It is with a heavy heart that I make this regrettable announcement, but we had one of our own, a dear friend and avid tailgater, leave us this weekend.  Chris Kurtz, known to his friends and around the tailgate as Kurtzy, passed away.  Our thoughts and prayers go out to his family.  Information on services can be found on the funeral home website, and I encourage you to sign the guestbook there with stories and memories you have of Kurtzy.  You can also leave a message in the comments here if you wish.

Rest in peace Kurtzy.  You will be missed.

LOI’s are in for 27 new Wolverines.  Biggest class ever.  15 of them play defense.  Warm bodies = less starting walk-ons.  I’m not a big fan of starting walk-ons, so, ya, successful class.

The prize of the 15 would-be defenders?  Demar Dorsey, who saved the day and wiped a little egg off of our faces after perceived lock CA-S Sean Parker LOI’ed to UW at 9am.  Dorsey, at #12 overall and the #2 safety according to ESPN, is the highest rated recruit in Michigan’s class.  He is also the highest rated recruit to sign with ANY Big Ten team.  In the words of Rittenburg, “a big, big score for Rich Rodriguez.”

I don’t know what it is, but I really like the looks of this class on paper…and youtube.  Nothing too gaudy.  Simple guys with a specific skill set made for a complex system.  Against everything I believe in, I’ve google-stalked the lot of them, watched some highlights, read some coach quotes…  Yes, following recruiting makes you less of a man, and there’s a whole lotta folks that should be turning in their man cards tomorrow…we crashed MGoBlog before noon.

Devin Gardner leads the offensive side of the group, and he is already eating Blimpy Burger with 6 other early arrivals on campus.  The class includes a couple of running backs, just in case that surgery doesn’t go well for Vincent Smith.  And it’s always good to snatch another rabbit chaser from Pahokee…we did that with DT Richard Ash.  Also of note, the lone inked offensive lineman’s last name is Pace.  These things just seem to add up for me.

The 3pm presser didn’t go so well though.  Coach thought that for some reason he’d get some softball questions, handshakes, and congratulations from the media after landing Dorsey.  Instead, Dorsey’s “checkered” high school past was brought up.  Demar was acquitted for a couple of felonies back in high school.  Rodriguez said he checked him out and said that everything was ok.  Guess who else checked him out?  Pretty much every other coach of a major program in the country.  Of those coaches, how many would have turned down a letter of intent from the #12 player in the nation?  ZERO.  Either way, Coach wasn’t ready for it.  He probably should have been.  He should know better by now.  He should know that there can be no good until good comes on Saturdays with regularity.

Instead of being able to celebrate his second full class as a coach at Michigan, he instead had to defend a player that was found INNOCENT in a Florida court, and that won’t set foot on the practice field until August.  There’s a big price to pay in Ann Arbor for only mustering 8 wins in two seasons…and Rich Rodriguez has his wallet open.  This man can do no right until this team wins.  It’s a policy that is tough to like, a bitch to endure…yet hard to argue with.

Welcome fellas…and GO BLUE!

I thought this would have picked up a little more steam throughout the day after it appeared in the Freep and on AA.com.  This is a tough one.  I mean, Braylon was that feel good story, an under-recruited legacy who came out of the dog house and into the #1 jersey…and he single handedly led the Wolverines back from 17 down with 7 minutes to play against Michigan Agricultural College, making keepsake poster moments out of every Spartan defensive back.  Post graduation, he has given back to Michigan, donating money and establishing a scholarship fund.  It’s tough, really tough, not to like Braylon for what he did, and what he continues to do for Michigan.  Quite frankly, I love Braylon Edwards.

But I grew up loving Jim Harbaugh too.

On Sunday, Braylon used Sunday Night Football to perpetuate the growing rift between Ann Arbor’s pro-Carr and pro-Rodriguez camps, announcing himself as Braylon Edwards from “Lloyd Carr’s University of Michigan.”  I’m certain that in the coming days, Braylon will spin it as not anti-Rodriguez, just pro-Lloyd.  His dad already made an attempt this afternoon to cover his son’s tracks on WTKA, saying that Braylon works with players in the off-season and generally likes Rodriguez.  Already feels a bit like that asshole that tells a racist joke, then tells you “some of my best friends are black.”  Ya, Braylon is a regular Dr. Watley.  And I can assure you, this isn’t the first time that Stan Edwards has had to make a WTKA appearance to clean up a mess.  I can clearly remember him brokering peace between Braylon and Lloyd on the same airways in Braylon’s dog house days, telling us all how “misunderstood” Braylon was.

