"Here's to less drinking during UFRs. Go Blue."

Amen, but if the last few years have taught us anything it's that we can't have nice things (hopefully that changes with Mattison). This will be the first home game since 2006 that I won't be in the Big House for...depressing, but I'll be doing my fair share of yelling at home. For all those that are going, BE LOUD. 

Will this not be done this year? Trademarked by Tim? I absolutely loved waking up on gameday and watching that video...

completed 1-11-11

Yesterday was Christmas Eve. Today is Christmas morning. Though you know you have to wait and go to grandma and grandpa's to open your presents. You will get there at 3:30 EDT.

I had the same feeling three years ago. I was out to breakfast before the Utah game. I told my buddy that we would see things from the offense that we could not currently conceive.  Two years later, that inconceivable offense eventually took the field and it was a juggernaut.  By conventional metrics it was very good, by advanced metrics it was a world-beater, by the scoreboard it could not generate enough points to compensate for a defense that existed in the same way that you could call any group of eleven people a “defense”.  Also, GERG.

If one were to sum up Lloyd Carr’s career at Michigan in a single sentence, one would need two sentences.  The first would be “Losing two stupid games in September is only ameliorated by the record against top ten opponents.”  The second is “If both Jim Tressel and USC never existed, one would only need a single sentence.”  And so like Bo, the tragic flaws of Carr were his struggles in the Rose Bowl and his lack of undefeatedness.  Also, The Horror.

At the end of Carr’s tenure, the program found itself at a crossroads.  The time had come for a change.  Most Michigan fans knew what was needed.  It would be difficult, but necessary.  What was needed was to take the 40 years of football foundation laid by Bo, to take the player development of Mo, to take the leadership of Carr, to keep all of that and to not lose anymore.  Enter Rich Rodriguez.

The 2008 season was the bad sign under which the RR era was born.  Brian has held the position that another win or two would not have made any difference in the grand scheme of things.  Perhaps this is true.  I do think however that there may have been great difference between a three win season and a more than three win season.  Utah, Purdue, Toledo, and Northwestern were all “coulda-shoulda” type winnable games.  Even if one was to acknowledge Utah had a special season, and that the honorable thing to do would be to give back the Wisconsin game, a 5-7 record is nowhere near the historical embarrassment that a 3-9 record is.  With five wins the Michigan football establishment merely thinks “this is troubling”.  Whereas with three wins the establishment thought “My God he has steered the ship onto the shoals!  Sick upon him a dying newspaper!  Stretching?  I do not care the charge!”

Now that is all in the past and we would do well to forget about it except insofar as to learn from it.  What have we learned?  We have learned that what is needed is to take the 40 years of football foundation laid by Bo, to take the player development of Mo, to take the leadership of Carr, to keep all of that and to not lose anymore.

Godspeed Brady Hoke.  Go Blue!

Think about what we just got from Brian this week.  Now, as many of us wait for kick-off, the right thing to do is "donate" to the blog.

"Pay him.  Pay that man his money."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaT2pBiS-JI&feature=related