Nice and Easy

​I was pissed when we scheduled Delaware State.  Of course I know that these things are beyond our control, and that we did our due diligence to get an FBS opponent, but there's something slightly embarrassing about scheduling a game like this.  It's diffiult to explain to the not-so-football-savvy co-worker, to outline the complexities of the politics and the apprehension of any BCS participating school to give a home game away without getting a return game in the future.  I guess the simple answer is that this, like most things, is about money.  We've already got our big non-conference home-at-home in the Notre Dame series, and it's just not fiscally sound to add another in this era where football covers the cost of the non-revenue (read: chick) sports.  We used to do it.  We used to travel west every few years to face a Pac-10 opponent.  We also used to lose that game pretty much every time, so there's that.

In retrospect however, I think the Delaware State game was spectacular, and a wonderful idea.  Ignoring the once in a millennium chance of the unthinkable happening, I can only find positives in the scheduling of a team that would have been better served playing the night before at Hollway Field...

The bulk of the regular starters got a full week of practice, a full week of learning more of The System, and then got to run a few series before giving way to the second and third team.  Minor got another week to quell his nagging injuries, and Brown and Forcier were able to reorganize their marbles.

New names and faces found their way into the record book, which is good both for experience and for team morale.  Nothing brings a team together more than cheering for their own, for guys that haven't seen the field, and may have never had the chance if it weren't for a game like this.  For lack of a better reference, it's like Rudy, but without the blatant no call on the offsides penalty.

Stat-tastic.  Michigan racked up a program record 727 yards on Saturday.  And while this means little with regards to this team's chances in their remaining 5 Big Ten contests, it is, in fact, historic.  Should we be boasting about racking up 700+ against Delaware State?  No.  But in the annals of Michigan history, Delaware State is not the worst team we have ever taken the field against...so it means something, albeit a little something.  I mean, in 1905 we played Albion and won 70-0.  In 1892 we played the Michigan Athletic club twice in 4 days, outscoring them by a total of 142-0 in an October in which Michigan played 7 games in 21 days.  But the powers that be say that 727 is a record, so it's a record.  Mark it down.  You were there.  Michigan also had 461 yards on the ground, bumping them up to #8 in the nation in rushing.  More importantly for the game promoting talking heads, the yards amassed on Saturday moved Michigan into the #2 slot in total offense in the Big Ten...#1 is Penn State, so, like, take the over.  Michigan is also #9 in the nation in scoring after putting up 63 points.  Michigan hasn't racked up that many since 1992, when they demolished Minnesota 63-13.

The Delaware State game also allowed for some new faces to make their way into the stands.  Average Joe was able to get cheap (or free) tickets and see the Big House, which is a good thing in these economic times, and is good for a growing Michigan fanbase.  Not to mention that we tailgated like the Buckeyes were on the schedule, not the Hornets.  The turnout was ridiculous for a game of this type, and there was enough food to stuff the lot of them, further showing that the gameday experience is much more than what happens on the field.

Saturday was exactly what I hoped it would be, a bye week in uniforms.  But in the end, from many aspects, it was so much more.  Five games remain, and none of them are going to be easy.  This year's Wolverines, as much as we would like them to be defined by their 5-2 record and their marked improvement over last year, will instead be defined by these final five contests.  Will they grow enough to avoid making Freshman mistakes?  Will they play well enough to overcome those mistakes if they happen?  Hell if I know...I'm just happy to be along for the ride.

Oh, and Ohio State lost to Purdue.  Which is funny.  So laugh at them, and I'll see you next week for the Old School tailgate, which is our second theme this season named after the title of a Will Ferrell movie.

When in Hell, You Still Take a Few Pictures

​AnnArbor.com's finest journalist James Dickson wrote an article featuring UMTailgate.com entitled The Road Warriors.  It can be found here.

Pictures (albeit only 17 of them) from the @ MSU tailgate/game are here...

Bear with us this week...short turnaround before heading to Iowa City.The All Time Sagarin ratings for NCAA basketball can be found here...you'll find Michigan basketball two spots BETTER than MSU.  Why?  I have no idea.  Ecstatic?  Yes.  Mr. Sagarin has an open invite to the tailgate.

Go Tigers!

GO BLUE!

M is for "Mortality"

​There are a lot of ways that you can try to get past a loss like the one we just had at Michigan State.

