Where is your UM Football Fandom in the 5 Stages of Grief?
Just curious where you folks stand in the 5 stages of grief right now? Feel free to give your answer and speak your mind - its like the internet's MichiganFanAnonymous forum.
The 5 stages are:
- Denial
- Anger
- Bargaining
- Depression
- Acceptance
I know I have been in the small cabal of EMO (or as we call ourselves realists) peeps on the board so I viewed this staff with a more negative eye than many last year. Like most I did pick up a little kool aid in August as we are all apt to do but the ND game (with a team down 6 players) turned me back to reality despite what the stats said. That said I think the defense is the best part of the team despite the 31 pts given up that night...but the team did not pass the eye test to me. It was the same as the 2013 team - when we plug one hole, another 2 spring up.
So I'd say for me, 2012 was bargaining. I could explain away every loss - we didnt belong on the same field as Bama. We lost to ND and OSU (#2, and #3 in the country). Nebraska was due to Denard going down and not having a viable backup. SC in the bowl was anyone's game - unlike VATech the prior year (where VATech looked faster and better) we looked pretty even with SC and either team could win. All 5 losses bargained away.
Since I'm a realist at heart I dont have much depression - I sort of move quickly into acceptance from bargaining. I will live a shorter life than many of you eternal optimists due to that per science. So that sucks. But it helped me get thru 2013 much quicker. I was shocked by Akron and UConn, and entered accpetance post PSU. Wrong staff. Even if some good pieces on it (i.e. I'd keep Coach Heck no matter what) Hoke is our Charlie Weiss - I said thag about 11 months to the tune of many downvotes. So that was my acceptance.
After tonight I still see a lot of anger out there (a bit surprising to me - we're past that no?)...some bargaining ...and some depression (not surprising) - but where are you now? How does it compare to 3 weeks ago? If you are holding out from acceptance what is keeping you in earlier stages?
(And no acceptance doesnt mean UM will suck for 20 years. It means until we start over we dont have a chance to get back to a viable program. )
September 20th, 2014 at 10:13 PM ^
September 20th, 2014 at 10:34 PM ^
Michigan is a blue blood program and they're never gone for long. We'll be back someday; I just fear more and more that it's 10 years from now insteaf of 2015
September 20th, 2014 at 10:15 PM ^
September 20th, 2014 at 10:19 PM ^
September 20th, 2014 at 10:20 PM ^
September 20th, 2014 at 10:19 PM ^
6. DRUNK
September 20th, 2014 at 10:21 PM ^
September 20th, 2014 at 10:21 PM ^
Acceptance. This team hasn't passed the eyeball test since ND.
I can even accept that the B1G team with the best non-Conference win is Indiana. Now if you will please excuse me, I have some Hemlock to drink.
September 20th, 2014 at 10:22 PM ^
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September 20th, 2014 at 10:24 PM ^
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September 20th, 2014 at 10:27 PM ^
September 20th, 2014 at 10:27 PM ^
My OSU buddy sent me smack about the meltdown happening on MGOBlog; before this, I had no clue Michigan was igniting another tire fire against Utah. This year feels like an Arsenal year: plenty of promise and hope that overshadows the team's faults until losing illuminates how unrealistic expectations were. Will this team have a winning record this year? At first I thought losing to OSU, after Miller's injury, would be unacceptable. Now, I'm not even sure the team will have a winning Big Ten record.
September 20th, 2014 at 11:02 PM ^
For your Arsenal analogy. As a gunner fan... I feel you. Though today was a good result.
September 20th, 2014 at 10:30 PM ^
Ready for basketball season
September 20th, 2014 at 11:44 PM ^
September 20th, 2014 at 10:30 PM ^
September 20th, 2014 at 10:34 PM ^
2008?
September 20th, 2014 at 10:37 PM ^
If this program isn't turned around quickly I don't know if I'll be back
The hardest part is that this truly break my heart. I want to care. I want to invest. I want to love football Saturday's again.
I'm tired and I'm only 29.
September 20th, 2014 at 10:38 PM ^
September 20th, 2014 at 10:46 PM ^
Our Michigan is gone, man. You're right. It's just gone. And I don't understand how it happened.
Don't you think it's a problem for Dave Brandon that us twenty-something alums are pretty much off the bandwagon? What happens in twenty years when the Athletic Department is trying to get cash to repair all of the facilities this guy is building for sports that will never pay for it themselves?
September 20th, 2014 at 10:43 PM ^
Since the losses don't seem to hurt as much as they used to I guess I'm already at the acceptance stage.
