BPONR - I Turned Off A Game. In The First Quarter

BPONR. I am in the Bottomless Pit Of Negative Reality. I just turned off a Michigan football game. In the first quarter.

I watched my first game in 1978. I missed games for various reasons; family events, births, illnesses, jobs, kids' sports, what have you. But I have never turned off a game.

When Shea Patterson overthrew the game-tying touchdown and then we fumbled it away, AGAIN, I felt myself growing unreasonably angry. Then, when Wisconsin proceeded to make Swiss Cheese out of our defense, I was seething, so I turned it off. It's stupid to sit there pissed off and depressed on a Saturday. Over a game. A game played by a team and school I love, but a game.

I watched everything. ASU. Oregon. Clock-gate. The Rocket. The touchdown that was but wasn't in the Rose Bowl. I sat through every Rich Rod game. Every Brady Hoke game. Every minute of Clowney-fest. I watched Spring 'Games.' I watched the OSU debacle last year, and every minute of the Florida un-inspiration.

I love these guys. I watched because I just knew things would change for the better. This guy would get healthy, this guy would get better. This offense would coordinate us un-ending points...But you know what? In my BPONR, none of this is true. We're just another football team. We're middling to good like just about everyone else.

At some point, I just had to see the reality that our football program isn't anything special beyond the great school and tradition it represents. We're decent. We aren't Rutgers. We aren't Illinois. Great programs don't spend year after year the way we have since 1997, at best, barely holding our own with the best, but mostly losing to them and too often, losing to average teams.

I just couldn't waste 3+ hours watching us suck today.

Maybe things will get better, but not today, so I shut off the TV.