The Story, 2009
Part one of the all-singing all-dancing season preview.
I'm tired.
This is literal and metaphorical. Yesterday I got up at eight and shut off at some point between at 3 or 4 AM. I've spent the last two days discussing probably nonexistent NCAA violations instead of putting the final touches—read "writing the last third of"—this year's season preview. In the last year and a half I've spent one summer rolling my eyes and beating back an incredible wave of idiocy about Rich Rodriguez shredding every last bit of information on the West Virginia program and another attempting to explain to pastors and civilians the odd circumstances that led to a 3-9 season at hallowed Michigan. In between, hallowed Michigan went 3-9. None of it was particularly enjoyable.
I'm tired of reading obvious bullshit and having to explode it. I'm tired of filing particularly annoying articles in the folder where I keep the stuff to unearth and laugh at later. I'm tired of explaining and debating and debunking never getting around to the statistical work I did the first couple years of the blog's existence. I'm tired of oscillating between anger and uncertainty, apathy and sadness. I wanted to become unmoored from the static existence that was late-era Schembechler football, but it turns out the current is mostly undertow.
Most of all, though, I'm tired of this backup laptop, its half-gig of RAM, erratic wifi, and maddening inability to understand that I've plugged it into the damn wall. Seriously. Hurry up, Malaysia.
Rich Rodriguez is tired, too. He stood in front of a room of cameras and reporters yesterday and the first thing he said was "I don't usually have notes, but…" and then he sort of trailed off and fumbled with some paper and for a moment it seemed like he forgot how to read or just had to stare at the paper and wonder what had happened after Pat White injured his hand against Pitt, how he had gotten here and what a mistake it had been.
There was nothing for it, though, so the words formed themselves and stumbled out. Time goes one direction, at a constant rate.
------------------------------------------------------------------
As you might guess from the title, I write one of these every year. Last year's documents the whole sordid Rodriguez-defection-West-Virginia-hissyfit in elaborate detail—it comes complete with a Shot At Love With Tila Tequila reference—before wandering around to Michigan's prospects going into 2008 somewhere about 80% of the way through. It was that kind of offseason. This offseason was that kind of offseason, too.
Though the outlook was "grim," good God I had no idea how accurate this statement would turn out to be:
Michigan’s going to run out on the field and play like they’re one of those teams trying to make inferior talent work.
Yes, yes they did. Not so much with the working, and sometimes not even so much with the trying, but by God yes the running and the inferior talenting. "Great fun" it sounded like. Great fun it was not aside from a couple improbable plays against Wisconsin and an impossible afternoon against Minnesota.
The final paragraph was half-right:
It’s going to be a fiasco. It’s going to be ugly and tantalizing and dispiriting and awesome. I can’t wait.
Fiasco, ugly, dispiriting: check. Those other two qualities are pending.
A brief tour of the depths my mind sunk to when it wasn't turning in 200-word game columns featuring Henri, The Otter of Ennui:
DESPAIRING ASSERTIONS ABOUT THE STUPIDITY OF INFORMATION FLOW
Rich Rodriguez takes some time to talk about the internet's depressing tendency towards mocking and anger in some depth. The media takes the three sentences sure to generate the most outrage and create the dumbest image of Rodriguez, and the internet responds with mocking and anger.
I mean… what can you even say here?
IMAGINED CONVERSATIONS IN THE STYLE OF THE BIG LEBOWSKI
We've been frantically trying to reach you, EBay.
Where are my goddamn wins, you bum?
Well… we, I don't…
They did not receive the wins, you nitwit! They did not receive the goddamn wins. OUR STREAK WAS IN YOUR HANDS.
This is our concern, EBay.
EXTREMELY LOW-GRADE ASSAULT BEEFS
"Fort Sumter":
A couple rows above me, a middle-aged man stood on a bench and booed and booed.
He was angry. I was angry.
I stooped to pick up whatever flingable bit of detritus I could find, seized upon an empty water bottle, and chucked it at the booer. I missed,* lightly damaging an older man a row behind him. But I did get his attention. And the old guy looked like he was on The Other Side, so eff him.
WHATEVER THIS WAS
Fear/Paranoia Level: 0 out of 10. (Fear is the mindkiller. Fear nothing anymore; in your despair you find the freedom only the forsaken can experience.).
Desperate need to win level: 0 out of 10. (Needs lash the soul to the rack of imperfection. You need nothing. You experience all things, and all things experience you.)
