Coach Gary Moeller was at Schembechler Hall this afternoon. Don’t know the circumstances for the visit, but the no doubt the he had a few words for the coaches and team about Ohio State. Moeller is a Buckeye grad and captained Woody Hayes’s squad in 1963. Moeller went 3-1-1 against Ohio State. Looks pretty good, don’t you think?
-
-
Jamie Morris on Columbus Radio on Rodriguez, Harbaugh (audio)
So I went over to the Columbus’ 97.1 The Fan website to find the audio of Rich Rodriguez’s call today, and stumbled on this. Jamie Morris, Michigan football legend, WTKA Sunday radio host and most importantly an official within the U-M athletic department spoke to the Columbus host (Bruce Hooley…Chris Spielman was away) about the upcoming Ohio State game, but also answered a few questions about Rodriguez and Jim Harbaugh. My frustration with Morris on WTKA is that he’s been such a company man towing the company line on WTKA, that it’s prevented him from offering actual opinions. But give this is listen as Morris gets candid. I don’t know if this is just Jamie measuring his words, but he didn’t exactly serve up a wild endorsement of Rodriguez and admitted that Harbaugh would be welcomed back to U-M if he were the Michigan football coach at some point beyond RR’s tenure. It’s not so much what he said, but that Morris never says anything remotely beyond the company line. Give this a listen, it gets interesting about 3 minutes in: [display_podcast] . Notes/Quotes: For starters, he referred to Harbaugh as “Jimmy” instead of “traitor”. Hooley asked for a general sense of the radio caller support for Rodriguez. Morris: “I think we’re at a 50/50 split now…” When asked about…
-
Jesse Owens, Gerald Ford and 1934
Regular readers of this site know one of my favorite decades of Michigan football is the 1930s, having covered different seasons and events in eBay Watch and in the Little Brown Jug Lore series from those years. If I had to pick one year as my favorite during the stretch it’s definitely 1934 which is ironic, as it’s arguably the worst season in Michigan football history. I argued this point here and here, but in a nutshell consider that Harry Kipke’s team, coming off back-to-back national championships, finished 1-7, was shut out in five of the eight games and scored a mere 21 points. Fugly. Despite the futility on the gridiron, the season is packed with historical treasures of major significance both on and off the field. Check out this program from the Ohio State-Michigan held on November 17, 1934: The program features several photos of players, including a collage of the Michigan team including team MVP Gerald Ford: The top of the photo features Willis Ward, the African American end who was at the center of a fierce controversy that played out before the Georgia Tech game a few weeks earlier that season. For those not familiar, The Jackets made it known well before the game that they wouldn’t take the field in Ann Arbor if Ward played, spawning…
-
The Sheets
I’ve that had a little more access to the football team this season. I’ve made it to my share of press conferences, a few practices (before we were booted) and even on the field & press box for a couple games. It’s a nice privilege, but while the performance on the field the past several weeks has been beyond tough, watching all this crap go down behind the scenes all season has been brutal. Blabbering about it on these pages isn’t really a ball either as I’d rather blabber about old ticket stubs and the like. Nonetheless, a couple thoughts about the Detroit News report that football failed to keep the practice logs that would (help) demonstrate the team’s compliance with NCAA practice regulations: -> Since U-M’s audit and findings came out well ahead of the Free Press practicegate story, is it safe to assume that a Deepthroat inside either leaked the report or more likely, nudged Rosenberg and crew to dig around on this topic? Viva la conspiracy! -> Next, I’m not sure who I’m mad at here. It bugs me that this was allowed to go on as long as it did. "All other varsity sports submitted their CARA forms timely,” according to the July 24 letter sent to Rodriguez. The football program probably has the most complicated…
-
Tropp Returns to Yost tonight