Honestly though, I’m not here to tell Braylon that he needs to like Rodriguez.  I’m also not here to tell him to hate Lloyd Carr.  I’m just asking him to like Michigan.  What he did on Sunday was counterproductive, immature, and detrimental to Michigan.  We’ve got signing day coming up in a month and one of our supposed ambassadors is basically talking shit about the current coach on national television.  Think that sits well with our verbals?  Liking Michigan means you can honor your mentor, and at the same time respect the current coach.  I don’t know at what point Lloyd Carr and Rich Rodriguez became rivals, became something you have to choose between.  Lloyd Carr and Rich Rodriguez are not mutually exclusive.  Lloyd Carr was not fired.  Lloyd Carr was not forced out.  Lloyd Carr retired, of his own volition, and while he tried hard to create a Bo-like legacy of coaches to follow in his footsteps, he couldn’t pull it off.  App State happened.  We moved on.  We’re trying something new.

This is bigger than you Braylon, which is probably the most difficult thing for you to handle.  Bigger than you, and bigger than Lloyd.  This is not, never was, and never will be Lloyd Carr’s University of Michigan, nor will it be Rich Rodriguez’s University of Michigan.  Not to go all “Ohio State” on you, but this is THE University of Michigan, that’s where you’re from.

I’d appreciate it if you started acting like it.

UPDATE:  Like I said, the spin was coming…

Ahhh yes, we’ve ushered in a new year…a new decade even…sitting at home, wondering if we’ll be sitting here next year.  But that’s football, that’s another day.  Michigan Basketball, from an expectations to output standpoint, has been nearly as disappointing in the 2009 portion of the season.  Three defeats in a row against Marquette, Alabama, and Boston College have seemingly all but sealed Michigan’s tournament hopes.  They closed out 2009 by opening the Big Ten season with an embarrassing defeat to the lowly Hoosiers, who happened to be without their super-Frosh Maurice Creek, which does not bode well when we look ahead to the rest of the Big Ten.

But tonight, just tonight, they looked a bit like last year’s Wolverines.  Don’t get me wrong, they were not by any means great.  But they seemed interested, which is a step ahead of what we’ve seen so far this season.  Shots fell.  Turnovers were forced.  There seemed to be a somewhat cohesive unit out there, a unit that had leaders, role-players, shooters, defenders.  In short, we seemed to be a basketball team tonight.  A basketball team with confidence, wearing the gold jerseys, and forgetting about 2009.

Sure they defeated an Ohio State team that despite being ranked today, will be unranked tomorrow.   A team that is now 3-3 since losing Evan Turner, including a 65-43 drubbing by Wisconsin on New Year’s Eve in Madison.  But we have to start somewhere, and if our start is defeating those bastards from Columbus, then this already is a happy New Year.

So…ya…Happy New Year folks.

Say what you want about Rich Rodriguez, I’m fairly certain he’s never locked a player in the electrical closet and posted a guard outside.  That’s what Texas Tech head coach Mike Leach did, and he probably would have got away with it if the player in question wasn’t Adam James, the son of Craig James.  Yep, Craig James the ESPN announcer slated to provide commentary for the Alamo Bowl in which his son is participating.  Pretty sure that’s already a conflict of interest, but now that he’s behind the indefinite suspension of the head coach, that’s just not going to work.  According to the worldwide leader, that announcer lineup has since been changed.

Then there’s Urban Meyer, who retired two nights ago, then changed his mind last night and went on a leave of absence instead.  Sounds like there isn’t anything physically wrong with him, and this is more about mental health than physical health….which in the end just makes Urban Meyer look like a pussy.  Which is good if you’ve got a wizard hat, some snake oil, and are willing to poach some kids under the guise of “who knows when that loon is coming back?”  Head on down there Coach Rodriguez…I like cornerbacks and safeties.

The scary thing about all of this?  I really am getting used to it.  Apparently it only takes two years to erase the 30+ year habit of Michigan going to bowl games.  I’m sitting here, Bowl Pick’em sheets in hand, watching other teams play what have so far been meaningless bowl games with sparse attendance.  It kind of reminds me of all those years of watching the NCAA basketball tournament without Michigan in it.  There’s a dance, but we weren’t invited.

