Michigan

Explaining Michigan football’s history with Slippery Rock

Published

2 years ago

June 14, 2024

Explaining Michigan football’s history with Slippery Rock

Picture this scenario. You’re sitting inside Michigan Stadium watching the Wolverines take on USC three months from now. It’s a late third-quarter media timeout and you’ve just pulled out your phone to check some out-of-town scores.

Just then, the familiar boom of the PA announcer’s voice comes over the loudspeaker to make a special announcement, and a green “S” pops up on the big screen. You find out that Slippery Rock has just defeated Shippensburg by a final score of 34-21. The crowd erupts as if it’s just watched Donovan Edwards take off for a 50-yard touchdown.

The camera then shows the one random guy in the stands wearing a “Slippery Rock” t-shirt, and the questions start flowing through your head. Why does that score matter? What’s Slippery Rock? How was someone wearing a green t-shirt even allowed in the stadium?

If you’ve been to the Big House before, this probably isn’t an unfamiliar scene. The out-of-town scores run on the scoreboard, but there’s always a special time in the game to announce the Slippery Rock score. Even if you are aware that you’ll see the Slippery Rock score at some point during a U-M game, you might not know the reason why.

First, for some background, Slippery Rock is a town in western Pennsylvania between Pittsburgh and Erie. It’s home to about 3,500 people and Slippery Rock University, a Division II school with about 9,000 students. Its football team, the Lions, went 12-2 in 2023, with its lone losses coming against Kutztown in the PSAC Championship and Division II playoffs.

Believe it or not, the tradition of Slippery Rock’s scores being announced at Michigan football games goes far back. It initially began back in 1959, when Michigan’s PA announcer at the time, Steve Filipiak, went rogue to insert Slippery Rock into his normal list of out-of-town scores to be announced during the game.

However, it wasn’t just some random score that was thrown into the mix, as Filipiak intentionally made a big deal out of it. He would usually save “The Rock” for last and proclaim it as the moment in the game fans had “all been waiting for” before announcing the score.

Soon enough, Michigan’s fans began to anticipate the announcement of the Slippery Rock score during games, and it’s been a Big House staple ever since. Interestingly enough, this wasn’t the introduction of Slippery Rock to the big stage of college football.

The Lions first became known on a national level back in 1936 when the AP Poll was released for the first time. While we’re all familiar with the voting process that’s used today, there was a great debate about how to determine team rankings at the time.

While Minnesota was ranked as the No. 1 team in the first poll, an argument was made for Slippery Rock to claim the top spot thanks to the transitive property. A news article argued Slippery Rock was better than Minnesota because:

Slippery Rock beat Westminster, which beat West Virginia Wesleyan, which beat Duquesne, which beat Pitt, which beat Notre Dame, which beat Northwestern, which beat Minnesota.

The article was read and reprinted around the country due to the craziness of the idea and the obsession with the concept that a place called “Slippery Rock” could even exist. This fascination is still widespread today, as the scores of Slippery Rock games are announced at big schools like Texas and North Carolina as well.

These schools might claim Slippery Rock as their own in a way, but there’s still a special connection with Michigan. The Lions have come to play at the Big House three times. The first of these instances was in 1979, when Slippery Rock was invited to play at Michigan Stadium while the Wolverines were on the road.

The Lions also made an appearance at the Big House in 1981 and once again in 2014. Unfortunately, though, Slippery Rock has lost all three times at Michigan Stadium.

While it might seem like a bizarre tradition for a random Division II school to get a shoutout at every Michigan home game, it’s something that always brings a cheer and helps energize the sleepiest of crowds. It’s a quirky and interesting piece of Michigan’s storied history that all fans should be aware of.

So the next time you’re at a Michigan game and you’re friend asks you where Slippery Rock is or why its score elicited a cheer, you’ll be able to tell them the story of Michigan’s adopted ally and its place in college football lore.

