Stewart Mandel: Michigan has the "saddest fan base" right now
Well I normally hate offseason filler like this, but Nick from Austin posed an interesting question...the author posits that due to the past 2 years with us, MSU and Ohio, we are the saddest. Though I disagree, much of the negativity on the board over the past 6 months probably means he's on to something. I also take issue with the reasoning he gave for not picking Florida when our experience is not too dissimilar to theirs over the past 3 years and he seems to conveniently forget MSU's 2012 season.
Thoughts? Anyone got suggestions for another fanbase that is sadder right now?
Regardless, can't wait for the fall so we have the chance to turn this narrative on its head.
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/college-football/news/20140402/northwe…
(our question is the first on page 2)
hard to argue with his conclusion or analysis.
We are not the saddest by any means.
OK, I'll bite. Who has been sadder?
A school that doesn't have an awesome basketball program to make up for underachievement in football, for starters.
Even if you restrict it to football only, I'm pretty excited to see what Nussmeier can do with the offense.
Tennessee. Notre Dame. Miami. Penn State. Nebraska. Colorado. Washington. Arkansas. West Virginia. Texas.
Notre Dame? Don't have too much to be sad over. Except losing to you guys.
the 2012 season was cool for ND besides the championship game. Did i miss something in the last 25-30 years of ND football besides lofty preseason hype which usually ends after a week 2 loss to Michigan?
Much like your 1997 season. When was your last National Championship before that?
DO not pretend that these programs are not very similar. If you are, then you are pretending. Facts are facts. You are right now past the Davie era and into the Willingham era and speeding into the Weis era. Trust me, I know the signs.
The standards for Notre Dame have fallen pretty far.
I Like Burgers, this is the point I was trying to make in one of my posts below.
No, but there is no sense in saying we'll go 12-0 every year. 9-4+ is the standard in my opinion, especially with the schedules that we play. Thats not even your standard. Your standard is to win the BIG and go the Rosebowl. I would say your standards are lower than mine.
Brady Hoke and Michigan have gone to one BCS bowl in 3 seasons (11-2, 8-5, 7-6). Brian Kelly and ND in the same period (8-5, 12-1, 9-4). I don't think there is much difference between what the 2 programs have accomplished in the last 3 years. But ND fans like yourself are pretty content with their situation while Michigan's fans are not. Whose standards are lower?
Winning the B1G is a necessity to compete for a national championship, and with the new playoff, probably means a spot in 4 team playoff. Just because one of your goals is to win the Big Ten doesn't mean the team isn't trying to win a national championship. 9-4 doesn't even sniff the Big Ten championship in most years. The standard here is probably 10+ wins and also doesn't involve going 2-6 in our last 8 games against Notre Dame.
If you believe that a national championship every year is attainable you are living in an alternate reality. I said 9-4+ is the standard. 9-4 being being an average year. I'll take 9-4, 10-3, 11-2, 12-1 and 13-0. But I am realistic enough to know that 13-0 is not happening every year.
You got us. But how is that record vs your real rivals ? 1-5 vs MSU and 1-8 vs OSU. Oh.
Go back to your original post responding to my post. You said you don't have much to be sad about. Our programs are in about the same shape right now. Again, whose fans' expectations are lower?
I never said Michigan had to win the national championship every year. But there is a big difference between competing for the championship & being in the conversation, and being eliminated by week 4 or 5 every year.
How did you accumulate 1625 MGoPoints on a web page for a rival fan base? I understand why you are not concerned about losing them to all the down votes, but geez! Is it really that much fun trolling Michigan fans on our home turf?
BTW, best of luck with your new conference. You guys have really tried to run an athletics program the right way (the way we try to do it here at Michgan). I will miss having you as a rival who I can respect, as a program and an educational institution, the other 364 days out of the year.