I went ahead and picked against every team in the Big Ten, and assigned the highest confidence points to each of those games.  That strategy has served me well in recent years, because, as you know, the Big Ten really sucks.  Also of note, Michigan tied for last place in the Big Ten this season.  That makes us the king of suck in a conference of suck.

Super.

It’s the kind of thing that makes you question your path in life.  Okay, okay, that’s a little melodramatic, but it’s the kind of thing that shuts down a tailgate website for a month.  That and unabashed laziness.  More troubling however, is that the future does not look bright.  The defense, which often baffled us with it’s ineptitude, loses its only two decent players, and will replace them with walk-ons and freshman, and I’m talking freshman next year.  Warm bodies, that’s what we’re looking for.  Knowing where to line up and who to cover, that would be a bonus.

The offense will search for a running back to replace injury plagued Brandon Minor and Carlos Brown, and will try to figure out why they continue to cough up the ball at a level that put them at 115th in the nation in turnover margin.  Minus the turnovers, we’d be in a different place.  Unfortunately, the idea that the problem would fix itself is what we went with last year.  Obviously, this needs to be addressed, in lieu of finger crossing and blind hope.

We’re just sitting here, waiting.  Waiting for either a magical turnaround or for the other shoe to drop.  No doubt that if I’m not typing up some kind of Bowl Preview post at this time next year, it will be the latter.

A belated Merry Christmas to you all.

It’s Thanksgiving week, so I just want to take a second to thank everyone that participated in our transition year of tailgating as we left the golf course for greener (actually more asphault colored) pastures.  You guys really blew my mind this year with the turn out, the donations, and the enthusiasm.  So much so that we are going to have to move this thing to a bigger venue.  Stay tuned this offseason to find out where we end up.

I want to also give special thanks to a few folks…

• Gus, Mel, and the gang from New York.  You guys were all amazing.  Your hard work and generosity made things so much easier for me this season, and I would like to express my deepest gratitude for everything you did, up to and including the massive amount of filet mignon you showed up with for what was truly a grand finale of tailgates this past Saturday.  We look forward to many years of having you as part of our group.  It’s nice that after all of these years to have the tailgate family still growing.
• Our hotdog crew, Joe and Jeff, who feed 100+ people in the postgame.  I can’t even imagine what the count was in total dogs for the season….not to mention the pounds of scortching hot peppers.  How ever many it is, it’s a huge load off for me, especially in these past couple of years when all I want to do after the game is curl up in a ball and cry.
• My load-unload crew of Kristen and JJ, who while noticeably absent for several games, occasionally provided the manpower needed to unload the car and get me to the couch as fast as possible after returning from these on the field debacles.  OK, really it’s only JJ, but Kristen does provide inspiration through her motivating dialogue, like “hurry up I want to order Pizza House.”  Love you both…wouldn’t be the same without you.
• Also, thanks to any and all of you that helped with setup and takedown…too many people to name, but you know who you are, and it is much appreciated.
• Finally, thanks to James Dickson of AnnArbor.com, who has put my name in the paper more times in the last three months than I’d like to admit.  He’s become kind of an embedded tailgate reporter at UMTailgate.com, and his articles are all great reads, especially when they include quotes from our group…like this week.

Pictures from the tailgate and game are available here.

Commence the run to the Final Four.

GO BLUE!

I watched a mashup of Michigan highlights against Ohio State on YouTube yesterday.  The video quality was really poor.  I thought about how somebody should remix the videos in HD to make it more pleasing to the eye.  Then I realized that the videos were so bad because there hasn’t been a highlight of a Michigan-Ohio State game that Michigan has won that was shot in HD.  That’s how long it’s been.  Incoming freshman at the University of Michigan were in 7th grade the last time Michigan beat Ohio State.  I might as well have been watching UCLA basketball videos from the 70’s. That’s the sad truth about this rivalry.  There isn’t one.  God I want that back.

This ain’t easy.  A hole has been dug, and no matter how much we lack in talent, and despite this being only the second year of our Coach’s tenure, everybody…and I mean everybody, is pointing fingers and looking for answers from this staff.  Things are beginning to compound.  The buyout, practice-gate, the worst defense ever to take the field, and the losses…my god the losses.  Momentum is building against Rich Rodriguez.  Even if you believe, as I do, that this was the right choice, that Coach Rodriguez is the man for this job and will take us to new heights, you can’t be certain how long we can hold off the barbarians at the gate.