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Michigan

Michigan football signs former No. 1-ranked running back

Published

4 hours ago

January 8, 2026

Press Room

Michigan football signs former No. 1-ranked running back

Michigan football moved quickly to help fill its running back room on Thursday, adding the No. 1-ranked rusher in the 2024 recruiting class to the roster.

Taylor Tatum, who spent the last two seasons at Oklahoma, signed with the Wolverines for the 2026 season, The Ann Arbor News/MLive confirmed.

Tatum, listed at 5-foot-10 and 212 pounds, has three seasons of college eligibility remaining.

He appeared in 12 games for the Sooners, most of it during his true-freshman season in 2024. That first season, Tatum rushed for 278 yards and three touchdowns, highlighted by a five-carry, 69-yard game in Oklahoma’s season opener against Temple.

Tatum was hampered by injuries in 2025, appearing in just one game against South Carolina, where he rushed once for negative-1 yard.

A former four-star recruit, Tatum was considered the nation’s No. 1 running back in 2024 out of Longview High School in Texas, where he set the school record for career rushing touchdowns (53). He picked Oklahoma over Ohio State, Alabama, Oregon, USC, among others.

Tatum was also a member of the Oklahoma baseball team, though he didn’t appear in a game in 2025.

The signing comes just a day after Michigan’s leading rusher in 2025, Jordan Marshall, announced his return to the Wolverines. Since the transfer portal opened last Friday, reserve running backs Bryson Kuzdzal and Jasper Parker have entered. Parker has since signed to play at Arkansas next season.

Meanwhile, Michigan awaits a decision from its other star back, Justice Haynes, who’s left the door open to a return to college. A pair of freshmen backs, Savion Hiter and Jonathan Brown, also joined the team this week.

Tony Alford, Michigan’s running backs coach, was one of three assistants retained by new head coach Kyle Whittingham.

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Michigan

Kyle Whittingham knows what Michigan football needs

Published

16 hours ago

January 8, 2026

Press Room

Kyle Whittingham knows what Michigan football needs

Michigan football is primed to win now, new coach Kyle Whittingham said this week on “The Dan Patrick Show.”

The Wolverines have made far too many headlines off the field, which is why Whittingham told Patrick the organization needs to simply get back to focusing on the reason they’re all together as a team − football.

“The place doesn’t need a rebuild, it needs a reboot of trust and getting rid of the drama and just get back to playing Michigan football without all the distractions,” Whittingham said. “It didn’t come from the players. The players were not involved. It was not some player issue – it was just the peripheral.

“Guys here have a great attitude, I met with everyone of them last week at the bowl site. Quality young men, care about academics, excited to be at Michigan, but they’ve dealt with a lot over the last few years.”

Whittingham, 66, takes over as the 22nd head coach in program history after a pair of scandals rocked the previous two men who held his job.

Jim Harbaugh led the Wolverines from 2015-23 − and left on top by winning a national championship − but also was found to have a lack of institutional control in his program by NCAA investigators after two separate NCAA violations occurred under his watch: impermissible recruiting and illegal sign-stealing.

More recently, Sherrone Moore was fired in scandal after he was found to have had a relationship with a subordinate and was subsequently arrested after he allegedly went to her house and threatened his own life − he was jailed for two nights and charged with felony home invasion, misdemeanor stalking and misdemeanor breaking and entering.

Patrick asked if there was any selling point Whittingham needed to hear specifically from Michigan. Whittingham said when he stepped away from Utah in mid-December there were only a handful of program’s he would have even entertained. He called Michigan “a special place.”

“Needed to hear that Michigan was what I thought it was,” he said. “Hey’re committed to winning here, we do have some challenges with entrance requirements, there is a little bit of a hurdle there, but talk about athletes, resources, tradition − it’s all here at Michigan.”

Whittingham also quipped about the irony of previously being a team that wore red (Utah) whose primary rival wore blue (BYU) to flipping that. It’s also not lost on him that his mentor, Urban Meyer, went 7-0 against Michigan in his tenure in Columbus − Whittingham joked at his opening press conference that Meyer’s name alone might be considered a “four-letter word” in Ann Arbor.

