Our Naked Lunch: We are Penn State (or possibly ND)
William S. Burroughs described the contents of his book Naked Lunch - a book, utlimately, about abuses of power - as "brutal, obscene, and disgusting," but he believed the contents were important so that readers would see what was on the end of their "long newspaper spoons," i.e., the reality they missed as it was filtered through the media of Burroughs' day. The title was a reflection of his desire to deliver a lucid account - readers where to be given Burroughs' news naked and unvarnished.
I think it is time given the hand-wringing over this season (and not picking up Hand, to a much lesser extent) to take an unvarnished look at Michigan football in the last ten years. Why ten? Well, it's a nice round number and because it puts us well into the childhood of recruits so that the'yre unlikely to have formed a perception of a football program much before then. It's also just a pretty long time. It's hard to say that ten years' worth of outcomes is a fluke.
2003: Michigan goes 10-3, beats ND, OSU, and MSU, wins the Big Ten, and loses in the Rose Bowl. This was the last year in which Michigan beat ND, OSU, and MSU...Also, Chris Perry finished fourth in the Heisman vote, making him the last Wolverine to finish that high.
2004: Michigan goes 9-3, beats ND and MSU, wins the Big Ten for the last time since, and loses in the Rose Bowl, Michigan loses to OSU for the first of what will be seven straight times.
2005: The Year of Infinite Pain we called it. If we'd only known. Michigan suffers mass injuries, goes 7-5, and among the rivals only beats MSU. They then lose in the Alamo Bowl to Nebraska and a collection of scarecrows dressed up as referees.
2006: Michigan rebounds to go 11-2 but loses to OSU and is thrashed in the Rose Bowl. This is the last time Michigan was considered a national championship contender late in the season. Current high school seniors were roughly eleven years old when this happened.
2007: Michigan goes 9-4, loses to App State, loses to OSU, and wins the Citrus Bowl. Lloyd Carr then retires.
2008: Michigan goes 3-9 and loses to all of the rivals.
2009: Michigan goes 5-7, beats ND, and loses to OSU and MSU. No bowl for the second straight year.
2010: Michigan goes 7-6, beats ND, loses to OSU and MSU, and is destroyed in the Gator Bowl. RR is out. Hoke is in.
2011 Michigan goes 11-2, beats ND and OSU, loses to MSU, and wins the Sugar Bowl against Va Tech in a match-up that drew criticism on the grounds that some people believed neither team deserved a BCS bid. This is Michigan's only BCS bowl victory since 2000.
2012: Michigan goes 8-5, beats MSU, loses to OSU and ND, and loses its bowl to South Carolina.
Why did I bother to type all this out? That's a good question, and my answer (which may not cut it) is that I think some people don't realize what Michigan football is right now. Michigan football is Penn State - or maybe Notre Dame. History of great coaches (or at least one great coach)? Check. Large and passionate fan base? Yep. Lots of great history generally? Yep. Great stadium? That too. A long list of former All-Americans and NFL players? Sure. Very good school? Yes...All of that is great, but is Michigan a top football program right now? No, I don't see how you can say that. Again, a decade is a long time. You just aren't very good if you're having to make excuses for an entire decade.
I join everyone in wanting Michigan to return to the top. But I encourage you not to despair as if Michigan just recently fell from the top or is right now falling from the top. Michigan has not performed like a top-tier program for most of the last ten years. Michigan is like ND or PSU - once-great programs that are and have been shells of there former selves that occasionally, briefly pop back up into the elite only to drop back down again. There is no point in pretending otherwise.
Oscar Wilde wrote something about staring at the stars while lying in the gutter. Let's continue to stare at the stars, but let's have no illusions that we are, while not in the gutter, not too far out of it either.
EDIT: See NittanyFan's comment below for more on the PSU comparison.
November 14th, 2013 at 7:47 PM ^
November 14th, 2013 at 7:01 PM ^
November 14th, 2013 at 11:22 PM ^
After the 2000 season Carr had won the Big Ten title 3 outta 4 years. Had won 4 straight bowl games and was 5-1 against OSU.
