Purdue Pictures

Rodriguez's Last Home Game? Denard's too.

Rich Rodriguez marched the Wolverines into Ross-Ade Stadium and posted the largest margin of victory over the Boilermakers in West Lafayette in 16 years.  That's before Lloyd Carr, who's largest margin of victory over Purdue in Ross-Ade was the (no-doubt thrilling) 9-3 decision in 1996.  But our world rests heavily...on very thin ice.  Therefore the haters will tell you that this win was not a Michigan win, it was a Purdue loss.  The defense, which posted its best numbers of the season from a yardage perspective, has had their performance dismissed as having run into a bad Purdue offense.  The naysayers would like you to concentrate not on the fact that the Wolverines gave up 29 less points in regulation than the week before, but that the offense (the #1 total offense in the Big Ten mind you) scored 18 less points than the week before.  I'm fairly certain that Coach needs one more victory to keep his job.  Again, the botching of Penn State may ultimately be his demise.  At worst, these last two games need to be close.  Blowouts will all but guarantee an unceremonious exit at the hands of the Harbaugh lovers.  But I have a question for those of you that are in that camp, those that are anti-Rodriguez, those that have ignored every positive aspect of the new regime in the name of all that is Lloyd...

Are you prepared for Saturday to be the last home game in a Michigan uniform for Denard Robinson, Tate Forcier, and Devin Gardner? Because if he goes...they go.  And they're likely to take quite a few other members of the offense with them.

We've waited 3 years.  We started from nothing (ya, I said it) and built ourselves into a bowl team.  We've seen things on offense that are unparalleled in Michigan history.  How can we not wait if it is getting better every year?  How can we not wait if it means we get to see Denard as a junior...then a senior?

The quickest path to Michigan being what they were may very well be firing Rodriguez and hiring Harbaugh...or Hoke (the horror)...or fill in "old regime slappy" here.  But the quickest path to Michigan being better than Michigan, like, better than one-National-Championship-every-50-years Michigan, is with Rodriguez.

Destination: Bleachers

We overcame a lot of mistakes last week.  I honestly don't know how you turn the ball over 5 times and force only 1 turnover, yet manage to put up 45 points in regulation against what was the 15th ranked total defense in the country.  We single handedly dropped Illinois from 15th to 43rd in that category in a single week.  Add in the special teams, which had the Illini starting drives north of the 40 yard line more times than I care to remember, and never had a Michigan returner move it past the 25 until a trick play was called, and it is nothing short of amazing that we stayed in that game long enough to win it.  Must have been destiny.  Hemmingway's tip-drill catch certainly made it seem that way.  Every team needs a little luck, and that tip was the first gift from the football gods that we've been on the positive side of all year...maybe in three years.

Three games remain, and I'm exhausted with the "how many wins will it take?" talk.  I'd like to just concentrate on this next game, not for Coach, but for us...for Michigan...for me.

I'm the one who is going to sit in those wooden high school bleachers, on the end of the "stadium" with the crappy food and the port-o-johns.  I wonder if this will be the year that I'm actually allowed in to Ross-Ade stadium.  I doubt it.  I'm sure that we-the-visitors are still fenced-in down in our own little endzone.  Assholes.

While I'm certain that this weekend's trip to West Lafayette is yet another must win for Coach, I'm more concerned with falling to Purdue for the third consecutive season.  You see, Purdue is like Northwestern in the pecking order of the Big Ten, only they think that Drew Brees makes them relevant.  That's right, they went to a BCS bowl 10 years ago.  It's their only one.  They didn't do anything of note for 40 years before that, and they've done nothing since.  But somehow they swear that because Drew Brees saved New Orleans they're not on par with Indiana...and yet that is their chief Big Ten rival.  Ahhhhh, but Purdue is a basketball school.

A basketball school without a single Final Four appearance.

Whew.  Feels good to talk a little shit.  This is what winning does for you...it makes you a cocky bastard even though the game you won was an atrocity in the eyes of football purists.  By the way, without getting into too deep of a discussion on the relative evils of shootout victories vs. defensive struggle based victories, I would like to just say that winning against Illinois 67-65 is a hell of a lot less embarrassing than our 10-7 victory over Utah in 2002.  It's also less embarrassing than every loss ever.  So f*ck the critics.  We're moving on.

Of note:

Denard.  He needs 145 yards to break the NCAA record for rushing by a quarterback.

Toussaint is probable to play.

Steve Fisher is still alive and has the Aztecs in the Top 25 for the first time.

Best youtube compilation video ever...every Michigan trick play in the last 34 years.

Flashback photo album of the week:  Our trip to West Lafayette in 2004...

Zen and the Art of Michigan Football

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.

Bubble Boys

​It was a buyer's market outside of Crisler tonight.  Turns out Purdue was the freebie end of a buy-one get-one promo put on by the masterminds in the athletic department several weeks ago.  Average Joe-the-Sometimes-Fan sat home listening to the rain while holding a free ticket, pondering whether or not to make the trip to Crisler, akin to Cameron sitting in the car trying to decide if he should go pick up Ferris Bueller.  The combination of fan indifference and the students on Spring Break left a good amount of empty seats despite the SOLD OUT sign in the window by the ticket office.  We had six people, one ticket.  And while one guy was trying to sell his upper deck seats for double face value, there were people next to him passing out their extras like flyers in the diag.  Well, maybe it wasn't that easy.  But we all got in...to a "sold out" game...for a grand total of zero dollars.  I think I even spotted Brian Cook mulling around outside the arena, but you can never know with all the kids sporting the bearded long-haired "Cook Look" these days.

Senior night.  Pay your respects.  JeVohn Shepherd, CJ Lee, and David Merritt...ya, not really an all-star cast send off, but we've had worse.  We've said goodbyes to Sherrod Harrell and Hayes Grooms before.  But never before have we wanted so badly to say goodbye.  Not because of the caliber of the senior players, who against the odds not only found playing time but played integral roles, but because we have no desire to see these guys play another game in Crisler.  Seeing Shepherd, Merritt, and Lee at Crisler again means NIT, and we want something else.

We took a giant step toward the dance today, perhaps even taking the edge off of the Iowa debacle.  Though after tonight if Iowa were not the crapfest it was, we would be talking "seeds" instead of "ifs".  Despite the score, and despite the free throw chokes, we owned Purdue tonight.  Minus the bullshit charge call early (5-point swing in my book) and the front-end free throw follies of CJ Lee, this one wasn't close.  We even outplayed them in a category that we are basement dwellers in: rebounding.  Michigan 27, Purdue 24 on the boards.

Lost in the shuffle of goodbyes and top-25 upsets, was Manny Harris.  Manny joined legendary names like Chris Webber, Jalen Rose, Phil Hubbard, Mike McGee and Louis Bullock, becoming on the 6th sophomore in Michigan Basketball history to eclipse the 1000 point mark.  Manny went for 27 tonight, and Sims chipped in 29.  The big two did what they were supposed to, and a more diverse supporting cast (10 players scored) made key plays at key times.  That's the type of lineup that beat Duke and UCLA.  That's the recipe for victory here.

After some moans and groans due to foul shooting (Purdue began fouling at the 4 minute mark BTW) the clock finally reached zero, and the team gave what they hope to be their final send off to the Crisler crowd.  The gathered at center court and led the room in a rousing chorus of The Victors.

There are a lot of opportunities left.  Two tough road games, of which winning one is paramount.  And the Big Ten tournament, which can make us on a Saturday or a Sunday, or break us on a Thursday.

I was happy to be there, and I'm even happier that WE are here.  I love this bubble.

Shock the world.