change. A sneak peak at next week’s show included this comment from a veteran coach: Warren during a drill: "Donny, that was a good tackle you made in that drill. If you would have played like that last year Michigan would have won some damn games." Ugh. ed 8/12: I originally posted that this was coach Bob Sutton, prompting this tweet from twitter user @NealParsons, this tweet: FYI, Sutton has ties to UM. He got his start as a GA under Bo, and his son worked for Big Jon with me while at UM Sure enough, Sutton was born in Ypsilanti, MI and this: ? In 1982 he served as RBs coach at North Carolina State under Monte Kiffin. He had a pair of turns at Western Michigan under Elliott Uzelac (1975-76 and 1980-81), serving first as defensive coordinator and later as offensive coordinator. He was…
