After 24 hours of "digesting"
I decided to try and let this settle a bit before bringing this up. But I think we all pretty much felt the same way when we woke up yesterday. A pounding headache (from the excessive liquids) and a lot of "why??" I know this game was "great for the program" blah blah blah, but I just don't see how.
What I have seen is, our best corner is done for the year, who knows how bad Lewan's injury is, a QB that probably wont be able to practice this week because most of his time will be in the ice tub, and I'm sure theres plenty more. Numerous tweets from recruits and targets, although most are positive there was one that tweeted "Roll Tide"
I don't know that there is a team in the nation that can beat Bama, but when you give a team like Bama that much time.......things will get real ugly, as we saw. But the thing that I am just having a tough time with is WTF was Brandon thinking? How is having your coach in his 2nd year (pretty much rebuilding still) put a team on the field and get flat out waxed, how is that helping the program? I could go on and on about Brandons decisions, but the bottom line is, we had this game in Jerry world because I think Brandon idolizes Jerry, and thats what he wants the "Michigan brand" to be like.
Michigan would be better off without Brandon, I dont care what anybody says. The guy see's dollar signs and does not care about winning, tradition or anything tha Michigan is.
September 3rd, 2012 at 3:18 PM ^
September 4th, 2012 at 1:32 PM ^
said that was what I was going to do.
September 3rd, 2012 at 9:34 AM ^
Stop being such a fucking baby.
love,
jdon
September 3rd, 2012 at 9:41 AM ^
September 3rd, 2012 at 9:41 AM ^
times that when i come to this site that i wonder why brian doesn't have Emo music playing in the background...
as chunkums said above this game was scheduled in RR's 3rd year thinking that it would be his 5th when the game was played, and that we would a national power by then, well we all saw how that turned out. imagine if GERG was still coaching the D on saturday night, bama might have hung 100 on us...
people we lost to the number 2 team in the country that is coming off of winning a MNC and has more talent on their 4th string then we do on out 1st string, so stop bitching and crying over missed calls and blaming DB for what happened and move on. we here on this board make fun of every other fan base that does the exact same thing but then we turn around and do it, hypocrite much?
was this loss as bad as toledo loss, the horror, the silence hell how about the 1994 colorado loss??? nope!!! it does suck to get embarrased on national TV, but its not the first time its happened, we had 3 years of that with RR... after those 3 years we should have thicker skin and should be able to handle this a lot better.
we have air force on saturday so lets start worrying about the triple option and what we are goin to do against that, instead of still talking about a game that was played 2 days ago, its in the past now so lets move on...
September 3rd, 2012 at 9:49 AM ^
September 3rd, 2012 at 9:45 AM ^
Expectations were too high this season.
It what ways is this squad better or equal to last year? - none
Like a few months of extra practice for Denard turns us into national champions.
Denard being a senior does NOT make up for all of the great players that graduated.
It's very possible we will have a worse record than last year and no BCS bowl.
Lastly, losing Toussaint was a big deal. With no decent back, the D just concentrated on Denard. This looked a lot like the Gator bowl two years ago.
September 3rd, 2012 at 9:49 AM ^
will ever look as bad as that gator bowl loss...
September 3rd, 2012 at 9:58 AM ^
Except getting smoked by the country's number 2 team in the first game of the year
September 3rd, 2012 at 9:59 AM ^
September 3rd, 2012 at 10:05 AM ^
It's on the front page
September 3rd, 2012 at 10:10 AM ^
front page?
September 3rd, 2012 at 10:06 AM ^
I dont care what anybody says.
September 3rd, 2012 at 10:41 AM ^
but you are saying this because why? Because I hold an opinion? Did I come to the wrong place to express my thoughts or opinions? Sorry, thought this was a forum for exactly that.
I'm open to hear your opinion / thoughts shirtless, but to just come on here to "police" anybody who has one is just, well......"gutless"
September 3rd, 2012 at 10:43 AM ^
I didn't need 24 hours to calm down. I'm an adult (allegedly).
September 3rd, 2012 at 10:48 AM ^
adult?
September 3rd, 2012 at 10:50 AM ^
Summary:
- The game was a good idea. If you polled the fans, the vast majority (without knowing the outcome) would prefer to play games like this.
- Financially, it works out better than a home and home.
- The gameplan was fine. It just didn't work out. National consensus was to beat Alabama you had to pick on their weakest unit. The DBs. (Weaker only in comparison to their run defense, still better than most teams on the planet.) Denard himself admitted that the game plan called for him to run more times than he did but he made the read to give up the ball. He admitted that he may have been mistaken in those reads and probably should have kept the ball more himself.
- The injuries were flukes. They all could have occurred in practice or playing any other MAC team.
- The decision to put Countess on punt coverage is worthy of debate. I side with Hoke on this one, but both sides have compelling arguments.
September 3rd, 2012 at 10:20 AM ^
There are valid arguments against scheduling the Alabama game. The OP's theory that Brandon idolizes Jerry Jones and scheduled the game to be like Jerry isn't one of them, but in retrospect this game does appear to have done more harm than good. Whether it was a mistake to schedule this game is a fair question.
September 3rd, 2012 at 10:24 AM ^
September 3rd, 2012 at 10:43 AM ^
sure did have a lot of confidence that RR would be our coach. You're right!
September 3rd, 2012 at 10:59 AM ^
September 3rd, 2012 at 10:36 AM ^
September 3rd, 2012 at 10:52 AM ^
What a bunch of babies the vast majority of this board is. We got beat by a better team and didn't look good doing it. Get over it and get on to the next game and realize that we are not going to face another team as talented as Alabama the rest of the season.
