At Sunday’s media day event, a few of us were huddled on the field beneath the mammoth new video screen on the north end of the field. The inevitable topic came up—would Michigan place ads on that beast? WLBY’s Lucy Ann Lance recently interviewed Michigan Chief Marketing Officer Hunter Lochmann and they discussed the matter: Lucy Ann: Will there ever be advertising inside Michigan stadium for a football game? Lochmann: No. I’ve learned from Dave Brandon that you ask your fans what they want. They don’t want to see a lick of advertising in Michigan Stadium. I think my resume would be updated if I ever allowed it in there on my own. It’s not going to happen; I think there are enough opportunities emerging in this digital world and other inventory to satisfy partners. Lucy Ann: But you have over 100,000 people in there, glued to it. You have the television coverage. Lochmann: Sure. It’s a great opportunity. Lucy Ann: There are elementary schools which have incorporated corporate advertising in their programs. Why not Michigan Stadium? Lochmann: You know, it’s a great opportunity and anyone who doesn’t say it is, isn’t telling the truth, but the fans don’t want it. You listen to your fans and if that’s their number one issue then we can come up with a…
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A Nice Day for Football (Photos)
A few shots from practice today: Troy Woolfolk looking fit working with the DBs The boss was keeping a close eye on the kickers Open punting try-outs (not really) Denard grabbing the snap Denard hitting TE Steve Watson Related: Heading to the Third World Media/Fan Day – Photos Follow MVictors on Twitter
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Little Brown Jug Club +1
Congrats to collector Dennis Dail for joining the official Jug Club. His painstaking work paid off, wouldn’t you agree? He joins Eric Mierzwiak (2009 story) and Mark Foster (2010 post) in the elite group and between us girls, I understand we may have a fourth member soon. Here’s Dennis’s story in his own words: I wanted to shoot you a note to let you know my Little Brown Jug is finally complete and being displayed in my Michigan Cave in my basement….took me several months of late evening work, but I wanted to make it exactly like the Real Jug. I’m not sure if I have shared all this, but I found this “1905 5-gallon Red Wing Jug” (that’s what it said on the bottom) several years back at an Antique Shop, the big one on the South side of I-94 just over West of AA, that is now closed. I pulled it out awhile back here and started the transformation process from a brown, ugly jug to the newly painted Little Brown Jug as we know it today. It took many hours of planning, measuring, supply purchasing and thinking before the project began. With help and tips along the way from fellow Jug maker Eric Mierzwiak and several visits to the local Sherwin Williams store, the painting began. First…
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Michigan Legacy Throwbacks Revealed
As if you hadn’t heard(!). I’ll say what I said before—I wish they had more specific references to history. The guy from adidas basically said that they trolled through the old team photos and found some stripes on the 1890s-era teams, and AD DB suggested that the stained glass (I think Ira has that trademarked now) design is indicative of stitching on the old block M uniforms. Fine. I would have had a design that pointed to specific elements from uniforms for a specific team or era of Michigan football history. That being said, I really like the helmets and the gray throwback facemasks. And—the jerseys definitely look much better on the players and over the shoulder pads. I think having Denard wear it for the unveiling helped—the dude can make anything look kind of cool, right? And it’s not just that they look better on the players. The shoulder-pad fitted “sleeves” are shorter on the actual uniform than in the version that the public can purchase. Thus, there are about half as many stripes and it deemphasizes that aspect of the ensemble (as do Denard’s dreads): Here’s RVB’s helmet: those are RVB’s forearms, not mohair extensions on the sleeves It’ll be interesting to see if those number decals stay on the helmet. I’m guessing a few will be displaced…
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Alumni Game – Recap, Photos (Blue 38, Maize 30)
Hail the Blue team, prevailing 38-30 in a fast-paced, down-to-the-wire game. Captain Jim Conley and his crew had better quarterback play and MVP Alijah Bradley who made several fine catches and runs. In true Michigan form, the game was rife with controversy, from questionable TD calls (players crossing the line without their flags?) and a suddenly frozen clock at the end (Spartan Bob?): A few photos: Jim Conley with QB Spencer Brinton and #7 can still toss it Wow – Jansen cleans up nice. Getting ready for the BTN broadcast Ira and Steve in radio booth “He was down!” Much controversy as usual. Touchdown Big turnout for the alumni game . The MVP trophy – (?) – I hope my man Bradley drives a semi or a Hearse New scoreboards pending Captain Conley – he ALWAYS starts (and did again today)
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Gold Pants and Pawn Stars
One of the Ohio State gold pants charms appeared on History Channel’s Pawn Stars last night. (Finally something related to Michigan football).
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BCS Bracketology (We Still Lose)
Darren “My Main Man” Everson dropped another interesting piece in the Wall Street Journal this weekend. He took the top 64 college football teams ranked via the BCS formula (I’m assuming you can get the data extended out to 64 teams?) and dropped them into an NCAA tournament field. (BCS #1 Auburn was dropped in the slot held by NCAA top seed Ohio State, and so on). Then they played out the tournament seed by seed as it’s gone thus far. Check it out: Even in hypothetical exercises crossing sports we can’t win. Rich Rod’s 2010 team collides in an improbable match-up with, umm, Mississippi State. We lost again. Everson’s a Michigan grad so I’m guessing he chuckled at this one:
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Beilein, Fisher among Highest Performing NCAA coaches
A fabulous resource for the NCAA tournament is over at Pete Tiernan’s bracketscience.com. I interviewed Tiernan, who lives in Saline, back in 2009 and today you can also find him on CBSSports.com dropping tourney knowledge. One interesting tidbit for U-M fans is the following table. Coach Beilein remains among the top coaches in the NCAA tournament based on Tiernan’s ‘PASE’ (Performance Against Seed Expectation’) metric: Tiernan explains how PASE is determined: PASE is a simple concept. Every seed has recorded an average number of wins per tourney in the modern era. The average top seed wins 3.42 games per dance, two seeds win 2.43 (almost exactly one game less), three seeds win 1.84 and so on. When the coach of a top-seeded team wins four games to reach the Final Four, he overperforms by .58 games. If he wins the championship, he exceeds seed expectations by 2.58 games. Not surprising that Coach Izzo is #1 on the list, and Steve Fisher is firmly in the third slot when you factor in the 1989 and Fab Five runs. Of course many fans have reminded Tiernan of the Ed Martin scandal and question whether it should count: (Many have emailed me to argue that he shouldn’t be on the list at all, given that the tainted Fab Five contributed to his overachievement.)…