There's the "whatever, State still sucks" defense in which despite losing the game you still poke fun at your little brother, reminding him that even though they found a way to win 2 in a row against you, they have only managed 3 wins in the last 10 tries.  Then you laugh next week when they get dominated in Champaign.

There's the "ya, but we fought back so valiantly" defense, where you justify the loss by the ferocity of play in the final five minutes of regulation.  You might even go delusional and think that we're going to take that momentum into Iowa City.

Then we have the "it was the first game on the road for our team that is comprised of a large amount of Freshman" excuse, where you talk about how young we are, and how much better we are going to be once these guys get a year or two of experience under their belt.

All of these are fun to use, and I highly recommend doing so.  Another tactic that usually works when you talk to a Sparty that confronts you about the game is taking your keys out of your pocket and jingling them.  Or get a flashlight and make figure eights on a nearby wall.  This will amuse them and they will forget what they were talking about.  Also, you might want to mention that midnight madness for hoops is less than two weeks away.  They will immediately start talking about the amazing time they had a Ford Field last year, and they will forget that they even field a football team.

OK, OK, back to reality.  I'm not going to use any of those excuses.  We got our ass kicked by Michigan State.  Seriously.  If they didn't "Sparty it up" with mind-numbingly dumb penalties, we would have been run out of that stadium.  Hell, we almost were anyway.  Tate wasn't exactly Tate-esque for the first three and a half quarters.  And while the defense wasn't necessarily worse than they've shown this season, they certainly weren't any better.  Greg Robinson's goal of being the "best tackling team in the nation" is not coming to fruition.  But the short answer for why we lost?  They wanted it more.  Our young team wasn't rattled by the crowd or foreign field.  They were rattled by a team that knew what this game meant.  A team that was visibly more into this rivalry, and whose passion seemed to grow with every snap.  I could see it.  They celebrated every tackle like it was a touchdown.  Someday, hopefully next year, these young players and this new coach will really understand what this rivalry means...not to us, but to State.  And if we don't drum up some semblance of OUR backs being against the wall to counteract THEIR backs which are ALWAYS up against a wall, it will be tough to compete no matter how much better we are than them position by position.

The really amazing thing about it all is that we really did have a chance, in fact several chances, to win the game.  Should've scored a touchdown on that first drive after the interception...should not have given Zoltan the option to run it...shouldn't have fumbled it late...shouldn't have forced that Denard series...should have told Tate he needs to find better ways to throw the ball away.  You can't win a game like this with mistakes and missed opportunities.

But our main issue overall is that the weight of the program is resting solely on the shoulders of this kid (Tate).  We seem to be relying on him to get us out of whatever trouble we are in.  And while he has been able to handle it way better than anyone should be expecting him to, somebody, in fact many "somebodys," are going to need to start performing at a higher level, offensively and defensively, if we expect to be successful.  OK, gotta stop now, Rich Rod tells me I only get 24 hours to think about yesterday, and that time is up.

Bring on the Hawkeyes.  Iowa City, here we come...and GO BLUE!

I Hate You Too

As you may have heard, this is a big week.  For Michigan, it is part two of a three part essay on how successful 2009 will be.  In part one, we dispatched of Charlie Pudding Pants and his limp wristed signal caller.  In part three we will take on the Sweatervest and his band of automatic weapon wielding illegally recruited retards.  But now, in this second stanza, we face off against a team whose season is summed up by just a single line every year.  Either Michigan State beats Michigan, or Michigan beats Michigan State.  To them, nothing else matters.  This is all they concentrate on.  This is all they care about.  They flirted a bit this preseason with delusions of "turning around the program," and through some gorilla math, dwelled on having out recruited Michigan, though I never saw a single ranking on Rivals or ESPN that illustrated that fact.  I think they might of out recruited us in Lenawee County, and the Oakland press might have ran with the story.  Today, they'd trade their whole class for Denard or Tate...and we'd decline.

It seems that now, in some way, we have become their oppressors.  We're the bullies.  We're the assholes.  We don't give Michigan State respect...

"Before the game last year, Coach D told us that if you haven't played Michigan, within 30 seconds you'll realize why we don't like them," said defensive end Trevor Anderson. "After about 15 seconds, I realized why I didn't like them. Just the total lack of respect that they have for our school in general. Not just the program, but the general lack of respect they have for us."

