the greatest thing in the history of the world

cover art by MonuMental. Sorry Jen, it’s just that Kipke is super tall.

Attention holiday shoppers: You could get your family hats for Christmas this year. Like a cute Michigan beanie they can wear to games. Hats are nice. They’re in the right price range, you can never really have enough of them, and surely there will be a Michigan fan in your white elephant group who’ll want one again this year.

Or, you know, you could give them a highly entertaining 128-page history of Michigan football stories that cover most of the important traditions and people they need to know about, and finally have them understand why you spend so much time on MGoBlog. And you could pre-order it NOW. And it will ship from Ann Arbor (with tracking) on/around December 12th, a good two weeks before you’d have been running to the store to buy a last-minute hat.

Unlike previous books published by MGoBlog, HAIL TO OLD BLUE: Stories of Michigan Football 1879-2017 won’t have half of its content rendered inert by football events a month after you purchase it, so you can buy this and give it to someone this Christmas, or next Christmas, or three Chanukahs from now, or just stock up a pile of them for birthday gifts until you’re the guy who gives out those fascinating Michigan stories instead of the hat guy.

Also I’m pretty sure you got them the same hat last year.

THIS IS NOT A HAT

We bring up things that we learned in old HTTV features all the time, but given the exponential growth of this site I’m pretty sure only a bare handful of you have every copy going back to 2007. Do you know how Yost got Michigan Stadium built? How Craig Ross bumbled his way into a Carr-era quarterbacks meeting? Why OSU is full of the bird poop on their helmets when they claim responsibility for inventing stickers? What role Lloyd played in hiring his successor? How Bo beat Ohio State his first year?

Yes, those were all HTTV features, and today you can’t even buy them online—I’ve tried, and after a month Amazon just quietly removes it from your orders.

Bearing that in mind, we’ve grabbed 18 of the best evergreen stories from past HTTVs and compiled them into a single collection of historical vignettes, because I’m sorry to tell you this, but you’re already starting to get a reputation as the guy who always buys everyone hats.

The topics:

THIS MICHIGAN OF OURS (1879 through Bump):

• Michigan played in the first actual football game (by Craig Ross, 2016)
• The story of Fielding Yost (John Kryk, 2013)
• How Michigan Stadium was built (Greg Dooley of MVictors, 2010)
• The first great passing team (Ross, 2014)
• The Harry Newman/Gerald Ford-era champs (Dooley, 2012)
• Ron Kramer, the uncensored version (Dooley, 2013)
• The 1964 team, the uncensored version (Dooley, 2014)

TWISTED BLUE STEEL (Bo):

• The story of 1969 (Joel Pennington, 2008)
• Helmet Sticker history (Kryk, 2010)
• The 1973 Screw Job (Kryk, 2013)
• How Michigan invented the dime defense (Dr. Sap, 2016)
• When Texas A&M made their run at Bo (Seth Fisher & Mel Newman, 2016)
• The 1985 Season (Kryk, 2015)

NECK SHARPIES (Moeller to the modern day):

• Interview with Jerry Hanlon (Dooley, 2015)
• Craig Ross sits in on a 2005 QB meeting (Ross, 2008)
• Lloyd-sided take on the Rich Rod controversies (Ross, 2012)
• Denard (Brian Cook, 2013)
• The 3-3-5 then and now (Chris B. Brown of SmartFootball.com, 2010)

Go get your book.

All in favor of having him actually grow those sideburns say aye. That's everyone.

Yay yay yay OMG… for now. Brady Hoke told the radio Denard Robinson would not transfer. So he'll go through spring at least. Also, Tate Forcier is going to try to stick it out:

"Tate wants to stay (at U-M)," Mike Forcier told TheWolverine. "I didn't come with a moving van. Our intent is to do whatever is necessary for him to rejoin the team and become a student-athlete again. We haven't talked to any other schools and we won't until we've exhausted every resource here. But Tate wants to stay and we want him to stay."

This is the greatest hire in the history of college football. This reminds me of when Vince Lombardi hired Jimmy Johnson, except faster:

Fred Jackson will return for his 20th season at Michigan and will coach running backs under Hoke, a source said Thursday night.