-----------------------------------------
It was a tough, apathetic year in which the main goal of the blog was to yell at people I thought were stupid or shortsighted, which is, I imagine, like getting in a knife fights against an endless army of Skip Bayless clones. There is a certain grim satisfaction to the work that must be done, but eventually you end up covered in viscera and no closer to making the world a less annoying place.
The team, meanwhile, left or sucked or sucked and left with a few notable exceptions. They looked lost, caused my brain to fritz out as per above, and drove poor Johnny into a malaise that saw him pop up infrequently and then only to level a complaint we all felt at some level: this isn't my team anymore.
This, as did everything last year, caused a small internet war to break out. People were booers or bottle-tossers, skeptics or believers. Michigan fans probably put more time into flaming the hell out of each other than any fanbase has in history. But nothing is good for unity like a war.
----------------------------------------
I had a hard time parsing out the emotion I felt yesterday, a melange of anger, skepticism, selfish pathos, scorn, more anger, and something strange. And then I'm on the radio yesterday and I think of something. I signal to John Bacon that I have something to say and once Wayne Drehs finishes up his thought I say it. I don't remember it exactly what I said but I remember the thought.
Rich Rodriguez is a fundamentally artless person.
I have winced at many a Rodriguez press conference. Corny jokes about the Lion King, awkward phrasing, distinct lingering unflattering accent, typical coaching banalities, etc etc etc. Basically all the cultural things that differentiate Rodriguez from Carr are negative to me except insofar as he doesn't tolerate 350-pound starting offensive linemen who just quit the team a few weeks ago. That I'm with. It's just all the peripherals that I'm leery of.
This is some part of why portions of the local media have gone bats lately and a major source of ammunition for the little guy with a pitchfork who sits on your shoulder and whispers "doooooooooooom… doooooooooooooom" into your ear. But it was incredibly helpful yesterday when Rodriguez was trying to work through his statement. Because not for a moment did it cross my mind, or apparently the minds of even the most cynical observers, that Rodriguez's emotion was not genuine. The Free Press folk immediately scurried back to their cave to write an editorial that opened with "The issue is not how much Rich Rodriguez and his fellow University of Michigan coaches care about the young men who play football for the Wolverines."
Lloyd Carr might have handled that differently, been snappy or angry or more aggressive but one of the things that became clear as his tenure lengthened is that a journalist that unfairly attacked one of his players would find himself between a grizzly cub and his mother. The most important thing to Carr was the making the kids under him happy and successful. Though Rich Rodriguez has different ideas about what qualifies, yesterday it appeared that went for him too. For the first time (and possibly the last time), Rodriguez reminded me of Lloyd Carr. I want the head coach at Michigan to react like that when his reputation is threatened.
So this is bizarre after everything. But this year one of the many, many reasons I want Michigan to win—you try hitching a career to your favorite team—will be a new one. I'll be rooting on a personal level for Rich so he can have a press conference during which he can make an awkward comment about all this with a smile on his face, and I can wince inwardly at it.
this was sensational. best thing i've read on any subject in quite some time.
www.umichedme.blogspot.com
There is a time when a man fights back the tears, and you wonder
There isa time when he seems confused by it all, torn, tired
There is a time when a man looks like he was stabbed...in the heart, by something he can't pull out because it's not a knife. He's been stabbed with his own philosophy, his own words--a philosophy and words he believes in.
And that time hurts the most because you really didn't do anything to deserve it. In fact, in Rodriguez's case, he was stabbed in the heart with the very reasons why he was hired.
The self loathing of Michigan, the cannibalism that is everything Michigan, that drives Michigan to churn and hate and eat itself, yet at the same time to be provincial and think it is above it all...you either asshole your way through it like Bo or Lloyd, or it engulfs, chews up, swallows, and spits you out like Moeller.
Rodriguez fumbled, had...some notes...didn't really read from them. He defended Barwis, who has been by his side longer than anyone. He stopped, teared up, gave that "look"--which was distant, clouded, yet looking at you, but not at you because he was really racking his brains, wondering how it had come to this, when he went from a great young coach who had been successful, to this cesspool of self hatred known as Detroit, Michigan--and became a target for those who dislike everything about their lives and where they have come from to throw darts that are meant for themselves.
