“The Journey” 2012″ debuts Wednesday, Oct. 3. Go ahead and make a note of that in your calendar because the weekly documentary-style show is going to be must-see TV for any Big Ten football fan. In the days and weeks leading up to the debut, the producers are rolling out these short but cool videos for each Big Ten school. So far we’ve covered Minnesota, Northwestern, Indiana and Purdue. Today we introduce the Michigan version here in this post.

The final stop on our annual summer football tour took us to Ann Arbor, Mich., where our team watched Michigan practice. It was a fun couple of weeks on the road, and the BTN tour bus will return to Chicago better than it left it. And it has this year’s tradition of having every player represented on the bus autograph his likeness to thank. Michigan’s representative was Denard Robinson, of course. See a picture of Robinson autographing our bus in this post.

If you subscribe to Sports Illustrated and reside in the Big Ten footprint, chances are, you’ll see Michigan quarterback Denard Robinson in you mailbox this week. The popular magazine is releasing five regional covers to preview the season, and Robinson is one of five quarterbacks featured. He joins Alabama’s A.J. McCarron, Oklahoma’s Landry Jones, USC’s Matt Barkley and West Virginia’s Geno Smith as cover boys. @SInow tweeted a picture of the covers, and you can see it in this post.

Michigan quarterback Denard Robinson spoke to Friday’s Big Ten Kickoff Luncheon crowd, and you can watch his speech right here in this post. People attending the luncheon quickly turned to Twitter and applauded Robinson’s performance.

Big Ten media days kick off Thursday in Chicago, so I thought I’d release my preseason Big Ten player rankings. I’m going to do these a little different this year. In previous years, I’d rank the top 10 players, which often became a tough task with all the talent on both sides of the ball. To account for both sides, I’ll rank the top six offensive and defensive players each week.

The Summer of Steele continued Wednesday, as well-respected prognosticator Phil Steele posted his favorites to win the Heisman Trophy. Few things are more meaningless and yet hugely popular than preseason Heisman hopefuls — or preseason polls, for that matter — so don’t treat this as science. Steele’s list of the top 10 candidates, to no surprise, includes Montee Ball and Denard Robinson. See what Steele says about the two Big Ten stars in this post.

What happens when one of the best college football players and one of the best MLB players meet in front of cameras? They swap jerseys and create a photo op, of course. Michigan QB Denard Robinson and New York Mets 3B David Wright donned each other’s jersey in the Mets clubhouse prior to Friday night’s game vs. the Yankees. Robinson, it would seem, was in New York because Mets owner Fred Wilpon is a Michigan graduate (1958) and a big-time Wolverine fan. See the @Mets picture of Robinson and Wright in this post.

Tuesday night on Big Ten Football Report, Rick Pizzo, Gerry DiNardo and Howard Griffith looked in on Michigan State’s pro day, discussed the difficulty of putting together a good non-conference schedule and broke down the conference’s wide receivers. Also, Griffith sat down with Michigan quarterback Denard Robinson. Watch the full interview now.

On Tuesday night’s Big Ten Football Report, we continued our position breakdowns as Gerry DiNardo and Howard Griffith took a look at some of the Big Ten’s top running backs. Also, with spring practices now underway, our guys took a look at Illinois and Nebraska. Oh, and we also aired Part II of DiNardo’s conversation with new Penn State football coach Bill O’Brien. Watch the complete interview now and see a preview to next week’s conversation with Michigan QB Denard Robinson in this post.

A couple weeks ago, there was a love song dedicated to Michigan quarterback Denard Robinson. On Monday, David Wright, one of the biggest stars in the MLB, donned a Robinson jersey during New York Mets’ practice. See a couple photos of Wright in the Robinson jersey in this post.

Just in time for Valentine’s Day, Michigan quarterback Denard Robinson has a love song: “I Love You Denard.” Seriously. The song was written by Pat Stansik and performed by Ann Arbor band Mind’s Eyes. Robinson has endured his share of struggles during his time in Ann Arbor, from losing records to injuries to passing struggles, but this proves how much Michigan fans adore their exciting quarterback. Hear the song and see the lyrics in this post.

Brady Hoke has Michigan back in a BCS bowl game for the first time since a Rose Bowl berth after the 2006 season. The Wolverines, a BCS at-large selection, take on Virginia Tech in the Allstate Sugar Bowl at 8:30 p.m. ET tonight. BTN.com senior writer Tom Dienhart breaks down the game, gives his keys and offers his prediction. See everything in this post. Also, read all of Dienhart’s bowl columns and catch up on all the bowl action thus far, including the Big Ten’s first nine games, on our 2011-12 bowl schedule.

BTN.com senior writer Tom Dienhart spent the season covering Big Ten football, and he’s wrtitten up team-by-team season recaps for all 12 Big Ten teams. Every day, Dienhart will post a recap for each Big Ten school, in alphabetical order. Up first: Michigan. Watch our video from the Wolverines’ much-awaited victory over heated rival Ohio State now and read Dienhart’s season recap in this post. Did you miss the others? They’re all right here.

Pete Fiutak at FoxSports.com decided to get out in front of the college football crowd and write about his top candidates for the 2012 Heisman Trophy. Oh come on, don’t pretend you haven’t at least thought about it, too. He’s produced a slideshow of 16 names, and three of them are Big Ten players. Can you guess who they are? Scroll down in this post and we’ll tell you, then you can tell us what you think in the comments section, then click over to FoxSports.com for the full reports on all 16 players.

The Big Ten handed out its weekly Football Players of the Week for Week 13, and the final week of the season produced plenty of honorees. Six players were honored, including two offensive and defensive players of the week. See the winners in this post.