Mailing It In
Hey guys. I did not do the UFR this week, because I really did not want to do it. So I didn't. This is what I mean by mailing it in. I'm sorry, but not sorry enough to actually go do it. Obviously.
I will try to muster the courage to do so at some point in the future, because it is nice to have completeness. Right now you could hold a gun to my cat's head and threaten me and I would look on blankly until you cracked and started weeping and I told you It's Not Your Fault™. You're not actually going to kill a kitten about this, are you? Okay, okay, it's a cat, not a kitten. Put the gun down! It's Not Your Fault™! Unless you do something you're going to regr—
Hmm. Well, if you had to go at least it was before Saturday. We will put your MGoPoint total on your tombstone.
What's going on. I am going to go home and have a normal Thanksgiving like a normal person like I used to do before they moved the Ohio State game back a week for dubious reasons. I am not going to put up a UFR on the day itself, because I didn't do it. There will be a preview on Friday, though if I had to bet I'm assuming it will be light on useful analysis and heavy on gallows humor shirt-rending about how Ohio State has a good football team and Michigan does not have a good football team.
Then we are going to grit our teeth and get through Saturday, whereupon we will feel much better at the prospect of a weekend with nothing more horrifying in it than the prospect of Michigan State and Ohio State playing for the Big Ten Championship… godddammit. At least you don't have to watch that if you don't want.
You're free! FREEEEEEE. After Saturday. I'll see you Friday.
In conclusion. Butt.
November 27th, 2013 at 4:50 PM ^
...before they moved the Ohio State game back a week for dubious reasons.
Isn't the Ohio game on November 30, literally the last day of November? i.e. last Saturday in November, the way it's always been? How have they moved it back a week? Should it instead be on December 7?
November 27th, 2013 at 4:56 PM ^
November 27th, 2013 at 4:56 PM ^
this game was always the weekend before Thanksgiving. At least for the previous 30 years since the last time the schedule expanded.
November 27th, 2013 at 4:59 PM ^
this game has been played since 1963, also on Nov 30
After that it was always the weekend before Thanksgiving
November 27th, 2013 at 6:28 PM ^
It should also be noted that the game was scheduled to be on November 23, 1963, but was postponed a week for obvious reasons.
November 27th, 2013 at 5:08 PM ^
FWIW not always, but usually. I specifically remember the 2001 game being after Thanksgiving when I was in college and had to come back from break early for it, but I don't remember if that had to do with all the games getting canceled and rescheduled after 9/11 or if it was always that way. Also it appears the 1995 game was after Thanksgiving.
But these were the exception, not the rule. It'll be the rule going forward.
November 27th, 2013 at 5:25 PM ^
wasn't the schedule pushed back a week after 9/11?
November 27th, 2013 at 7:58 PM ^
No college football games were played on 9/15/2001.
November 27th, 2013 at 7:55 PM ^
I think 1990 may have been too.
November 27th, 2013 at 8:04 PM ^
Along with 1961,1962, 1963*, 1967, 1972, 1973, 1978, and 1989.
*Game postponed one week following JFK assasination.
That goes back as far as my lifetime.
November 27th, 2013 at 4:59 PM ^
Ohio State dies
When we get them for hockey
At Yost Arena
Happy Thanksgiving, all.
November 27th, 2013 at 5:05 PM ^
How about writing the stuff after the play-by-play? That's what I look forward to the most. But I guess Brian would still have to watch the game again to do that, and that's not fair to ask of anybody.
November 27th, 2013 at 5:10 PM ^
Im ok with it. So much in depth content for free without break - take some time off. Well earned
November 27th, 2013 at 5:20 PM ^
Good luck everyone. This is a sign of bad things. The blog will not be around come noon on Saturday. Book it
November 27th, 2013 at 5:29 PM ^
November 27th, 2013 at 5:45 PM ^
November 27th, 2013 at 6:30 PM ^
As another example, a friend of mine posted on Facebook that he hoped Michigan didn't get a bowl game. What?!?! I'm lost as the idiocy of some of the fan base. If people are ready for the season to end just don't watch any more games. Ever. Please.