Rodriguez was at thatplace--when you can't find the words to say what you are really telling--where you are a man who is vulnerable--because you are telling The Truth--andit opens you up, exposes you--because it is Something you only do with yourself, usually in the middle of the night when no one else is around, and you can draw your own conclusions, rationalities; the only time when you can be honest because no one else can see you doing it, and they can't hurt you.
He just had to do it in front of the world, and the beauty of it is that it wasn't rehearsed, that he is NOT Rick Pitino who can say, "Hey, Ted Kennedy just died! Fuck you!" He was just Rich Rodriguez being Rich Rodriguez--the guy who didn't go to Meaningful Hand Gestures School, or Serious NewsGuy Look School.
I Love him.
That being said, it is what it is.
my wife can probably write her own fr**p (thou shall not speakith its name) tirad about how I spend voluntary time these days, nevertheless, all we need is a win this week (and against ND, msu and so on) to kick all those a-holes in the apple sack.
I am ok with the emotion but not pause with the watery eyes, it is hard to keep it in but damn if it is not going to be the youtube and espn clip of the year and henceforth follow RR to his collegiate coaching grave.
I think we need to create a new word to be used on Mgoblog - Fr**p. Any wordsmiths have a good definition for it? Maybe something along the lines of an e-mail or diary post where the author only considers or states one side of the story while attempting to thinly veil the post under the guise of an honest attempt at the truth. Granted, any post made about tOSU, ND or Sparty are all Fr**ps but then again we are talking about tOSU, ND and Sparty so who cares if we Fr**p them. On second thought, it's the truth so I guess it wouldn't be a Fr**p.
It's been bugging me for a while now and I don't understand it. Lloyd Carr's deafening silence regarding the allegations fiasco. It's a real puzzle to me why he doesn't say anything. Any insight into this from anyone would be greatly appreciated.
AJ Bluefan
The most common response, and the one I agree with the most - It would make RR look weak or like he has lost control of the program.
Other possible responses that I don't believe, but have popped up:
a) Lloyd hates bunnies, RichRod, puppies, kittens and babbys.
b) It is not his job anymore.
c) Biggest conspiracy theory of them all - Lloyd was one of the anonymous sources.
(OK, I may have just made the last one up completely)
But you missed the most applicable Big Lebowski quote.
@ Michael Rosenberg "Yeah....well...that's just,like, your opinion man..."
NAU Lumberine
Sir you are a great American
By the power of greyskull!
If he's not there yet, I look forward to the day when Brian (along with Angelique, perhaps?) is the hands down, undisputed voice of reason when it comes to rational information about Michigan football and I can say that I started reading his blog before it became as popular as it is to become. My hat is off to you, Brian. Your business plan for Mgoblog is at least working on the content side and I hope financially as well. From the content side, it should be the business model approach that others take as to blogs about their interests. Again, well done, as I am reminded of some great posts from the last year.
Huh? . . . What do you mean "It hasn't started yet"?
M'Dog
Thank you!
Markusr2007
http://www.maizenbrew.com/
Thank you Brian for being able to powerfully articulate what so many of us want to say. Excuse me while I click the "Beveled Guilt" button.
Everyone has a plan...until they get punched in the mouth.
Great stuff. For all the crap we hear about coaches like Kiffin, Meyer, Carroll, etc. really "caring" about their players, it is nice to see a coach lay himself out there and defend his players and his team. That's why I actually like Mike Gundy's "I'm a Man! I'm 40!" rant - he stood up for his player against a (perceived) attack by the media. Say what you will, but kids will play hard for a coach who defends them. I'm proud that RR is this team's coach, even at his unartful worst.
I usually don't heap a lot of praise on the deserving, but that was probably one of the better written posts on the blog. All of them are well written, but this one just caught my eye as being exceptional.
I hope this is the event that galvanizes the true michigan fan and pushes the rats back into the shadows. Saturday can't come soon enough for the team, the coaches, and the fans. I have to wait two more days before I leave for Ann Arbor, fuck!
Why are Bill Martin and Phillip Seymour Hoffman addressing Brian as Ebay?
IMHE
I could not have put it any better. This is why I come to this blog... great piece Brian.
which is, I imagine, like getting in a knife fights against an endless army of Skip Bayless clones.
Worst. Matrix. Ever.
As usual, great job Brian. RichRod will never be Lloyd Carr, but I think it's beyond a doubt at this point that he loves his players and his team just as much as Lloyd did.
