Steve “Dr. Sap” Sapardanis bids adieu to a painful 2014 with a final offering of decals to a handful of seniors. But before that, did you catch ESPN’s GameDay on Saturday? It included a nice piece on the rivalry and the Michigan banner, including a short clip of the Buckeyes tearing down the coveted slice of canvas in ‘73 synchronized with Bob Ufer’s epic audio description of that dastardly deed. Guess who put that together and shipped it off to ESPN? That’s right..Dr. Sap himself! Here’s a low res version of the full clip Sap provided to our friends in Bristol: Those painful dekes: OFFENSIVE CHAMPION DEVIN GARDNER? – We watched a gutty and gutting end to New 98’s career on Saturday. In between the first pass/interception of the game and the fumble that gave OSU the clinching score, Gardner played his heart out and did all he could to help UM win. Problem is, he also helped OSU win. Take away those free 14 points and we have an even ballgame. I don’t want to remember Gardner for his interception and fumble. I want to remember him for his courage for keeping UM in the game. I want to remember him for his compassion when he went over and consoled J.T. Barrett when he broke his ankle. Instead, I…
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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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Sights & Sounds | Utah 26, Michigan 10
Son of a BISCUIT I want these guys to turn this around. It’s a little odd to me because I still see the pieces of a decent team but the results are a wreck. Yesterday – with a the exception of a few breakdowns I thought the defense played pretty damn well (Jake Ryan – Manster. Jourdan Lewis – fun to watch). Derrick Green, when he was in there, looked like a seasoned back – he was patient and found the holes. And once again, we outgained our opponent yet failed to score a TD. Gardner. I don’t know what I’d do with 98. He’s losing confidence with every interception – he’s becoming more tentative and locking on. That’s fine against Miami but we’re not going to out-athlete the rest of the schedule. If you bench him now I just wonder if that’s a point of no return for his confidence. So I guess there are a couple options? 1. Start Gardner with a limited playbook. It sucks to say that about a 5th year senior but sorry. Shorter passes with the occasional sideline heave to Funch, and he’s got to run more. I’d encourage the big guy to take off for 5-7 yards more with more frequency. I feel like we’re still on that treadmill of doing what we…
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Outback Bowl 2013 – First Half Photos
A few from the first half, more later: Follow MVictors on Twitter
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Dr. Sap’s Decals – Northwestern Style
Ed. Steve Sapardanis aka “Dr. Sap” is back with his decals. This week I added the Editor’s Pick & added a bit to the Fan Award. Here are the picks from Week 1, Week 2, Week 3, Week 4, Week 5, Week 6 and Week 7 and Week 8 and Week 9. OFFENSE ROY ROUNDTREE – I’m sure most of you had the same reaction I did with Roundtree’s performance on Saturday – IT’S ABOUT TIME!! We knew he had it in him, it was just a matter of WHEN he would have his breakout game. Not only was he targeted more times against Northwestern than he was all year, he drew THREE pass interference calls – I don’t even know if Desmond had as many in one game. Welcome back, Treezy! DEFENSE KENNY DEMENS – He didn’t play a perfect game but he did make the tackle of his life – TWICE! It’s a play and situation you dream of as a kid growing up playing Pop Warner Football. Demens not only made the big stop to win the game on 4th Down, but he also made the stop the play before on 3rd Down! OUTSTANDING! SPECIAL TEAMS BRENDAN GIBBONS – We’ve called him, “Gibby” and “Lefty” but I think we should just call him “MONEY!” Eleven field goals…
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Gopher Game Photos
Check out more postgame jug photos here, and of course pregame shots here. Slash! Gardner heading here: Gardner and Capt. Robinson comparing notes Gopher drumline adding some pageantry Gang tackle. There are few extra legs and feet in there somehow like the Iwo Jima Memorial Deep sigh. Guys, it’s hard to take the ‘No More Minnesota Nice’ thing seriously when you flash the hearty double thumbs up next to Mandy Pepperidge – who herself looks like she just found a box of puppies. And memo to the guy below: I know Gangnam Style is irresistible but you made a commitment when you put on that shirt and the eye black. I haven’t seen the reply yet but this is the play where Roundtree wrestled the catch down near the goal line to set up the score. Would love to see a little more of Wrestlin’ Roy the rest of the way. Here he is telling the back judge what was up: Until just now, I thought there were merely cute little helmet cozies on the back of the bench, certainly worthy of a post here for many reasons. Upon further review- they are actually hooked up to a propane-fueled heating (or cooling?) system. Gophers know how to deal with the elements, that’s for certain.…
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Remaining Calm (Michigan 31, Air Force 25) | Sights & Sounds
At halftime Coach Mattison told Doug Karsch “..they’re getting us on the same play..”. Above (click for poster size) is what it looked like all day. Hats off to Air Force and I’m not taking anything away from the Falcons. As you know, they ran that thing to perfection. It seemed the U-M corners did their job – engaging the block, containing the corner and forcing the run inside. It’s just that the inside was a gaping hole you could fit a Stealth Bomber though..let alone any one of Sam McGuffie’s brothers. That was close. If Air Force could have done something/anything else, namely, toss it downfield more than 15 yards, or execute a fake kick, or execute a real kick, I think we’re 0 and 2. On the other side of the ball, it’s amazing how numb we’ve become to Denard’s exploits. Denard’s performance seemed to be an afterthought on postgame the talk. We untie our shoe laces, compose songs and videos about how much we love the young man, and sleep in #16 jerseys but I just get the sense that his performance yesterday was met with a fat yawn. Four TDs and 416 total yards, 200 each on the ground and air and those 2 ridiculous scoring runs? I get that it’s coming off the Bama game…
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Devin Gardner – Media Day
I spent a few moments with Devin Gardner. From the little I’ve seen, he’s clearly much improved and in the mix the fall and I’m very surprised after seeing Gardner a bit in the fall. A few quotes: Are you still living with Charlie? [for context, click here and scroll down]: Charlie? Oh no, I’m not living with Charlie anymore I’m living with Denard. How’s that going [living with Denard]? "It’s going great. You know, he’s like a garbage disposal, he eats everything, I don’t know why. He’s hungry all the time." He looks like he’s bigger. "Yeah, because he’s eating all that food <laughs>." It looks like you’ve improved [from spring to now], do you think so? "I’ve definitely improved from the spring, but I don’t think I’m where I need to be. I want to be the best at everything I do." What command of the playbook do you have at this point? "Everything they’ve taught us I know it to a ‘T’. I don’t know if they’ve told us everything, but they said it’s a big chunk that we’re going to use against UConn." Related: Will Hagerup – Media Day Tate Forcier – Media Day Media Day (Photo Gallery) Follow MVictors on Twitter