November 27th, 2013 at 6:39 PM ^
November 27th, 2013 at 6:52 PM ^
Maybe if you point out to Brian how his failure to post his usual daily content over the Thanksgiving holiday will cause the team to lose on Saturday, he will reconsider his decision.
November 27th, 2013 at 8:59 PM ^
Nothing any of us do will alter the outcome of The Game. But some of the posters who bailed on this team after the loss should be ashamed of themselves.
I'll still be watching Saturday. I might cringe a few times, but I most certainly won't be thinking of going bowling.
November 28th, 2013 at 5:39 PM ^
I don't think he's given up, I think he's just taking a break. Watching Michigan football has been more than a little demoralizing, not just for us but also for him.
November 27th, 2013 at 7:08 PM ^
I'd say a national holiday is a pretty good time to slack on posting.
November 27th, 2013 at 9:09 PM ^
I guess I'm just pissed because the last 5 days it has been fans running away from the team rather to to it right before the biggest game of the year.
I'll watch even if they lose. I'll still cheer. I'll be pissed at multiple points. But no way am I taking to twitter or Facebook or Instagram and mailing it in the week before any game.
That's just me. Enjoy your Thanksgiving.
November 27th, 2013 at 9:51 PM ^
November 27th, 2013 at 5:30 PM ^
Should allow a free day to post comments during the OSU vs UM live event! It may be too tough for them to allow any comments go through. Just let everyone get it out of their system. It will be good for us!
November 27th, 2013 at 6:34 PM ^
November 28th, 2013 at 5:42 PM ^
Yeah I mean I post comments on the liveblog and they're pretty reasonable, yet get stuck in moderation forever. I'm not really sure how it works...
November 27th, 2013 at 5:50 PM ^
As near as I can figure, the Ohio State game has been held after Thanksgiving on twenty-two occasions. This has happened in every decade, since the first time in 1939. Interestingly, a post-Turkey Day contest took place when the Big Ten had a schedule of eight or nine games. Let us hope for some folks that their memory is the shortest thing they possess.
November 27th, 2013 at 6:18 PM ^
Cool history fact: when the 1939 Michigan-Ohio State game was scheduled for November 25, 1939, it was scheduled for the Saturday before Thanksgiving (which was to be, as always, on the last Thursday of the month--Thursday, November 30). FDR by declaration moved the celebration from November 30 to November 23 (SOURCE: http://docs.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/thanksg.html).
So they tried to have the game before Thanksgiving in 1939, but Thanksgiving moved.
The Big Ten then implemented a schedule where the season ended 8 weeks after the first Saturday in October, meaning the Ohio State game would fall between November 19 and November 25. As a result, if October 1 fell on a Monday or Tuesday, the Ohio State game would happen after Thanksgiving. This calendrical phenomenon would occur in 1944, 1945, 1950, 1951, 1956, 1961, 1962, 1967, 1972, 1973 and 1978.
It wasn't until 1979 that they moved the end of the season from 8 weeks after the first Saturday in October to the Saturday before Thanksgiving. And that change lasted only 10 years until they started moving back and forth between the two rules, without any discernable reason.
November 27th, 2013 at 6:25 PM ^
November 27th, 2013 at 9:40 PM ^
On the other hand, every time the Blue played the Buckeyes, it was after Canadian Thanksgiving.
November 27th, 2013 at 9:56 PM ^
Michigan played Ohio State before Canadian Thanksgiving many times between 1897 and 1930, most recently on October 18, 1930 (Canadian Thanksgiving that year was on Monday, November 10, 1930, because from 1921 through 1930, Canadian Thanksgiving was on the Monday of the week that contained November 11).
I have no idea why I care enough to post this, but there you are.
