I bet 2014 won't get rabies and try to kill me!

Let's have one more official reiteration: if the "2013 Must Die" meme shall go forth to the greater internet, let's all be on the same page as to its meaning.

Bronxblue in the Best & Worst* season finale:

While I contend any year when one of your major programs plays in the national championship game and has a player win all of the national POY awards can’t be that bad, the struggles by football and hockey were unexpectedly traumatic.

No.

LSA's 2013 eulogy:

First, allow me to focus on the positive, for it wasn’t all gloom.

No.

Ron Utah's bowl aftermath:

This sums-up our 2013 season

No. For that 2013 gif to be 2013 first you'd need a small child standing by who will be cured of cancer if he manages to break open 10 or more coconuts. The first four would explode, the fifth would almost, and only then would he start slamming his fist on the I-beam and such. Once it's clear he can't get to 10 it'll begin to rain and he'll get one to just barely crack, and that'll be Northwestern. And he'll have a perfect shot at a dark, evil, cancer-loving coconut but it'll rebound and defeat him.

The possibility for good is what separates a bunch of crappy things from real tragedy. 2008 was a bunch of crappy things. 2013 was soul-devouring tragedy. Without the plausible hope of McGary, or a triumvirate of elite commits, or offensive line improvement, or a sweep in Boston, there's no dong to be punched. Putting down a rabid offensive coordinator is one thing; sweet Heiko crying tears for the inarguably good guy he interviewed as he points a shotgun toward the cage is quite another.

Actually if you're looking for a good 2013 analogy, let's go back to the beginning of the season and Eye of the Tiger's comparison to A Game of Thrones. First you come to love the Starks and their dire wolves and their quaint ways, and believe in their mission of protecting mankind from the evils beyond the wall while we wait for dragons to show up and unite everybody. Then they are (SPOILER:) systematically raped, tortured, disfigured, and murdered by a world full of sociopaths. Dennis Norfleet is Aria: you like this character, huh? Okay we'll just leave her out of an entire book then.

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* [Warning: The first two Gallon highlight links go to game reels that both begin with our defense getting shredded.]

We have subs but this is crazy. Inside the Box Score isn't a fan of Michigan's defensive substitutions:

The most mystifying thing about the 2013 defense was QWash's disappearance from it.

On the first drive of the game, I saw numerous subs get into the game. Are you telling me that our guys are getting tired 10 minutes into the game? I want the best guys out there who give us the best chance to win. I want guys to get into the flow of the game, read the queues and start figuring out the offense. Instead, there is a constant revolving door where guys are being shuttled in and out before they get a chance to get into the flow of the game or break a sweat and they spend more energy sprinting to and fro the sideline than they do playing the game.

It's nice to go into 2014 with the 2nd team all having lots of reps, but it's a small nice with a downside of starters who aren't progressing.

By now Ross and Morgan and Wilson ought to be going all game, and the DL starters coming out only when they need a spell. The best line play Mattison ever got was when he was forced to roll with Martin and RVB all game and those two developed such a rapport that they could toy with offenses. "Everybody plays" was great for guys like me in Little League, but there's a reason teams stop doing that at about a middle school competitive level.

The other thing from the box score is Quinton Washington's continued absence. The most plausible explanation is Mattison thought to roll with penetrators against spread-to-run offenses. If that's true, it's more evidence that nobody on this staff even understands that offense, which bane is a two-gapping, double-team-swallowing nose tackle.

Etc. Hockey goal-by-goal analysis and poll updates. Great diary from JeepinBen wherein Fielding Yost reminds us not to listen to Sparties who can't fathom why people in their home state root for the other team in their home state. Course after this season I'm kind of wondering myself.

[Yump]

Best of the Board

BLANKET ANSWER TO ALL THE FIRE [COACH] THREADS

Threads popped up at the conclusion of the bowl game to question virtually every position coach. You don't need the one on Funk—apparently Patrick Omameh wasn't the problem guys. But we were pretty happy with defensive backs until Lockett. Now: question. Answer: jamming requires help over the top or blitzing unless you've got the world's greatest jammer whose name also happens to be Jammer. The problem wasn't in DB technique but that Michigan came in prepared to let the country's best receiver match up one-on-one with our cornerbacks.

Given the makeup of this staff it's depressing that there's even a "Coaching question D-Line Edition" thread, but there it is. Answer: the D-line gets plenty of coaching. Hoke coaches the three interior positions and Mattison coaches WDE along with Jake Ryan. Montgomery's job was to be the "Beyoncé" so the rest of Destiny's Child could do their jobs.

BLANKET ANSWER TO ALL THE RERUITING THREADS

Michigan hasn't lost any recruits to weather. Take the million hints that every recruiting guy has put out there so nobody has to repeat depressing things you already know. KThx.

Your Moment of Zen:

Dave Brandon probably thought this was just some terribly clever way to sneak advertising into the Stadium (HA! I have foiled your Socialist rules!). But I thought the Winter Classic looked mighty pretty in our living room.

Big girl, you are beautiful.

Also the words are a lot better than Francis Scott Key's original lyrics: "Get me ooofffff this ship. Get me off this stupid ship. I just came to get my doctor friend, now they're blowing the hell out of a fort…"