“Blue was our rival at Utah for years,” he said. “Now I’ve got to get used to saying, ‘Go Blue.’”

Whittingham is in the throes of one of the busiest times on the college football calendar. The transfer portal opened for a 15-day window Jan. 2-16, setting off a scramble to both retain players, scout the database and find appropriate fits for the team.

Whittingham has only known his roster and coaches for approximately 10 days – he said while down in Florida he was going to “lock himself” in a room at Schembechler Hall in Ann Arbor to watch film on the players on his roster. He has been able to keep Bryce Underwood, Andrew Marsh, Andrew Babalola, Blake Frazier, Evan Link, Jake Guarnera and Zeke Berry − the last two of whom had put their names in the transfer portal before indicating their return to U-M for 2026.

With money flowing, back-channeling frequent and poaching at an all-time high, Whittingham doesn’t see college football’s current model as something that will last as currently constructed for more than a handful of years.

“It is not sustainable, there’s no question about that,” Whittingham said. “Something’s gotta give. Within a 2- to 4-, 5-year window, you’re going to see a major overhaul of Division I football. I think it’s going to become more of a minor league NFL model. I think you’re gonna see a salary cap, collective bargaining, players as employees.

“I think all that’s coming because we cannot maintain this pace.”

Tony Garcia is the Wolverines beat writer for the Detroit Free Press. Email him at apgarcia@freepress.com and follow him on X at @RealTonyGarcia.

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Michigan

Michigan Lottery contributions over $1B to K-12 schools for 7th year in a row, state says

Published

1 day ago

January 7, 2026

Press Room

Michigan Lottery contributions over B to K-12 schools for 7th year in a row, state says

LANSING, MI – The Michigan Lottery’s annual contribution to K-12 education reached more than $1 billion for the seventh time in a row in 2025, according to the state.

The amount at $1.16 billion makes up roughly 5-6% of the state’s School Aid Fund, which has exceeded $20 billion in recent years.

It peaked in 2021 at $1.4 billion, according to the state budget office, marking a 78.4% increase in six years at the time. The reported portion for 2025 marks a slight decrease when compared to the previous five years.

In a release on Wednesday, Jan. 7, the state reported the total Lottery contribution had reached more than $30 billion since it began in 1972 and $8.7 billion within a seven-year span.

“In (2025), Lottery retailers earned more than $300 million in commissions for the sixth straight year,” Acting Lottery Commissioner Joe Froehlich said in a statement. “The support the Lottery provides to public education and to businesses throughout the state is critical and far-reaching.”

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s office utilized Wednesday’s announcement to recap the current state investment in K-12 schools based on the budget deal lawmakers green-lit in October three months after the current fiscal year was already underway.

That includes a 4.6% hike to $10,050 per student, $201.6 million to maintain a free universal meals program that Whitmer said saves “parents almost $1,000 a year per kid,” and a series of investments geared toward boosting literacy skills.

“This year’s lottery contributions will help build on that progress and make a difference for students, educators and schools across Michigan,” the governor said in a statement.

Other budget highlights included hundreds of millions in grants to reduce class sizes and school infrastructure, as well as for career-technical education and English-language learners.

Additionally, there was another $258.7 million boost to $1.3 billion for at-risk student supports and $321 million to support mental health and school safety initiatives ― the latter including a waiver requirement that spurred litigation from schools against the state in late 2025.

According to the Michigan Lottery, participating retailers earned more than $330 million in commissions for the 2025 fiscal year. Since 2019, when the Lottery’s streak of billion-dollar contributions to the School Aid Fund began, the state reported more than $2.3 billion in commissions.

Lottery products are sold at more than 10,000 locations across the state, and over 700 retailers sold $1 million or more last year in Lottery games.

Michigan residents took home more than $2.8 billion in prizes in 2025 and over $58 billion since the Lottery began.

According to the state, roughly 25 cents went to the School Aid Fund from every dollar spent on a Michigan Lottery Ticket, while 63 cents went to players as prizes, 9 cents to vendor commissions and 3 cents to the Lottery’s operations.

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