Of course, Brian's broken record stance against everything that Dave Brandon does certainly doesn't help matters as it provides all the whiney babies a target to blame everything on.
September 3rd, 2012 at 11:06 AM ^
Afuckingmen.
I am so damn tired of hearing about how Bama MUST cheat....how else could they get such good players otherwise? Or Bama players MUST not go to classes - how else could such good players remain elibible otherwise? And now bad idea to schedule Bama cause they...you know...kinda beat us and all.
We got a nationally televised beat down from a team way, way better than us. Deal with it ;people and quit acting like a bunch of 9 year old kids who want to go and tell mom that their brother Billy is picking on him instead of actually doing something about it.
September 3rd, 2012 at 10:56 AM ^
I still have the shits!
September 3rd, 2012 at 11:00 AM ^
I'm no fan of Brandon, but this was a good scheduling move.
M can tell recruits that they will play in games like this, be challenged, and have a chance to play and contribute to a team on a national stage.
Sure, we got clobbered, that happens sometimes when you schedule strong opponents. It will still prove to be a good thing for the program in the long run.
September 3rd, 2012 at 10:59 AM ^
Can we also put the uniforms behind us? These uniforms were almost as ugly as the ones we wore during the State game last year.
September 3rd, 2012 at 11:03 AM ^
Getting kind of sick of hearing crap like this over and over again on this site. It was one loss, and it's time to get over it. We might have just played the best team in the country - they will more than likely make several other respectable teams look foolish before the end of the year. The talent disparity is undeniable, but should narrow considerably in the coming years if we keep recruiting like we are. But I will say I was proud they still looked like they were playing hard and fast out there even when the game was all but decided.
I think your concerns are a little far-fetched. I bet we don't lose a single recruit due to this and still finish our class in the top 3 rankings of all the major recruiting sites. I bet one of our corners step up and fills in for Countess just fine. And I bet all of them are waking up this morning and, rather than whining about the game or feeling sorry for themselves, are going in to watch film, lift, and practice so they can get better for next week (unless they get Labor day off of course.. in which case they'll come in tomorrow). If people like Jordan Kovacs and Denard gave up on this team as quickly as some of the people on this site, we really would be in for a godawful year, but thankfully they have much more resolve than that.
September 3rd, 2012 at 11:19 AM ^
September 3rd, 2012 at 11:35 AM ^
frankly i don't much want to discuss DB. Much more interesting to discuss football. ADs are only so interesting, and frankly ours seems to be fine. He may have some bad taste (e.g., some of the music being piped into the stadium), but scheduling Alabama in a nationally-televised game is hardly something to fault him for. The only thing you could blame him for is not forseeing that RichRod would be gone, and that a new coach would be taking on a powerhouse with an understaffed team. Hard to predict that, don't you think?
September 3rd, 2012 at 11:47 AM ^
I will be the first one to say that we probably lost more than we can potentially gain from playing this game, but hindsight is 20/20. How could we have predicted such a beating and Countess and Lewan getting injured? Granted we may be better suited to play this game in 2 years, but two years ago when it was originally scheduled we probably thought the same thing.
Ultimately how we respond to this is what will determine the positives. We lost, but losing so poorly doesn't make any more than one loss occur. It's still just one loss. It needs to be kept in perspective. We still have 11 other opportunities to win games. The only thing that can make it worse is by focusing on the negatives. If the team uses this as a learning process, it has potential to help us against other physical teams like Notre Dame and MSU. It definately helped us our entire offseason and I think that will continue to pay off. So, lets get over ourselves and stop having a pity party over one game.
We all know we are still rebuilding. I know last year got us all excited, but we had some really close games go our way, which could have easily gone the other way especially in the Notre Dame and Virgina Tech games. We had no business winning either of those games. Heck, if Braxton Miller could complete a pass OSU would have beaten us. I think we need to have a little patience. There is still a discrepency between teams like Bama and us. Give Hoke's recruiting a chance to fill out our roster and let the season play out. And, finally, lets be good sports. No one likes Saban or the SEC, but we all make our own choices. Lets live with ours like real men and give credits to others when they are due. They beat us, congradualate them, don't dwell on the negatives, move on, and get to work for next week!
September 3rd, 2012 at 1:07 PM ^
To be fair, though, Alabama's formula was to have future early round draft picks manning just about every position. I am not sure that any other team on our schedule will come even close to that level of physical superiority.
September 3rd, 2012 at 1:33 PM ^
As the OP wonders, here is at least a snippet of what Brandon was thinking is in this article, published the day after the game was made official in 2010.
Among other things mentioned, he talks about creating "rare and exceptional" opportunities to create unique matchups in interesting venues. I would say that playing Alabama in Dallas would constitute exactly this, and it is something that the program should do now and again because of the exposure and the experience it gives the players and staff. Alabama is supposedly difficult to schedule in this fashion, and to play them is gets people interested in Michigan regardless of the outcome, and I think that's what we want as fans.
It's a challenge, it's a measuring stick - you learn from these games what it will take to be competitive with a team like Alabama, and for everything that people say about David Brandon, don't you want an AD that cares enough about the team to get you the spotlight now and again? Brandon doesn't work out these deals to create situations where we lose a starting corner or a guard (in the case of the former, for the season), but because he would like Michigan football on the national consciousness as it traditionally has been. I don't have a problem with that personally.