There was something different about those Wolverines.

On Oct. 1, 1938, Michigan beat Michigan State 14-0 — and the game was a sign of change.

“For Michigan, victory was as sweet as nectar,” The Michigan Daily sportswriter Bud Benjamin wrote. “For the first time in four long years the sun began to peep through the clouds. Michigan football was on its way back —

“Why on its way back? What’s new and improved on this 1938 team?”

The lasting answer to that question wasn’t detailed in the Daily, but we know now that what was truly new about Michigan was its winged helmets — now the most lasting symbol of Wolverine tradition.

When former Michigan player David Nelson went to coach at Delaware in 1951, he took the helmets with him.

And this season, Delaware’s in-state “rival” Delaware State’s two biggest games of the season are against teams that sport the tradition-rich headgear.

Delaware State’s game against Delaware, played on Sept. 19, and the Hornets’ game against Michigan on Saturday were both initially intended to be just schedule fillers. The game against Delaware has turned into an attempt to build tradition, but the game against Michigan is a one-and-done affair.

Even though FCS (formerly Division 1-AA) schools Delaware and Delaware State are only located an hour apart, they had never scheduled a regular-season game until one of Delaware’s opponents pulled out of its contract and the Blue Hens needed to fill the open date. Delaware State lost 27-17 last month, but the two schools worked out an agreement and will now play each other in 2012, 2013 and 2014.

But the Hornets’ game against Michigan tomorrow was always intended to be just an easy way for Michigan to get to 12 games. The Michigan Athletic Department added the game on Feb. 7, 2009 to ensure that the Wolverines would have eight home games but play for 12 straight weeks, something Rodriguez said he didn’t prefer.

“Yeah. I’d play 11 games,” Rodriguez said. “Our Athletic Department probably wouldn’t like that — they want the revenue from a 12th game. But from a football coach, heck yeah. Let’s play five or six, or four or five, and then have a bye week and go.”

Rodriguez said it has been nice to be able to schedule teams where Michigan doesn’t have to return the favor of traveling to a game. Of course, some of those one-way teams have been Toledo, which beat Michigan 13-10 last year, and FCS team Appalachian State, which shocked the Wolverines, 34-32.

Those games have predictably come up in discussion this week.

“I knew I was gonna get that question,” cornerback Troy Woolfolk said immediately when asked if this week reminds him at all of the game against the Mountaineers. The questions were bound to happen -- after all, Michigan is 0-1 against FCS opponents all-time.

But this opponent is nothing like Appalachian State, one of the most dominant FCS teams of all time. En route to a 1-3 record, Delaware State has yet to score a single point in the third quarter of games. It is averaging 14.2 points per contest, has made just one of six field goals and lost 9-7 to previously winless Bethune-Cookman last week after giving up a field goal with a little more than two minutes left in the game.

Still, Rodriguez said Delaware State and the Wolverines have similar offenses, and he mentioned the Hornets’ speed — as well as the Appalachian State factor of underestimating a FCS opponent— as things to possibly watch out for on Saturday.

“As a coach, you worry about everything,” he said. “You worry about a team that has, you know, 21, 22-year-olds, which they do, eight or nine seniors. They’ve got a chip on their shoulder because they want to prove they can play against our guys who are 18 and 19-year-olds in some spots.

“It’s not the same atmosphere you have on a primetime Saturday night game we had last week. ... We’ll get their Super Bowl — it’s their best shot. So our guys have to understand that.”