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…
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Sights & Sounds | Michigan 34, Indiana 10 (2014)
Last week I talked about finding the “bottom”, that is, the end of the spiral of crappy things happening to this football team. I don’t know if we’re there, but out there before the game Saturday you felt a weight was lifted and the mood was actually a bit festive.
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2014 SAE Mudbowl | Photos
Congrats to Phi Psi for winning the Mudbowl Saturday – 24-20 over SAE as I understand it. Here are a few shots for you, the first via Iceberg Samson on Twitter: The following via Geoff Voss:
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Dr. Sap’s Decals | Morning in Ann Arbor Edition
Sap is refreshed, recharged and kindly offers you his post-Hoosier decals. I tossed in the Editor’s edition for good measure: OFFENSIVE CHAMPION AMARA DARBOH – This was the breakout game we’ve all been waiting for from Darboh for the past 2 years. Much like the Detroit Lions needed another wide receiver to complement Megatron, the Michigan passing game needed another option downfield other than Devin Funchess. Especially now, when Devin Gardner’s foot injury is forcing him to do his best Dan Fouts-stay-in-the-pocket-no-matter-what impression, Darboh gives the offense another place to go with the ball other than wherever Funchess is. Hopefully Darboh can use this game to jump start his career and the U-M passing game. DEFENSIVE CHAMPION RYAN GLASGOW – It was obvious that the Michigan defense came to play this game and made sure there was going to be no repeat of last year’s basketball-like score against IU. That all starts up front, and while there were several guys who played lights out by keeping the Hoosiers under 200 yards of total offense, I singled out Glasgow because of his strip and fumble recovery – all in the same play. These guys in the trenches don’t often get the glory, but you had to like what Glasgow did. SPECIAL TEAMS CHAMPION MATT WILE – A missed field…
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Horace Prettyman Breaks Hearts | TWIMFbH (1879-1883)
This week we go waaaay back, to November 1, 1879, better known to savvy Michigan historians as Game #2. This was the first game played in the state of Michigan (Detroit) and the first international match-up as our friends from the University of Toronto crossed the border to face your beloved infantile Wolverines. After that game, we get into the first game on Ann Arbor soil played in 1883. A gent named Horace Prettyman.. ..shined in the morning match against a team the Detroit. You can catch all of the This Week in Michigan Football History clips here…And don’t forget to catch it live Saturday on the KeyBank Countdown to kick-off on WTKA 1050AM starting at 11:30am. Follow MVictors on Twitter
