Ed-Seth: UFR is going to be late because I was knocked out with a nasty illness that now has my whole family it is grippe. Andy Reid (@misterAndyReid) is a former Michigan beat writer who couldn't not write after Saturday. So here's something to read while you wait.

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Do not try to explain this feeling to your friends and loved ones who have never been, like you and me, stricken with College Football Madness. Your words will be meaningless. They know Michigan is having a great season, and they are happy and excited for you, but there is nothing you can say or do that will suddenly open their eyes and make them see what this really means. How can you make someone feel what 10-year-old you felt when A-Train punished another defender? When you found a book in the elementary school library about the Little Brown Jug and the depth and myth-making history of this amazing program unfurled before you? When, as a child, you learned what it meant to take pride in something you love, by watching your Maize & Blue heroes vanquish those ne'er-do-wells from Columbus? And when, after decades of ill-defined malaise, the Wolverines strutted into Horseshoe and smacked the ever-loving hell out of the Buckeyes, claiming their rightful place atop the college football landscape and shouting to the world, “The fallow period is finally over”?

[After THE JUMP: A flood]

I never chose to be a Michigan fan. It would feel less permanent if I had ever had an actual chance to. It is part of me, and always has been, from the first picture of me in my crib, swaddled in a Block ‘M’ blanket, to my first trip to the Big House, when I laid across the laps of my grandpa and dad for a second-half nap, because I was too young to make it through a whole game. Michigan football seeped through the soil of my identity and took root deep, deep down, near the core of everything that makes me, me. My favorite memories with my grandpa are watching the Rose Bowl in his cozy basement den or darting through the tailgate, pretending each packed-in car was an oversized Buckeye defender, and I was Biakabutuka, churning my legs through contact and refusing to be taken down. My favorite memories with my family are road trips to Outback Bowls and losing our damn minds together in Section 37 as Braylon snagged yet another miraculous touchdown in our endzone against Michigan State. My favorite memories of college are wrapped up with the team, too, driving all over the Midwest with my Michigan Daily beatmates and crushing the State News in our annual flag football game. My first real job was covering the team for The Wolverine Magazine. When the magazine restructured and I was laid off, I pulled myself through that disappointment, in part, by realizing that Michigan football was no longer my job and I could enjoy it as a fan, once again.

For me, Michigan football is family. Michigan football is history. Michigan football is home. My childhood is defined by it. My adolescence certainly is, too, My young adult life. My highs and lows. Me. I have moved around and changed careers. I have grown and evolved. I have taken steps back and found my footing again. I have quit and been quit on. I have known success and failure. I have been strong and weak. The one constant throughline, from childhood to now, the passion that never dulled, the love that never faded, is Michigan football. It is who I am.

And, for my entire adult life, this fundamental piece of who I am has been largely… underwhelming. Disapproval isn’t the same thing as disavowment. We Michigan fans have, since the entire college football ecosystem erupted in joy when Appalachian State destroyed the Michigan mystique with one well-timed blocked kick, learned to balance love for our team with disappointment with the state of the product on the field. But it is hard to carry the burden of unmet expectations  — season after season, Ohio State loss after Ohio State loss. To be mad, to be hurt, to feel the burden of spoiled promise and know that you will eagerly sign up for more pain when next year’s season ticket applications are mailed out. College football is weird that way, different from other obsessions: it can — and surely will — hurt you, but it can’t hurt you enough to make you walk away.

I will never be able to quit the Wolverines. But, sitting at the peak of that 45-23 lambasting of Ohio State in Columbus and looking back at the hideous valley out from which we have been climbing for the last 15 years, I can see the few dark crevices that definitely shook my faith and tested my fandom in ways I never thought possible.

The RichRod era was certainly unstable, but 2008 was new and different enough that, even though it is unquestionably the worst Michigan team I have ever seen, I never waivered. The next two years were total chaos, but there was definite incremental improvement and, of course, Denard and every thrilling and inexplicable thing he did in a winged helmet. I witnessed first-hand the infamous Josh Groban moment at the 2010 postseason banquet and never thought of loosening the emotional grip Michigan football had on me.

No, there is something worse than being loudly, entertainingly, Capital B Bad.

Sitting in a half-empty Michigan Stadium in 2014 and watching the team run out of gas against Maryland, ensuring that the Wolverines would lose to both them and Rutgers in their inaugural Big Ten season, was gutting. Hearing the boos drown out that day’s announcement that the streak of consecutive 100,000-plus crowds had continued when it so clearly hadn’t was, simply, depressing. The gigantic waitlist for season tickets had dried up. The Michigan Union was advertising that a Coca-Cola purchase in the basement general store came with two free tickets. This was something new. Something awful. Apathy, everywhere. And it was so much more unbearable than another loss to Ohio State.

And then Harbaugh pointed his energy cannon at the problem and immediately made everyone care again. But we know that’s not the end of the story. And maybe the well of emotions that rose up when MIke Sainristil popped that perfect pass out of Cade Stover’s enormous hands wouldn’t have been quite so overwhelming, had Harbaugh simply strolled in and waved a magic wand. No, we weren’t quite done suffering. There was still work to do.

The next, and somewhat more existential, threat to my passion for the Wolverines was the COVID-shortened 2020 season. Harbaugh, it seemed, was not the answer. The apathy was back, heightened by distance — both physical, from the crowd ban at games, and emotional, because the world was so strange and weird, it was hard to jump feet first into the season — and losses and a dreadful feeling that the baldfaced greed that had tightened its influence on college football for the last 30 years had finally gone too far, that forcing the unpaid kids to play a game for our enjoyment, while they were stranded away from their families on an empty campus, slogging through a season no one enjoyed, was simply too much to stomach. These were forces both in and out of Michigan’s control, but, near the conclusion of that miserable campaign, I seriously considered whether I could continue investing myself emotionally in this thing I have loved my entire life. I told my wife at one point that I will be happy to attend games with my family, have fun tailgates and enjoy myself, but I didn’t think I could continue to stir up the same fervor I usually reserve for Michigan football.

