His jersey number is about the only thing that didn’t change for Vince Helmuth last season. The arrival of Rich Rodriguez’s spread offense in 2008 brought with it a diminished role for his brand of fullback, the position Helmuth was recruited to play for then coach Lloyd Carr.  He did not see the field in the final six games of the season, something foreign to the Saline High School football star and 2007 letter winner. That drove Helmuth to give defense a try and he’s currently working to secure playing time at noseguard or tackle.  In Saturday’s spring game he made a few nice stops and will be working this summer to prepare for fall camp and the 2009 season. Helmuth and I spoke last week prior to the spring game about his decision to move to defense, on Rich Rodriguez’s comments about his weight, about the prospect of his brother Gabe joining him on the team, on new coordinator Greg Robinson and more. MVictors: Rich Rodriguez confirmed this spring that you are making the switch to defense.   How did you approach the coaches about the change? Helmuth: I played defense in high school and was pretty good at it, but I didn’t know exactly what it would take to play defense at a school like Michigan. Midway through last…

Via Dave Curtis in the Sporting News: And after this newest edition of Wolverines football ran around for an hour and a half, the day also brought so many conversations like these, overheard in a Michigan Stadium men’s restroom: “They look good,” the short guy said to the bald guy. “Hey,” the other guy said, “it’s already better than anything we saw last year.” If you can get beyond the two guys peeing, the misspelling of Greg Mathews’ surname and Curtis calling Michigan’s fight song ‘Hail to The Victors’, it’s worth a read.

I’ve missed the calls from Detroit News beat writer Angelique Chengelis into WDFN, so it was a nice surprise to hear her again this afternoon on WTKA with Big Host host John U. Bacon.  She was in town for the Michigan basketball banquet and found a few moments to talk with Bacs.  The audio: [display_podcast] On the spring game, the Angel offered “they didn’t show a lot” but called Forcier was “poised”, offensive line is better, as with the running backs, and defense needs some work.  Yep. She noted she spoke with Denard Robinson, and was very impressed with his overall confidence and demeanor.   For someone who hasn’t seen the field, she couldn’t say enough nice things about him.  I saw him buzzing around and signing autographs in the tunnel, overall seemed like a nice guy. Angelique thinks there will be a great competition between Forcier and Robinson, and she’s not counting out Nick Sheridan. A side note: you might be able to tell from the photos that I had some media access to the game, and caught Chengelis up in the press box.  In a environment full of mostly pretty goofy looking men (webmaster included), she sticks out like the sore thumb with red nail polish.    Please save the ‘take a cold shower’ comments. Related:  If you’ve got time,…

Forcier and Vincent Smith celebrate after a score A beautiful day out there today as the masses came out to check out the Wolverines, back in Michigan stadium this year after holding a closed scrimmage in Saline in 2008.  A few of the posts I put up during the day: Crowd Details, Biggest Ever? Stevie Brown, 2009 Meyer Morton Award winner Blue 32, Maize 24: M Alumni Game (Photos) Alumni Game: Leach grunts, Line moves to Blue -1 Spring Game: Locker Room Tour (Photos) Interview: Nick Sheridan While there was no stand-out player at last year’s game, there’s no question that today it was freshman Tate Forcier.   He showed some of the things you heard about in practice: sharp passes, moving well in the pocket, throwing well on the run, and showed that he can carry that ball.   I don’t have all stats but I believe he ran for at least 2 touchdowns, including a beautiful jump and stretch to get the ball over the line in an overtime simulation.  Vincent Smith mixed in some nice runs as well. The defense gained a little momentum in the middle of the full-field scrimmage, but still showed some of the poor tackling that we’ve seen over the last few years.  Will Campbell noted that a focus for the defense will be wrapping…

Update:  With all the fans now in the house, Madej is saying “close to 50,000”.   I’d saying 40,000-ish, maybe more. Per media relations director Bruce Madej, the first person in line this morning for the locker room tour was in line at 3:30am.   Madej is says he thinks this is largest crowd he’s ever seen, going back to 1978 and is convinced that this is bigger than the crowd in 1998. He’s not clear where the 40,000 number came from, which has been tossed around as the number of fans in ’98, but he’s convinced there’s more here today.

This year’s Meyer Morton Award, which has been given out since 1925, went to Stevie Brown.   It signifies the player that has shown the most progress in Spring drills. Past winners include Jamie Morris, Stan & Braylon Edwards, Desmond Howard, Jim Harbaugh, and in 1932, future president Gerald Ford.  The PA announcer advised is designated for Michigan seniors, but traditionally this was not the case.  Take Ford for instance, he was a senior and MVP in 1934 yet received the award two seasons prior. I wrote about this last year after the Saline spring game [see ‘On the Meyer Morton’: This is the oldest individual award given by the football program and its winners include the late Gerald Ford. I actually found this pic of Ford with the award (1932) when researching a post after his death: You may have picked up this mention on the great mgoblog within Brian’s spring practice post today: Will Johnson won kind of a weird award for a fifth-year senior and returning starter to pick up. Brian’s right. It’s a little weird for a 5th year senior to be getting this award. I’m still digging for the reference, but I’m 90% sure I read somewhere that this honored was originally reserved for underclassman. Take Ford for instance. The late president won the honor in…

Well, they made it fun.  No pies in faces or anything like that but I think fans really enjoyed the Alumni game that just concluded.  The ‘Blue’, a 1 point favorite going in, prevailed by converting a touchdown on the final play of the game: The Game winner! Had the pass fell incomplete, the game would have ended in 26-26 tie (Maize would have scored two points for stopping the Blue on downs).  Larry Foote was all over the field, making a nice interception.  Ricky Leach got in for a couple plays, throwing a pick.  Coach Jerry Hanlon yanked him immediately.  More photos: Beckmann with Leach Ron Bellamy, overachieving Impressive crowd, 20,000? Touchdown Larry Foote with Beckmann Ugly at times Rich Rod leading the Victors Ref James Hall Devin Gardner