The New Michigan Era Has Just Begun....

Submitted by MidnightBlue on
(Please note that I had wanted to post this immediately last Friday afternoon but had to wait until I had the necessary 20 points.   Am a U of M Engineering grad, attended from 1988 to 1993, and have been away from the state since 1995, and haven't been to a game since then either.)

I am writing to bring the Good News to the Michigan faithful.....      


March 12, 2010 was the start of the new modern era of our storied history.  

We have finally been spawned again, by a great OSU man..... In 1968, an OSU coach came to us one day from the out-of-the-blue, revitalized our program and paved the way for three decades of excellence.

Last Friday, we have been spawned again, this time out-of-the-sky, in the form of a last second three point gift from the best player in the nation OSU Evan Turner. Note the relevance and irony of it....  since then...we've crushed MSU in East Lansing TWICE, and our Basketball program has been knocked out of its lethargistic state going forward. Notice even the very little things like getting warmer vibes from Ziegler and Hart.

Shed no tears, for that this was the only way it could happen, with both of our coaches from W.Va, so it had to come from a gift from the sky, and to those of you still wallowing in the heartache of that shot, don't. BE THANKFUL AND REJOICE.


Turner's Gift was both Capitulation and Rebirth.

Some signs will be quite evident going forward, most especially ...we will see Coach Rodriguez have his "Collateral"-film moment, when the football team finally morphs from a patsy to a bad-ass like Jamie Foxx did in the bar with a gun to his head, against all odds.  We will see the return of the #1 jersey, earned by a very worthy wide receiver. We will also see the basketball program start to attract the top recruits in the nation and a fixture at the top. We will see Coach Beilein land several big players. We may even see a Fab-Five 2.0 of sorts, new and improved.  But most of all, we will see the nation's most storied program which is ours, return to true prominence.






Comments

DStamper22

March 16th, 2010 at 3:03 PM ^

have been an ongoing episode of Lost. Losing is represented by the island and everytime it looks like we're about to get off they break my heart. Locke kills someone, Turner hits a 3, Linus lies again, Roundtree gets chased down from behind, Linus stabs Jacob in the heart, the Freep stabs Ann Arbor in the back. MAKE IT STOP!!!

ajscipione

March 18th, 2010 at 10:59 PM ^

is finally starting to turn and it all started with hockey against MSU. This will be followed by winning the CCHA Tournament and earning a berth to the NCAA Hockey Tournament. Which will be followed by a strong football season starting this Fall. Which will be followed by Trey Zeigler and Jon Horford helping M get basketball back on track also this Fall. So as you can see, it's all interconnected and inevitable.

Boo-erns

March 16th, 2010 at 3:13 PM ^

This is wreaks of desperation. Michigan (football at least) is going to have to claw its way back to where we were before. The delusion of a magic turning point is one I fell for last year...im more jaded now but also more prepared to support my team win or loose.

Tater

March 16th, 2010 at 11:09 PM ^

Don't you mean "belch-a-palooza," in honor of your former mgoblog identity: "KOB?"

Speaking of tedium, I see you have cut a lot of the tedium from your own posts, getting right to the insults. I don't know whether that is good or bad, but I do know what would be best:

Take two weeks off, and then quit altogether.

BiSB

March 16th, 2010 at 4:33 PM ^

However, I understand where the OP is coming from. The Evan Turner 40-footer isn't a "turning point" (quite the opposite), but at least it's a definitive cap on a shitty year. It's the bookend to the Freep Jihad, which opened the year on a shitty note.

In a way, it almost allows us fans to believe that it wasn't the teams, players, or coaches that caused the problems; it was just 'not our year.' In any other year, Turner misses that shot. In any other year, Roy Roundtree angles more toward the sideline and scores. In any other year, refs wouldn't disallow 46 goals because they had kinda sorta considered maybe blowing the whistle.

Does any of this make a bit of substantive difference going forward? No. Does it take the sting out of this year? Not really. But there is a chance that it "stops the bleeding" by isolating our fandom-wide suffering to a 7 month period, and gives us a fresh start next year with the knowledge that nothing could ever possibly go so wrong on so many fronts.

oakapple

March 16th, 2010 at 5:11 PM ^

If you are going to count Roy Roundtree’s failure to score vs. Illinois, then you have to count the two sure TD passes that Notre Dame receivers dropped when they had the Wolverine defender clearly beat.

In truth, Michigan’s good fortune vs. Notre Dame was probably greater than its bad fortune vs. Illinois. After all, even with Roundtree getting caught, Michigan ought to score better than 90 percent of the time with 1st & Goal from the 1, and even having failed to score, they were still in the lead at that point with tons of time left.

You could certainly construct scenarios where Michigan wins more games with better luck, since MSU, Iowa, and Purdue were all in doubt up to the final series. But you could also construct scenarios where Michigan loses to both Notre Dame and Indiana, and goes 3-9 again.

On the whole, I don’t think Michigan football in 2009 was terribly unlucky. Now, the Evan Turner shot was definitely bad luck, but the Wolverine defense shares some of the blame, and even if Turner misses it, Michigan had a steep hill to climb to make it to the tourney.

MidnightBlue

March 17th, 2010 at 10:06 AM ^

Yours was a well-written post...however I disagree. And it doesn't take the sting out of this year, but it is about the much greater picture.

