Michigan Wolverines

In the days following Notre Dame's announcement that it would opt out of its annual series against Michigan after the 2014 season, Wolverines coach Brady Hoke took the diplomatic route when asked about the move.

"My reaction is Notre Dame made a decision, it's not our decision," Hoke said on the Big Ten coaches' teleconference last September. "It's unfortunate, it's a great rivalry, but they've got to do what they think is best."

Coaches' sentiments often change when they're speaking to their devoted fans, not media members, and Hoke had a slightly different take on Notre Dame when discussing the end of the series Monday at the Michigan Sports Commission's annual luncheon in Grand Rapids, Mich.

The Michigan coach said Notre Dame is "chickening out of" a great rivalry. Zing!

From MLive.com:

"The Notre Dame game, that rivalry, which they're chickening out of," Hoke said Monday during the West Michigan Sports Commission Annual Luncheon at the J.W. Marriott in Grand Rapids.

The remark drew thunderous applause from the crowd.

"They're still gonna play Michigan State, they're gonna play Purdue, but they don't want to play Michigan," Hoke continued. "I don't know how they made that decision ... I really do ... But anyway, that's a great national rivalry game. It's a great game."

Notre Dame nixed the Michigan series after reaching an agreement with the ACC that will include five games per season against ACC opponents. The Irish are trying to diversify their schedule as much as possible, while maintaining traditional rivalries with teams like USC and Navy. Although Notre Dame and Michigan are two big names in college football with storied traditions, the Notre Dame-Michigan rivalry doesn't stretch back nearly as far as Notre Dame's series against USC, Navy, Michigan State or Purdue.

Michigan athletic director Dave Brandon made it clear in September that the decision to stop the series was Notre Dame's, not Michigan's, but neither he nor Hoke had anything inflammatory to say about the Irish.

My take: I understand why Notre Dame did what it did and the need to have a more national schedule in addition to the ACC games each season. Still, it's unfortunate to see the Michigan series go away after 2014.

Hoke on Monday also talked about Michigan's desire to bring in a graduate transfer quarterback for the 2013 season. The Wolverines have no proven depth behind Devin Gardner, and projected backup Russell Bellomy likely will miss the season following ACL surgery. Hoke said it's more likely Michigan adds a graduate transfer from another FBS program than a junior-college transfer.

Colleague Joe Schad reported last week that Arkansas quarterback Brandon Mitchell added Michigan to his list of potential transfer destinations.

ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- Two years ago, Michigan and Virginia Tech played in the Allstate Sugar Bowl. The programs announced on Thursday that they will play again -- next decade.

The Wolverines and Hokies agreed to a home-and-home deal, playing at Michigan Stadium on Sept. 19, 2020, and at Lane Stadium in Blacksburg, Va., on Sept. 11, 2021.

“I am pleased that [Michigan athletic director] Dave Brandon and I have been able to work out this agreement,” Virginia Tech athletic director Jim Weaver said in a statement. “Michigan is the winningest college football program in the country, and it will be exciting to have the Wolverines come to Lane Stadium.”

It will be the first time the teams will play during the regular season. Michigan beat Virginia Tech, 23-20, in the 2012 Sugar Bowl. After having never played a Big Ten team in the regular season, the Hokies now have three scheduled for the future: Ohio State in 2014 and a home-and-home with Wisconsin beginning in 2016.

As we've written for the past several days, Big Ten athletic directors have a whole host of decisions to make over the next few months, including how many league games they should play, how to align the divisions, the next bowl lineup and even what to call the divisions.

"We've got some heavy lifting to do here for the next few months," Purdue athletic director Morgan Burke said.

But what if all that huffing and puffing turns out to be a Sisyphean task? There's one thing that could send conference leaders scrambling back to the drawing board: more expansion.

The decisions the athletic directors will make for the 2014 season and beyond will be based on the new 14-team format with Maryland and Rutgers joining. Many people suspect the Big Ten is not done adding members and could soon grow to 16 or even to 20 members. Ohio State president E. Gordon Gee recently informed us that conference expansion talks are "ongoing."

The athletic directors are well aware of the possibility that more teams could be coming at just about any time.