Of all the Michigan traditions that we hold so dear, winning is the only one that really means anything.  You can cover the scoreboard with advertisements, pipe in rap music, and have the team wear gold jerseys as they run out of smoke filled tunnel to the sound of cannon fire…if at the end of the game, Michigan has more points than their opponent, you won’t give a shit.  You won’t spend a week talking about whether Rich Rodriguez understands the rivalry with Ohio State.  I mean, seriously, do you expect him to?  He’s from West Virginia.  Why would he understand our unique situation, our 100+ years of epic battles, and the hatred that goes along with it?  How can I expect him to have the understanding that even I have?  I saw Charles Woodson fight David Boston, he saw it on Sportscenter because he WAS COACHING ANOTHER TEAM.  I understand the rivalry because I’ve had things thrown at me in Columbus.  I’ve endured the wrath of angry Buckeyes whose lack of brains can only be matched by their lack of teeth, managing to slur out a “fuck you” as I made my way to the stadium.  How did understanding this rivalry become a requirement for being a Michigan coach?  I’ll tell you what, Stan Parrish understands this rivalry.  And I sure as hell don’t want him pacing my sideline.  A better example…Nick Saban knew absolutlely nothing about Auburn vs. Alabama when he took over for the Crimson Tide.  He probably still doesn’t, because he’s already worrying about winning national championships, not about the Tigers.

But, whatever, it’s really all moot.  We are seemingly on the brink of disaster, even though we shouldn’t be.  Patience doesn’t seem to exist here.  Ohio State is not a must win, but it is a MUST COMPETE.  If we get blown out, they will be waiting with pitchforks at Schembechler Hall.  And the thing is, we’ve been blownout by lesser teams already, which makes an impossible situation even more, well, impossible.  I’m having a lot of trouble coming to grips with the fact that I think they are going to do it.  I didn’t think we were that dumb as a fanbase.  Hell, Jaime Morris even made up with Jim Harbaugh this week.  Cats and dogs living together.  Mass hysteria.  We are on the doorstep of the Michigan apocalypse.

And imagine being Rich Rodriguez.  How much more of this do you really want?  The roller coaster of love-hate-love-hate-reallyreallyhate has got to be taking its toll.  And now you are faced with a group of players, some of which that because of outside influences and previous regime loving parents don’t even believe in you or your system, and you have to look at them and motivate them, and you have to ask them for all intents and purposes, to save your face, to save your job.  It’s too early for this people….just too early.

One game.  One game against the most talented team you’ve faced all season.  One game for all the marbles.

Those that say Michigan has nothing to play for on Saturday couldn’t be more wrong.  Those that say this year’s edition of The Game doesn’t have the panache of previous seasons don’t understand what is happening here in Ann Arbor.  When it’s all said and done, this game may be the single most important Michigan-Ohio State game ever played.

With one miracle, one upset, everything can change.

And yes, I do believe in miracles.

GO BLUE!  BEAT THE BUCKEYES!

Pictures are now available from the tailgate weekend in Madison.  Click here.

Close your eyes.  Take a deep breath.  Deep.  Then let it out.

I used to think it was difficult to be a Michigan fan.  I envied those who followed lesser institutions, lesser football programs.  No expectations.  Every win is big.  Every loss is forgotten before you get home.  At the tail end of a second consecutive season that no one seems to know how to deal with, I must admit, I am getting almost comfortably numb.  The part of me that used to proclaim dominance no matter what the situation, the part that would be talking about how we were going to Madison to kick some badger ass and would be preaching about 1995 and 1996 to put Ohio State on notice…I don’t know where that part of me is anymore.  1995 and 1996 is a long long time ago.  1997 too.  The chances of winning another game are seemingly slim and none, and slim just got shoved out of the way by Bill Martin.

Since the turn of the century, since the inception of UMTailgate.com, Michigan has rarely failed to disappoint me.

Sure, there have been bright spots.  We’ve done some amazing things.  Some amazing comebacks.  Some amazing seasons.  Reaching for happy memories, I can invoke images of Chris Perry doing his Hulkster impression at MSU.  Rushing the field in 2003 after winning the 100th game over OSU, a rose clenched in my teeth, excited about returning to Pasadena.  Matt Gutierrez getting pulled in favor of a true freshman named Chad Henne.  Alabama missing the extra point on millennium New Year in our first overtime game.  The unstoppable force that was Mike Hart’s heart.  Braylon reaching, and literally stealing, catch after catch as we mounted the ultimate comeback.   Touchdown Manningham against Penn State.  Drew Henson pointing towards the traveling fans the corner of Memorial Stadium in Illinois as he temporarily ended the Navarre era by leading us to victory after halftime.

