This Week in Michigan Football History returns for the home opener with a honoring the Michigan legend Bennie Oosterbaan who was officially launched into the Michigan Football Legends program on this Saturday back in 2012: Check it out Saturday live from the Go Labatt Blue Victors Lounge and on WTKA 1050AM starting at 8am. script after the jump:
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Where’s The Party? (Notre Dame 13, Michigan 6)
That’s how the 2007 Michigan-Notre Dame game was supposed to go, right? Damn that was so painful to watch. I give Denard a lot of credit for trotting out after the game and facing the mob—that’s not how it was supposed to go on his birthday and at the site of his greatest performance two years ago. Despite all the mistakes I’m certain the Notre Dame fans weren’t comfortable until the kneel down. Denard was horrible but had help. Sure, Dileo was open on the halfback pass but whhhy that play at that point after an excellent drive? (And was Vincent Smith wearing oven mitts (kind of) when he shot-putted that thing?) I get that Michigan’s plan was to try exploit the young Irish DBs but the question is how do you go about that. Dropping Denard straight back into the pocket seemed to be the answer and to that I say, “Oy”. Hats off to the defense for stepping up several times to limit the damage. Really, the defense was impressive all in all. Jake Ryan looked like he had a monster game. The Miscellanea: * It’s well known that the media is prohibited from cheering in the press box but it’s not just a collection of writers upstairs at Notre Dame. After Denard connected with Gardner on a…
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The Decal Club
You probably recall that Michigan uniform aficionado Dr. Steve Sapardanis covered the wonderful Dr. Sap’s Decals in 2011. Prior to the Bama game we agreed to a modified, more focused version of the Decals for 2012 – something more along the lines of Bo’s ‘Victors Club’: Sap also reserved the right to take a pass on awarding this honor based on the performance. His rationale? Sap told me Bo himself would take a pass on occasion, if he didn’t feel it was appropriate based on the team’s performance. So on the heels of Hoke saying, “we didn’t play Michigan football”, we’ll hopefully see Sap next week. That said, I’ll take a shot. Haven’t seen any film beyond the painful SportsCenter reel but here’s my best shot: * Offense: Jeremy Gallon. My break out player for 2012 as suggested in HTTV did not disappoint and seemed to be one of the guys in maize and blue that could hang with Alabama. The guy is a reliable receiver & pretty much brings in the pigskin it is near him. He made everyone forget about the horrific punt handling we saw a couple years back. * Defense: Jordan Kovacs. On defense, he was far from perfect but he made some nice solo tackles. Played like a captain. * Special Teams: Will Hagerup. Easy…
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Cool Cat
It’s a beautiful day! No question the star of the game was this guy, who once again showed poise beyond his years: That photo was taken after Burke’s first start of the year in game 2 against Towson. Back then I wrote this: Burke is a cool cat for a true freshman by the way. He admitted he was a little nervous before the game after [getting] the nod for the start, but he certainly wasn’t nervous breaking the game down for the media. I think that was the last time he was nervous because that’s a cool dude. He’s cooler than Treezy with shades in the Maize Rage. And he not only led the team with the ball most notably creating the game winning score, he made several very nice plays on defense. In the final seconds (after he’d been on the court all but a couple minutes of the game) he had the awareness to help out Novak to stop Green’s drive just past the stripe, and he while he didn’t get the rebound, he turned, got a body on Green and broke up Green’s attempt to tip the ball in. Radio >> As an aside, I had the unique opportunity to listen to a portion of the game on the radio while heading back to the area. …
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Fun with Big Ten Tie-Breakers
The latest Big Ten weekly press release detailed out the tie-breaker scenarios in detail and Adam Rittenberg of ESPN summarized the basics earlier this month. For the B1G title game, the winner of each division will play, unless one of the division winners is ineligible to play in a bowl game. To me, the official Big Ten division tie-breaker rules aren’t crystal clear after a quick read. I think the confusion is that technically Big Ten conference teams have three types of records: The division record (5 games) The overall conference record (8 games) The overall record (12 games) Here are the key elements on the conference championship rules from the official site, with some comments to clarify what it means. Hat tip to Big Ten media relations lead Scott Chipman for confirming this: 1). Divisional Champion rule: The Big Ten football championship will be decided by a game played between the two division champions. Clarification: The division champion is the team with the best overall conference record (in the 8 overall conference games played). 2). First Tie-Breaker: If two teams are tied, the winner of the game between the two tied teams shall be the representative. Clarification: So that’s easy if you are clear on how two teams can tie, and that’s based on overall conference record as discussed in 1).…
