Mark your calendars: The U-M Club of Greater Detroit is holding their annual Michigan Football Kick-off dinner Monday, August 27 at Laurel Manor in Livonia. This event is typically sold out, but because it’s at the Manor they have room if you want to join in. Details here. Coach Hoke is expected to join, and I’ll be on a panel with the lovely and talented Angelique Chengelis of The News and the prolific Brian Cook of mgoblog. (Beg: someone please ask a question about U-M history, memorabilia and/or The Little Brown Jug.) Again – there is plenty of room and plenty of beer. Sign up here.
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Crash Winged Helmet–Iowa 24, Michigan 16
I should have known that when Blake strapped on the winged helmet last Tuesday on Workaholics, things would end badly on Saturday: Go ahead and grab your crash helmet and dial the “here we go again?” gauge up a notch. This isn’t a championship caliber team (you already knew that) but clearly all of these conference teams are beatable. My line lately to people who ask before the game is this—Denard’s going to get six to eight opportunities to really hurt the opponent with his arm. He’s got to cash in on two, maybe three. He didn’t Saturday and I’m getting more and more frustrated. Despite Brian’s speculation, I’m sure they travelled to Iowa City and East Lansing with Borges’ head completely in tact but I don’t get the insistence to put Denard behind center. Speaking of Denard, something not there with his wheels. Michael Spath tweeted that’s he’s become a “cutter”, as opposed to just beating people to the edge. I’ve noticed this too and since Michigan State I just haven’t seen that extra burst. Is he hurt? Is he trying to tailor his running style because of what the coaches are telling him? Dunno, but if Denard can only get to third gear this is going to send me like Blake into the garage. Bullets: Yes, Michigan got…
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Headlocking Hugs (Sights & Sounds) Michigan 28, San Diego State 7
Most were surprised how easy that went Saturday for Hoke and crew and Michigan together the most complete half I can remember. The biggest factor was the poor play of highly-rated QB Ryan Lindley, who seemed out of sorts all day. The U-M defense deserves some credit for that for sure but Lindley didn’t get a lot of help from his receivers who ran poor routes in many cases. Here’s Lindley trying to connect in the end zone in the fourth quarter and his receiver has a step on Countess – the ball is too high, off-target and just sailed: Commence the Miscellanea: Since I’m not going to tell you anything about how Denard fared on the field that you didn’t see with your own eyes Saturday, try this: Laces on Lockdown Denard’s “Xs” – In the postgame Denard talked about a recent trip to the lanes. He told the media, “I did all right,” and shared that he bowled the 200-160-170 series. The “X” in Denard’s Twitter handle stands for strike, and use can use an X to mark one thing off the list of things that you thought you could do better than #16. Switch to Schutt – Some nerd I asked Denard about his switch of helmet manufacturers this year. I was half hoping there was some…
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Denard Goes Schutt
Nice try, Denard. I’ve got uniform spies everywhere but even I caught this one. This season Denard switched from a Riddell helmet, used the past two seasons, to a Schutt model this year. Here he is in 2009 with the Riddell: And yesterday (from the nice photo gallery put together by Brad at MnB Nation), here’s the Schutt. A quick text to uniform guru Steve Sapardanis confirmed the switch. Sap checked his notes and verified that indeed, Denard wore Riddell in the Gator Bowl but trotted out a Schutt at the Spring game and at the Under the Lights press conference. As I wrote last season, I’m partial to Schutt. These are the helmets that are reconditioned and painted in Oxford, Ohio each year by a man named Russ Hawkins at a company called Capitol Varsity Sports. More from my 2010 post: This May I asked Falk about how Michigan hooked up with Capitol Varsity and Hawkins and he told me relationship goes back to the mid-1960s. Falk was the manager for his high school team in Oxford and naturally they used the local company for their reconditioning services. This relationship followed Falk to college at Miami, OH when he handled the equipment under Redskins head coach Bo Schembechler. When he was reunited with Bo up in Ann Arbor in…
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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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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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Coach Mattison’s Ring (with Audio)
The media met with Michigan defensive coordinator Greg Mattison at midday today. My favorite portion was near the end, when someone cool asked him about why he wears his ‘M’ championship ring, then he talked about the Big Ten championship game & finally Angelique asked him about Denard. Clip: [display_podcast] _ * Photos from yesterday’s practice. And speaking of photos, one guy that Mattison likes (but admits he’s got a ways to go) is Cam Gordon. From yesterday’s practice:
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Hoke, Denard at Crisler
More later on Hoke and his comments, but thought I’d share a couple quick photos. Here’s Hoke emerging from the Crisler tunnel, his first public appearance before the Michigan crowd. After people figured out who he was he got a very nice reception. Hoke did not speak at the game and sat courtside with Dave Brandon and his wife and daughter. This man was also there and the camera panned on him during the break – the crowd went nuts. When he heard the crowd roar and saw his face on the big screen, I saw him mouth, “Aww mann,” and break out that huge smile. Here he is finishing off ‘The Victors’ with authority. While fans certainly wanted these two ships to meet and hug, it didn’t happen. Hoke did chat with Governor Snyder for what it’s worth. I was kind of hoping Hoke and Coach Tweet (Barcari Alexander) would get to get together a shout at each other about how much they love Michigan.