September 20th, 2014 at 10:44 PM ^
I figured UM was in for a dogfight but when I left early in the 3rd quarter to go to my daughter's soccer game I wasn't the least bit depressed or angry. After 7 years, I don't go into games thinking UM should win. I go into games hoping UM will win. When it doesn't happen, oh well. I guess that would be...apathy?
September 20th, 2014 at 10:50 PM ^
FUBAR!!
September 20th, 2014 at 10:51 PM ^
I finally snapped and reached acceptance after this year's ND game.
September 20th, 2014 at 10:56 PM ^
Hoke has totally obliterated my expectations. This defense could win championships in most of the conferences out there with an average offense. If only...
3 points total against ND and now mighty Utah (at home!)?
Painful acceptance, sure this probably sounds like phase 2 (Anger), but I never cursed once during this game, and I used to do that routinely, even during a victory. So I would say Acceptance, for sure.
September 20th, 2014 at 11:05 PM ^
September 20th, 2014 at 11:19 PM ^
September 20th, 2014 at 11:11 PM ^
it doesn't have to be orderly progression from one stage to the next; the order may vary... someone may be in several stages at once...or regress to an earlier stage.
What struck me the most about today was at the last 2 minutes of halftime. The team was running onto the field and yet, there was no pause in the obnoxious piped in music. In the old days there would have been quiet before the team came back on the field, there would have been anticipation, then there would have been roars from the crowd as the team took the field. There was some applause, drowned out by the loudspeaker music. It was odd to see the actual football team being treated as a second thought to the piped in canned crap. In that moment I thought, this is what you've done Dave Brandon.
Even replaying Bo's "The Team" speech over and over is beginning to sound hollow. I'm going to stop before regressing too far into the anger stage.
September 20th, 2014 at 11:29 PM ^
This message brought to you by the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance.
September 20th, 2014 at 11:12 PM ^
6. Alcohol
September 20th, 2014 at 11:12 PM ^
September 20th, 2014 at 11:17 PM ^
September 20th, 2014 at 11:18 PM ^
My 10yr old son is trying to love Michigan with me. It's a tough sell in Lansing around all of this Spartan success... I keep telling him to be patient, but that's wearing thin.
September 20th, 2014 at 11:19 PM ^
September 20th, 2014 at 11:27 PM ^
I didn't even care it rained, its been raining for 10 years. Slow steady, cold numbing rain on my Michigan soul.
September 20th, 2014 at 11:27 PM ^
September 20th, 2014 at 11:27 PM ^
PSU 2013 was anger. that night was the angriest I have been since I graduated from M.
Didn't really bargain or get depressed, just apathetic. Now I am in a state of oneness with M football in this point in its life cycle.
September 20th, 2014 at 11:30 PM ^
Where's the stage where I drink a lot and look forward to watching the Browns on Sunday?
September 21st, 2014 at 9:49 AM ^
September 20th, 2014 at 11:50 PM ^
September 20th, 2014 at 11:55 PM ^
It is what it is. Michigan should have won this game. But you can't expect to win any football game while committing 4 turnovers. That's just asking for an ass-kicking.
I thought the defense played really well and held them to 286 total yards. Their star WR Dres Anderson had only 57 yards receiving. Utes had 81 total rushing yards.
We outgained them slightly, and rushed for 118 yards.
Utah is not a great team, but they were good enough to capitalize on mistakes.
I feel badly for the players. They're going to have to pull together and stop making stupid mistakes (blown assignments and turnovers).
September 21st, 2014 at 12:27 AM ^
September 21st, 2014 at 10:09 AM ^
It takes years for the effects of certain events to really take hold. Good and bad.
September 21st, 2014 at 12:52 AM ^
I like college football and want to have a good team to root for. But I can't just drop Michigan and pick some other team--it doesn't work that way when you grow up cheering for Michigan and then go to college there. I am envious of all the fans of other programs who either (i) actually win big games and compete for championships or (ii) can actually enjoy a 7-5 type of season because they haven't been conditioned to expect double-digit wins every year. I wish we didn't have a stubborn, old guard coach and a juvenile egomaniac for an AD. But that's reality, and it's a bummer.
September 21st, 2014 at 1:35 AM ^
Acceptance. I have followed this program since 92. I follow college football religiously and have unfortunately gotten used to this from Michigan. We have not adapted to the new style of college football, and until we do, this is what we get.
September 21st, 2014 at 2:58 AM ^
Acceptance.