Looking on the bright side:
In 2008, Urban Meyer led his Florida team to great heights just two years after he won a championship while beating his biggest competitor, Alabama in the biggest game of the year. Meyer also signed one of the best recruiting classes in the country while Alabama was relegated to the Sugar Bowl.
In 2016, Urban Meyer led his Ohio State team to great heights just two years after he won a championship while beating his biggest competitor, Michigan, in the biggest game of the year. Meyer will likely sign one of the best recruiting classes in the country, while Michigan will likely be relegated to the Orange Bowl.
Both Harbaugh and Saban were in their second years at programs that were historically great but fell on hard times. College Football changes fast, keep the faith, and don't ever stop believing. Go Blue!
December 4th, 2016 at 10:10 AM ^
Bama and FLA were not the rivals that OSU and UM are. OSU has so many built in advantages that keep them on top including in state talent and few in state competition for it. UM has been on the bad side of this rivalry for just under 2 decades now. I believe in Harbaugh, but in terms of being better than OSU, I'm at the "I'll believe it when I see it" stage.
December 4th, 2016 at 10:36 AM ^
What Saban has done - placed the SEC and all of CFB firmly in second place - is pretty ridiculous. I'm with you in "believe it when I see it" mode but doing it at Bama is not significantly easier than doing it at Michigan. As much as I respect and believe in Harbaugh, the skepticism should come in comparing him to Saban, not Michigan to Alabama.
December 4th, 2016 at 10:26 AM ^
beats Urbz in consecutive season, Urbz will get over stressed from the pressure of the OSU fans and develop his health problems again and will have to retire. So, in away this comparison is very close. Michigan is the sleeping giant like Alabama was in '08 and soon the Harbaugh giant will emerge and dominate.
December 4th, 2016 at 10:43 AM ^
I get the worry that the "senior bubble" won't be there next year, loss of D.Smith, Butt, Darboh, Chesson, Glasgow, Wormley and the Supreme Taco, (Peppers) and Lewis. Lots of big names there. Definitely a solid core of players to build around. WheatJr, Asiasi, Speight, Isaac, Cole, Bredeson, McDoom, Crawford, Perry, Gary, McCray, Kinnel, have all made contributions and have seen live fire. Will not be absolutely perfect but there's going to be Guys blow up into Dudes as there is every year. And they have seen success of players ahead of them that they know they have to equal or better.
I think Harbaugh has set the expectations about the work required to compete at this level. As he said multiple times, this team reversed the way things were trending. Thinking back about Michael Jordan's comments,..he loved to play, the more he practiced, the more his game improved, and the more he loved to play....sort of an ascending spiral. Paralell that to Harbaugh's "improve yourself today over yesterday" philosophy and I think this is the track this team is on going forward.
Everyone in America who cares about college football knows Harbaugh. Back to back 10 win seasons and on ABC every week is going to pay dividends in recruiting. The "pathway" to the NFL that he represents is going to pay dividends in recruiting. The old wizards Mattison and Brown aren't going to be poached by another staff, I don't think WheatSr or Zordich are going anywhere, right now Drevno and Fisch seem to be happy here.
OSU has stomped us down for a solid decade to the point where rivalry was hardly there, and I think we've closed the gap. I said to myself in the dark years of recent past, that the thing I remember as a kid was people huffing it up the stairs of the stadium in the 4th Q as the game was well in-hand and they wanted "to get ahead of traffic". I saw that again this year. Its gonna be fun.
The old wizards Mattison and Brown aren't going to be poached by another staff.
December 4th, 2016 at 10:44 AM ^
December 4th, 2016 at 4:02 PM ^
Under the tutelage of my mother (who had season tickets while I was en utero) I saw my first game in 1971 as a six year old. I agonized thru the awfulness that was 73 and 74, in my most formative years. I marched in the band while Jimmy (whom I knew living in South Quad) played QB. Took my mother to the 98 Rose Bowl (yes, THAT one). The joy was sublime. The years 07 - 14 were truly a Biblical desert in their woe. Kept my season tickets thru it all. And then Jimmy came home. Our son of a bitch. But even our son of a bitch needs time to replenish the cupboards and return the menu to the Michelin level he (and we old farts) knew to be Michigan. Im more than fine with that.
Iowa was a behavioral echo of undefeated Bo-led teams losing in places like West Lafayette or Iowa City. Excruciating, but almost comfortable in its similarity to the Bo era. And then that travesty in Columbus. Even Woody would not (could not?) have rigged such an officiating farce. I watched that game with a feeling, for the first time in 45 years, that the fates, gods, Satanic overlords (fill in your telelogical construct) were really screwing us. My mother shook her head and reminded me that 73-74 was much the same in the bureacratically induced pain and bitterness.
I am done watching CFB for the season. I am still too sick to my stomach as to the rigging. I wish there was a way for us to affect a change to a more level playing field, but I fear that like everything in our society the money is just too much, and the extent to which it is used to alter events and policies by those with not a shred of integrity is too great. And if Michigan were ever to "play along to get along", that would be a permanent end to all things CFB for me.
I know there are many on this board that feel the same. Frankly I wish there were more, as the changes needed in CFB, not to mention our country will require a critical mass demanding redress. 240 years ago (yes, Im going there) it took 10% of the pop to DEMAND change. Until then?
Your choice is to accept the screw and hope that Jimmy can manifest a team that is so great as to be impervious to the screw (on to the Orange Bowl!), or check out entirely. I am currently in Option #2, but will probably be pulled (by my 45 year love for all things Maize and Blue) into Option #1 when season tickets reup. Like your friends, it wont take much for me to go Option #2 permanently. Got that Mr. Delany?
I sincerely hope that Manuel is bashing on the back-channels to insure that that travesty in Columbus never happens again. I expect Jimmy will come out of this annealed with an even stronger strength in the spine. Should we have to be 120% better than every team we play? Apparently.
December 4th, 2016 at 10:45 AM ^
and use Saban's tactics (scholarships are one-year contracts) and strat pulling 3-4 5-star recruits every year, it's going to be tough to do what they have done.
Saban has 6 1st round draft picks on that team this year, SIX!! We don't have the proximity to those types of 5-star athletes. And kids consider weather a major factor now. The cold in November is a thing.
OSU gets the vast majority of top talent from Ohio and we get the best from Michigan for the most part. The problem there is state of Ohio has much better football than Michigan does.
I know we recruit nationally, but those 5-star kids are expecting the NFL down the road and currently they see Saban and Meyer as the best way to get there.
Losing to Iowa has kept us out of the playoff, so we can't make the statement we need to make. We need to dominate FSU in the Orange Bowl and prove we can get kids to the League.
December 4th, 2016 at 10:51 AM ^
Alabama's 247 composite rankings under Saban:
- 2007 = 13 (Saban hired 1/3)
- 2008 = 3
- 2009 = 2
- 2010 = 5
- 2011 =1
- 2012 = 1
- 2013 = 1
- 2014 = 1
- 2015 = 1
- 2016 = 1
- 2017 = 1 (currently)
Add the oversigning/grayshirting in there, and unless something strange happens, Alabama will have a strangle-hold on the sport for at least the rest of this decade. The Tide are a de facto NFL practice squad.
December 4th, 2016 at 11:36 AM ^
Anyways, let's lighten up. It's the holidays and remember how far we have come from the last two regimes in a span of two years.
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