November 15th, 2013 at 9:20 AM ^
November 14th, 2013 at 7:05 PM ^
November 14th, 2013 at 7:09 PM ^
PSU is at an all-time low? You are aware that football started before 2005, right?
November 14th, 2013 at 7:32 PM ^
this guy gets it
November 14th, 2013 at 8:26 PM ^
Your brains is on drug, pal.
Our temporary downfall is all Rodriguez. I don't see anything wrong with the records above, other than 2008 through 2010. Who was here then? We're still suffering from his recruiting, too.
In 2006 we were a great team. We could easily have played for the national championship, and it's likely that a bad personal foul call prevented that. Nevertheless, we were number 2 in the country and probably would have stayed there but for Meyer's lobbying and voters not wanting to see a rematch of the last game of the season in the B1G. We didn't play well in the Rose Bowl, and played relatively unmotivated, likely due to the let down. In any event, that was a great season. That is seven years ago.
We all know abouy 2007. The team was set to continue to compete, and we had a great young talent at qb, who was also had some maturity issues. He now plays in the NFL.
Add RR. He craps his pants, refuses to adapt, and runs a zone read option attack with slow, tall quarterbacks. Mallet transfers. Threet stays. Threet is concussed. Sheridan plays. Defensive coaches (were there any) are junior high level.
RR doesn't recruit big players becuase, you know, the spread can only be run with mini-mites.
Naturally, RR is gone shortly, leaving the program is shambles.
Since then, Hoke won with Carr's upper classmen his first year, and beat OSU at home. Last year we would have beaten ND there but Denard turned the ball over 4 or 5 times. We beat MSU here, and lost to Ohio on the road. The team was far from great in talent or on the field, and went through a quarterback transition mid-season. This year, granted, the team has played horribly, with a great victory against ND, and not much else to speak positively about (in retrospect, the Minnesota win was probably a good win).
I'm frustrated as anyone, but realistically with the inexperience in key positions everywhere (I'm including Gardner) I don't know how much better we could expect. The o-line is killing us, and is the major problem there, but Gardner and Fitz have some share in the lack of execution. The defense has played better than expected, probably.
The future looks pretty good with our current recruiting. So while the OP claims we're not a great program, I think that's short sighted and includes a three year stint by a guy who's recklessness has still not stop hurting. We'll be competing on the same level as OSU within 2 years. Will we win the BIG every year? No. Will we win BCS games? Yes. Will we compete for the national title to the last 1/4 of the season regularly? Yes. I'll take that.
November 14th, 2013 at 7:08 PM ^
If, on average, we could win 9 games a year, win the B1G championship every three years, and win 2/3 of our bowl games, but never exceed that - would we sign up for it?
November 14th, 2013 at 7:34 PM ^
I'd happily take that.
November 14th, 2013 at 7:41 PM ^
As long as Michigan beats OSU, but a 9 win average with a good bowl record in the age of conference championships and playoffs suggests a few 7 and 8 win seasons. 10 wins on average is what made USC and Texas so impressive from 2001-2010.
November 14th, 2013 at 7:34 PM ^
It is what it is. Stop stressing yourselves out about things you can't control. Be a fan and show your support, thru good and thru bad.
November 14th, 2013 at 7:49 PM ^
November 14th, 2013 at 7:55 PM ^
Thanks to all the previous posters for the awesome in-depth statistical research. This old alum and long time season ticket holder just wants to see a confident, winning UM team take the field each game. Has the program lost some lustre...quite possible. Is the current coaching regime capable of re-establishing the dominance of years past? We will know soon enough. In the mean time I think there is more pain to be experienced...
November 14th, 2013 at 8:28 PM ^
We will be back. It takes time. We do not, yet, have an identity, really. All programs seem to go through down periods. I do think we can do better with the players we have. Look we basically sucked between 1951 and 1963, 13 years of no rose-bowl and in 8 of those we did not win even 2/3 of our games. I'd like to see a signature win on the road against one of our rivals pretty soon, but if not I'll never, ever stop being a fan.
