Hail to the Victors 2013: The Story

Attention MGoShoppers: If you have been storing a donkey and/or an over-hyped defensive end in your mailbox, I suggest you move it now:

Available from our store for $20 (after shipping) or free with $15 toward a new DraftStreet account (details below).

This is the official MGoBlog annual season preview and feature book, totally indie for the totally second time. Like other 2013 preview publications, the book with the donkey-hating cover has 128 pages of features and 2013 team preview content in it. It also has a mustache, a middle finger, and we drew all over Urban Meyer's face. This is all before we get to Page 6.

Again, we funded it through Kickstarter, and again you people jumped to support it and our stretch goal of a basketball hockey book as if it could bring Taylor Lewan and Mitch McGary back. I'm not saying they returned for a chance to be the cover athletes of HTTV and HTTV Hoopsahockey; that is just a coincidence.

HOW YOU CAN HAVE THIS

Get in your time machine and get in on the kickstarter or preorder it. We sent the rush orders yesterday and two pallets of books are as we speak on their way to Ann Arbor. Those who helped us Kickstart it will get it first, followed by the preorders. Plan is to try to get through the high-donor folk first but we've streamlined the process so well this year we're not anticipating the huge long wait again. I have been told this is the wrong way to manage expectations. So expect your stuff to arrive July 31, then be pleasantly surprised or whatever.

HOW YOU CAN HAVE THIS IF YOU DON'T HAVE ACCESS TO A TIME MACHINE

It is possible using various methods to exchange currency for it.

Method 1 takes the least amount of currency, especially if you possess great and powerful Sports Knowledge since you can use that to win back what you paid:

Our online fantasy sports partners at DraftStreet bought up a bunch of these and are giving them away if you deposit at least $15 to play their fantasy sports games. Once you deposit you'll get a code to input into our store. Method 1 also has the benefit of being the most beneficial to us since we get paid double per book. You'll also be able to use our code (77HATESDONKEYS) on Draft Street for 30% on top of whatever you put down (so if for $15 you get $19.50 in your Draft Street account and a copy of HTTV sent to you). So to review:

1. Take this link right here to the offer page.
2. Create a new account on Draftstreet and deposit $15 or more.
3. Enter 77HATESDONKEYS as a code while you're doing that to get 30% more.
4. As soon as you put in your deposit, DraftStreet will send you an email with a special link back to our store, and a code to use there to get you free shipping. If you don't receive an email, contact larry@draftstreet.com and he'll get you squared away.

We're checking the list against DraftStreet's before they go out so make sure the addresses match.

Awesome, right? There are caveats. 1) Limit's one per customer. 2) They're looking for new members so if you've already got an account there (even a free one) you'll be locked out, at least on that email address. Also locked out: Arizona, Iowa, Louisiana, Vermont, and Montana. Yes we have readers in Montana. More than in Vermont, actually. Hi people from Montana (or guy with 217 computers)! Also: sorry people in Montana, try Method 2.

Method 2 is to order it from the MGoStore. It is $15.00. Shipping will make it about $20 depending on where you live and taxes, for example it's $20.59 to first-class it if you live in Michigan, $20.77 to send it to Wrigley Field, and $19.42 to a guitar store on Bleeker Street in New York, a frozen banana stand in Santa Monica, Calif., the Office of Discreet Extra Benefits in Columbus, Ohio, or the MGoBlog computer bank in Malta, Montana.

Method 3 is to walk into any Underground Printing outlet—including Moe's—in Ann Arbor and purchase it. Working on getting it on other racks. If you'll be around Ann Arbor on August 24, pin that afternoon for the tentative release party at UGP's shop on South U and drinks afterwards at Good Time Charley's.

WHAT IS IN IT: STUFF

Like the roster? Yes it has a roster, and it is kind of useful because the positions aren't just groups: Jake Ryan is a SAM, safeties are broken up into SS and FS, though we didn't get into who's a right or left tackle, or a U-back or a boundary versus field corner. The last changes I could make were to get the RBs # changes; most of the freshmen #s weren't in yet. There's a Letter from the Editors by Brian and me where we just kind of call each other and ourselves awesome for various things. Monumental—he of the awesome wallpapers—did the covers and the section breaks again. Wait'll you see what he's working on next.

WHAT IS IN IT: THE PREVIEW PART

Pgs. 8-37: Position-by-position rundown of the entire team by Brian. Two extra pages were dedicated to the offensive line this year since that's a big question mark and there weren't enough quarterbacks to fill four pages. We stop for summaries at the end of each unit (offense/defense) and finish with a thing on the incoming recruits. We couldn't resist adding Peppers. Why it's different than other preview magazines: we admit it's 50/50 that Glasgow pushing two expected starters is foreboding.

Pgs. 38-61: Every opponent next year by Ace (most of them), Heiko & me (Notre Dame and MSU), and a guest appearance by Mike Pettigano, the Brian Cook of the PSU blogosphere. Why it's different than other preview magazines: greater appreciation for Shane and LeeAnn Bullough, and we know there's nothing more important to Iowa than a punter named Kornbrath.