I witnessed all of these things, not on TV, but in person.

But there wasn’t one time, not one, that they didn’t leave me wanting more.  The team that lost to Appalachian State later gave Tim Tebow his only bowl loss to date, which while redeeming in so many ways, begged the question…how the hell did we lose to App State?  Any game that was more than a time zone to the west has been a loss…the crown on the field in Oregon, choking at Washington, Navarre being Navarre at UCLA, the Rose Bowl, the other Rose Bowl, and that third Rose Bowl.  The team that started 11-0 in 2006, predicated on an amazing defense, and wallowing in the ultimate in motivation in the passing of a legend, decided not to play any defense in their final two contests, falling to OSU and USC.  Chad Henne and Mike Hart, legends of Michigan Football, started for four years and lost four times to OSU.  Iowa beat us by four touchdowns in Michigan Stadium on our homecoming.  And on and on….

Michigan had 16 total losses in the 1970’s.  They had 29 in the 80’s.  They had 26 in the 90’s.

They have 41 losses in the 2000’s, and there’s still two games to go.

Take away the 14 losses under the new regime, however you want to lay the blame for them, and that leaves 27 losses.  So, unless you believe that Michigan was going to have a total of 2 losses or less in 2008 and 2009 combined under some other regime, then it’s safe to say that this decade was already going to be the worst decade in modern Michigan Football history.  And because we got that taste of the good life in 1997, that wasn’t going to cut it.  When Coach Carr retired, we had two options…blow it up and gun for a whole slew of 1997’s, or stick with the 8-4’s and the National Championships every 50 years.

We opted to blow shit up.

And while none of us could have predicted the fallout from that blast, we also didn’t know that we had such deficiencies in so many areas.  Coach Rodriguez has something on the tip of his tongue at every press conference, something that he wants to say, but can’t.  He wants to tell us that we don’t have the horses for this race.  But out of respect for the program, and respect for the guys that are going out and working hard every day, he can’t.  Because despite what everybody in the media and everybody from every other institution (and even some from within THIS institution) says, this guy is not an asshole.

After the back to back heart wrenching defeats at the hands of two bottom-dwelling Big Ten squads, you are welcome to question this staff and their inability to get these guys to improve throughout a season.  We looked better in September than we do in November…no doubt about it.  But the thing is, I really don’t care how good the staff is at coaching a team made up of guys that wouldn’t be able to get the job done if Bill Belchick was at the helm.  I care about how this staff coaches when we’re facing Ohio State on a some future cold November afternoon, and the Buckeye defense is pissing their pants wondering how the hell they are going to get any pressure on the quarterback with all the talent we have on the O-Line…and how they’re going to catch him if they happen to break through the line.  Or how Greg Robinson stunts the linebackers after seeing the Buckeye quarterback go into a fetal position in reaction to a D-Line that is bearing down on him while all of his receivers are covered by our blanketing defensive backs.

In short, I’m not really concerned with how this staff coaches sub par talent.  I’m only concerned whether or not this staff can coach next level talent.  That’s an unanswered question.  That’s why we have to wait.  That’s why we have to be patient.  I mean, I’m sorry that you can’t talk trash to the Purdue grad in the cubicle next to you anymore about how he hasn’t won in the Big House since the 60’s, or that the Illini grad next to him is boasting about Juice Williams’s rising draft status.  But you are just going to have to suck it up.  And you’re going to have to shut up.  You’re going to have to find something else to follow for a little while that makes you feel better about you.

Michigan Football has been there for you your whole life.  They’ve been there for you to lean on.  Every Saturday, winning, making you smile, sending you to work on Monday with your chest puffed out, ready to point and laugh at lesser men.  But now, for the first time, Michigan Football needs you to be there FOR THEM, to be patient FOR THEM.

We need to find that place again.  I’ve got to find that place again.  That place where I know we are going to win no matter what the odds, no matter what the situation.  Miracles happen.  Freshman can do amazing things.  There are two games left…and I love being an underdog.

See you in Tempe for New Year’s.