“Based on the last three years I’ve been in this business, you’d be crazy not to think about it," Michigan athletic director Dave Brandon said. "But it’s hard to model anything because you don’t know what to model. The minute you get yourself convinced that you’re going to go from 14 to 16, for all you know you’re going to 18, and a lot of people think the ultimate landing place is 20. Who knows?"

For now, all the decisions they make will be based on a 14-team model only.

"You make your decision based on today," Iowa's Gary Barta said. "And today, we have that many teams. We can’t worry about something that’s not established yet. I don’t know if and when there will be more teams. Right now, we’re going to make decisions based on the additions of Rutgers and Maryland, and we’re going to make them with the information we have, consistent with our principles."

"It’s hard to predict the future," added Northwestern's Jim Phillips. "No one would have predicted we’d be at this place we’re at right now. I don’t think you can get polarized by the what-ifs or the potential of what might be and lose sight of where you’re at."

The league's ADs will do their best to come up with the best framework for a 14-team league. If future expansion arrives in time for the 2014 season or shortly after it, at least the conference has gained lots of recent experience in how to deal with it.

"When you get into the discussion of things like 10 [conference games], you say, 'Wow, if we had a couple more teams, it would be easier,'" Ohio State athletic director Gene Smith said. "That's a natural. But it's not something that motivates you to say, 'We've got to position this in case we have another team, or two more teams.' We don't do that."

"What I've liked about our league is, when we added Nebraska, we felt like we needed to settle and watch the landscape. We thought the East Coast was important, and we got two good pickups relative to that principal. So I think we deal with what we have now, sit, monitor the landscape, and if something emerges down the road, we're positioned to be able to absorb."

ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- Michigan started its season wearing alternate jerseys against an SEC opponent.

It’ll close the season the same way.

Michigan’s uniforms will look different than the traditional Wolverines’ white uniforms of the past, with a white chest and maize numbers with blue trim. The shoulders of the uniforms are blue with the maize block ‘M’ on the shoulder.

The biggest difference might be in the Michigan helmet. While the Wolverines will still have their wings, the helmet is more of a matte look, complete with a lighter, shinier maize.

“I think they do look good,” senior Jordan Kovacs said. “I like how they stuck with the tradition, too, the winged helmet and the block ‘M.’ It’s pretty cool.’ “

Michigan athletic director Dave Brandon said before the season that his school would stick with traditional jerseys throughout the regular season after facing Alabama, but that the Wolverines could look at something different for a bowl game if they qualified.

So they are going with a slightly different look. This will be the seventh different jersey Michigan has worn since the beginning of last season -- the traditional home and away jerseys, home and away “legacy” jerseys against Notre Dame and Michigan State along with alternate jerseys for the Allstate Sugar Bowl last season and then the Cowboys Classic game against Alabama to open this season.

“I like the bowl uniforms,” senior offensive lineman Patrick Omameh said. “I’m a fan of the matte look.”

Notre Dame just got finished dusting off three straight Big Ten teams, beating Purdue, Michigan State and Michigan in order. It was an impressive run but one that might not be possible again in the near future.

The Irish have notified Michigan that they are opting out of their games against the Wolverines from 2015 to 2017, the Associated Press first reported Tuesday. The two schools were already scheduled to take a hiatus in 2018-19. That means we won't see a Michigan-Notre Dame game for at least five straight years after 2014 and maybe longer, as nothing beyond that is guaranteed.

This is about more than just Michigan, though. This signals a new era in the Notre Dame-Big Ten relationship. Michigan State and Purdue both have cherished series against the Golden Domers that are no longer safe.

The Irish are clearly moving in a new direction. They recently joined the ACC in all sports but football while agreeing to play five football games per year against ACC teams. With Notre Dame wanting to keep Stanford, USC and Navy on the schedule and desiring to play in major recruiting areas, their need to face three Big Ten teams every year has diminished significantly.

For Michigan, it's a loss but not a crippling one. The Wolverines lose a regional rival, but playing Notre Dame doesn't carry nearly the cachet that it once did. Michigan fans don't live and die by this game like they do Ohio State. Fans will miss it, but they probably won't yearn for it.