This sort of post is EXACTLY why I visit this site. UFR is great, recruiting updates are useful, but this is more than just information or analysis: this is the heart and soul of loving a football program.
As far as supporting RR, I think there's a great way to do that and to support MGoBlog, too:
http://mgoblogstore.com/?p=prod_page&id=6
The more of those shirts that appear in the stadium, the better.
sgtwolverine.com
That's all. Just thanks and Go Blue!
Michigan Football is life...the rest is just details.
The last section literally brought tears to my eyes just thinking about Coach Rodriguez and the team. Brian, that was one of the most touching, deep thoughts one can have on a football blog, and it was great.
Through everything that's happened recently, I have never wanted this team to play, and to win. I have been anticipating the WMU game more than Utah last year, more than OSU '06, and the 4 Rose Bowls going back to '98. When we start playing, everything from 08-09 will be over, and the world will be right.
Mr. Bojangles
The increased traffic to the site since the Free Press scandal began seems to have driven the lame Evony ads away. They probably can't afford it now -- I assume the ads are keyed to traffic -- the more views you get, the more expensive and thus mainstream the ads are.
We are the huddled penguins.
or uh, Duder, or El Duderino if you're not into the whole brevity thing.
... But it's that "artless" quality that the well-healed boosters sitting on their cushions in section 1 and the Profs under the press box disdain -- the hillbilly from West Virginia. Without winning, that's not going to change.
I have few regrets in life, but where was I November 3, 2008 that I didn't see the original "The Big Rodriguez" post?!!?!?
I see alot more similarities between RR and Carr (and Bo for that matter). I think that RR was the right person for the job and has brought a renewed passion to the program. I love Carr but it seemed like the players were on cruise control alot the last couple of years. RR has got guys to buy into something new and I am excited to see what it looks like in a couple of years when he has a team of ALL his guys.
Go Blue! I can't wait for Saturday!
"Rich Rodriguez is a fundamentally artless person."
I couldn't have pulled that idea out of my brain and through my mouth if I sat at the keyboard for a month, but I've been trying to. I've been saying things like "he's basically an incurious guy... interested in little other than football... you won't hear him quoting Rudyard Kipling... but that doesn't make him a bad guy or a bad football coach."
Brian, you summed it up in 7 perfect words. I wish I were you; I wish I had as much talent as you seem to have in your fingernail.
Was just on ESPN talking about the whole ordeal, and he might as well have been reading Brian's blog verbatim. It was good to see a former OSU player in front of the Columbus skyline saying positive things about Rodriguez and basically discrediting the whole story. Rosenberg = worse than OSU?
everything about OSU. I hate the school. I hate their fans. I hate Woody and the vest. I hate that UM has lost to them for the past 5 seasons. But I do have respect for the OSU football program and the historic rivalry UM has with OSU. Rosenberg & Snyder I have lost all respect for. They are worthless D-bags with no journalistic integrity and an obvious agenda behind their recent column(s).
OSU is our rival, yes! Hate them, yes! Love beating them, yes! But, when one of them stands up for UM and they say something on its behalf, there is a thank you that have to give back. I love the best rivalry in sports. But, in late November UM is coming to knock your brains out. I hate ND too, but I respect the rivalry. When I can jab them and the Buckeyes oh what a beautiful thing.
The enemy of my enemy is my friend! For now. Right now the media is enemy #1. Bo and Carr had it right DON'T TALK TO THE MEDIA MICHIGAN!!!! Coaches, players, administration, cats, dogs, raccoons, kindergartners, horses et cetera, don't talk to the media. I'm never clicking on the flippin' Fr**p again, until they print a retraction.
RR talks way too much to these guys. This transparency thing is driving me nuts.
RR is sweet on the media. This is the institution that reported on the Loch Ness Monster and Crop Circles even after they were told these thing were hoaxes. Anyway, I would be happy to see the old way regarding the media return to Michigan. Ignore them, confuse them, out think them, but never give them a straight answer. They don't know how to take straight talk!
In order to stir things up Rosenbum pushed a bogus story out between his cheeks. Take it back! He won't....idiot! Well then, don't forget to flush! The investigation will find no wrong doing. Go Blue!!
Victors Valiant '88
Thank you Brian for echoing what I myself am unable to say.
more support in the last three days than he has in the prior 18 months. The freep overstepped a line with their baseless attacks. FUCK THE FREEP. In ROD we trust.
I thank you for your comments.
