Ugh. For the record: This day in history – I mentioned to the fellas on air in the Victors Lounge that I’m actually getting crap on Twitter for citing history and historical events. Umm…that’s what I do and almost all I do. It this site’s raison d’être. Needless to say, I march on. So while sadly Saturday was a low point of sorts, November 22 will remain an epic anniversary for Michigan football for decades to come, if for no other reason these two games: Two Hundred. Holy fandom endurance awards, props to uber-fan Mike Khomutin for attending this 200th straight U-M game (yes, that’s home AND away). I believe that dates back to 1998. See Sap’s Decals for your decal. Jake No Patch – Some of you noticed that Jake Ryan didn’t wear his Bennie Oosterbaan Legends patch during the Northwestern game. I’m efforting some details from media relations on why. To my knowledge this hasn’t been addressed by anyone…and if you think this little detail is silly, I’d offer that it’s no sillier than anything else people are writing about this team at this moment. Willie Heston – Yo! My piece short bio piece on Willie Heston appeared in the game program on Saturday (page 4). I’ll repost it here soon and note that historian/pal John Kryk helped…
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Dr. Sap’s Decals | Terrapin the Tail on the Donkey Butt
[Ed. Bless you Sap for putting some heart into the final home decals of the year after…that.] OFFENSIVE CHAMPION DEVIN GARDNER – To me, New 98 is the LaVell Blanchard of the Michigan Football Team. Great kid. Smart kid. Face of the program for the past few years. Much like Blanchard, Gardner has been caught in the middle of a coaching change during his career. Caught in the middle of a program trying to find its way. Caught in the middle of a university trying to figure out what kind of identity they want their football team to have. Much like we do when looking back on the career of Blanchard, I’m sure we will say much the same for Gardner: “Oh, the Gardner years! Tough kid. Never quit. Never gave up. Sad that his record wasn’t better.” At the half, I saw no one on offense who stepped up to spark this unit. This offense rushed for almost 300 yards and only Gardner got into the endzone. You can see he’s feeling better, but he is obviously still a shell of himself, physically, and probably mentally. There’s an old Canadian hockey saying about a goalie that gets peppered with so many shots that draws a parallel to a QB in football who gets hit and sacked a lot: “That…
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Remembering 1964 | ‘Bump Elliott, the Michigan Wolverines and Their 1964 Championship Season’ – E. Bruce Geelhoed
Last Saturday WTKA played the Ufer broadcast of the 1964 Ohio State game (the 10-0 win that sent Bump Elliott’s crew to the Rose Bowl). Dang those broadcasts are gems and this was no exception (remind me to try to get a copy of Ufer’s halftime interview with Fritz Crisler and post it here). If you read this site you know how I feel about that squad and their legacy—they have to be one of the most underappreciated teams in U-M history. I think this year a few folks have done a lot to help right that wrong, leading with historian Bruce Geelhoed. For starters, Geelhoed has an outstanding story in the current edition of Michigan History magazine on the 1964 Ohio State game titled, ‘The Game that Turned Around the Michigan-Ohio State Rivalry’. You can pick it up at local Meijer and Barnes and Noble stores or online here. Captain Conley’s righteous pigskin – the Ohio State game ball But foremost — Geelhoed recently published this, a 248 page book on the 1964 season itself: If you are the type of fan who has books like John Kryk’s Natural Enemies and John Bacon’s Blue Ice on your shelf, this is no brainer— go out and get a copy. It includes an endorsement from yours truly on the back cover.…
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1903 Michigan-Minnesota Ticket Stub Found
Whoa - someone found one of the holy grails of Michigan football memorabilia--a ticket stub to the 1903 Minnesota-Michigan game from Minneapolis. Of course this is the game that started the Little Brown Jug rivalry.
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Seeing and Hearing Willie Heston
Today marks the 110th anniversary of Willie Heston’s final game at Michigan. Heston was Michigan’s first superstar, a two-time All-American, who scored (somewhere around) 72 touchdowns. From 1901 to 1904, Heston’s teams went 43-0-1 and are credited with four national titles. I’ll have more on Heston later this year. Hearing WillieBack in 2012, I posted a short audio clip of Fielding Yost from the 1940 nationwide radio tribute the man titled, ‘A Toast to Yost from Coast to Coast’. Check it out if you missed it. In that post I promised to share a few more clips, and thanks to the Bentley Historical Library for passing these along. The man who introduced Yost to the crowd in attendance and the radio audience was none other than the great Heston. Here are two clips of the great Willie and in the first, we have a surprise. Before offering up his tribute to his old coach, Heston acknowledges that current student-athletes and national icon Tom Harmon is in the audience. Old 98 shares the mic & even has a little back and forth with Heston that is all in all pretty priceless. The second clip has Heston delivering his testimonial to Yost. Enjoy: As an aside, while I’m sure you’ll be hard-pressed to find another audio clip of the Harmon and Heston…
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Dr Sap’s Decals | Northworstern
Bless you Sap for serving up decals after that rough game. Here you go: OFFENSIVE CHAMPION DE’VEON SMITH – Now you know why coaches like Bo and Bill Parcells loved to have a strong running game. When you can close out a game, or at least milk the clock, it puts pressure on the opposing team to either use all their timeouts late in the game or drive the length of the field to win. Smith has given the Michigan offense the strength and stability it desperately needs – especially when U-M’s QB is basically playing on one leg. DEFENSIVE CHAMPION FRANK CLARK – Finally a solid, break-out, statement game from Clark. Dude was the classic guy who came to play right from the opening snap to the final play of the game. I haven’t seen such a strong and steady big play performance from a Michigan defender since some guy wore #2 in 1997. SPECIAL TEAMS CHAMPION KICK TEAM – I don’t want to sound like an old coach, but don’t EVER take another extra point for granted. If Matt Wile doesn’t convert his PAT, the score would have been 9-9 instead of 10-9, and all Northwestern would have needed was a PAT of their own to win. I know, I know, Wile had one kick blocked, but…
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Judgment Day (1997) | TWIMFbH
This week we rolled a couple decades to November 8, 1997 for one of the most anticipated and hyped-up Saturday’s in recent history. ESPN dubbed it Judgment Day, and the big winner of the whole exercise was your beloved Wolverines who crushed JoePa and the Nittany Lions 34-8:
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Wangs and the Red Jersey | Storytime with Sap
[Ed. Steve “Dr. Sap” Sapardanis is featured here each postgame with Dr. Sap’s Decals. You might know that his detailed knowledge of uniform tweaks since the Bo era helped spearhead the Uniform Timeline. Bottom line – the Sap mind blended with the Sap archives is a Wangler-to-Carter-esque combination. Here’s another great Bo-era story from the mind of Sap.] Guest post by Steve “Dr. Sap” Sapardanis Nowadays it’s commonplace for quarterbacks to wear red (or sometimes orange, /wink) colored jerseys in practice. This of course is a reminder to all players and coaches that they are not to be hit or tackled in drills. Last year, former Michigan quarterback Rick Leach told me that he never wore a redshirt at practice during his four years as Michigan’s man under center. I was shocked to hear that, especially when you consider two things: 1. Bo liked to hit in practice as much as possible and; 2. Leach ran Bo’s option offense and got hit quite a bit carrying and pitching the ball. So all this got me thinking – who was the first QB to wear a redshirt at practice for Bo? I know it wasn’t Tom Slade shown here at practice in 1972: And like Leach said, no redshirts here in 1976 when President Ford dropped by to…