Purdue.......the saddest face of them all
The "Bo" of Penn State went out in a blaze of child-molesting scandal the likes of which the sports world has never seen, then died about 4 days later. I know that was a few years ago, but that's not even sadness, that's fucking trauma, and it will last for a decade. Their basketball team sucks. They are in the middle of nowhere. Penn State is in a pretty sad state of affairs.
Please, we're always the saddest.
I, for one, am SHOCKED Stewart Mandel would say something negative about us.
He's a Michigan hating hack. Don't read the bullshit he writes.
It's a conspeeeerrrrraccccceeeeeee!
It's not a conspiracy. It's Stewart Mandel is an asshole.
Mandell takes every chance he can to take cheap shots at Michigan and has been doing so for over a decade. As soon as you see his name on an article about Michigan you know it will be negative.
When Mitch McGary went down, I would have taken an Elite Eight appearance and a loss to the Best Young Team Money can Buy. As for football, I have pretty much expected at least three losses every season as my "default setting."
If Ohio gets their deficiit in the all-time football series into single digits, I might start worrying. But I am willing to wait another two years to see if Brady Hoke can recruit Michigan back to being a perennial top ten program.
I think the Michigan Football fan base is pretty damn sad lately. At least Florida won in recent memory. We haven't won a conference championship in 10+ years.
look at the people dumping season tickets and not showing up to games (e.g. ohio) during a tough period. Yah, show up with your Michigan gear on when the team starts winning ...That is difficult.
This is a sad month for us since it's like 'reverse recruiting' month when we probably learn some of our most beloved underclassmen will choose to leave for the pro's. Not to mention we just lost a beloved upperclassman I honor with my new avatar. He was happy when this was taken but he's sad now too.
Jordan Morgan may be sad right now because he isn't on a plane to Dallas but he's going to be pretty happy in a couple weeks when he is a beloved alum of a perennial top-10 team and will be honored and beloved as one of the catalysts that brought this basketball program to new heights.
Oh, not to mention his two degrees from Michigan CoE
Indeed. I'd love to see him around campus and games a lot.
April is the cruellest month....
Uh, no USC? Since the departure of Pete Carroll, all I hear from their fans is griping. Used to be on top of the world. Now they aren't even on top of their own cheerleaders anymore.
Uh, USC went 10-4 last season, and its the fourth time they've done that since 2006. Michigan has one 10-win season since 2006. So recent history -- sanctions and all -- still favors USC.
Yeah, but Pete Carroll's departure was only four years ago, their last Pac-10 title was only two years before that, and their last appearance in the NCG was only three years before that. And they've dominated all of their rivals until just recently. Michigan, on the other hand, has been underachieving for most of the past 15 years. We have two wins over our biggest rival since 2001 and one win over our second-biggest rival (who we consider inferior) since 2008.
No, we definitely sadder than USC.
We only have one win over Notre Dame since 2008? Am I missing something? I thought we were 4-2...
Sure, we're good against ND lately, but abysmal against the other more important rivals.
I dissagree that our second most important rival is MSU. They've never been top two.
Florida has won two national championships in the BCS era. Michigan hasn't even played in the NCG, let alone won it. And the last time Michigan won a Big Ten championship, 'Twitter' was something hummingbirds did.
So notwithstanding their debacle of a 2013 season, Florida is far ahead of Michigan as a program. Looking over the past ten years or so, 2011 was an aberration. We are wandering in the woods and have been for quite a while.
Where did I mention the last 10 years? I merely stated that Florida wouldn't "wax" us.
than to have no expectations at all. The fact this is not Tennessee says how far their program has fallen.
I could care less about this stuff. Actually, usually when declarations like this get written, the writer ends up looking really stupid in a year later. Hope this will be the case.
The expectations aren't that high though. It used to be win the Big Ten. That's not even the highest goal in CFB and we haven't come close to doing that. Now? The goal is to what, beat our rivals? I think a good amount of people would be happy to just split vs MSU and OSU. And when you're happy to take just one win against your rivals (because hey, its better than what we've been doing in that department lately) that screams sad fan base to me.