Notes before Team 136 begins 2015

Some interesting points to ponder before Michigan's football team kicks off the 2015 college football season:

o Michigan opens the season in Salt Lake City on a Thursday. The last regular-season game the Wolverines played on a Thursday, they lost 2-0. 110 years ago, on November 30, 1905. To the University of Chicago, who no longer has a football program. Those two points were the only points allowed by Fielding Yost's 1905 team, who went into the game outscoring their previous 12 opponents by a margin of 495-0.

o The 2-0 contest was the last of 19 straight Thanksgiving Day games Michigan played between 1885 and 1905. Historians have referred to the Michigan-Chicago turkey day clashes as "the beginning of Thanksgiving football", as the last occurred 29 years before the Detroit Lions first started the annual tradition. The Lions have hosted a pro football game on Thanksgiving each year since 1945.

o Seven of the 12 games on Michigan's schedule represent opportunities to avenge defeats from the last time the schools played. Six of the teams beat the Wolverines in 2014 (Utah, Maryland, Michigan State, Minnesota, Rutgers and Ohio State). The seventh is BYU, who defeated Michigan in the 1984 Holiday Bowl in their only previous meeting (see pic at right).

o Michigan's opening game against the Utah Utes in Salt Lake City will be the first the school has ever played in the state of Utah. The Wolverines have played football in 28 states as well as Ontario, Canada. Now that Michigan has agreed to a home-and-home series against both Oklahoma and Arkansas, the number will grow to at least 30 states by 2025. Maybe more, should the Wolverines land a bowl bid in Alabama, Georgia, Idaho, Nevada or New Mexico along the way.

o Oregon's two biggest schools play back-to-back games in the state of Michigan on September 12. At noon the Wolverines host Oregon State in Jim Harbaugh's home debut as Michigan coach. Then at 8pm, Michigan State welcomes the University of Oregon in a battle of top-ten teams at Spartan Stadium.

o The Wolverines' meeting with Oregon State is a rematch of the 1965 Rose Bowl, which the Wolverines won over the Beavers, 35-6 (see pic at left).

o Due to a scheduling quirk, this is the first season since 1967 that Michigan plays both Michigan State and Ohio State at home.

o Going back to Benny Oosterbaan's national championship rookie season of 1948, Michigan's last six coaches lost to Michigan State in their first season on the sidelines. One of those losses was a home loss as the nation's #1 team and a 28-point favorite.

o Michigan State has not beaten Michigan in Ann Arbor in five years, since 2010 to be exact. Mostly because they've only played once in Ann Arbor since then. But it was in 2012, and the Wolverines won 12-10 on a last-second field goal.

o Since Harry Kipke in the 1930s, seven of the last eight Michigan coaches have beaten Ohio State in their first season in Ann Arbor. The only coach to have been unsuccessful during that span is Rich Rodriguez in 2008, losing to Sparty at the Big House, 35-14.

o The last three times Ohio State won the national championship, they lost to Michigan the following season. (In 1969, 1971, and 2003). The Wolverines' game with the defending national champion Buckeyes is November 28, 2015.

o In 2015 Michigan will be wearing all white road uniforms for the first time since 2011, when they wore an alternate all-white road version of the Adidas "Under The Lights" uniforms they wore against Notre Dame earlier that season as a third uniform in their game at Michigan State (see pic above). The last time Michigan used an all-white regular road uniform was during the 1975 season; the team donned the all-white duds from 1973-75.

o The Wolverines have a record of 12-3 when wearing all white. However they currently have a two-game losing streak, falling 14-6 to Oklahoma in the 1976 Orange Bowl and 28-14 to Michigan State in 2011.

Bring on the football season. Hail, Hail!