It was a Sunday night in October 2004. I was still living at home after having recently graduated from College in May. My adult life was technically in process but I had yet to fully embrace what that world meant. I had no career aspirations, was in full college withdrawal mode, and on top of that living at home was not how I saw my future when all of my grand plans were still in place at 15. Regardless of this, I was home on this night, watching game 4 of the ALCS between the Red Sox and Yankees. Boston was down 4-3 in the 8th inning, and down 3 games to none on top of that. In game 3 they had suffered a humiliating 19-8 destruction at the hands of their most hated rival, a team with a historic century-old dominance over them. This dominance without a doubt created a complex for a fan base that was a combination of perpetual fear that the worst possible thing would happen, and also resignation. I know this because my father was born and raised outside of Boston and had grown up going to games with his father, watching Ted Williams patrol left field, and those future Red Sox teams get either embarrassed by the Yankees, or fall in epically agonizing fashion both to New York or other MLB adversaries. His mindset was that of resignation, disgust, and exhaustion.

This felt like ‘the year’ again for this Red Sox team. They had the talent, swagger, and recent emotional motivation from what had transpired against this same Yankees team in 2003 (see: Aaron bleeping Boone/Grady Little Game 7). So for this postseason to end in such a deflating and humiliating sweep would feel like a death sentence upon the organization and fanbase. We were preparing for ‘Last Rites’ to be given with only a few outs left. While watching the game in another room from my Dad I saw him get up and do what looked like a ‘getting ready to go to bed’ routine. “Are you not going to watch the rest of this? It’s only 4-3…” I asked. His answer, “I am not going to stay up and watch this. I am sick of this. We are a bunch of losers. The Yankees are winners and we will always be losers.” Well then. The sad thing is I didn’t have any reasonable counter other than a simple “alright, good night.”

Quick recap of what would happen next. Red Sox tie game 4, win in 12 innings late into the night, take game 5 in 14 harrowing innings, a pitcher with blood/ketchup? on his sock pitches a masterpiece in game 6 AT Yankee stadium to force a game 7, Johnny Damon’s hair swats a Grand Slam to kick of game 7 and history is made. The first and only 0-3 deficit to be overcome by any MLB team is done and it is the Red Sox doing it AGAINST THE NEW YORK YANKEES. It was a biblical exorcism of demons, the kind that apparently needed to happen to shake off that complex the fanbase and organization had earned over decades of futility and heartbreak. During this comeback I saw that my Dad had not really given up. I know that when he woke up to see the Red Sox steal game 4 and stay alive he started doing the mental gymnastics a lot of people were doing, hoping for something historic to happen. I watched as he saw Pedro fend off the Yankees in Game 5… and I could see the thoughts of “if we steal game 5, we got Schilling in game 6, and then who knows with game 7. The Yanks will be petrified for it to get that far.” If it was that simple it would happen more than once every 100 or so years. Everything had to break the way it did and my Dad was lucky enough to be alive to see it happen. His Dad was not. Nor were millions of Red Sox fans who bled their allegiances for that team for just one chance at a championship. To see it happen, for him, and to watch the evolution of emotions go from complete disregard to pure uncut emotional joy in the span of 10 days (including the WS win over the Cardinals) was something that I will never forget. Perhaps I was there to witness that to get me through what has to be my miniature version of that Yankees dominance over the Red Sox.

UM Football. And therefore the UM vs. Ohio State dynamic.

I am resigned to it now. I know we are not the program we used to be in the late nineties and early aughts. I know right now we are not the program we all expect they should be. Watching the debacle in Madison felt like an unspoken shared understanding among all UM faithful. We have all seen this before. I distinctly remember it during the infamous ‘Shane Morris’ game against Minnesota. Where at home we laid down and let the Gophers destroy our program and in turn expose the incredible disfunction that started from the Athletic Department on down. I remember watching it on the road against Illinois and Penn State in 2009 under Rich Rod. Complete collapses like that were still foreign to us. We were naïve of the bleak future ahead. We were unprepared for what we were witnessing in 2009. Had we known then what we know now, we would still be shaken and pissed, but at least there would be assurances, in some perverse way, that we will see this again and again, and that we were at least still alive. That is not comforting, it is sad to be indifferent. Maybe if you had told me in 2009 that the ‘JT was short game’ would happen, or the 2013 ‘Devin Gardner died for our sins’ game, or ‘Poor Blake O’Neill,’ or whatever the 2018 OSU game was would happen I would have been more at peace by now? Who knows.

That is what made Saturday feel even more hopeless. I can’t believe I am saying that. I never felt more hopeless than I did when watching that Minnesota game in 2014, until a few days ago. I watched whatever THAT was on Saturday with little to no emotion. Just exhaustion. I took a nap during the second half. I didn’t just doze off, I actively decided I needed a nap and fell soundly asleep. I woke up to see Jon Runyan get a handoff? A Pass? And just laughed and took the dog for 3 mile walk. The program savior, a truly elite coach who reformed other dead programs both in college and the NFL, is in his 5th season and has provided zero wins vs our most hated rival, as well as other memorably debilitating losses to Michigan State, or Notre Dame, or Iowa. And now, instead of competing at the highest level only to lose those games, we are seeing a program look as exhausted as I was watching them. Ben Mason’s fumble near the goal line confirmed my fears going into this game. Once that happen I folded quickly. Apparently, after reading quotes from players after the game, they felt the same way. That is not ideal, and obviously speaks to a far greater issue about the program and it’s culture. Are we all broken? Is this some sort of galactic conspiracy to test the limits of our fanhood? That has to be the only answer at this point.

These are the same questions I am sure Red Sox fans asked of themselves after Bucky Dent, Buckner, and Boone. Then 2004 happened. I don’t know when our ‘2004’ will happen. It could even be this year. The only branch I am holding on to at this point as a fan is that one day we could get that experience and we will be able to rest easy every fall, instead of taking spiteful naps midgame. In the meantime Ohio State continues to shred opponents regardless of their coaching staff. They continue to invent new ways to destroy our season every single November. The 2018 game was a national evisceration of UM’s program. It feels as though the after effects of that game have shaken the foundation of the fanbase and the team, with no real solution out of the current state readily available to find.

I haven’t quit being a UM fan. I just don’t really know what I should do going forward. I hadn’t missed a snap of football in, well I don’t know when, since this past Saturday. I can’t keep setting myself up this way every year, or every Saturday, only to let the games do to my mental and emotional state what they do. I have to be able to enjoy my Saturdays in the fall with my family, but I can’t let this part of me go either. They will win one day, and maybe a lot and at a rate that will make this era of UM football feel like a footnote, a time of survival for all of us. And I will be there for it, and it will be awesome. I just wish it would hurry up and get here. Preferably no later than the Saturday after this Thanksgiving. Go Blue.