After all my dogging of former Ohio State players for selling their precious charm pants (which they receive if they beat Michigan) on eBay, look what just showed up in the memorabilia auctions. It’s a 1980 Big Ten and Rose Bowl ring. Often the OSU gold pants auctions hide the name of the original owner; in this case the name is in giant letters on the side of the massive ring: Did this beauty belong to coach Bill McCartney, architect of the McCartney’s Monsters defense as Ufer described them, who was an assistant under Bo Schembechler on that great team? There were no other McCartney’s on the 1980 squad. Did Coach McCartney voluntarily sell his ring? Maybe not. The auction specifies that this is a “RARE salesman sample with all proper markings inside the ring”. Whew…perhaps the integrity of the Michigan coaching staff is preserved! McCartney left Michigan a year later to take over the Colorado head coaching position. He led the Buffaloes to a national championship in 1990 and retired following the 1994 season. Sample or real, this is quite a piece of Michigan history will significant ties to the present. Check out some of the names on the 1980 team and staff: Assistant coaches: Lloyd Carr, Jerry Hanlon, Bill McCartney, Les Miles, Gary Moeller Players: Mike Trgovac, Butch…
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Yost Region Round 1: Johnson v Kehres
The first round of the ‘Death March Madness’ tournament (full bracket here – background here). Here’s a printable version. Larry Kehres vs. Paul Johnson An interesting match-up a two coaches you may know about but have caught the eye of several Michigan fans. In the September poll of potential candidates to replace Lloyd Carr I didn’t include either of these men, but Kehres received a bunch of write-in votes due to his great success at tiny Mt. Union. Navy headman Johnson has caught some notice for his work with the Midshipmen and especially his great win over the suffering Irish. Here’s a little more on each man: On Kehres from the Mt Union official site: Under Kehres, the Raiders have won nine Division III National Championships in the last 14 years (’93, ’96, ’97, ’98, ’00, & ’01, ’02, ’05, ’06). Since 1990, the Raiders have made 16 playoff appearances while posting college football’s most wins and best winning percentage (216-10-1/.954). During the last 15 regular seasons, his teams have posted a phenomenal 148-2 overall mark. For his efforts, Kehres (246-20-3/.920 at Mount Union) has been named the AFCA Division III National Coach of the Year eight times (’93, ’96, ’97, ’98, ’00, ’01, ’02, ’06) – voted on by the American Football Coaches Association. On Johnson, from the Navy…
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Death March Madness
Twenty minutes before Lloyd Carr’s tearful presser today I heard a caller into WTKA ask what the host thought about Miami Dolphins head coach Cam Cameron. As any sane person would do I started smashing my head against my steering wheel until I felt better. So continues the non-stop parade of radio talk show hosts & callers, punits, bloggers, journalists and anyone else with a pulse that will speculate on a replacement. This death march will drag Michigan fans through the holidays and most likely beyond the BCS Championship in early January. The beauty in all this is that no one really will have a clue what’s actually going on inside Bill Martin’s head until we get close, and maybe not even then. Have fun with those out of town relatives peppering you with takes on this. Prepare yourself man. To combat the stupidity of the next few months I’ve decided to fight fire with fire: a tired old radio show stunt to determine the next coach. It’ll be fought out in the blogosphere amongst my fellow nerds, which is where it belongs. The results will be as meaningless as the opinions of the talk show callers (except for maybe ‘Caller Marcus’). Should you chose to participate in Death March Madness you may actually feel yourself getting dumber as a…
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Thanks Coach Carr
Major changes in Michigan football history are afoot as Coach Carr will announce his retirement at 10am today. Outside just a few feet away from the Junge Champions Center, trucks will be descending upon the Big House to start the multi-million dollar renovation to Michigan stadium set to be completed by the opening kick-off 2010. That ’10 season a mix of players, some who played and/or were recruited by Carr, and some from the first two recruiting classes of the new Wolverine coach. Bill Martin is going to be a busy guy over the next few months and years. I’m sure that he’ll find a classy way to allow the public to honor Lloyd Carr and I look forward to it.