November 28th, 2013 at 9:29 AM ^
I'll defer to your claim. Still, Calendar-Canada.ca shows the the second Monday in October date for the years in question. Must be due to bi-temporalism in Canada. I'm done.
November 27th, 2013 at 5:59 PM ^
November 27th, 2013 at 6:02 PM ^
November 27th, 2013 at 6:30 PM ^
Agreed. This blog has quicky turned from the most informative football blog on the internet to nothing but people complaining about a 7-4 football team.
November 27th, 2013 at 6:32 PM ^
November 27th, 2013 at 6:46 PM ^
What if the Akron and UConn games went how they almost did and we were staring 5-7 in the face without all the excuses of a first year?
This is year 3 under Hoke and the fact that you can even talk about RR's year one in comparison is pretty damning even if this season is clearly better than that.
November 27th, 2013 at 7:30 PM ^
What if Stribling catches the ball or Gibbons makes one of his 3 FG attempts? What if the defense stop NEB on their 4th and 2 or the refs had actually flagged them for false start? What if Devin doesn't fumble or Iowa misses their field goal?
You can point to times they've been lucky, and for every one of them they have had an unlucky end to a game. It evens out...7-4 is probably a proper representation of this team. Not the worst ever, but most definitely underwhelming.
November 27th, 2013 at 8:49 PM ^
I understand that and agree. My point - shrouded in my inability to convey it in the above post - was that this team is not good. They are 7-4 and they have struggled to that mark. With some luck, sure they could have two more wins. With some luck the other way, they could be 5-6 looking at 5-7 and no bowl. Yet, they are still 7-4 and have not had much of a difficult schedule at all.
Point is: We bad.
Bigger point is: It looks like we're going to be bad for a long time. And if not bad, we certainly aren't going to compete with OSU or for a Nat'l Title any time soon.
November 27th, 2013 at 8:39 PM ^
I really believe the turning point of this season was the Akron game. Gardner doesn't seem have the same confidence since that game and I don't think all blame going forward from that point can't be laid upon Borges' head.
November 27th, 2013 at 6:33 PM ^
Yes, a 7-4 team that started out as the luckiest 5-0 team we've seen in a long while. There were signs of impending doom in September, and they've not been addressed.
November 27th, 2013 at 6:36 PM ^
November 27th, 2013 at 8:04 PM ^
It's not because of 7-5 this year. It's because we'll never see 12-0 in the future. (Unless things change in ways that do not look to be happening.)
I'd invest in a 7-5 season(s) if it meant a path to 11-1 and 12-0. But there does not appear to be any path.
That's why the "overreaction" this year to a record many of us thought we might have anyway.
November 27th, 2013 at 6:42 PM ^
And you're complaining about the complaining.
Moreso, it's worse than being 7-4. We very much are closer to 5-6 and no bowl birth than we are 8 or 9 wins. How we beat ND is a question philosophers will ponder for centuries and the Akron and UConn games speak for themselves.
This is RR year 1 levels of ineptitude. If people can't complain now (on top of the skyrocketing season ticket prices), then when do we complain. Answer me that.
November 27th, 2013 at 6:45 PM ^
November 27th, 2013 at 6:52 PM ^
It's not weak. You want gold stars for Iowa and Penn State? Really? Moral victories is what we're talking about here? To steal a phrase from someone - I don't remember who - This Is Michigan. Losing to mediocre PSU and Iowa is pathetic. Almost losing to UConn and Akron is pathetic.
What we get to hang our hat on, this season, is a home victory over Minnesota.
They demolished CMU and won a shootout with Indiana at home in which they gave up 47 points.
They beat ND.
They were beat like a JV team against MSU.
They'll be beat worse in a Northwestern-style "home" game Saturday.
There's I've said things about all the things.
It's a terrible season. It's worse than mediocre. If people selected bowl games based on blind resumes, we'd be in Detroit. We still may be.
November 27th, 2013 at 7:16 PM ^
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