2025 Retail purchase: Valiant Victors

I'll set the scene: it's mid-July and Ann Arbor's Art Fair is in full swing. The big event draws in nice crowds every year and sometimes means interesting deals to find in the city's stores. I head to Rally House, the location that took over the well-known MDen retailer (which somehow managed to go out of business despite the football team winning a national championship, due to financial mismanagement) to score some cheap t-shirts, and take a peek at the collectible stuff on my way to check out.

Then I see them: two boxed complete sets of the 2022 Valiant football team cards. This was the first of two years they made them, and you may recall that I picked up hand-collated sets of the '23 version last year. While I knew packs were available for each year, usually at high prices due to the possibility of pulling some cool autos (and generating NIL money for the players), this was my first time seeing complete sets in boxed form.

"Oh cool," I thought to myself, "those should be a bit cheaper since you don't have to buy a bunch of $15 packs to complete a set. In my mind I was expecting the cost to be in the neighborhood of $100 because I think they may have been more than double that on the old MDen site (when I never even saw them in the store). And though the '22 team wasn't quite as successful as the '23 guys, falling to TCU in the first round of the four-team playoff, I was still interested in getting cards of a bunch of guys that wouldn't appear on any otherwise, plus those of a few alumni I still collect. So basically I was fine paying a decent chunk of change for these.

Wait, $50? That's way better than I thought! There were exactly two sets left on the shelf and I grabbed the other one to send to Jeff like I did with the last one, though he paid me back for that one given the price I paid. And I knew he could get me back with money or trade items for just $50, so why pass that up?

I went to check out and the staff member let me know she'd had her eye on these sets herself but hadn't snapped them up for whatever reason. "Oh well," I thought, you had your chance. Then she scanned both sets and my total came up: $40+tax. WUT. Yep, they weren't advertised as being on sale, but came out to just $20 each. Score!

So as promised I sent a set Jeff's way and kept one for myself that I finally opened for scanning. As it turns out I got dupes of one ex-QB Cade McNamara's three cards and will need to hunt down the missing one, but I'm still very happy with my purchase. As the box notes, it's 144 cards (including three checklists), with the first 100 or so being upperclassmen and well-known youngsters, and the remainder comprising incoming and rising recruits.

WR Andrel Anthony (who transferred to Oklahoma and then Duke) and future star QB JJ McCarthy both get two appearances while I already mentioned that '21 starter McNamara (who was supplanted by McCarthy, to the benefit of the team) has three.

As with the '23 set these have a very nice maize & blue theme paired with colorful action shots, and I really like the look of the set. The backs look like they might have pulled bio and stat info straight from the official MGoBlue.com site, which seems like a reasonable thing to do. The backs also prominently feature the MDen name, which is kind of amusing now.

Ok, that's plenty of description. If you'd like to see the whole checklist please take a gander here, otherwise here's a few stars and other big names I decided to scan:

A few of these guys are in the NFL and even got drafted, and Corum remains my favorite of the bunch. It's fun that Bredeson is still with the team, both as a legacy (his bro Ben played for Michigan) and an absolute weapon of a blocking FB/TE.

This one includes a couple more first-rounders and three different QBs. I showed off one of the two McNamaras I got (like I said, I'm missing the third, #68) but both McCarthy cards because the latter is clearly better. Who didn't love seeing Orji come in on obvious run plays and pick up a big first down? Sainristil remains my defensive MVP for this team.

Wilson was JJ's go-to guy and good for 12 TDs in 2023. Zinter was a key OL who was injured in the Game against OSU but served as inspiration for Blake Corum who scored on the following play and held up a "6-5" for one of the guys who escorted him to the endzone so often. And Grant was one of the "gifts from the football gods" coach Jim Harbaugh often cited, along with Mason Graham, that formed a fearsome DL that anchored a top-notch defense.

I included the checklists (which I now see I scanned backwards, oops!) and a few backs to give you an idea of what those look like.

All in all I was very happy with this purchase and obviously would have been even if I paid more. Sure, I have to track down one card that should have come with the set, but I guess that's the kind of potential QC issue you can get buying from a manufacturer that's not generally known for creating cards. It's all good, and until then I'll happily enjoy owning even more college items of some of my favorites from Michigan's outstanding 2023 team. GO BLUE!

With this post I'm finally done with July and may try to expedite my remaining posts to catch up so I'm not still posting 2025 content in '26. Stay tuned for more!