Bama Flips Texas A&M DB Tonight as well

Isn't there a gulch you should be hiding in somewhere?

competing for national championships was the same line I heard when Pete Carroll was getting Ronald Johnson and Nick Perry to come to USC. 

The reality was far different. 

Competing for championships, getting your parents a house, and you a “fly whip” > competing for championships. 

Apparently no one else does either... hence why those teams average 40+ points per game.  Brown got burnt in one game.  Don't kid yourself that he does not know how to coach.

Our bagman appears in the form of players getting free meals at the Brown Jug. SEC bagmen pay their parents mortgages and give them cars.

Well, they suck. Not even as good as Ole' Miss.

No, it is not the only thing. Far from it.

But it is a key ingredient in being able to build up, and then maintain for so long, a program to the level where the other things--winning the conference and going to the playoffs almost every year--will be major factors too. 

Alabama would never have become so dominant, or remained so dominant for so long, without a level of systematic and well organized dirtiness that many other schools (Michigan among them, which had an existential crisis over extra stretching) are willing to tolerate.

In the end I prefer that Michigan stay as clean as is reasonably possible, even if it means that they won't get certain high 4 and 5 star guys.  The relatively clean place can still get certain high 4 and 5 star guys. 

And I am not saying the Dax Hill in particular was purchased.  Maybe he was.  Maybe he wasn't. 

What I am saying is that Alabama benefits (both when Saban built it up and now) from a level of organized and institutionalized 'taking care of guys' that just is not going to happen at Michigan.

So Harbaugh is in the same situation as Beilein--competing by programs that have been and will continue to be very dirty in a systematic and organized way.

He can still have a great program.  But he won't ever do it with the kind of beyond belief recruiting classes that certain other programs land every year.

The real naivete is thinking that what Alabama has done since Saban arrived is solely due to Saban being a great coach.  He is a great coach.  But that is just one necessary ingredient to creating the greatest run in the history of CFB. 

it does indeed need to be given a rest.

We're supposed to be supportive of our fellow UM fans.  You can disagree, but why take the rather rude stace of "give it a rest"?

unless you and the other whiners and equivocators find and provide clear, concrete PROOF of all this cheating you claim to know about

Of course there is no proof.  That's the whole point.  However lack of proof of also not evidence of lack of wrong doing.  So, in the lack of any evidence either in support of or against this idea all we have to go on is circumstantial evidence and that evidence points to something different in the past 15 years of Saban's college football coaching.  It is a sound theory, but it is just a theory as is yours.  Neither can be proven right or wrong and both are valid arguments.

Harbaugh came in here like PT Barnum, and has not delivered on his brave postures and loudmouthing.

I think you're confusing JH with media reports.  JH guaranteed nothing.  When asked if we wants to make guarantees he merely said "I want to do a good job."

We were all taught that he WILL get it done, right the ship, bring us back into the elite, beat MSU, OSU and all others with alarming frequency and recruit like a mother.

When were we ever elite?  One year in 1997?  Bo wasn't elite.  He usually lost in the Rose Bowl...when he got there.  Carr had one elite year.  Moellar wasn't elite.  So, when was this elite...1905?  C'mon man.  We've never been elite in the modern era.

I think you have unrealistic expectations.  JH has brought us back to our historically W/L records of 8-10 win seasons and has beaten MSU and has recruited well.  The only thing he hasn't done is beat OSU.  I know that's frustrating.  It is to all of us.  But, we are recruiting at the level we have in the past.  He is averaging a top 8 class ranking.  When did we ever consistently do better than that?  We've never recruited at a Saban/Meyer/Carroll level with top 5 classes every year.  That's the problem.  That's what we are trying to compete against in our division now with OSU.  They never did that prior to Meyer either.  OSU is recruiting at a historically high level and we are recruiting at a level back to what we were.  But, what we were is not enough to beat them.  So, JH has brought us back.  He just hasn't made us better than we ever were.  The bottom line is Meyer was a better recruiter than JH, any UM coach ever, as well as any OSU coach ever (as is Saban).  You want JH to be a better recruiter than Meyer and he's not.  He never claimed to be or guaranteed he would be.  We all hoped getting close to him would be enough and it hasn't been.  That doesn't mean he's not successful and hasn't brought us back to what we used to be because he has and we are.  OSU is just better than they've ever been.

Your user name is just so....appropriate.

re:Chancre

For those of you not medically inclined:  a painless ulcer, particularly one developing on the genitals as a result of venereal disease

Quit bitching about a single game result that was an outlier of the entire season.  If our team was truly THAT bad they would lost more games and would have blown out at ND.  Also, OSU lost to Purdue worse than we lost to them.  It happens, it's football.  Take the anger and be constructive with it Instead of whining.