This is flantabulous. It reminds me of when you take some sugar and some eggs and some caramel and combine them in a delicious combination that's like custard except faster. It's Hokediculous. It's like that except faster. This is amazing. This coach is like the Heisman in a body, except it's like the Heisman in a body in one of those movies with a virus—he infects everyone with the Heisman. Word. Flan. Flan is the word, except faster.

But seriously folks. The inability of nuclear war to eradicate Fred Jackson probably pushes that Heckulinsiksinaski guy to WR coach and kills the idea that Eric "Obvious Nickname" Campbell would depart from the hard-partying Iowa WRs. Either that or it kills the idea that Scot Loeffler would enter at QB coach. Not like any of this matters, anyway. If you're not an OL or QB coach offensive assistants don't really matter.

Defensive coordinator search now even more bleedingly obvious. Jon Hoke, brother of Brady Hoke and a key aspect of Michigan's strategy to make their coaching staff literally as much of a family as possible, says he hasn't talked to Brady about the Michigan DC job and is "unlikely" to end up in Ann Arbor. That's fine by me since he's spent the last decade as a position coach in the NFL and would be something of a wildcard if he returned to college.

So. Michigan has a lot of money left over since they're paying Hoke twenty dollars and some donuts and is competing with San Diego State for the bulk of its staff. There is a guy out there with crazy recent college credentials that also comes with a reputation as a fierce recruiter. He runs the Big Ten default defense, a basic 4-3 cover two. He turned Miami—Miami!—into an APR-obliterating, arrest-avoiding team. That's Randy Shannon, kids, and we know two things:

1. If David Brandon was serious about getting assistant pay up into the area of Michigan's peer group he's the guy who Michigan should be going after with an oversized novelty check.
2. The chance Randy Shannon comes to Michigan is extraordinarily slim.

File on the ominous side of the ledger. So… uh… you know how Brady Hoke is a tough defensive-minded coach whose teams will run the ball and stop the run, boy won't they? Um… so… the thing is.

In eight seasons as a head coach Hoke oversaw one defense—this year's—that ranked above 84th nationally. Even during the miracle year at Ball State his team was sixth in the MAC. In fact, if you click that link and squint your eyes you might think the table of Hoke's defenses is the table of Greg Robinson's defenses. So… yeah. Um. Not to be a downer or anything. Also please don't bring up that the Graham/Malzahn combo obliterated Hoke's best team 45-13 and now Graham is at Pitt and has hired a couple Rodriguez assistants and I just feel kind of ominous about this whole section.

File on the happy side of the ledger. After nuking Navy the Aztecs rose to #12 nationally in the offensive FEI rankings. Michigan is still #2 even after the grim output against Mississippi State.

NOT ME. Probably. Look, so I might have had a bit to drink the past couple days but I can state with at least 60% confidence that this was not me:

I can recite pi to 54 digits, bitch. I'm Rick James.

The Process, conference edition. After consideration the Big Ten has declared that Legends and Leaders are awesome division names, thank you very much. This is emblematic of why the conference imploded on NYD: it is a league of ninnies. This space is going to stick to calling the divisions East and West even though North and South make more sense so Michigan can be Champions of the West.

Not so good. Tristin Llewellyn and Jacob Fallon are gone for the year for "violating team expectations." That ends Llewellyn's Michigan career; Fallon has an opportunity to return next year.

As far as impact goes, Fallon was only playing about half the time anyway and didn't stand out when he did. Llewellyn's loss will be more prominent. While it's impossible for anyone to replace his penalty acquisition skills with quite so much gusto, alternatives on the back line are Moffie and Clare. Moffie's been pretty bad this year—a turnover machine—and Clare has been on the back burner most of the season as Michigan tries to juggle eight defensemen. He'll probably benefit from the increased availability of playing time more than Moffie.

Etc.: Pat Fitzgerald's agent would like you to know that Michigan was probably going to offer Fitzgerald three million a year as part of their sham effort to make it look like other people were being considered. Brady Hoke buyout blah blah.