Dave Brandon Comments at AP Sports Editors Event

Dave Brandon appeared in Midland at an event for sports editors hosted by the Associated Press. In advance of the stories, here is some info on DB's comments from Angelique's Twitter feed:

• Demand for tix to UM-ND night game has been great. Could sell 150,000 [if that was possible].
• The night-game jerseys will be unveiled soon ... at night
• Foundations for new Michigan Stadium scoreboards being installed.
• 9-game Big 10 sked "several years" away
• 375 x-UM players were in night before spring game, said that was "historic".
• RichRod should not get blame for fracture.
• Said of course he wished Darius Morris would have stayed but wished him well.
• Said Hoke talked to him about Stonum suspension and he (Brandon) let Hoke decide on the discipline.

And here's the first article, from A2.com's Sports Director Jim Knight, "Big Ten Hockey Will Result in More Interest, Highter Ticket Sales" (quite the headline).

Brandon, speaking at a Michigan Associated Press Sports Editors meeting, said facing traditional conference foes such as Penn State, Minnesota and Wisconsin will enhance offerings on the Big Ten Network, strengthen the league brand and ultimately create more excitement on the Michigan campus.

“I will sell more seats at Yost Arena knowing that we are going to tee it up against our big competitors in the Big Ten,” Brandon said. “We’ll still have a robust nonconference schedule … but at the end of the day, student-athletes that come to Michigan come to win Big Ten championships.”

Jim Knight with his second story, "Dave Brandon takes no 'glee' in NCAA investigation of Ohio State and Jim Tressel"

“You don’t need anybody, particularly a colleague, poking at you,” Brandon said Tuesday at a Michigan Associated Press Sports Editors meeting. “There were some people out there who did it, and I remember who they are, and I remember what they said. Those people who took great glee in the fact that we got ourselves in that kind of situation -- I’ll never do that.  The folks at Ohio State have their hands full, obviously.” [emphasis added]

 Angelique Chengelis weighs in with her article on the event: "Michigan AD Dave Brandon: Rift was not Rich Rodriguez's fault"

"To point the finger at Rich Rodriguez would just be wrong as it relates to that. You could do a book on all the factions that split off, the camps — the (Jim) Harbaugh camp, the (Les) Miles camp, the (Lloyd) Carr camp, the (Rich) Rodriguez camp, there was just all kinds of splintering. And then, hey, you start losing, and now everything gets jumpstarted in terms of peoples' emotions and frustrations and then it boils, so it was a lot of different factors. It was no one individual or one incident. It was a combination.  It was an unpleasant chapter and hopefully we're writing a new chapter."

"There's no great way to measure (the mending), but there's a lot of good ways to measure it. When we had the spring football game and to have 375 football players come back — that's historic ... and Brady invited them. He said we're going to have a team meeting Friday night for a chance to get reconnected. Guys traveled in from all over the country. It was really remarkable. That was a very encouraging thing to see."

Hoke and his assistant coaches continue to reach out to former players for what Brandon called "socials" in 16 cities around the country. The meetings are informal, void of power-point presentations and there is no agenda.

"It's a chance to connect with the program, talk to the coaches and get a sense to see where the Michigan football program is going. That's an enormous sacrifice of time and effort, (and) that was their idea not mine; that was something they wanted to do. You're seeing a tremendous effort to reach out to the former players to bring the community back together. I couldn't be more pleased. The feedback I'm getting from former players has been enormously positive."

Regarding Notre Dame game throwback jerseys:

Michigan has yet to reveal the jersey design, but Brandon hinted it will happen soon. "We've moved up the schedule a little bit for that." He said they want to wait for the finished product, preferring that to showing sketches of the design. Brandon said the uniforms will be unveiled at night. "So you can see what they look like under the lights. We anticipate we're going to sell a lot of jerseys."

Other items:

Brandon believes it will be "several years" before the Big Ten goes to a nine-game conference schedule. He said several teams are booked through 2015-2016 and it would be "expensive and problematic" to unwind those schedules.

[Regarding "Legends and Leaders"]: "I think whatever they came up with was going to be a problem. The initial feedback generally speaking was negative. Something like this has to serve the test of time. Let's give it a year or two and see if it's working. If it isn't, we can go back and tweak it."

[T]he golf challenge initiated by Michigan State athletic director Mark Hollis via Twitter late last month has been set [for] July 25 at Eagle Eye in East Lansing. [Lion Kim will be part of Brandon's U-M team. I like our odds.]