In fact, they might not even notice if athletic director Dave Brandon replaces Notre Dame with high-profile games like this year's opener against Alabama. Michigan has already scheduled Pac-12 opponents Utah, Colorado and Oregon State for the near future. Brandon will have to scramble a bit to fill holes in the '15 and '16 schedules because many agreements are signed years in advance. Hopefully, though, the maize-and-blue use this opportunity to play marquee matchups, because that's what a program of this magnitude ought to do, especially with strength of schedule likely a large component of the forthcoming playoff structure. Brandon is a bold-enough thinker to recognize this.

The Spartans have a deal with Notre Dame that extends through 2031, although it's unknown what kind of out clauses the Irish have in that contract. Last week, Michigan State athletic director Mark Hollis told MLive.com, "Everything’s not up to them. What’s up to them is to make a request to alter the contract, and once they make that request, then it will be up to us on how we want to respond."

Hollis already has some big-time games on the future docket, including Oregon (2014 and 2015), Alabama (2016 and '17) and Miami ('20, '21). The Spartans played Boise State this year and will continue that series. They will play a strong schedule regardless, but the Notre Dame series has been good for them on the whole, especially when you consider that their top rival, Michigan, does not view them the same way.

Purdue is the team that should be really nervous here. The Boilermakers really value their in-state rivalry against Notre Dame and love the exposure it brings for a program that sometimes struggles to attract attention. You get the feeling athletic director Morgan Burke would schedule the Irish twice a year if he could.

But the Purdue series does little to benefit Notre Dame except that it is a very manageable road trip in odd years. It doesn't help Irish recruiting efforts or create much of a stir outside of northern Indiana. If Notre Dame truly wants to start being more of a coastal program, then there's little reason for it to play Purdue every year. While the Boilers will do everything they can to keep the series going, they shouldn't be surprised to see a Dear John letter from South Bend arriving in their mailbox soon.

Notre Dame didn't want to join the Big Ten, and the Big Ten would never have agreed to the kind of one-foot-in, one-foot-out arrangement the Irish made with the ACC. So both parties will move in different directions.

The Notre Dame games have been mostly beneficial for the conference, but in years when the Irish weren't that good, they dragged down the nonconference schedules. This year, they handed the Big Ten three losses. Today's news isn't necessarily No. 4.

Michigan should have known this was coming. The minute Notre Dame decided to move all of its other sports to the Atlantic Coast Conference and Irish athletic director Jack Swarbrick said he would be looking to preserve the USC, Stanford and Navy rivalries first, this was almost imminent.

Notre Dame is backing out of its deal with Michigan after 2014, creating a somewhat large hole in the Wolverines’ schedule from 2015 until 2017. But it is a gap which also gives the Wolverines a major opportunity.

Michigan athletic director Dave Brandon has said all along he would like to maximize both home games for his school and opportunities to play strong opponents. He looked to the now-dead Big Ten/Pac-12 partnership as a chance to bolster the schedule even more, having added one-off games with Oregon State and Colorado along with a home-and-home against Utah.

While that deal fell through, it signified Michigan was going to take seriously the task of bolstering its schedule beyond the one-off guaranteed games that have become the way of the college football world. The Wolverines took on Alabama this season. It has been rumored to be in conversations with other high-profile schools.

Now Brandon can look wherever he wants for a game in September. He can plan a home-and-home with a marquee school from another league without having to worry about the balancing act of Notre Dame along with the Big Ten schedule.

Consider, too, that Michigan doesn’t seem too upset about all of this. Brady Hoke, when asked last week about the potential of the series going away, called it “a great rivalry from a national perspective,” but also indicated if the schools had to move on, they had to move on.

So Michigan will. While many big-name schools already have dates booked up far in advance, slots always come open from other schools. And the Wolverines become an attractive opponent for both television ratings and for a barometer on how good a program might be.

It won’t be easy -- scheduling never is -- but it is a challenge Brandon will be up for. He is the one who pushed through the first night game in Michigan Stadium history and he is the one who, whether fans like it or not, decided to bring Appalachian State back to Ann Arbor, in 2014. He knows how to create buzz.

And with a more wide open schedule to do so, who knows what he will come up with.

ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- Cooper Barton might not be able to wear a Michigan T-shirt to his Oklahoma school, but the 5-year-old now has an invitation for him and his parents to attend a Michigan football game this fall.