My point of reference can probably be evident if I explain...I was there during the glory years... when both our football team and basketball team were great. My freshman year we won the NCAA Tournament. My sophmore year, Bo stepped down and Mo took over. My 4th year was the Fab Five, and my fifth year I went to New Orleans to see Webber call the timeout, from row 18 on the floor. I even used to camp outside Crisler the night prior for every basketball home game to sit in the first few rows for the Fab Five. Am not sure if there has been a luckier alum to witness so much success during his years in Ann Arbor... and I have been away since 1995, separated from the contrived media, and not in the middle of any of it to be deluded in any way. I have been looking for the final capitulation of this sorry run the past half decade... and in the meanntime... I wondered that maybe destiny cheated us, when maybe had Moeller not been removed, if he'd have retired around the same time we could've gotten the next former OSU coach in Tressel from Youngstown St, and repeat our history with our arch nemesis. So I saw us take Rodriguez, and I wondered, not if, but how we will be spawned by OSU again.

Turner's shot was just too perfect, just too climactic.... maybe I am delusional... but all of it is just too ironic.... and the fact is that we NEED to be spawned by OSU... it is a big part of what makes the rivalry the best in the nation, the Darth Vader/Luke Skywalker dynamic... there is no M without OSU, and there is no OSU without M. One needs to come from the rib of the other.

MidnightBlue

March 17th, 2010 at 3:16 PM ^

You know, I actually contemplated not to mention the rib analogy for that exact reason... but the fact is that the past thirty years were in fact spawned from OSU. That is essentially my lifetime...for was born in 1970.

Search4Meaning

March 17th, 2010 at 4:19 PM ^

But OSU is still a BITCH.

SO explain to me your last statement. I have not looked at our record vs OSU since 1970, but I do not think it was too bad (sorry that I can't do research at this point - at work) - if that's what you mean.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it!

CursedWolverine

March 16th, 2010 at 6:23 PM ^

I have just thought of the last two years as my donation to the Michigan name. Sure it sucks paying $300+ a year to watch two programs flounder on a national stage, but when Michigan returns to their dominance I will be able to celebrate that much more knowing I stood by the team through the worst. If anything, this two year stretch has cleared out the "Walmart Wolverines" and left the true diehards standing alone.

mjkaiser09

March 16th, 2010 at 7:53 PM ^

I get chills down my spine when I imagine Roundtree running a skinny post down the middle of the field donning a #1 jersey. Oh boy, thank God spring is here.

MidnightBlue

March 17th, 2010 at 9:49 AM ^

I don't think it'll be Roundtree...in fact, I do not think it'll be this year that it returns. It will go to a guy not on the roster yet...likely a major big time recruit. However, I give Ricardo Miller a small chance to get it.

jsquigg

March 16th, 2010 at 7:54 PM ^

I can't wait for the chaotic preseason homer posts:
OMG, if Rod doesn't win 10 games he should be fired IMO!!!

I think Rich keeps improving our team and 2010 should be an exciting year.

Njia

March 16th, 2010 at 8:54 PM ^

Man, if there was ever a bigger rain cloud hovering over a single program like the dark, foreboding cumulus over every UM sport since late last August, I don't know what it is. It really sucked. Not just your "run-of-the-mill, every-day" kinda suck. This was Dan-Aykroyd-in-Trading-Places-with-a-Santa-Suit-on-in-the-rain kinda suck.

harmon98

March 16th, 2010 at 9:33 PM ^

right there with ya OP only I was an LSA fella. I like the sentiment. only time will tell when the die was cast on the turnaround. that said, if it's Evan "The Villain" Turner that is the defining character in the rebirth it's fitting and I can live with that. let the good times roll...

MidnightBlue

March 17th, 2010 at 10:16 AM ^

Well we had a great sports run, didn't we?

Our freshman year, we win the NCAA Tournament.
Our sophmore year, Bo retires and we see a new regime in Mo, one which I adored as much as Bo's.
Our fourth year, we see the Fab Five.
Our fifth year, we go to the NCAA final.

UMFootballCrazy

March 17th, 2010 at 5:33 PM ^

I beg to differ. Let us take the title of this piece: "A New Michigan Era Has Just Begun..." If there were a seminal event that marked the deliniation between one signigicant era in UM sports and the next era, I doubt that 20 years from now there will be more than a handful of hard core devotees that will even remember that moment. If we are looking for "THE" moment that began a new era of Michigan sports, it would be the hiring of coach Rich Rodriguez. His hiring marked the end of "three yards and cloud of dust," and coaches that can trace there liniage to Bo. In its place we brought in the man at the centre of the spread offence movement, the man some call the father of the spread. If there was anything that marked a new era, it was his hiring. Even Beilein's hiring cannot be called seminal, in the way that Rodriguez's was.

As well, by setting the demarkation date as last Friday, it seems like a kind of defence mechanism. If everything from this moment goes well, we can say that all the stuff that happened over the last 2+ years is all part of the "old," something to be forgotten in the glories of the "new." Unfortunately, they are the pain of birthing the "new." We have for the last 2+ years been in the very difficult and painful birthing process, a process that had its "conception" the day coach Rodriguez was hired. Yes we are in a new era, and era that began over two years ago. What we all need to do is to follow the example of the Aiel and "embrace the pain."

[BTW -- It is to prevent diaries like this one that the points minimum was established]

Soulfire21

March 18th, 2010 at 3:47 PM ^

what do you have?

Honestly, what is the use of sitting here in apathy, indifference, frustration and anger? Yeah, it was most likely the worst single year period of Michigan athletics since 1817, but if things are cyclical (which I believe, they are) you would have realized that we reached the bottom this past year, meaning that we will be on the way up next year. In fact, we are passed the bottom, and on the return.