With the rumors that have Ryan Mallett and quarterbacks coach Scott Loeffler heading to UCLA, it’s a good time to look at the next item in the eBay watch series. Many of you know that Michigan legend Tom Harmon is the father of actor Mark Harmon and that the younger Harmon played quarterback at UCLA. What you may not know is that Mark’s Bruins actually faced his old man’s team in the early seventies and they both returned to Michigan the following year to battle the Spartans. Here are the programs for each game that were recently auctioned on eBay: There were a couple of storylines leading into the Wolverines trip to Los Angeles in 1972. The week prior UCLA started their brutal schedule with a huge win over #1 Nebraska, snapping the Huskers’ 32-game winning streak. It was Harmon’s first game for the Bruins, and a wishbone offense was installed to suit the new quarterback. Mark was named the MVP of the game and finished with 71 rushing yards. A headline in Sports Illustrated that week declared, “YOUNG HARMON MAKES HIS MARK: From Out of Hollywood Comes the Saga of Mark Harmon, Handsome, Articulate, the Son of Old No. 98”. Geez SI, take a cold shower. The other storyline for the game was of course the son playing his legendary…
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Capital One Bowl Fan Pics
A few photos directly from the Michigan fan section at the big game. Thanks to Amy and Jeff who sent over these beauties. I had a great New Years but would have loved to have been there. Enjoy! Update 1/14: Reader Kelly sent over a recap of her experience at the game along with a few more photos. I blended them into the photo gallery above. Here’s her take on the game: It was unreal and I still can believe I got to witness it in person. It was my first bowl game (I came from New Jersey) and a first for my brother and his 8 year old son (they live in Orlando). We grew up in Michigan, and I’m fan because of my brothers influence…to share that time with my nephew and brothers was truly amazing. It was the kind of thing we’ll be telling our grandkids about. The only negative is that I’m afraid my nephew will never attend another game that lives up to what we saw that day! We had some serious nosebleed seats – Section 308 and 6 rows from the top. We were surrounded by Michigan fans, but it seemed like Florida fans where everywhere else. I’m guessing it was about 80% Florida fans and 20% Michigan fans. Two things about the fans…
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Hoosiers in town
IU comes to Crisler Tuesday and I’ll be up there. I always like checking out the Hoosiers having spent two years in Bloomington for grad school. To the left is shot of coach Knight I took during the January 12, 1993 game (I yelled “Hey Knight!” but he didn’t react). The one point Indiana win in Ann Arbor was one of the best games I’ve ever witnessed, with Chris Webber getting a shot blocked at the buzzer. Beilein is still looking for his first big win and I’m hoping it’s Tuesday. I’ll try to get a few pics from the game and get them up here. Should be interesting to see how many fans show.
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Terrelle Pryor Wears Michigan gear?
NBC just noted that recruit QB Terrelle Pryor donned a Michigan sweatshirt before the U.S. All American Bowl, although the network noted it was in an effort to get the goat of the Ohio State recruits. Oh and yes, he’s pretty good…as in unstoppable. McGuffie is out there as well and despite showing some flashes of speed, his size makes him look a tad out of his league. I probably would have said the same about Mike Hart (or Jamie Morris) in high school so whatever. And of course, I don’t think Hart could do this!
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SI’s College Football Best, by Jersey Number
The end of the year always brings all kinds of all-time lists, be it the greatest teams, best players, most worthy Heisman candidates, and so on. SI.com took a little different approach: it has assembled of the greatest college football players of all time by uniform number. Here’s an article explaining the process and some of the challenges. This list excludes a few Michigan legends at the turn of the century like Germany Schultz and Willie Heston as these guys didn’t wear numbers but we’ll just have to accept this and move on. The list provided the name of the top player at each number, a runner-up, and then listed some names deserving honorable mention. Here’s a quick breakdown of where Michigan players landed. Michigan Players assigned as Best to ever wear their number:#1 – Anthony Carter#47 – Bennie Oosterbaan#49 – Bob Chappuis#98 – Tom Harmon Runners up:#2 – Chuck Woodson (Deion Sanders)#6 – Harry Kipke (Robbie Bosco)#21 – Desmond Howard (Barry Sanders)#40 – Elroy “Crazy Legs” Hirsch (Hopalong Cassidy). Note that Hirsch is listed as playing for Wisconsin but he of course played 2 seasons for the Wolverines. Honorable mention:#1 – Derrick Alexander, Braylon Edwards, David Terrell (M pretty much owns the category)#4 – Jimmy Harbaugh#6 – Tyrone Wheatley#7 – Ricky Leach#9 – Dennis Franklin#27 – Benny Friedman#40 –…
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Michigan Alumni Association Podcasts
The Michigan Alumni Association has released a series of podcasts on a variety of topics, free to download. Many are tied to sports, including presentations by Tim McCormick of ESPN and Mark Silverman of the Big Ten Network. The McCormick presentation runs about an hour; here’s the abstract: Podcast 20: Never Be Average: A Slam Dunk Approach to Success Tim McCormick, former University of Michigan and NBA basketball player, NBA executive, and ESPN and ABC College Basketball broadcaster, shares his unique Game Plan for Success in the business world that focuses on the secrets that professional athletes use to achieve their highest goals. I’m not ready for success so I haven’t listened to the whole thing, but I downloaded it. You can get it here. You can review the entire set here.
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Kuselias: “We already have a playoff”
Filling in on ESPN’s Mike Tirico Show was Eric Kuselias, Michigan law school grad. I’ve listened to the guy before and he does a good job, but today he enlightened the audience. He said that he gets annoyed by everyone saying we need a college football playoff. Why? Not because he’s tired of the tired debates. No, the purported MENSA member is bothered by the calls for a playoff because “we already have a playoff. It’s with two teams.” Seriously. I assumed he was kidding at first but he went on with this for a little bit. Gee thanks Dr. Kuselias. In the future, I’ll try to specify a specific number of teams when arguing for the need of a playoff. This reminds me of one of my econ professors at Michigan insisting that people were wrong to suggest that inflation was a bad thing. No, people should be concerned about “unanticipated inflation.” Right.
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Newsflash: O-line Getting Bigger
I picked up a copy of Bruce Madej’s Champions of the West this past weekend and it’s got some interesting stuff. Greg Kinney of the University of Michigan Bentley Museum contributed and that was a big selling point for me. It was published back in 1997 and provides a year-by-year capsule of Michigan sports, dedicating a page or two to each season. The focus is on football but covers the entire Michigan athletic package. It’s basically a collection of factoids, bios, lists and general items of interest over each year and I’ve cited the book here several times due to some of the nuggets they dredged up. One of the lists they pulled together was the average weight of the Michigan offensive line over the years. Since it was published a decade ago, I added the last data point based on this year’s line and slapped it into a graph. Yes, they are getting bigger: Based on the data points I’ve seen, when the Notre Dame series is scheduled to end in 2032 the average Michigan offensive linemen should come in at around 6’7″, 327 pounds. This of course assumes a lot of things. Forgetting about human progress in fitness & nutrition for a moment, a key factor might be the type of lineman you want to fit the offensive…
