The Teams: 1973
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Previously: 1879, 1901, 1918, 1925, 1932, 1947, 1950, 1964, 1976, 1980, 1988, 1999
Special Guest this Week: Bob Thornbladh, former fullback, former Michigan assistant coach, and former Michigan broadcaster. As you might have guessed, he's got a lot to say.
1. WATERGATE AND PUNK ROCK
(starts at 0:50)
It's Year Five in the Ten Year War. The height of Big Two, Little Eight. 1972: Michigan wins every game, the officials blow Harry Banks’s TD dead inside the 1, and Bo goes for the win (FG would have gone to the Rose Bowl?). 1972 was the first year freshmen were eligible so the sophs had mostly played and there were redshirt freshmen. 1972 is when Title IX was enacted. Goes into effect in 1973.
New staff: Jim Young leaves for Arizona, taking Mike Hankwitz with him. Replaced with Jack Harbaugh and Elliot Uzelac. What did they do with Tirrel Burton?
National powers: Ohio State, Nebraska, Alabama, USC, Oklahoma, Notre Dame, Penn State, Texas.
2. THE TEAM
(starts at 18:32)
[Hit THE JUMP for the player and rest of the writeup]
3. THE GAMES
- 1:06:33: @IOWA 31-7. Rainy and fumbly. Don't worry, Jack Harbaugh.
- 1:13:30: "STANFORD" 47-10. MMB goes co-ed. Vengeance is mine, sayeth The Leg.
- 1:19:13: NAVY 14-0. Eugene Robinson's column about firing Bo. One team runs a West Coast passing spread and is worried about stopping the no-run triple-option. The other team is Michigan.
- 1:26:29: OREGON 24-0. Franklin sits, Cipa passes, Chapman's short.
- 1:30:07: @MICHIGAN STATE 31-0. Gerald Ford's nomination, splish splish State fumbles.
- 1:38:17 WISCONSIN 35-6. Shutout streak ends on freak play late. “Thornbladh at LG broke loose for 31.”
- 1:49:16 @MINNESOTA 34-7. The Gordie Bell game.
- 1:45:21 INDIANA 49-13. The Dog Game.
- 1:54:20 ILLINOIS 21-6. Bob Blackman comes from Dartmouth. Pass-first with Jeff Hollenbach.
- 1:57:00 @PURDUE 34-9. 6-3 lead before an animated halftime talk by Bo.
Thornbladh takes us through the offense and how it worked back then.
4. THE GAME
(starts at 2:06:58)
Ten Year War hits its peak. Cornelius Green vs Dennis Franklin: two African-American quarterbacks starting against each other in the biggest game in football. Ohio State is #1 since end of September. OSU led by John Hicks, tears down the banner, gets an early lead. Archie Griffin dominates the first half, OSU builds a 10-0 lead. Michigan fights back and ties it 10-10, clearly the better team, but Franklin goes out. Bo tries a 58-yarder but it misses by an inch.
[Dr. Sap's Archives]
The Vote: Michigan gets screwed by Woody convincing other ADs, including two Michigan alums, to send the Buckeyes to face a terrible USC team because Franklin hurt his shoulder.
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MUSIC:
- "Kodachrome"—Paul Simon
- "Here I Am (Come and Take Me)"—Al Green
- "Paper Roses"—Marie Osmond
- “Across 110th Street”
THE USUAL LINKS
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- What's with the theme music?
I am bitter.
1973 was the year I became a Michigan football fan.
I recall Bob Ufer saying something about Fritz Crisler looking down from Valhala and saying how good Chuck Heater would have been in "the ole' single wing."
Ufer's call on the radio when the Buckeyes tore down the banner is an enduring classic: "Here they come ... Hare, Middleton, and the Buckeyes. And they're tearing down the coveted M Club banner! They will meet a dastardly fate for that! But the M-Men are getting it back up! And here they come! Take it away 105,000 fans!"
Same here. It was the first Michigan football game I ever saw on television. I was 10 years old. I remember when the Rose Bowl vote was announced. I walked out the door of my mom’s townhouse and was in a daze. I could not believe how Michigan got screwed...and I was 10 years old. Have lived and died with the Wolverine football team every weekend since that nightmare...until this past season. What the Michigan football program has become sickens me...I gave up my season tickets this year. I will always wish the football program well, but I am done living and dying with it on Saturdays. Go Blue.
April 18th, 2020 at 10:07 AM ^
So you are telling me Dennis Franks snapped the ball to Dennis Franklin? Also, just like with Bo's first Rose Bowl winning team, where is the NFL talent on this roster? Was it just that easy to win a Big Ten Title back then?
April 18th, 2020 at 10:51 AM ^
Bo's first Rose Bowl winning team had Bubba Paris, Anthony Carter, Butch Woolfolk and Mel Owens. Off the top of my head, those are guys with pro careers. Did you want more pros than that?