Trevor, you are sooo right.  I have absolutely no respect for you.  It's been 20 years since your last Big Ten title.  We have 8 to our name over that span of time.  Hell, Northwestern has 3 since your last.  Your coaches have embarassed themselves, and I'm not just talking about Bobby Williams or John L. Smith.  Your current coach got in a war of words with Mike Hart, and he has placed so much pressure on this one game, I'm not surprised you can't win it.

"I know this is a very important game," Dantonio said. "I try and deal with the present right now. It's a critical game for us. It always will be, regardless of our record."

Right.  And if you were to spend a little less time worrying about October 3rd, and a little more time figuring out the intricacies of Dan LeFevour, maybe you wouldn't have lost to Central Michigan in East Lansing.

And here's where I quote myself...

Some call Michigan vs. Michigan State a rivalry game. Geography plays a part in that. Just 60 miles separate the two campuses, but I remind you that just a few feet of stone separated East and West Berlin. And that's how different these two institutions are.  To the Northwest, smothered in Green and White, lies Michigan State University. A land grant college (the first in fact), by definition it's an A&M...as in Michigan A&M. It was founded in 1855, but wouldn't become a University until 1955. In 1950, Michigan (yes, we were in charge) reluctantly allowed Michigan Agricultural College to join the Big Ten as a replacement for The University of Chicago, who left the conference in 1946. The University of Chicago stopped playing D1 football in 1939, but its seven Big Ten Football titles is still one more than Michigan State has managed to win since. No, seriously, Michigan State has six Big Ten Football championships. Six. 

This is where the inferiority complex comes into play. It's a pretty serious one. Your typical Michigan State fan was shunned by the University of Michigan coming out of high school. (See The Thin Letter). Occasionally, you'll run into a Sparty that will tell you they chose Michigan State over Michigan. And occasionally, monkeys fly out of my ass. But you have to feel for them. You get shunned academically, then you stand by and watch as your school gets dominated on basically every possible field of play for your career there. And while there is dominance in the Big Ten athletic arena by Michigan over Michigan State, that isn't necessarily the problem. The problem is Michigan State's complete and utter ineptitude overall in sports.

Michigan State has 76 total Big Ten Championships all-time in all sports. Michigan has 337. As a reference for MSU's crappiness, Penn State has 41...they joined the conference in 1991.

But hey, this game...it's important to us too, albeit for different reasons.  We've been known to tighten up for this game, to feel a little pressure ourselves.  Not because we are worried about your talent, not because we are worried about your gameplan, but because we are worried about the fact that on any given Saturday, weird shit can happen.  Weird shit like phantom penalties, missed calls, and clocks managed by members of the fan club that result in extra seconds.  Thank god for rule changes and replay, eh?  But basically, we're afraid that you'll find a way to beat us...and the fact that you are a useless Big Ten representative and useless as a football program in general, losing to you is embarrassing.  Fortunately, it doesn't happen too often.  Because when it does, a few days go by where you pretend to be one of the big boys, and I have to listen to your botched grammar diatribes about how your program is making the turn.  That's of course before the next Saturday comes and you shit the bed against Indiana.

You hate ME?  Let me tell you what...I hate you so much more.  If you had your act together over the last 40 years we could have had something pretty cool going on here, like Texas-Oklahoma or Florida-Florida State.  Unfortunately, you aren't any good, ever, so playing you is a lose-lose situation, just like when we play a MAC school.  If we win, we were supposed to.  If we lose, it's a black mark on the record of the winningest football program of all time.

You are not in our class, you are not in our league, and after Saturday, you will be in our rearview mirror.

GO BLUE!!!  BEAT STATE!!!

UMTailgate.com Featured on AnnArbor.com

Thanks to James Dickson of AnnArbor.com (the artist formerly known as the Ann Arbor News) for a great article that appeared online last night and on the cover of the Sunday paper this morning.  We've found ourselves the subject of a newspaper article or two in our tenure as UMTailgate.com, but Dickson's article captured the essence of what we do in a way the others didn't.

And perhaps the ultimate compliment is that AnnArbor.com photographer Angela Cesere took a break from shooting video and photos...and from a diet that does not include meat...to sample the ribs.

Ahhhh UMTailgate.com, converting vegetarians one game at a time.