Unconditional Surrender

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN

We, Michigan fans, surrender. A nuclear bomb by the name of Appalachian State has been dropped on us, and we surrender. You can have our emperor. He's a dickhead anyway.

We shall no longer fight you on grounds of program prestige or general awesomeness or tribal affinities. Your team is better. Even if it's Duke. Because your team, even if it's Duke, does not specifically aim to harm you. And even if it did there is only so much damage Duke or Northwestern or even Wisconsin football can do to someone's psyche, because losing is pretty much okay sometimes. And even at the big programs where losing is not okay there is often recompense, like beating your most important rival or winning a bowl game. And even when you aren't doing that shit, at least you're not doing this:

• Losing to Washington without yielding an offensive touchdown because you give up a field-goal-block touchdown and a deflected pick-six on back to back plays.
• Losing to Oregon because you give up a punt return touchdown and punt block touchdown in the same game.
• Losing to Iowa two weeks later because your grad assistant special teams coach debuts that crazy spread punting thing that was all in vogue without, apparently, bothering to fucking practice it first. Then Michigan failed to notice the first couple punts were nearly blocked and got not one but two of the later punts actually blocked.
• Losing to USC in the Rose Bowl. Not that this is news.
• Singlehandedly turning Troy Smith from a POS QB who couldn't put together 100 passing yards if you spotted him 50 into the destroyer of worlds.
• Blowing a 10 point lead and letting Texas march down the field for a winning field goal in the Rose Bowl.
• Blowing a fourth quarter lead against Wisconsin by playing passive and letting the Badgers roll down the field at a leisurely pace, scoring just in time to give Michigan no chance to recover.
• Yielding 61 yard run against fucking Minnesota because your genius defensive coordinator set up an insane blitz that had one line of defense from a simple off-tackle run: a linebacker who never plays defensive end lined up as a strongside DE against Matt Spaeth (MATT SPAETH!).
• Blowing a nine-point lead against Ohio State in five minutes.
• The Alamo Bowl.
• Attempting to cover Anthony Gonzalez with Chris Graham.
• Losing to USC in the Rose Bowl. Not that this is news.
• Aaaaand then:
  

Let the record show that Lloyd Carr never learns, and that you are right. We suck. We promise not to hope or expect anything except misery until someone named Tedford or Rodriguez or Schiano is coaching the team and to regard all good events as mere preludes to a fall. We are a defeated people. Give us your treaty. We will sign it.