Note

"Perhaps we could add in a Sad Panda, or a Wombat of Frustration? Both, especially the Frustration, are appropriate after a loss."

Wombat of Frustration. I like it.

Wait, what happened?

I have a Diary on its way soon that will explain everything.

Also: it will be the end of this:

The Wolverines are really young. Tate is young. The defense is thin. Things will change, I just know it. Be patient! The Maize and Blue will reign again, watch it happen.

Hold Your Head Up Michigan Nation!

I truly appreciate everyone's optimism, but this sucked. We became Illinois's only FBS defeated opponent this year. I made a comment about how for some strange reason (possibly having to do with the universe lining up against us), no game is a given because mobile 3rd string QB's have a habit of coming alive against us. I would give anything for that to amount to unnecessary paranoia.

It sucks. I know, there are gaping holes in defense, the 1st 2 QB's are true freshmen who have been playing like it, 4 DC's in 5 years. I doubt the players weren't trying, but they were far from their best. Only Brandon Graham was giving his best. We went from upsetting ND to losing to Iowa by 2 with a chance to come back (to be fair, we also barely beat Indiana), to getting crushed by an old-school (read: bad) Illinois team. 4-and-out on the goal line against one of the worst rush defenses in the country?? How did we get so embarrassingly bad? I have no idea how it will happen, but winning against Purdue is absolutely crucial. Dammit, it felt like Michigan was on its way to fulfilling Rittenberg's best-case scenario. In a cruel twist, the other one has begun to appear more likely.

Please Rich Rod work some more magic. Bring this team back.

this week in schaudenfreude. i'm hoping Brian will delve deep into the forums of mlive, rivals, etc to get some grade A meltdown material

So do the kittens, but for cheering up, I turn to The Onion, (for feeling better, I use alcohol, but only for medicinal reasons). Here's a great, topical link from The Onion Sports:

http://www.theonion.com/content/news_briefs/even_british_able_to_see

My my, any suggestion around hese parts that the emperors are anything other than fully clothed gets you whacked. For the record, I still have overall support for the coaching staff. But my support, and anyone else's, should be based on performance alone. In other words, I ain't drinking anybody's Kool-Aid.

We have some problems, yes, but the future is still bright, it's just going to take longer than we thought to get there.

The primary problem is the defense is so thin that the Olsen twin has started puking again out of jealousy. We have way too little size and speed on that defense and the only way to fix that is recruiting. That takes years. The sad part is that we have one of the best defensive players ever and he is being hidden by the weaker play of his teammates. Years from now we'll look back on Brandon Graham (who had a beautiful decapitation of Juice) and be amazed at how great he was.

The other issue with the defense is the basics are lacking. Not wrapping up the player, taking bad angles, not shedding the blocks, etc. This does fall on the coaches. I remeber the stories of Bo walking around with a yard stick or whatever blunt object he could get his hands on and calling the linemen (offensive and defensive) to get into their position measuring the distances between hands and all and cracking them with said stick if the distances on their positions weren't perfect. If you aren't doing the basics, you can't do the rest. They need to learn to tackle with a hit and bury the ball carrier, not hold on and get pulled for 5 yards. When Pryor gets the ball and motions a hand off, even if you don't know if he has the ball, HIT HIM HARD anyway. These are basics the coaches can and need to work on. They probably have been and will continue to.

On offense, our QB is a bit rattled, yes, but a good game agaisnt Purdue will cure that. Wisconsin just blew Purdue out so that win against OSU was hopefully just a fluke and is their bowl game this year. Plus next year, we have a stud every bit as studdly as Tate coming in with the express intent of putting Tate and DR on the bench by outplaying them. No, Devon hasn't said that out loud, but if he's still coming here, he must think that he can bench Tate and Denard. Competition brings out the best. Look for Denard to really pick it up in the offseason. He didn't have the extra time Tate did. Next year the QB's will be better and we'll have some more receivers too. Add some meat on the line and we're good to go. Again, that's recruiting and takes time. We'll get better each year.

Finally, I know people like to say well, we're 2 plays from 3-6 right now. That last drive against ND or IU goes bad and we're at 6 losses. Yeah and we're also 2 drives from 7-2 (MSU, Iowa). Plus put that ball in against Illinois on that now infamous goal line stand and we're probably 8-1. Great teams get all the breaks, crappy teams get none of them. We're in the middle so we got half. That's a step up from last year even if the record isn't showing it as much as we would like.