WHAT IS IN IT: THE FEATURE PART

Pgs. 64-79: Twisted Blue Steel by Craig Ross and Brian Cook. Brian's two articles are his parting songs to Denard and Kovacs. Ross, because he is Craig Ross, went up to Al Borges and asked him to explain what the hell he was thinking against Ohio State last year. And Al Borges, because he is Al Borges, gave him an answer which, if not precisely a good one, at least kind of explains what happened there (besides the communists infiltrating our fluids of course).

Pgs. 80-99: Technical Dossier by Mathlete (who goes by a human name in the book), Michael Elkon of Braves & Birds, and me again. Coulda just called this the "Trajectory" section this year. Mathlete's is an update on his annual metrics and how good the numbers say Michigan ought to be this season. Elkon looks at the possibility of renewing our subscription to the 10-Year War, why it could happen and why it might not. Mine tries to evaluate what kind of program Michigan will have when all of these recruits have grown up, comparing the Hoke method to how Nick Saban built Michigan State, LSU, and Alabama. Okay fine, it's really just lots of charts and Hoke pointing at things.

Pgs. 100-118: Tales of Old Blue, better known as the annual John Kryk and Greg Dooley (aka MVictors) section. Ironically the old fogies part of the book is the section with two consecutive articles where someone gives the finger. See if you can guess where they might be among:

• The 40-year anniversary of when Michigan and Denny Franklin got hosed, wherein Kryk goes back to talk to Denny and those still living among the ADs involved in the vote to pick apart what really happened to send OSU to the Rose Bowl.
• The Ron Kramer Story, minus the parts they were allowed to print in the football programs the day his number was Legendsed.
• An interview with Bob Bergeron, Michigan's most automatic kicker and subject of that one Sports Illustrated photo with a pizza in the hot tub.
• Five Myths of the Little Brown Jug. Since I read this I've passed the forkish intersection of Stadium/Packard probably 20 times and still can't look at it the same.

Pgs. 122-127: The Roundtable. Talking points are the X factors, breakout players, confidence quotient, and the new-look Big Ten, with Brian, me, Ace, and Craig Ross.

Pg. 128: Hail to the Hail to the Victors Backers.

We couldn't have had one without the other. The big backers get a page in the book. Because I still don't think that quite covers how thankful we are to our kickstarter supporters, I'm gonna just go ahead and Hail! them some more on the front page. No you don't get a jump; this is the people most responsible for HTTV 2013 existing on a physical plane. May their names be sung to your children's children's children by Muppets:

And those who gave uber piles and thus get sentences:

DEDICATION EXPLANATION

The title page dedicates the book to the "Dr. Huang and the rest of the Dad-saving doctors and medical staff of the University of Michigan Hospitals. The leaders and the best indeed."

This is because they saved my dad, and not just in the way hospitals usually go about this dad-saving business. Because they diagnose as a team instead of as specialists, rather than giving up on vital organs they managed to figure out some things were only turning off because they were waiting for other parts. Heavenly Bo is getting misty-eyed.

after

GRATITUDES AND BRADY HOKE EPIC DOUBLEPOINTS TO:

Courtney Fathers of Corkboards, who took the job on the side of both a real job and a side job working for the Red Wings and Griffins while in the midst of their respective playoff runs. If you compare this book and the last one to any that came before it you can begin to appreciate her talent. When you consider she gave up on sleep for a month for us…

Eric Upchurch and Bryan Fuller, who took a bazillion photos and helped me pick out what we needed. You are already familiar with their skills at capturing the moments that are burned into our memories, but we saved some of the really nice ones for the book.

Tres Crow and Becky Long, our volunteer copyeditors.

Underground Printing and Rishi Narayan for their friendship and partnership and distributorship.

Bob Bergeron, Al Borges, Peg Canham-Keeley, Wayne Duke, Bump Elliott, Dennis Franklin, and Ramzi Nasrallah of Eleven Warriors for agreeing to be interviewed by our authors.

To the University of Michigan Bentley Historical Library for lending us their photos. Also the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library, Ann Arbor Sports Memorabilia, the [Univ. of Alabama student paper] Crimson White, The Akron Buchtelite, James Brosher of the Indiana Daily Student News, UtheBuckeyblog.com (who calls us UMGoBlog.com), Mike Pettigano, Chuck Miller of Central Michigan [University] Life, Darren Cooper of NorthJersey.com, Ace, Heiko, and U.S. Army specialist Tim Hipps, IMCOM Public Affairs.

Bentley (if you're here you've almost certainly bookmarked that already), Cfbstats.com, collegefootballdata.org, NCAA.org, Footballoutsiders.com, sports-reference.com, and MGoBlue.com for sharing data.

And finally, the administrators, staff, coaches, and players of the Michigan Football team, for giving us something worth obsessing over.