Hogie It was very nice to take in a couple of periods back at Yost earlier this evening.  Red and crew took care of the University of Windsor 6-2 in the exhibition.  The official attendance is listed at just under 6,000 but the old arena was about 2/3 empty. The action got a little chippy as the teams tallied 14 penalties including a 10-minute misconduct at the end of the second period for the Windsor goalie.  I left early & listened to the WKTA radio coverage for the third period, and captain Chris Summers was interviewed during the action.  Interesting–he talked about some challenges last season serving most the season as team captain as a junior, hinting that there may have been some issues between he and the seniors.  He stressed that this squad is more of a unified team. While we won’t have player interviews during the game action this season, the radio team did note that they’ve set up a microphone in the locker room and will talk to Summers in between periods. Ed. 10/5:  Speaking of getting back to Yost, lifelong diehard Michigan fan Steve Sapardanis was in the stands.  He actually skated against his beloved Wolverines back in 1982 as a freshman netminder for Windsor – the first game of his career at Windsor!  He was…

I know a lot of Michigan fans really aren’t comfortable unless they’re miserable.  For you, Spartan sights and sounds from Saturday:  Mark Dantonio walks to the stadium with the team with lucky briefcase in tow The brothers Duckett, TJ left next to older brother Tico.  These guys were on the winning side of two brutal MSU wins – Spartan Bob (T.J.), Desmond endzone mauling (Tico)   Horrible bathrooms situation made worse by people doing this   Coach Izzo took the field to hand out rings to the 2008-09 hoops team   Big Ten champs on the face, Final Four on the side    Sparty takes a knee and flexes his enormous pipes  Hoisting the little brown Bunyan post game Elsewhere– Writer/historian John Kryk (author of Natural Enemies) cleared up the history behind the shift in schedule with MSU in 1968—see his response here.

photo credit : my dad Me back on 9/20: Punt option:  This prompted a rare in-game post, but I’d love to see Rodriguez consider dropping in the punt roll-out option with Mesko once again especially on those fourth and short situations.  I hated that thing at first but with Zoltan back there handling it I’m completely comfortable after watching how it was employed last season. Eh. Maybe not so great of an idea with when you’re in the shadow of the goalposts.  I haven’t seen all the explanation here but I assume the coaches called the option (really bad idea – and yes, they did) and Mesko made the read to run it (bad idea). I love the band member on the left.  Mesko hasn’t even taken three steps and he’s looking down the sideline to give Rodriguez the stink eye. This dude is the most relaxed man I’ve ever seen.  Baby blue jacket, turtleneck, pinkie ring, legs-crossed.   He’s just taking in a great college football game on a wonderful autumn day in East Lansing.  No emotional investment whatsoever—I envy this man: Related: Rodriguez on the Rugby punt (audio from Monday)

Something caused a big shift in the Vegas spread last night after 5pm, with the line jumping as many as 6 points toward the Spartans.  The current odds have MSU giving 3.5 to the Blue for tomorrow’s tilt: USA Today posts the shifts in the line here, and it looks like it started last night with one site moving the line to –3.5 at 5:53pm at most the rest moving the same way minutes later.   Hmmm… The totals also dropped 3 points at this time from an aggregate of 57 down to 54.

While researching my brief post on the 1964 team I noticed that Michigan played both Michigan State and Ohio State on the road that season, unlike today or any other time that I could recall in my lifetime.  Looking at the Bentley Library season by season summaries, the shift happened in 1968 when Michigan scheduled Michigan State for a second straight home game that season (see back-to-back ticket stubs to the left). Does anyone know the circumstances behind the shift?  I asked Bruce Madej and Craig Ross and they weren’t sure.   It’s easy to understand why Michigan would want such a change. The Buckeyes and Spartans were very powerful at the time, and it probably was a headache for the coaches to face them twice on the road every other year.  As far as ticket sales (keep in mind the Big House had plenty available back then), having to go every other year without seeing Michigan’s rivals probably was tough on season ticket sales. Update 10/4:  Thanks to writer/historian John Kryk, author of the awesome Natural Enemies, for a thorough explanation: It wasn’t until the late 1950s that the Big Ten mandated that teams had to play home-and-homes with other conference teams, if that’s what the other conference teams wanted. But either right away or eventually, if both teams agreed,…

Sorry, many issues with my hosting company this evening.  Here’s a little chap wrap with “Nancy Smith” in Bangalore:

Former Michigan badass and current Detroit Lion & Barwis disciple Larry Foote joined Jim Rome today.  In the first part of the interview he discussed the Lions’ victory over the Redskins…but I jump right to Foote talking about the Michigan State game this week and the rivalry.       Rome questions him on the Free Press allegations (Foote is apparently pals with Mike Rosenberg) and Foote offers his perspective. Audio: [display_podcast] Notes: “I’m excited what’s going on in Ann Arbor.” “You see the license plates all over town, the S on everybody’s license plate, these green shirts and it just makes me sick.” “They know they’re like our little brother and they don’t like that.   They know they’re second to us.  But it’s been like that for a lot of years now and those guys don’t like it.” “This game’s always a trap game because they always come out…we just need to match their intensity.” And for your mixtapes, here’s Foote with his legendary “Go Blue, and Michigan State ya’ll always gonna suck” from 2008:

“Reckon there’s a lot of peckers there in East Lansing.” So Rodriguez completely played down Tate Forcier’s injury on Monday.  He said it was “sore” and that he’d be limited in practice on Monday but would return Tuesday and expected him to play Saturday.  His body language and tone gave the air of the whole thing not being a big deal and he wasn’t pressed on it. But Rodriguez also said practice was closed to the media on Wednesday–the one day of the week media get a look at the team.  And now we’ve got spies on campus spotting Tate in a sling. The whole thing strikes me as weird.  I know Rodriguez handles injuries a little differently than most (by producing that Thursday NFL-style report) but if anything, wouldn’t Rodriguez at least say he wasn’t sure about Forcier’s status, even if he had a good feeling?   Toss in the shot of Forcier wincing on Saturday with the sling thing and the media lockdown and the whole thing is suspect.  Maybe Forcier is really fine and the sling is just a means to help him heal faster or to encourage him to ‘stay off’ the shoulder.  As reader Lew suggested to me, maybe RR is just trying to keep Forcier focused on playing Saturday.  I’m skeptical.  If Forcier can’t go…