Lifted from the Uniform Timeline, this page contains a complete catalog of the publicly known or observed helmet stickers donning Michigan football helmets. This new concept was introduced in 2021, "to tell the story of a player’s entire career."
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Sights & Sounds – Maized and Enthused (Michigan 31, Washington 10)
What a night. While a gameday experience can't cover for a loss, that's about as close as you could come. But of course, we won. Well done by the students who are bringing it two games in. And the fans who bothered to wear maize. And the athletic department for arranging all the accouterment. And to the team: had we lost this one it would be remembered as a crap sandwich with extra maize mustard. But this night, this event, these tributes, this party, was about as close as it gets. The sights and sounds were aplenty, here are a few:
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Sights & Sounds | Family Reunion (Michigan 47, Western Michigan 14)
As JJ McCarthy's pass sailed diagonally across the field, a truck pulled up to the gates of Michigan Stadium. Its cargo was approximately 110,000 cans of that sweet nectar of hype, hope, and expectation. Of course, you usually received your annual dose around the first week of August each year, but you know, COVID and all. To the Sights and Sounds from Saturday. This is my gameday peek into events off the field on Saturdays, aka whatever you call the opposite of Xs and Os:
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Little Brown Jug Champions | Dr Sap’s Decals
Guest Post by Steve “Dr. Sap” Sapardanis The last time Minnesota won the Little Brown Jug in Minneapolis, Marion Barber SENIOR was the running back for The Gophers. That was back in 1977, when Michigan was #1 in country and Jim Harbaugh was roaming the sidelines for the Wolverines – as one of the Michigan Coaches’ sons! Like Wilton Speight said, maybe the Football Gods WERE smiling down on Michigan Saturday night. Speaking of #3, here are your LBJ Champions: OFFENSIVE CHAMPION – Gotta give it to QB Wilton Speight. His first three completions in his career? WoW! He was obviously tight at first but it sounded like the old ball coach settled him down and stuck with him. Sure enough, he delivered the goods in a BIG way – especially on that 2-point conversion pass. He has come a long way since the verbal tongue-lashing he received from Coach Harbaugh that we saw on the HBO Real Sports feature a few months ago. DEFENSIVE CHAMPION – I haven’t seen a game end on a defensive stop since the 2012 OT Game against Northwestern when Kenny Demens made the pivotal play. But this one felt a lot like the 1993 Michigan – Penn State Game at Happy Valley. Michigan stopped JoePa and the Nittany Lions 4 times at the goal…
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Mike Hammerstein’s 47 Helmet Stickers
So Amara Darboh had 9 helmet stickers after Utah, Jake Butt 8 and a handful of others (Peppers, Rudock) had seven. Assuming the stickers are dealt out after games, we’ve presumably got a few guys with at least 15 helmet stickers on their lids following Oregon State. Now, I’ve heard some argue that these assumptions are wrong – that many of the decals to date were earned in practice (including camp) and therefore it’s not a straight line ratio from now to the end of the season. But if the stickers are tied to game performance, and the criteria for getting stickers in a game stays consistent throughout the season – things will get sticky soon. The skinny: We already know the stickers are the same size as the 1985-1994 version. As discussed here, the standard for decals likely goes to Mike Hammerstein, the mid-80s standout defensive tackle. He was the team MVP in 1985 and his helmet showed it. The big man was honored with 47 decals entering the bowl game, assuming he didn’t leave a couple on Keith Byars’ arse: Assuming we’re not touching the area on or inside the wings (I will fight you, Jake Rudock!), at a glance it looks like we’ve got max capacity at 60. Maybe we could get 62 on Wormley. Fast forward…
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Beaver Beatdown – Sights & Sounds (Michigan 35, Oregon State 7 – 2015)
“I GUESS I HIT THAT HOLE YOU NERDS!” (via Michigan Daily) Following another Smith score to put U-M up 26-7, Harbaugh personally called for the 2 point conversion. He gave some kind of signal to the celebrating players – it looked like a bear claw from the press box. He sat hunched over outside the team area basically begging for Rudock and a few other guys to get the message and line up—flashing the bear claw gesture as hard as he could. Rudock and crew eventually got the message, lined up, and successfully executed the 2 point conversion to put U-M up 28-7. On the trot back to the sideline Rudock tried to slide back to the bench with the rest of the unit but Harbaugh put his hand in Rudock’s chest—stopping him in his tracks. There was a quick chat between QB and coach, I assume something along the lines of maintaining composure even after a TD and paying attention. After the chat, #4 delivered a pair of hearty butt slaps and Rudock went back to the bench. Here’s the deal – Harbaugh is in absolute control (most of the time) of the sideline and what the players are doing on the field. The only other way he’d have it is if the rules allowed him to play a…
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Deeper Maize and Blue
So by now you’ve seen The Wolverine’s Chris Balas tweet out what his sources say will be the 2015 road uniform:
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Will the Decals Return?
So if Harbaugh is indeed introduced next week, a big question for Michigan uniform mavens concerns whether #4 will re-introduce the helmet decals. Bo actually invented the concept while at Miami, and brought them to Ann Arbor in 1969. Here’s a brief run down of the stickers over the years thanks to Dr. Sap: You’ll note above that the decals actually took a break in the mid-1980s during Harbaugh’s tenure, but did indeed return for his final two seasons, including his captaincy in 1986. We also know that Coach Harbaugh used them in Palo Alto: Coach Hoke was asked about this by Wojo back in 2011 and obviously nothing happened, but with Harbaugh? You’d have to think there’s a good chance we’ll see them on the field in 2015. What do you think? [poll id=”72”] Update: Amani Toomer chimes in with authority: Related: Harbaugh’s Top 5 games while at Michigan The full U-M uniform timeline can be found here. Follow MVictors on Twitter
