Thursday Morning Brews: Gigantic

Happy Thursday, folks. Let’s have a ball with Morning Brews. We have a bit of a grab bag of content today. First we get some clarity on the start times for more than half of Football’s games this fall, plus some football recruiting. We also have some more general Michigan Athletic’s related news so let’s get right into it.

By the way, the more musically astute may notice there is often a theme to Morning Brews that often revolves around a song title or band. To continue the trivia idea from a couple Thursdays ago, there are three words, phrases, or pictures that combine to reference a song in this morning’s Brews. For bragging rights take a shot at identifying the three and guessing the song title and band in the comments section.

Let’s hit the links:

Michigan Football finalized and announced times for six games in the upcoming season. Headlining the group are the 3:30PM start for the season opener against Florida and the Noon start for 2017’s iteration of The Game the Saturday after Thanksgiving. Also announced were Noon kickoffs for Rutgers (homecoming), Indiana, and Cincinnati. Purdue, who is on Michigan’s schedule for the first time in what seems like a decade (alright, six years - but you get the point), will be a 3:30PM or 4:00 PM depending on the whims of the national TV networks that totally don’t pay conferences enough to compensate their student athletes.

Former MnB All-Star Evan Petzold (now of Scout) is reporting ($) that 2019 4* LB Anthony Solomon plans to visit Michigan over the summer. The prospect even told Petzold, “Michigan is my No. 1 school.” The 6’0” 200lbs Junior has offers from 33 schools and is the #144 prospect in the 2019 cycle, according to 247Sports. Of current Michigan LB Devin Bush Jr., Solomon said, “I grew up looking up to Devin.” I’m unaware of a timeline for Solomon’s commitment, but Michigan looks to be in the driver’s seat here.

Brice Marich of Scout is reporting ($) that 3* Florida prospect, Jamien Sherwood, has been offered by Michigan DC Don Brown. Sherwood was surprised by the offer, telling Scout, “I was excited because that's one of the schools I thought I never had a chance at.” Despite his modesty, Sherwood has 25 offers from mostly SEC, ACC, and PAC-12 schools. The 6’2” 185lbs athlete is the #385 prospect in the 2018 cycle, according to 247Sports. Sherwood tells Scout that he has no favorites in his recruitment, but plans to make his commitment by August. He also said that he plans to visit Michigan next weekend with his mother. Stay tuned to see how this recruitment plays out over the summer.

Academics at Michigan are kind of a big deal. Breaking News, I know. In that spirit, Michigan Athletics has 145 student athletes who qualified for the Spring Academic All-B1G Team. This Spring’s total is the most for the school since the awards were instituted during the 2009-10 seasons. Including the 82 student athletes earning the honor in the fall and 63 in the winter, Michigan has placed 290 on the Academic All-B1G rolls this academic year - an increase of 14 over last year. In order to qualify, student athletes must be in their second year of eligibility or later, earn a letter in their respective sport, and maintain a 3.0 GPA or greater. Leaders and best, indeed.

The Michigan Sports Hall of Fame has announced its slate of inductees for this year and a few Michigan greats are among the honorees. Jon Jansen, two-time All-B1G honoree and co-captain of the 1997 National Championship team, is one of the inductees and Jalen Rose, two-time All-American member of the Fab Five, is the other inductee. Both Michigan Men enjoyed over a decade playing in their respective professional leagues prior to joining the broadcast booth. Congratulations to both, and Go Blue.