November 14th, 2013 at 8:35 PM ^
Past 10 years I agree, M is a B-/C+ program. I feel like 2007 was the last year we could reasonably claim Michigan was nationally relevant program (despite The Horror, we did beat Jesus in the Capital One Bowl.) Since then...nah.
But, are we deluding ourselves about what Michigan was prior to our recent downturn? I looked back at the 20 years prior to 2007 and crunched some numbers. Here's what I found:
November 14th, 2013 at 9:57 PM ^
That's helpful--thanks.
November 15th, 2013 at 10:35 AM ^
My God man, stop with your logikz and empirikel "proofs", I just spent a fortune on torches and pitchforks.
November 14th, 2013 at 8:55 PM ^
November 14th, 2013 at 9:51 PM ^
November 14th, 2013 at 9:53 PM ^
November 15th, 2013 at 11:57 AM ^
November 14th, 2013 at 9:03 PM ^
November 14th, 2013 at 9:13 PM ^
Pansy is a noun, not an adjective.
November 14th, 2013 at 9:35 PM ^
I get surprised at all the people that cherrypick timelines and try to say we were better than we really were. Michigan has not had a dominant run like Oklahoma, Texas, LSU, OSU, USC, Alabama have in the last decade since the 1970s. To me, those are the programs we should be competing with. Instead, we are consistent with teams like Georgia, Auburn, and West Virginia.
November 14th, 2013 at 10:06 PM ^
Well, you have to pick some timeline over which to measure something. Which would you suggest? 5 years? 50 years? Since the fall of Ancient Rome? Since I had dinner? What's the "official timeline?" And if you're going to state something like "Michigan is comparable to West Virginia," maybe you should present some data to support that. 20 years is arbitrary yes, but if I had picked 40 years Michigan's status would have been even better. If I had gone back to the beginning of college football it would have been better still. As I said, Michigan has never had a dynasty (ie a multi-year national champion contender) in modern times the way Alabama, USC, Nebraska, Florida St have had. But sustained excellence with no losing seasons over 40 years is pretty darned good. And better than Auburn, Georgia and West Virginia.
November 14th, 2013 at 10:21 PM ^
But why should we settle for ''pretty darn good'' when we have the 2nd most profitable athletic department in the country? To me settling for ''pretty darn good'' when we have the resources to be one of the best is asinine.
I'm not expecting an Alabama type run. I'm expecting a Texas, Oklahoma, or OSU run. 1 national title with multiple 10, 11, and 12 win seasons after that.
November 14th, 2013 at 10:42 PM ^
I agree with that.
November 14th, 2013 at 11:26 PM ^
that have had dominant runs most of them probably bend the rules WAY more than Michigan does.
November 14th, 2013 at 11:58 PM ^
Or maybe their coaches just get more out of their players? Did you ever think that's a possibility?
Another thing that drives me insane about Michigan fans. What kind of magical powers did osu players get when a few players were paid or sold their stuff?
November 14th, 2013 at 9:38 PM ^
The record is the record.
November 14th, 2013 at 9:16 PM ^
November 15th, 2013 at 12:04 AM ^
Regardless of where Michigan rests on the totem pole, below MSU is, and will always be, unacceptable. Losing to Ohio can make sense given their strong recruiting pool, and that they are the only legit AQ school in their state with better tattoo parlors and lying coaches that wear vests, whereas we have to split our recruits with annoying Lil Bro.
So while you can try to reframe the prism through which we all perceive this program, so long as we're looking up and seeing Green and White above us, the answer is no, sorry, not taking any solace on anything about how well, we've been terrible for a while now.
November 15th, 2013 at 2:07 AM ^
November 15th, 2013 at 6:47 AM ^
Take our body of work during the Carr years and they are among the top ten in the country.
November 15th, 2013 at 1:44 PM ^
I can't believe people still believe this. We were CONSISTENT in going 9-3 and 10-3, but it was not where we should have been considering all the NFL players we put out. Everyone else knows this except Michgian fans.