When Rich Rodriguez took over as Michigan's head coach, one of the things he changed was the way captains were selected. Prior to the Rodriguez era, captains were always voted on before the season, allowing the main leaders of the team to be recognized and well known before any games were played. What Rodriguez decided to do, however, was have different captains named for each game, allowing all of the seniors to get a chance to be a captain at some point during the season. After all was said and done, permanent captains were named, but that was at the conclusion of the season.
Rodriguez's change, like many of the things he has done, was met with some backlash. It wasn't a huge deal simply because when captains were named wasn't totally important in the grand scheme of things, but many saw it as Rodriguez messing with tradition. Even those that didn't have an issue with the tradition aspect of it wondered how this change could affect the leadership of the team, and although there's no telling what effect, if any, it did have, the records of the two years speak for themselves.
This year, as suggested by some of the seniors on the team, Rodriguez has changed things up again for how captains are determined by having two permanent ones voted on now and having additional captains named each week. At the end of the year, it's possible that two more permanent captains will be named, but for now the two captains, as voted on by their teammates, are offensive lineman Stephen Schilling and linebacker Mark Moundros.
Schilling and Moundros are both fifth-year seniors, and Schilling will represent the offense while Moundros will represent the defense. The interesting thing about this vote is that Moundros just started playing defense in the spring, as he was originally a fullback. Now he is a defensive captain and in the mix at middle linebacker, which both speaks for the kind of guy Moundros is and for the apparent lack of depth at the linebacker position for Michigan.