• Bo the Merciless (1981) | This Week in Michigan Football History

    November 7, 2015 /

    November 7, 1981 was a day of very mixed emotions in Ann Arbor.  For starters, it was the first home game since the passing of the iconic Bob Ufer.  Second, the opponent was Mike White and Illinois, a head coach and program that was on a list Bo Schembechler kept that you didn’t want to be on. Game highlights from WolverineHistorian, note back-up QB B.J. Dickey hurling the pigskin down the field late in the fourth quarter: Today we head back 34 years, to November 7, 1981, when Bo Schembechler’s #12 ranked Wolverines welcomed Illinois. Normally a crisp fall football Saturday in Ann Arbor is met with great joy, but on this day there was a somber mood in Ann Arbor as this was the first home game since the passing of the iconic Meeechigan radio voice Bob Ufer. Weeks earlier, he was honored by the student athletes when the coveted GO BLUE banner was redesigned to read BOB UFER. The marching band joined the tribute, creating a formation that spelled out his name upon Canham’s carpet. Before kickoff the fans observed a moment of silence. But there was business at hand and this was a big one – and the opponent created a different type of emotion for Michigan’s head coach. Across that field on the eastern sideline was…

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  • Weight, Weight do Tell Me

    November 3, 2015 /

    Update: Refreshed the data with the 2021 weights: Original post: The posting things like the tale of the tape from the epic 1903 Minnesota and Michigan game always sparks a few chuckles. ICYMI: So I took a gander at the Roster Database at the Bentley Historical Library.   Notes: The original dataset included a record for every player for every season.  After removing rows that didn’t have weight and the bad data (1997 OG Eric “Plankton” Warner weighs 2.5 pounds), we had nearly 10,000 records.  Keep in mind the “roster” appears to include everyone who even sniffed the gridiron – ineligible freshman, redshirts, and back-in-the-day second teams, etc. I’m not a data scientist and spent about 14 minutes on this.   Chart FWIW: A closer look at the spikes and dips since the late 1980s, kind of looks like welp guy ¯\_(?)_/¯ Updated:  Here’s the average height.  Despite the big jumps of weight in the 80s and 90s, height has basically remained flat since the late 1960s: Comparing height and weight, here’s how much players weighed per inch of height – the welp pattern is exaggerated since weight jumped up and down, but height stayed about the same: Looking at home states.   Stacking up the height and weight based on the listed home state – only shows those States with over 50…

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  • Little Brown Jug Champions | Dr Sap’s Decals

    November 1, 2015 /

    Guest Post by Steve “Dr. Sap” Sapardanis The last time Minnesota won the Little Brown Jug in Minneapolis, Marion Barber SENIOR was the running back for The Gophers.  That was back in 1977, when Michigan was #1 in country and Jim Harbaugh was roaming the sidelines for the Wolverines – as one of the Michigan Coaches’ sons! Like Wilton Speight said, maybe the Football Gods WERE smiling down on Michigan Saturday night.  Speaking of #3, here are your LBJ Champions: OFFENSIVE CHAMPION – Gotta give it to QB Wilton Speight.  His first three completions in his career?  WoW!  He was obviously tight at first but it sounded like the old ball coach settled him down and stuck with him. Sure enough, he delivered the goods in a BIG way – especially on that 2-point conversion pass.  He has come a long way since the verbal tongue-lashing he received from Coach Harbaugh that we saw on the HBO Real Sports feature a few months ago. DEFENSIVE CHAMPION – I haven’t seen a game end on a defensive stop since the 2012 OT Game against Northwestern when Kenny Demens made the pivotal play. But this one felt a lot like the 1993 Michigan – Penn State Game at Happy Valley.  Michigan stopped JoePa and the Nittany Lions 4 times at the goal…

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