Barton was told to turn a Michigan T-shirt he was wearing inside-out because of his school's dress code. The story grew nationally, and Michigan athletic director Dave Brandon said Wednesday that he is planning on inviting Barton and his parents to a game.

“We’d like to put him up on the big board and thank him for being a loyal Michigan fan,” Brandon said after a question-and-answer session with the Detroit Economic Club held on Michigan’s campus. “I’m going to send him a T-shirt, probably a few other T-shirts, too, and thank him for being a terrific supporter of Michigan.

“Maybe the recognition of this will make them rethink their crazy rule.”

The Oklahoma City school district, where Barton attends Wilson Elementary, has a rule in place saying students can wear college clothing only from Oklahoma colleges, according to News9.com. Reports on Wednesday say the school already is reviewing its policy.

Brandon also came up with a plan in case they asked Barton to turn his shirt inside-out again. An Ann Arbor, Mich., local store, the MDen, made a blue shirt with some sort of Michigan Wolverines mention on both sides of the shirt, which Brandon plans to send to Barton.

Editor's note: RecruitingNation is taking a look at the state of each team's brand.

ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- There was little doubt that after a three-year stint under Rich Rodriguez that the Michigan football brand was struggling. Games were harder to sell out, the program wasn’t appealing to top recruits and the overall glow was fading.

So when athletics director Dave Brandon arrived in Ann Arbor in January 2010, he knew a few things needed to change.

“We have such international reach,” Brandon said of Michigan’s brand. “Our alums are scattered all over the world and they care a lot about what we do here as a university and certainly, what we do as an athletic department so we try very, very hard to build that brand on the fact that it’s global and it’s a big brand and it’s one that’s highly recognized and highly respected.”

In December 2010, Hunter Lochmann was hired as the university’s first-ever chief marketing officer. Between Lochmann’s sports experience (more than a decade in NBA marketing) and Brandon’s business experience, the two looked to grow the Michigan sports brand.

“Having been here 16 years and seeing what we’ve evolved into in the last few, you look at the way we market now and the way we marketed in the past and it’s night and day,” associate athletics director Dave Ablauf said. “They’re a dynamic duo.”

Lochmann integrated new ticket packages for fans, evolved the digital side of marketing and upped the ante for social media to the point that nearly every sport at Michigan now has its own Facebook page and Twitter handle.

Exposure was increased, but driving the force of football (which drives the force of Michigan athletics) was the new face of the program, head coach Brady Hoke.

From the moment he stepped in the door, he brought with him a confidence reminiscent of the storied Bo Schembechler years at Michigan, which fans loved.

Hoke’s “For god’s sake, this is Michigan,” seemed to hit home with Michigan fans as a battle cry for the resurgence of a struggling team. Team 132, as he called his squad, backed that up on the field and with the school’s first BCS Bowl win in more than a decade.

And, as Lochmann would say, “Winning cures everything.”

Which is partly true. There’s no doubt the winning has helped. Ticket applications were at an all-time high leading into the 2012 season, and the buzz around the program seems to have grown louder and louder every day as the season opener against Alabama nears.

The Wolverines’ fan day on Sunday hosted more than 10,000 Michigan fans that just wanted to meet the players.

But Hoke has had his part in the flavor of the brand. In his second year, there has seemed to be an even greater homage paid to the history of the storied program. Legacy patches have been installed on the program’s retired jerseys, which will now be brought back into circulation. And echoes of Schembechler’s teachings resound louder than ever.

“The culture that Brady has created is clearly one about embracing the past and respecting the legacies of the players that were here long before the players that are here today,” Brandon said. “He has done that from the day he arrived.”

Tempering that old-school trend is still a desire from Brandon, Lochmann and Hoke to innovate. The 2011 matchup against Notre Dame, which was the school’s first night game, was a raging success, both financially and emotionally, for the players and fans.

And with a neutral-site night game against the reigning national champions, Michigan will continue to innovate, bringing its brand wherever it can while still keeping in mind the program’s tradition.

And if there’s one thing to be sure of, it’s that Hoke has made it a mission to bring this program and brand back to the forefront of everyone’s minds.

“I don't know why anybody wouldn't respect whenever anybody says, ‘This is Michigan,’ ” Hoke said. “It's Michigan football. It's 11 national championships, 42 Big Ten championships.”

