Thursday Morning Brews: Been down one time

Happy Thursday, folks. Welcome to Morning Brews. Perhaps the most momentous news of the week came yesterday when Michigan president Mark Schlissel shot down the rumours that Jim Harbaugh was on the hot seat. Personally, I think the earliest Harbaugh could be on the hot seat would be next season if the team struggles to a seven or eight win season this year—but, apparently, some folks thought he should be there already.

As usual, there is a song referenced in this morning’s article. There are at least two clues. Clues may be words, phrases, or photos, and may reference lyrics, the artist, or the album. If you think you know this morning’s song, fire away down in the comments.

Let’s get to it:

Flyover scheduled for Saturday’s game. It seems earlier than usual this year, but the University has announced that there will be a military flyover of the Big House at the conclusion of the National Anthem on Saturday. Two A-10 Warthogs from the 107th Fighter Squadron of the Air National Guard will grace Ann Arbor with their presence. For those of you unfamiliar with the planes flown by our military, A-10s are the not-at-all aerodynamic looking small-ish planes with a large machine gun sticking out of the nose.

Volleyball continues hot start. On Tuesday I told you that Michigan volleyball had gotten off to a hot start by winning their first five games without losing even one set. Well, that streak continued on Tuesday as the Wolverines blanked Valparaiso to win their final game of the Michigan Invitational. The team is now 6-0 on the season and will return to action tomorrow against Oakland in the Michigan Challenge (yes, apparently the Michigan Invitational and the Michigan Challenge are different things).

Brenda Tracey fundraising for SafeHouse Center. Tuesday evening we brought you the news that Brenda Tracey would be serving as an honorary captain for this Saturday’s game against Western Michigan. Tracey is a survivor of sexual assault who spoke to the team during fall camp about combating sexual assault and physical violence. Tracey also informed Maize n Brew that she is raising money for SafeHouse Center in Ann Arbor, which is an organization serving victims of sexual assault and domestic violence. It’s a good cause, so let’s get the Michigan Money Cannon going for this worthy endeavor. If you’re interested in donating, the GoFundMe page can be found HERE.

Former Wolverines join new pro football league. A new professional football league called the Alliance of American Football will begin operating next February, and a couple former Michigan players will be involved in the inaugural season. Specifically, Ty Isaac and Matt Godin are among some nearly 300 players who have agreed to participate in the new league. The league itself is quite interesting, as it has players like Trent Richardson involved and coaches like Steve Spurrier, Rick Neuheisel, and Mike Martz leading teams.

One of the lowlights for Michigan this past Saturday was when Notre Dame completed a long TD pass into double coverage (depicted in the tweet above). One of the players who was beat was receiver-turned-DB Brad Hawkins, but he didn’t let his whole game be defined by that one play. Harbaugh recently said of Hawkins in a radio interview, “Really impressed with Brad Hawkins. He had the tough play in the end zone where he was in position to make a play and their receiver came over the top and caught a touchdown. He kind of doubted himself after that. But Brad played a really good second half defensively, extremely well in the second half.”

Going by the comments in our game threads and on post-game coverage, one aspect of Michigan’s performance MnB readers have a big issue with is play calling. Well, it seems Jim Harbaugh is at least willing to acknowledge those concerns among fans. He recently said on the Jamie and Stoney show on 97.1 FM, “You look back, should you have taken more shots? It’s always something that you say, ‘Yeah, we should have done more of,’ sure.” We’ll see if that translates into more aggressive play calling in subsequent games.