The Thin Line Between Love and Hate Should Be Thicker

The bulk of the Michigan faithful stayed around longer than I expected them to, no doubt clinging to the hope that Tate might have another rabbit left in that winged hat.  The one redeeming quality of losses of this nature?  When games are over just a couple of minutes into the second half, you have a couple of hours to wallow around in it, to make your peace with it before it's actually done.  It's cathartic to have to sit in a cold light rain and see two small, white-clad sections of the stadium exchange their "WE ARE"s and "PENN STATE"s.  I sat there, wondering how this could have happened...not the 35-10 drubbing, but how I let my expectations change so rapidly after that 4-0 start.  More amazing is how I never let them fade after barely nipping Indiana, then falling to MSU and Iowa.

There's something that everyone needs to understand.  This is not a very good or even good football team.  This is an average football team.  They're too young, too inexperienced, and too thin at nearly every defensive position.  But being average means that this is certainly not a bad football team, and it is a country mile ahead of where they were last year.  Being average means we can beat teams like Notre Dame, we can blow out teams from the MAC, and we can be competitive with the best this league has to offer.  Being average also means that we can have our ass handed to us on occasion.  Saturday was such an occasion.

Immediately following the loss, those that cheered the new coach after the 4-0 start, and admitted they were wrong for their snap judgment after last season, quickly went back to wanting the return of Lloyd-ball.   The haters who had been patiently waiting for...and even wanting a loss like this dusted off their soapboxes.  Suddenly the piped in music was hurting their ears, the spread offense became a passing fad, and *gasp* Rich Rod yelled at one of his coaches on the sideline indicating obviously that this whole house is about to come crumbling down.

Someone really needs to shut this whole internet thing down, or at least gag Drew Sharp.

These knee jerk reactions from game to game and this over-analysis of a season, a program and a coaching staff based on a single contest is getting really ridiculous.  It was ridiculous when it we were 4-0 and had just beaten an Indiana team that we convinced ourselves was good, and it's ridiculous when we're 5-3 and we just lost to a Penn State team that we had convinced ourselves was not so good.  You see, the thing is, Indiana is not so good, and Penn State is good...I think.  So that makes things confusing, beyond your understanding, and if nothing else it should widen that thin line between praising Rich Rod for a turnaround and anointing Tate Forcier as the next coming of Christ, and wanting Rich Rod to step down and say that you can't wait for Devin Gardner to get here.  Come to grips with the fact that you just don't know, that you can't predict the future.  There's a pretty big damn difference between 5-7 and 9-3, and there's a pretty big damn difference between "Rich Rod is the man for this job" and "Rich Rod should be fired."

We all need to spend some more time finding that gray area, exercising patience, and waiting to make broad analysis of the direction of the program until the season has ended.  Bonus points if you wait until after 2010.

Mid-Week Roundup, Miracle Edition: 10/22/2009

• MVictors wrote the article that I had already written in my head when Stevie Brown said the Wolverines still had hope for the Rose Bowl.  The only way I think it's feasible is if we win out, and Iowa and Michigan State find a way to both lose this Saturday...which would be tough since they play each other.


• SI says that the Big Ten doesn't suck, it's parity in the league that makes us all look so bad.  Just wondering why it is that no one but Michigan can beat any team in the SEC.


• Fun fluff from the York Daily Record on Tate Forcier, who is a "feisty, fun-loving true Freshman."


• Ahhh yes, dissent in Buckeye-land, as one of his receivers says "he can't do much worse."  Which, taken out of context as it is, is sweet music to my Wolverine ears.


• Rittenburg: RichRod talks about the Bill Martin retirement, and confirms that Molk is starting.


• Death.  Another reason to stop running, and start tailgating.


• AnnArbor.com says Minor is probable for Saturday and says he bowed out of the DSU game because it was "a stats game."


• The Wolverine Blog covers the intricacies of punting statistics, and how Zoltan is the shit.


• The Bearcats are talking trash in Ohio.  I reserve the right to talk trash on November 21st...not before.


• Rittenburg reports that Pryor's high school coach thinks sweatervest needs to release the reins...like we do with Tate?


• AnnArbor.com reports that Lloyd Carr is not putting his hat in the ring for AD.

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!