It is hard to watch. Like a lot of the posters here I cleared the room of animals because I was stomping and screaming. But I'll be back to cheer again. Next Thursday, I am taking my kids out of school at lunch and loading the family up. We're going to drive the 12 or so hours from North Carolina to Ann Arbor (more if the kids drink too much soda) and scream like hell for the boys to beat Purdue and get bowl eligible. It will be my first game at the big house in 21 years and I can't wait. Because even in the midst of turmoil, I love my maize and blue team. And nothing, not a loss to Illinois or MSU or Iowa or even Purdue will ruin that trip or dampen my dedication.

Go blue!

with one of my buddies last year about Illinois. Something to the effect of 'holy h*ll, every time I've watched Juice Williams this season he hasn't been able to hit the broadside of a barn when he's throwing.' I guess Michigan's defense is just has holes the size of a giant barn the length of the football field for him to throw through? The thing thats really disappointing is that it doesn't seem like there are any leaders on this team. I see no intensity and no spark. For the last couple of year we had a definite leader on offense and several on defense. Hart got in people's faces and showed people with his playing the intensity he expected. How long until any of these guys develops into that kind of player?

1. Starting QB is a Freshman (2 yrs in a row)
2. Starting QB has a bum shoulder and suffered a concussion this season (and you are crazy if you believe his shoulder is 100%. Look at his mechanics before/after the injury. Completely different throwing motion, dropping his elbow/arm a ton, his accuracy is down significantly and he seems to have lost all semblance of touch on his throws).
2. Young team (85 Freshman and Sophomores)
3. Injuries galore to players other than the QB (Molk/Minor have been HUGE losses. We are much softer without them and seem to be dancing around out there instead of trucking fools over like we used to).
4. Serious lack of depth across the entire team.

These things change over time and will eventually work themselves out - just not this year.

Halloween was supposed to be fun. Had to drink alot to forget that one. I'm cool with going for it on 4th and goal. Angry Brandon should've run all 4, although he wouldn't need 4. Is he injured more than we know? I like Carlos between the 20's, not at the goal line. We can make any QB look like Mike Vick pre-prison. I hate our defense. We need to decommit all 2010 except Gardner and give 24 defensive scholarships. The announcers during the game love the Kovacs story, but they fail to mention that "wait, how does a student body walk-on beat out all these highly recruited defensive players coming to the great U of M?" "What's that, we haven't recruited a decent defensive player since Brandon Graham then Warren?" "Oh, that's how." I'm more angry at this team than last year's team. I think I'll throw up now. Where's the tylenol.

If anyone hasn't read shitmydadsays on twitter, I recommend it. Funny stuff. One quote seems very appropriate to the "it reeks of armegeddon crowd" around here since yesterday. Here it is:

"Just pay the parking ticket. Don't be so outraged. You're not a freedom fighter in the civil rights movement. You double parked."

Which can be turned into: "You lost to a supposedly shitty, albeit talented, Illinois team. Don't be so outraged. You're not a freedom fighter in the civil rights movement. You lost a football game."

It's dark, and so cold...... Where am I?

I'm not calling for the heads of any coaches. But the facts are the facts. Repeat this sentence to yourself repeatedly and slowly: "Rich Rodriguez was outcoached . . . BY RON ZOOK." The decision not to take the points on 4th and 1 was positively Mornhinwegesque. RichRod was driven by testosterone, not intelligence. He was thinking with the wrong head. And the defense? I'll bet Scott Shafer had a beer and knowing chuckle when hearing about the game.

My entire family had to leave the room in the third quarter yesterday because I was yelling and screaming at the TV so loud. I really don't know what to say anymore. I hope Brandon Graham comes up with some crazy motivational speech before the Purdue game.

because I was swearing at the TV so loudly.

Look on the bright side. We can use the same song for next year's hype video.

Recalling Hunter S. Thompson's statement “There is nothing more helpless and irresponsible than a man in the depths of an ether binge,”

I, for one, am all in....for ether!

By a whisker.

I don't think I've ever seen a team so rattled in my life.

They just lost their cool. Completely.

Blaming coaches = jumping the gun.
Panic = unnecessary.
Tate = freshman.
Starting safety = walk on?

please, people. quit calling for the coaches' heads. it's not necessary. It was a little demoralizing today, sure. In my experience with Michigan football, there's fairly often a whipping boy when things don't go 100% right. When I was there, it was Navarre - and then Carr. I never liked that very much.

Down years suck, but we'll get out of it. In the meantime, keep your cool, and keep rooting for Michigan. That's all you can do.

So after today and really our performance for the past month or so I've had a few lingering questions:

1) What happened to our motivation? Freep crap aside, were we honestly that much more motivated to play Western than we are any Big Ten opponent?

2) Our O-line was thin, but was losing Molk THAT big a deal?

3) Is it just me or is Forcier trying to be the hero way too often?

4) If you are going to run it 4 times on the goal line - shouldn't Denard be put in for at least one of them?