To this day, the most read post on these pages remains the breakdown of the Conboy-Tropp-Kampfer mauling from January’s Michigan-Michigan State game. Spartan Andrew Conboy was kicked off the team and left school, opting to take his chances within the Canadiens organization. It looks like he’s currently playing with the Hamilton Bulldogs. Corey Tropp was also kicked off the MSU team but earned his way back onto Rick Comley’s squad, and will return to Yost tonight. Wolverine Steve Kampfer is of course still skating for coach Berenson. Should be an interesting night tonight. Here’s a look back, first at Red’s comments from January on the weekly coaches’ show at The Arena just after the incident: [display_podcast] And here are those stills that I took from Section 22: Conboy and Tropp zero in on Kampfer Conboy gives Kampfer the old clothesline from behind …and takes Kampfer down. Tropp cocks his stick, but actually pulls back a bit Then Tropp gets a look… …and then takes a swing.. …and connects. Michigan immediately dispatches the team doctor To Conboy’s credit, he appears to shove Corey Tropp with his right arm… ..and then pushes him away with his left
-
Chicken Choked
I sit across from the heart of the Yost student section and it wasn’t hard to make out one particular young mind on Friday night: the dude dressed as a chicken screaming into a megaphone. Turns out that crazy chicken was Andy Reid, sports editor of the Daily. He made an encore appearance Saturday night but things didn’t go as planned: Saturday night, I got kicked out. Not cool, dude. Amidst an entire student section doing the same thing [the vulgar C-YA chant], an usher grabbed my elbow and told me it was time to leave, unless I wanted to be led out of the stadium in handcuffs. I will admit that I stood out from the other Children of Yost. I may or may not have had a megaphone. And I may or may not have been, ahem, dressed up — if you went to the game, you might have seen a six-foot chicken standing against the glass in section 18. But that’s even more reason to not kick me out. How is the team supposed to focus and be motivated without a yellow, fuzzy chicken standing behind the glass? Reid suggests other things could be done to curb the nasty chant (which is delivered when opposing players are sent to the penalty box) including a message from Red…
-
How they Voted: AP College Football Poll 11/08
This week’s look at the AP college football poll vote. After reviewing each of the voters’ rankings here’s a few things that stuck out: Top Slots: For the third straight week, every voter has either Florida, Texas or USC in their top 3. The exception once again Jon Wilner of the San Jose Mercury News. He had USC in Week 9 (who then lost the following week), then he put Oregon in USC’s slot at #2 in Week 10 (who of course lost yesterday). He now has Cincinnati at #2 and put Florida at #4. Milner gets the hate mail award this week, no doubt getting some from Gator fans. Overslept: Last week ESPN/ABC’s Kirk Herbstreit didn’t get his ballot in due to some logistical issues. This week Alex Abrams, a writer from Arkansas, failed to get his ballot in. [Ed 11/08 9PM – I found this tweet from Abrams – “Also, Pollspeak tweeted that by AP Top 25 ballot was missing today. But because of recent change, Robbie Neiswanger has taken over my vote.” I’ll include Neiswanger next week.] Top 10/Region – Here’s the national vote, spliced by the region of the voters (Central is effectively Big 12 country, mostly dudes from Texas): Big Ten by Region –Here’s how the Big Ten (and Notre Dame) was rated, by…
-
Official Official Statements after the game
The U-M Media Relations department circulated this after the game. I’m not publishing it because I have some beef with the calls or think they had a major impact on the game. I haven’t seen the replay of the lateral yet but assume they made the correct call, and it looked like Michigan got a huge break on the fumbled punt that was negated by the bad interference call. I’m not sure who’s asking the questions– Following are the quotes from Todd Geerlings, the Referee from today’s Michigan-Purdue Game. What was the interpretation on the fourth down review with the forward lateral? What was it that the replay official saw? TODD GEERLINGS: “The replay official saw that the ball, when it left his hand to the point where it touched the receiver’s hand, was clearly forward from the 13 to the 12 yard line. That’s why we had an illegal forward pass from the spot of that pass.” Who called for the review? GEERLINGS: “The booth called for the review and I announced that on the field prior to. The coaches on the field were trying to but Purdue did not have a challenge left so they couldn’t have. They were trying to but just as I got the buzz on the pager, I just turned to Purdue and said…
