For Saturday’s edition of This Week in Michigan Football History, we go head back to 1949 when U-M was rolling with back-to-back national championships riding a 23 game winning streak that dated back to 1946.   Our friends from East Lansing were the opponent but their fans were up to NO GOOD: Foiled again! As always, this segment will appear all season on 1050AM WTKA and 1330AM WTRX epic KeyBank Countdown to Kickoff prior to each game.  You can hear it live inside the Go Labatt Blue Light Victors Lounge starting at 11:30am Saturday.  Go Blue! You can listen to all of This Week in Michigan Football History clips here. Follow MVictors on Twitter This week we go back to 1949, as coach Bennie Oosterbaan and the Wolverines entered the season as the defending back-to-back national champions. Michigan hoped to continue its remarkable 23 game winning streak that dated back to 1946. The season kicked off against Spartans of Michigan State College, in this game played 67 years ago today at the Big House.The more things change the more they stay the same, and wouldn’t you know it, our farming friends from East Lansing had more on their minds than just football. Before the game Spartan fans invaded Ann Arbor with the hope of executing a variety of pranks, or crimes, depending on your perspective. One group snuck into…

On the field right after the game Jake Butt talked about how Colorado punched them in the face, but “we punched back harder.”   Imagine that.  Punching back.  Sadly I feel like that’s a move we haven’t had around here for a long time.   A few other notes from the game: I’ve held back judgement on Speight until I saw him under pressure.  He got some Saturday and obviously had a few rough moments.  I even think he got a few boos (or maybe they were McDooooms) from the crowd.  He responded nicely by working with Butt on some higher percentage throws and seem to get more comfortable moving around and making plays.  I’m optimistic. On Peppers: Defense: We already know he’s quick, but on defense he not only gets to the spot, he’s stops guys dead.  He’s so strong for his size.  Once he engages it’s over – the opponent is stopped cold. Punts:  I can’t remember a better punt returner in the last few decades.  As Sap pointed out, he sets up the blocks and just picks a spot and attacks- every time. Hype:  I feel like this was the game where #5 truly lived up to all the love and all the hype.  If I’m a rival fan I’m thinking that the Peppers hype was just typical…

Here are the Decal Champions for Week 3 by Steve “Dr. Sap” Sapardanis: OFFENSIVE CHAMPION – In a game that was in doubt well into the 2nd half, Jake Butt stepped up and played like the dominant player we all know he can be. Not really needed or called upon in the first two games, #88 showed us that he still has it and needs to be accounted for where ever he is on the field. Seven catches for 87 yards is a testament to his importance in this offense. DEFENSIVE CHAMPION – Easy to go with #5 here because Jabrill Peppers exemplified the critical, fundamental nature of playing defensive football. Much like a hammer that keeps hitting a nail, eventually the nail will go down. That’s what happened with CU’s QB. Sure he was gutty and made plays, but he got hit one too many times and you can’t make any plays when you are on the bench. With 9 tackles, 3.5 TFL and 1 sack, I credit Jabrill for playing a big part of Michigan’s (hammer) Defense. SPECIAL TEAMS CHAMPION – Did I not tell you that Peppers was going to take a kick to the house before the season was over? The dude has instincts that you just can’t coach. The way he returns kicks by setting up…

For Saturday’s edition of This Week in Michigan Football History we go back 28 years to a highly anticipated non-conference battle against Jimmy Johnson’s #1 Miami Hurricanes. [display_podcast] No, this one didn’t work out for your beloved Blue – but the tale of a football season is NEVER written in September! As always, this segment will appear all season on 1050AM WTKA and 1330AM WTRX epic KeyBank Countdown to Kickoff prior to each game.  You can hear it live inside the Go Labatt Blue Light Victors Lounge starting at 8am Saturday.  Go Blue! You can listen to all of This Week in Michigan Football History clips here. Follow MVictors on Twitter

Here are the Decal Champions for Week 2 by Steve “Dr. Sap” Sapardanis: OFFENSIVE CHAMPION – I have watched a lot of Michigan Football over the years – coming up on 40 of them this year – and I have never seen a QB looked more poised, more comfortable and more in command of a Michigan offense in his 2nd career start than Wilton Speight.  That includes some great, legendary names down through the years and even when you look at Jake Rudock in Game #2 last year, he was nowhere near the efficiency that Speight is at right now. I get it that Rudock was only on campus for a few weeks this time last year, but let these numbers sink in: since his 1st throw/interception last week, Speight is 35 of 50 for 457 yards with 7 TD’s and 0 INT’s. WoW!!! I’m just gonna leave it at that – WoW!! DEFENSIVE CHAMPION – Spread option teams can make ANY defense look bad and out of position. While UCF did gash the Wolverine D for a couple of big plays, Jabrill Peppers was all over the field once again. There was one particular play where Peppers tracked down UCF’s fastest player and did not let him turn the corner. If Peppers is playing in the defensive secondary, #5 would…

For Saturday’s edition of This Week in Michigan Football History we go back 22 years when one of the most over-hyped players in college football was knocked down a notch by the foot of one Mr. Remy Martin Hamilton: [display_podcast] As always, this segment will appear all season on 1050AM WTKA and 1330AM WTRX epic KeyBank Countdown to Kickoff prior to each game.  You can hear it live inside the Go Labatt Blue Light Victors Lounge starting at 8am Saturday.  Go Blue! You can listen to all of This Week in Michigan Football History clips here. Follow MVictors on Twitter script after the jump

Ira opened the WTKA Countdown to Kickoff broadcast talking about how the first home game is like a family reunion.  He’s spot on. I love the opener.  Everything about it.   You really don’t need to have Jordans, Jeters, and flyovers or even a great opponent to make it special.  You just need decent weather (it was perfect) and a nice win (it was near perfect). 23.  But since we did have Jordans and Jeters…I got this shot when MJ entered the field: They whisked him to midfield immediately where he chilled until the pregame festivities got moving.  This was a good plan knowing the sideline is already a zoo and a bunch of haoles would have been glomming around MJ big time. GOATs + Woodley.  Dude, we all love Woodley and he’s arguably earned legend status in these parts. But maybe he should have picked the UCF game for a triumphant return?   Via mgoblue.com, holy crap Lamar Woodley, Charles Woodson, Jim Harbaugh, Michael Jordan, Derek Jeter. Uniform Updates.  OK, obviously there are a bunch and the Uniform Timeline is updated with a few key items – more to come.  Thanks for the tweets and pings. This one was subtle – the two varieties of shoe including one that allows the linemen to tape up (called spatting) and not violate the NIKE…