On Tuesday, the second annual Michigan and Michigan State AD Challenge took place at the U-M Golf Course in Ann Arbor. Though MSU athletic director Mark Hollis and the Spartans beat Dave Brandon and the U-M staff in the tournament, it was a special day planned for the two rivals to spend some time together, what Hollis said represented "all that's good about college sports."

The tournament featured nine head-to-head matches. The lineup had athletic directors, golf coaches, radio announcers, faculty members and former student-athletes.

However, before the two athletic directors teed off they sat down with the media. Here is what they had to say.

(Read full post)

Less than three years into his tenure, Michigan athletic director Dave Brandon has already made some innovative moves for the football program. Between the night games and high-profile matchups, Brandon has marketed the Wolverines as well as any athletic director in the nation.

And with the recent release of the Wolverines 2014-16 nonconference schedules, he continues to show that he fully intends to keep scheduling those types of games.

“Part of the objective [of scheduling] is creating contests that are interesting to people, that are fascinating to people, that are contests that people want to talk about,” Brandon said after a news conference to introduce Michigan's new baseball coach. “People are talking about them.”

One game people are talking about is Michigan’s 2015 season opener at Utah. The game will kick off college football that year and be the Wolverines’ first-ever Thursday night game.

(Read full post)

Erik Bakich joked on Thursday at the news conference introducing him as Michigan's new baseball coach that he had already secured his first verbal commitment for the class of 2027 -- his 3-year-old son Colt.

Jokes aside, Bakich's recruiting prowess is a large reason Michigan athletic director Dave Brandon brought him in.

And Bakich wasted no time in declaring that Michigan is now the Wolverines' biggest recruiting territory.

"It starts with your own state," Bakich said. "The teams that have been the most successful at Michigan have had the best players from Michigan. And we are going to make sure from now on that the University of Michigan gets the best players in Michigan. That's going to be our battle cry."

Coaches at northern schools typically struggle to get top players to commit because of the weather. The Wolverines' season starts in February, but Michigan must play in the south until late March just to avoid the snow. And even once March hits, blue skies are never guaranteed.

Brandon said that even with that deterrent he believes Bakich will bring in the best.

"There are probably some kids who will rule out coming north if they’re really into the weather as a primary objective," Brandon said. "But we've proven in the past that we can build a program here that will be nationally competitive."

Bakich said his experience coaching at Maryland (2010-12) will help him recruit elite players to a colder climate and that he believes that it's just about getting recruits to see the benefits of playing for a school like Michigan.

The Midwest will also be a focus of Bakich, and he said he definitely wouldn’t ignore talented players from the West or South.

With Bakich’s recruiting plan, the makeup of the team probably won’t change too much. Currently, 21 of the players on Michigan's roster hail from Michigan. Six others are from either Ohio or Illinois. That means just seven players on Michigan's roster are from outside the Midwest.

"We are going to win championships here with residents of the state of Michigan," Bakich said. "Those guys are going to represent that standard of excellence, academically and athletically."

Earlier today, I wrote a story about the construction craze gripping college sports, including the Big Ten.

Even in a long story, I didn't have room for all the good notes and quotes from the reporting process. Luckily, that's why we have this blog.

Iowa is an interesting case study. The Hawkeyes, one could easily argue, have been doing just fine in the Big Ten under Kirk Ferentz. Yet outside of their recent improvements to Kirk Ferentz, their football facilities were lacking. Now the school is completing a $56 million upgrade that includes a new practice facility to replace the old bubble and eventually new offices. Will that make a difference competitively for Iowa, which has been cranking out NFL players under Ferentz?

Hawkeyes athletic director Gary Barta said the practice bubble was built in the early 1980s and had a life expectancy of 10-to-15 years.

"Was it a disadvantage for us?" Barta told ESPN.com "I don't know. I do know that the facility had outlived its lifespan, and it was time for a new one.

"My goal, first and foremost, is to hire and retain the best people. Then you have to make sure to give those people the tools to be successful."

Several athletic directors who were interviewed said having new and state-of-the-art facilities are critical in recruiting.

