• Harbaugh: The Legacy Hired Gun

    January 3, 2015 /

    Since the turn of the last century, as I see it the Michigan coaching hires have fallen into 2 buckets: Legacy Hires > under the Michigan Man umbrella, these are guys with playing and/or coaching experience in Ann Arbor before they took over.  (And FWIW a lack of outside heading coaching success). Hired Guns > gents with head coaching “success” (let’s call it .550 or better) at other college programs but no previous coaching or playing experience at U-M. Harbaugh is the first hire that really falls on both sides of this divide, having had both college (& NFL for that matter) head coaching success along with U-M ties as a player and alumnus.  A breakdown*: * I removed George Little who kinda/sorta coached U-M for one season in 1924 while Yost took a breather, and ok if I moved the Mendoza line for “success” down to .500 Hoke gets a check. A few thoughts: Of the 4 Hired Guns, I think Ivan Maisel of ESPN got it right, comparing this hire to that of Fritz Crisler who won two national titles at Princeton before taking over in Ann Arbor: For one thing, Harbaugh is the most successful head coach Michigan has hired since it swiped Fritz Crisler from Princeton in 1938. All Crisler did in 10 seasons in Ann…

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  • Fritz Crisler Demonstrates the Dropkick & 1922 Ohio State Buckeye Smacktalk

    April 2, 2014 /

    It’s hard to beat this awesome shot of Fritz Crisler: Is that Fritz Crisler dropping the ball?  No way man – he’s demonstrating the dropkick.  Back in 1958, Crisler was chairman of the NCAA rules committee and a major change for that year was the introduction of the 2 point conversion.  Coaches weren’t sure what the impact would be—many thought teams would go for 2 after TDs early in the game and then see how things played out.  But it was quickly figured out that hitting paydirt with one play from the three-yard line was far from a 50/50 proposition (one source had the success rate in 1958 was around 35%), and most coaches defaulted to kicking the extra point.  Bringing us back to the photo, it was also suggested that having the option of the two point conversion might result end up in more teams trying the old dropkick.  I think the scenario was that you’d see teams effectively lining up in a triple threat position where the offense could try to run or pass for 2, or execute the drop kick for 1…but that really didn’t happen.  (Heck, it hadn’t even happened in pro football since 1941 and until Doug Flutie’s epic dropkick in 2007). From a June 1923 athletic department publication, that’s a shot of one of the…

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  • WPW | Jimmy Orwig’s Righteous Swig

    March 26, 2014 /

    Hump Day!   Wire Photo Wednesday leads with something near and dear to my heart, the Little Brown Jug: A great shot of a few men from Bennie Oosterbaan’s 1957 roster. Left to right I believe you’ve got: Stan Noskin (QB), Dave Brown (QB), ‘57 captain Jim Orwig (LT) taking a pull, Larry Faul (LG) and Jerry Goebel (C).   We don’t have a lot of information on this shot, but it looks like it appeared in the Minneapolis Star, making me think it was shot just prior to the ‘57 battle for the Jug.  The caption also says that’s a replica – which is looks to be (for starter, there are no scores down the side, at least on the side we can see…).   Good news – Orwig took back the real jug after Michigan’s 24-7 victory on October 26, 1957.   Fritz: “..and finally, we’re getting new helmets..with yellow wings on them.”   [Team breaks out in laughter]Fritz:  “Trust me on this one. Wings are the future. Wings I tells ya.” So I’ve seen this shot on eBay before but never noticed the significance of the date it was taken.  This is actually a pretty historically significant shot from March 28th—the start of Spring football back then.  This is probably one of, if not the first, published photo with Fritz Crisler…

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