Now, here we are.

The heartache that baked itself into the fabric of Michigan fandom is gone. Every streak has ended. The dread has lifted; the storm has passed; the skies are clear and Michigan is — at long last and with no qualifications, nor any ifs, ands or buts — an excellent football team. We are great. There is no team to fear. There is no giant collapse on the horizon. Novembers are no longer poisoned with withering performances and merciless stumbles to the finish line, instead replaced by glorious attention and celebratory joy of a team that has, for two straight seasons now, accomplished its mission. 

I had forgotten this feeling. I had forgotten how electric and kinetic and ALIVE this all felt. Rooting for a team this good is FUN. For so long, the Wolverines could not ascend the mountain this high. My love for Michigan did not dwindle, but the unending misery of consecutive and unalterable mediocrity had certainly dulled the edges. I stuck with it. I cheered. I lamented. I talked about the pieces that were in place for next year. I daydreamed about catching the Buckeyes on the right afternoon. I hoped, but knew better.

There is no more daydreaming. There is no more hoping. The expectations have been met, exceeded and destroyed. We Michigan fans have endured the long winter, and spring has sprung, and our hearts are full, and our team is fantastic, and we can all just be along for the ride. We don’t have to worry. We don’t have to fret. We don’t have to get worked up about missed opportunities or crippling mistakes. We get to bask in the glory of consecutive unforgettable seasons. Consecutive ass-kickings of that team that has kicked our ass for so long it felt like we might always get kicked, never do the kicking, again. Extended success. Dominance. Glory.

Michigan clawed its way back from the brink of the abyss at the end of the 2020 season and gave us a truly special year. When Michigan beat Ohio State in the 100th game of the series in 2003, I was not allowed to join the throng of fans hurling themselves over the Big House walls to rush the field. I was a sophomore in high school, and my dad said it was too dangerous. I would have plenty of time to rush the field after a big win. By the next time Michigan fans joined the players on the field in celebration, it was 2011, and I was a working journalist and couldn’t participate in the festivities. I am so grateful to that team for allowing me to check that off my bucket list — the entire magical ride of the 2021 season, for me, can be summed up in the thrill of hoisting myself over the railing and landing, too hard, on my heels on the playing surface below, streaking for midfield in a mass of euphoric chaos to join the chorus of revelers telling each out to Pump It Up. You gotta Pump It Up, don’t yah know?

That team, led by Aiden Hutchinson’s infectious energy, completely revived my passion. It wasn’t just that they were good. They were fun. And they were having fun, and it was so fun to watch them have fun.  It felt like a magical ride, an incredible confluence of events that snapped a perfect fairytale into reality to help remind us about all the wonder and joy that college football can bring. I had given up on the idea that Michihgan could consistently compete with the truly elite echelon of the sport — I had resized my expectations toward a good program, not a great one.

And once again, now, here we are.

I have never been so happy to be wrong. These Wolverines are better than that special team from last year. They are maulers. The floor is so much higher than I ever thought it could be in the current landscape. The Wolverines have won their most recent game against every other program in the Big Ten. They are 24-2 since that insufferable COVID season. They are reigning and hopeful Big Ten Champions and College Football Playoff participants. They are a team that dominates Ohio State. They are elite. They are an incredible football team.

Last year was purely cathartic. This was something else. The first quarter was overflowing with signals that this would be just like every other version of The Game we have come to expect since Jim Tressel seized control of the rivalry. The Buckeyes scorched right down for an easy opening-drive score. Michigan’s best player, the anchor of the entire offensive identity, made one cut and limped off the field, clearly not able to go. This is where the turtling happens. This is where camera shots of the sideline reveal taut, stern faces. This is where wins turn to losses, and where the overwhelming confidence from the Scarlet force simply drowns out any hope that Michigan could string together enough luck to overcome Ohio State’s obvious advantages in both athleticism and strategy.

And, yet once again, here we are.

It was the Wolverines who were smiling, laughing, and making plays with everything on the line. It was the Michigan side outsmarting Ohio State at every possible turn. It was the Buckeyes who puckered up and played tight. For decades, it has felt like Michigan entered this game with the overwhelming pressure to just win one. On Saturday, one look at Ryan Day’s funereal grimace was all the evidence we needed to know the fulcrum had shifted. It’s now the Buckeyes who are playing like they are afraid of what will happen if they lose. JJ McCarthy, Cornelius Johnson, Mike Sainristil, Donovan Edwards all became legends on Saturday afternoon, grabbing the last albatross around the Wolverines’ neck — a 22-year drought in Columbus — and hurling it into space, like Hercules with the bear. Every burden on the Michigan program has been erased. Every dreadful streak, every pin that could possibly be pricked. The curse of being a Michigan fan these last 20 years has been the knowledge of how great our beloved program used to be, and the ever-creeping doubt that it would ever be able to reach those heights again.

Here we are.

I sincerely want to thank everyone involved with the program for what they have given us these last two years. We have learned, the hard way, that getting to this point — and staying there over the course of multiple seasons — is an incredibly difficult thing to do. The fans are so grateful for this run. I will always love this team. But I will be disappointed when they’re disappointing; mad when they’re maddening; frustrated when they are frustrating — which has been the case for so much of the last 15 years. Right now, I am happy. Thrilled. Ecstatic. Excited. Because my favorite team — my team! — is terrific.

It’s Great

To Be

A Michigan Wolverine.