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Alamo Likely for Carr’s Finale
Looks like Lloyd Carr, Hart, Henne and Long will finish their Wolverine careers in the Alamo Bowl. Even if the Buckeyes worked their way back into the BCS Championship they will certainly be the only Big Ten team in a BCS bowl. After that, the bowls with Big Ten agreements pick in the following order this year: 1. Capital One 2. Outback 3. Alamo 4. Champs Sports 5. Insight 6. Motor City The Big Ten standings don’t matter after the champion is determined; the bowls pick who they want. Capitol One could take Michigan for whatever reason. Michigan fans would argue that the Wolverines are the rightful #2 based on league standings and the fact they beat Illlinois, but it doesn’t matter. CollegeFootballNews seemed to think this scenario would play out as they projected the Blue in the Capitol One Bowl this morning. Whoops. The crew a CFN must have missed this quote I found in today’s Ann Arbor News which will crush any idea that this could happen: “At best, they’d be looking at the Alamo Bowl,” said Frank Frana, an official with the Capital One Bowl. “At best.” “There are at least four teams ahead of them: Ohio State, Illinois, Penn State and Wisconsin,” Frana said/. “Their bowl opportunities are going to be tough.” How about the Outback?…
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Michigan-Ohio State pregame fight (2007)
I happened to be standing at mid-field for the pregame taking it all in when the Buckeyes and Wolverines had the shoving match at midfield. I snapped a couple photos and this one came out pretty nice. Check out all the people on the sideline scrambling to take a pic with the cell phones. Click here to see the FULL size version (2048 x 1536). Another great sight was all the former Michigan letter winners forming the walls of the team’s entrance onto the field before taking on Ohio State. Here’s a view from my seat:
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Ann Arbor shows well on GameDay
Since I was busy with my own version of pregame festivities on the golf course I missed the events around ESPN’s visit to campus. Based upon the initial reviews it looks like the fans showed well and came up with some clever signs. That’s kind of what the mob of fans behind Corso, Fowler and Herbstreit is measured on these days. Football Jesus broke down the signs of the day and provided a Top 25 ranking. He liked the ‘We need a Carr with Les Miles’ which I’ve seen before but doesn’t really make a lot of sense. There’s a joke there somewhere but that’s not it. His favorite is pretty funny but a tad PG-13, you can check it out here. Of his Top 25 here are my favorites: 3. Only Buckeyes work at Home Depot 4. Charlie Weis ate Notre dame’s season. 6. Herbie sings “the Victors” in the shower 8. Stop talking about Barry Bonds 12. If you can read this you are not a Buckeye 20. Tressel watches “the View” 24. Desmond walks on H2o
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No Glorious Send Off
HBO’s documentary on this rivalry featured incredible footage from the 1950 battle in Columbus. The game was played during a blizzard which blanketed the field in snow. ‘The Rivalry’ recalled that the battle featured 45 punts as the teams simply didn’t want to attempt a conventional offensive play given the conditions. The Ann Arbor News noted Zoltan Mesko punted 12 times against Ohio State, the most since that memorable game. Not exactly the piece of rivalry lore that I wanted to draw upon the day after the game. While you can look fondly on the old footage of the game which Michigan won (the outcome probably doesn’t really matter at this point) but there’ll be no warm reimincising on this version of the rivalry for M fans 50 years from now. The Wolverines didn’t punt because of weather conditions that dictated such a strategy. No, Mesko punted because Michigan was manhandled by a furious Buckeye defense that thrived in the cold and damp conditions. The Bucks stomped over and stuffed the M offense that at the beginning of the year was projected to rival some of the finest in college football history. The 91 net yards were the fewest since the last dark era in Michigan football lore, 1962 to be specific. When late in the game Detroit native Vernon…