Shit like this only makes me love this program more. I love being booed and I love the pressure. For the first time in a long time we (Michigan football community) are under the gun to produce. You don't like Michigan? Fine, fuck you and get out of my face.
Some of you hated (still hate) Carr? Get behind RR! Now we have to fight for our respect. Step up! I love it and I accept the challenge. Now it's up to RR to powder 'em up, throw 'em over his shoulder and head into battle!
"I don't know where you people get the nerve."
"From a long, hard winter, Mr. President."
not a sprint. that said, I'm exhausted. never answered more mundane questions asked by curious minds about the program. fringe minds at that. I don't have any more answers to these folk. we're losers and cheaters until we prove otherwise I guess. so be it. due process. blood alone moves the wheels of history.
Nothing personal, Broncos. I just want to see the Wolverines thrash Western Michigan so bad Rosenberg goes to his basement and hides behind the furnace.
The end is what I believe the most. I felt for the first time he showed the true Michigan Values that we all had been looking for so badly. I am rooting for him so much, and I want a t-shirt saying "I'm All In for Rich Rodriguez". He deserves some freaking support because his resume should be enough to generate some faith. The only thing not proven was that he has the character of a michigan man, which is a very high standard in my mind. He truly has it and GO BLUE!
We have an organization that prides itself of publishing outrageous and/or partially true articles purely for the sake of ratings and money.
In the other corner, we have an organization that prides itself on publishing well-researched, well-written, funny, timely, balanced articles for the love of it. Profit is second.
Final score: MGoBlog 1,000, MSM 0. Keep up the good work, I intend to buy a "In Rod We Trust" shirt this weekend to support you and our new coach.
BS-Computer Science, UMich class of '98.
"Nobody’s a perfect person in the world. Everyone kills people, murders people, steals from you, steals from me"
http://stewartj76.blogspot.com
Thank you Brian. I've been trying to find a way to verbalize my emotions correctly and this piece is exactly what I was looking for.
Go Blue
productivesweatpants.blogspot.com
@prodsweats
You and MGOBLOG are our island of hope in a sea of putrid, selfserving hacks that is the MSM.
Well done and thanks again for the hope you provide.
"...Maybe people will say, 'He is a good guy who can coach, not a crazy country boy who fell off the apple cart and was given a whistle and a hat with an M on it and told, 'Go win us a championship.' "
We will all look back on this after RR wins his first MNC at M and wonder "what the hell were the detractors thinking".
"Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger"
Yeah, that is my license plate.
... and well played; perhaps the Big Lebowski tells all about the cub reporter's Pulitzer gambit:
>>The Dude: God damn you Walter! You fuckin' asshole! Everything's a fuckin' travesty with you, man! And what was all that shit about Vietnam? What the FUCK, has anything got to do with Vietnam? What the fuck are you talking about?<<
_______________________________
P.S. Walter = Rosenberg
Vietnam = Violations
...and, now, BACK TO FOOTBALL.
Edited to say: Dang boys can't you hear the maternal concern in my voice? I'll restate: I feel the same pain, but I *especially* agree with the part that there are things I'd rather talk and think about this week than the &*@fREEP.
Great post brian! May the robots in Malaysia work quickly to bring you a laptop!
I must say I love that you are out there fighting the good fight, but be carefull. There is a saying (that I cannot find right now) that the more you fight the enemy, the more like them you become. It's ok to take the high road sometimes and just let stupidity go.
I personally am ignoring the freep and their attention whoring ways for now.
"Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster, and if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you."
I say, Brian, keep fighting the good fight.
"Cry 'Havoc!' and let slip the dogs of war."
Cover coughs and sneezes.
Fuck. Yes.
gotten completely out of control.
Infinity can only happen once. Think about that.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwGXMryTbwE
from this week. At first I was mad, then disappointed, then I don't know... at this point today, how I feel can only be summed up by quoting from the seminal sports movie of our lifetime, "Major League":
Locker Room Scene, after the owner comes in and says that all she wanted was for the team to suck so bad that they could move out of Cleveland:
Jake Talor: "Well I guess there's one left to do then"
Willie Mays Hayes: "Yeah, what's that"
Jake Taylor: "Win the whole fucking thing."
GO BLUE!
"So I come out of Ohio Stadium after we beat the Buckeyes, and right there on the hood of my friend's car, some one took a dump, in the shape of an 'O'. no shit. Oh, sorry, bad pun."
Deal.
M'Dog