April 18th, 2020 at 11:44 AM ^
Wasn’t mike Kenn on that team too?
no, I didn’t google to look.
April 18th, 2020 at 11:54 AM ^
Okay, I googled. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1980_Michigan_Wolverines_football_team
there were 25 players on that team who played pro-ball. That’s if you count the USFL as Pro football.
note the coaches under Bo that year.
My bad, I meant the 1989 Rose Bowl team that was featured a week ago. The 1980 team was stacked and I covered it for the Michigan Daily and feel like I was the good luck charm (attending every game that season) that got Bo his first Rose Bowl win.
April 18th, 2020 at 11:56 AM ^
I think Kenn was redshirting that year. He would have been a 6'6/200 pound tight end at that time.
If you're gonna name Bubba you need the other 2 stud OL's on that team: Ed Muransky & Kurt Becker. Becker won a Super Bowl with the Bears.
Bo hated those guys the next year. They sat on their laurels and didn't want to get hurt before the draft, so the story goes. As a result they were relegated to the fleabag Blue Bonnet Bowl in Houston on New Year's Eve. Faced off against an underachieving UCLA squad that was also littered with future pro's. That game had as many scouts as the New Year's bowls. Our guys answered the challenge and thumped the Bruins 33-14 if I recall.
Muransky & Paris & Becker were awesome road graders. The 3rd Q holes Butch had, some of them you could literally drive a tank thru.
Bubba had a loooonng NFL career. Near the end he changed teams regularly. That caused some problems at Bubba sometimes got the call in the huddle wrong. On two different teams he pulled in the opposite direction and caused teammates season-ending injuries.
April 18th, 2020 at 11:55 AM ^
Aye, Denny to the Denny wasn't quite Benny to Bennie but it was a good combo.
As for the NFL players on this roster, by pro impact:
- Dave Brown: 1st round pick by the Steelers, 13-year career as the strong safety of the Steel Curtain
- Dave Gallagher: 1st round pick of the Bears, started for them the rest of the '70s until he retired from injuries
- Jim Smith: 3rd rounder by the Steelers, important backup on their dynasty
- Rob Lytle: 2nd rounder by Denver Broncos. Short but magnificent NFL career
- Paul Seal: 2nd round, Saints. Was their #2 or #3 TE for the second half of the 70s
- Dan Jilek: 4th rnd, Bills, solid LB for them for 4 years
- Don Dufek: 5th/Seahawks. Always the last guy not cut, great special teamer
- Jon Hennessy, 10th/Jets. 3-year starter in NFL
And then Don Coleman, Dennis Franks, Carl Russ, Gordie Bell, Bob Thornbladh, Greg Morton, Mike Hoban, Dennis Franklin (as a WR), Larry Cipa, Clint Haslerig, and Gil Chapman made NFL rosters for one to three years.
Steve Strinko fell in the draft because of his knee injury late in the season. The Lions took him in the 9th round (he was projected in the 2nd or 3rd) but his knee was never right. Back then there was no insurance for players. He went on to found FAN Inc to provide relief for former athletes with medical bills.
Jim Coode was one of the best players of the Canadian League until he got ALS; I had to cut a long story from this podcast where Thornbladh talked about the speech Bo gave when they went to Coode's funeral in 1987.
Chuck Heater was drafted but decided to go back to Michigan to get a graduate degree. He became a really good coach--as we mentioned on the pod he coached under Earle Bruce at Ohio State then went to Notre Dame. He was also Bill McCartney's DC at Colorado. Dave Elliott also went into coaching but topped out as a D-II HC.
Great research - Dave Brown is the only one I remember in the NFL and Rob Lytle isn't on the depth chart here. My point is the 'meh' talent was enough to win the conference back then but this lineup would be average at best in the modern Big Ten. Which begs the question: How much of Bo's greatness was just the beneficiary of the Big Two, Little Eight era he coached in?
April 19th, 2020 at 11:10 PM ^
A former writer for the Daily misuses "begs the question?" Embarrassing.
Rob Lytle isn't on the depth chart here because he was a Freshman, and Freshmen were still ineligible in 1973. I think 1974 was the first year with Freshman eligibility--Rick Leach started 11 of 12 games as a Freshman in 1975.
"Dave Gallagher: 1st round pick of the Bears, started for them the rest of the '70s until he retired from injuries"
Not according to his wikipedia profile. Played for the Bears only in 1974; then had two years with the Giants in '75-'76, and finished his career with the Lions in '78-'79.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Gallagher_(American_football)
April 18th, 2020 at 11:57 AM ^
That was the first OSU-Michigan game I attended. We sat in the North end zone where Franklin ran a keeper in to tie the game in the 4th quarter.