"When you have 17-to-18 year-olds who are being toured around the country to decide where they want to take their talents and perform, they are looking with a critical eye at facilities," Michigan athletic director Dave Brandon said. "They know these are the places where they're going to spend a disproportionate amount of their time. And it's the right thing to do; if you're going to ask world-class athletes to come to your institution, you want to provide them with the very best you can in terms of the facilities they're going to be operating in."

"Kids are smart," Indiana athletic director Fred Glass said. "We can say all we want to about our commitment to the program, but [they're thinking], 'Let's see how that manifests itself.' The perception is so important. When kids come in, when fans come in, when parents come in, they can see there's an institutional commitment to the sport."

While Glass noted in the story that Big Ten television revenue has had a huge impact on his program, others said they still rely mostly on donations to fund major facility improvement projects. At Michigan, for example, Brandon said the TV money might help get a project finished sooner but doesn't pay for the whole thing.

"The extra TV revenue has been terrific," Barta said. "I don't want to oversell it or undersell it. But without the contributions of our donors, we wouldn't be able to do it either. So it's a combination of support and contributions."

Schools have to decide on their priorities when undertaking construction projects. Things like new or expanded stadiums can help increase revenue, while the recent big push for better training and operations centers enhance the quality of the athletes' experience but don't add any dollars to the bottom line.

"You have a student-athlete focus, and you have a fan focus, and you have to make decisions accordingly," Michigan State athletic director Mark Hollis said. "We’re trying to be extremely aggressive within the resources we have available at Michigan State to provide the best for both of those segments of our population. It becomes a challenge. You have to have a global perspective, and you have to have a long-range perspective and make sure that you can generate the funds necessary for the debt capacity that you’re building."

All of the ADs I interviewed for the story said they don't get caught up in the arms race, though each admitted they pay attention to what other schools are doing when it comes to facilities. The unanswered question is whether building craze will ever slow down.

"I'd like to say cooler heads will prevail and stop the escalation, but I'm not sure they will," Indiana's Glass said. "It's a marketplace, and at some level if athletic departments are generating the money, I'm not sure I see the downside of reinvesting it in their athletic programs. If it leads to the academic side subsidizing the athletic side, then think it's gone too far and hopefully the market will reorient itself."

The Big Ten/Pac-12 football series isn't scheduled to begin until 2017, but the all-sports agreement between the leagues has some schools already thinking about lining up some future football matchups.

Michigan is in the process of wrapping up deals to play Pac-12 teams in the next few years. Athletic director Dave Brandon told ESPN.com on Monday that he hoped announcements on future games would come in the next week or so and that he was just waiting on contracts to be signed. The Wolverines have openings on their nonconference schedules in 2014, 2015 and 2016.

Brandon said the Big Ten/Pac-12 alliance prompted him to reach out West for games.

"I figured that as long as we're going to have an affiliation with the Pac-12, we ought to pursue it and see what we can do to create some matchups before the official 2017 start," he said. "So we're working hard to do that."

The games would come before the 2017 series began, and Brandon said he's leaving dates open for that year and beyond for a Pac-12 opponent.

"As far as the big matchups between the Pac-12 and Big Ten, the conference is really going to coordinate all of that," he said. "But I've got games to fill (in the next few years), so we'll do some of those."

The Wolverines aren't the only Big Ten team that already has Pac-12 teams on its docket in the near future.

Northwestern and Stanford have a home and home series scheduled for 2015-16 and 2019-22, while the Wildcats play California in 2013 and '14. Michigan State and Oregon will play a home-and-home set in 2014-15. Ohio State is playing Cal this year and next. Nebraska has UCLA in 2012 and '13. Wisconsin goes to Oregon State this season, plays Arizona State in 2013 and is scheduled to play Washington State in 2014-15 and Washington in 2017-18. Illinois will play Washington in 2013 and 2014. Minnesota and Oregon State have a deal for 2017-18.

(Assuming that a Pac-12 school wouldn't want to play two Big Ten teams in a given year, and assuming Michigan doesn't want to play Arizona because of the Rich Rodriguez factor, the Pac-12 teams that appear to have the most open schedules for the Wolverines in '14-'15-'16 would include USC, Utah, Oregon State and Colorado).

So when the Pac-12/Big Ten series officially starts in 2017, it will look more like a continuation of recent trends than a whole new ballgame.