April 18th, 2020 at 12:06 PM ^
I was 10 and really started following the team this year, where I would try to listen to all the games. I liked Michigan since I was 7 but never got fully into football until I turned 10 before the '73 season. It was the first year of pee wee football. We got ware helmets but no pads.
It looks like you should've started "waring" helmets just a little bit sooner.
jk
April 18th, 2020 at 12:37 PM ^
Still love the 5'10" 200 lb nose guard. That's the epitome of leverage and wiry toughness at that position that you don't see anymore.
Yes, Lantry missed a 50+ fg late in the game, but, after that we got the ball again and he missed a 30-something fg that would (should) have won it. I was a senior with seats on the 45 yard line (in the student section!)
Poor Mike Lantry was snake bit -- especially since he made the winning fg in Columbus the year after that the refs somehow called no good. I have talked with Don Dufek about it and he said he had a perfect angle from the sideline and the kick was absolutely good. It sure looked that way on TV. Even the OSU fans in the end zone looked dejected as the kick went through, until the ref called it no good. Watch the tape.
I was in the stands for the 10-10 tie, and watching poor Lantry miss the final attempt was bad enough.
Watching the '74 game on the tube and seeing Lantry hit an obviously good FG only to have those gutless refs in the snake pit waive it off was even more excruciating.
I was on the field holding the Banner (‘72-75 wrestling) and Jim Kregel, starting guard for OSU, was one of my best friends growing up.
So did you kick him in the nards?
The name Chuck Heater just sounds like the "bad" guy in an 80's movie where someone is getting punch poured on them at the school dance
Great years those were. My 9-yo brain: with a name like Shuttlesworth, why aren't we giving him the ball more often?
We had a chant in the student section: "Hey diddle diddle, Shuttlesworth up the middle." Obviously, Bo listened to us most of the time.
Shuttlesworth had a very strange pro career.
Dennis Franklin was and still is my favorite player at UM. 30-2-1 and never sniffed a bowl game. These kids playing on my lawn don't know how good they have it.
Great listen and a trip down memory lane. 1973 was my third year in the MMB as a junior. A couple of observations/corrections. Not too important: the glass structure connecting Haven, Mason and Angel Halls was called the “fishbowl”. Bladh referred to it as the “punchbowl” — either a cemetery in Hawaii or a frequently used golf hole design by CB MacDonald and Seth Raynor. More significantly, the last appearance of the “Marching Men of Michigan” was the 1972 Rose Bowl. George Cavender acted quickly after Title IV and the first women (around a dozen more or less) joined for the 1972 season. Also women cheerleaders, I believe, though IIRC, the men’s and women’s squads were separated and the women had all white uniforms and the men sported the traditional yellow “M” sweaters and blue pants.
The other, not fully explained perversity at the time which was the bowl participation’s rules, which meant that, regardless of whether Harry Banks had scored in the 1972 game, a “no repeat” rule would have precluded Michigan from going to the Rose Bowl after the 1972 season. That rule was done away with setting the stage for the 1973 vote debacle and enabling OSU to be voted in the the 1974 game as well as after Mike Lantry’s “missed” field goal in 1974. (I was standing right behind the goal posts in the tunnel on our way out of the stadium an it sure appeared good.). The “only Rose Bowl” agreement was done away with prior to the 1975 season leading to Michigan having a bowl participation string lasting from the 1975 season until Brady Hoke’s tenure. The travesty was that the graduating class of 1975, not having freshmen eligibility and having a three year record that included only the 1972 and 1974 losses to OSU and the 1973 tie, never attended a bowl game.
"to send the Buckeyes to face a terrible USC team"
Good grief. On what damn planet is a USC team coached by John McKay that went 9-1-1 and 7-0 in the PAC 8 conference "terrible?" This is typical parochial Michigan fan dismissal of the talent on USC and the rest of the PAC 8/10/12 that I've been seeing/hearing for 50 years.
That USC team was more than good enough to beat Michigan, and probably would have, whether Franklin was healthy or sitting on the bench.
That comes from Bo. And OSU wrecked them. That was not a vintage USC team.
1973 was first year i saw Big House. Dennis Franklin still my favorite
1973 was first year i saw Big House. Dennis Franklin still my favorite
For someone whose dad was only 5 at this time, I feel like I lived through and watched every game from this season. Bob Thornbladh is one of the best guests you guys have ever had on the show. He put everything into today's context and would explain terms and schematics that you would never see today. He always would mention that he has a bias to this time period and never put down the players or the sport of football today, acknowledging every player's talent and worth and never had a bad thing to say about anyone or anything. You can definitely tell he was a color commentator and could easily be better than a lot of those on TV today.
Still feel so bad for this team that they never got to experience the post season. I am glad Bo never forgot that for the rest of his life.
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