Whatever
1/1/2018 – Michigan 19, South Carolina 26 – 8-5, end of season
[Marc-Gregor Campredon]
I don't know how people get mad about this shit still. I just turn off, because for the last decade Michigan football has been either a disappointment or in a brief interim period that sets you up to be disappointed. But yes many many people still get fucking furious about Michigan football for some reason.
I'm tired of talking about it. I'm tired of this cycle that always seems to be at the bottom. I'm tired of this toxic-ass fanbase screaming at stuff. I could muster some takes, I guess, but I've already said them and anyway they seem beside the point. December was nice since it lacked football. 2018, so far, is bad because it had football.
In a situation like that I'd rather not talk about football. Especially because I have nothing left to say. Maybe it'll be better next year. Maybe it won't. Either way it's a meaningless distraction on the way to the grave. Eat at Arby's.
January 2nd, 2018 at 10:39 AM ^
My 14 month old son woke up midway through the third quarter and wouldn't stop crying. Our shared emotions bonded us.
January 2nd, 2018 at 10:29 AM ^
I wish I could upvote this 100x. I feel exactly like Weird Al in this clip.
January 2nd, 2018 at 10:20 AM ^
not much yesterday to be honest. I found out this wasn't a very good team but in fact i already knew that. The real alarming thing is that they may have been getting worse for the last 3 years and not better. It does feel like some head(s) have to roll to get anythign going here.
The WTKA guys seems to have settled on "nothings guaranteed" and "Jim's staying so nothing else matters" narrative which...doesn't exactly instill confidence, nor is it particularly insightful.
i'm hoping over the weeks and months to come, MGOBLOG will fill that void
January 2nd, 2018 at 10:42 AM ^
We were 5-7 in Hoke's last year, so I'm not sure how we could have been getting worse for three years. We took a step back this year from 2016 though, and hopefully that's a temporary blip.
January 2nd, 2018 at 11:06 AM ^
i simply mean that of the 3 seasons Harbaugh has had at Michigan, you can make the arguement that its gotten steadily worse. Esp with offense.
January 2nd, 2018 at 11:25 AM ^
In 2014, Hoke's last season, we scored 20.9 ppg and gave up 22.4 ppg
In 2015, we averaged 31.4 ppg and gave up 16.3 ppg.
In 2016, we averaged 40.3 ppg and gave up 14.1 ppg
In 2017, we averaged 25.2 ppg and gave up 18.8 ppg.
To argue that we've gotten worse three straight years is nonsensical. This year, yes.
January 2nd, 2018 at 6:40 PM ^
No you can't. Last year's team was better in almost every way than the 2015 team.
January 2nd, 2018 at 10:21 AM ^
Someone broke Brian
January 2nd, 2018 at 10:49 AM ^
Brian started this blog in 2004 right? Imagine how far off of his expectations Michigan football has been since then.
Depending on when he started in 2004, he's only gotten to write about possibly one Big Ten title and one Ohio State victory.
Almost every year ends the same way.
Damn.
January 2nd, 2018 at 10:58 AM ^
MGoBlog has never seen Michigan win the Big Ten. Not even once.
The last time it happened in November 2004, MGoBlog was not started yet.
That helps explain some of the ennui.
January 2nd, 2018 at 11:00 AM ^
Hey wait...maybe it is time to shut this place down?
January 2nd, 2018 at 8:19 PM ^
January 2nd, 2018 at 10:23 AM ^
Michigan football has killed us.
January 2nd, 2018 at 10:23 AM ^
if we're going to go all "nihilist arby's" we might as well quote the original. Here is a recent one:
January 2nd, 2018 at 11:01 AM ^
This means that nobody will remember anything Nick Saban ever did.
I feel better.
January 2nd, 2018 at 10:23 AM ^
January 2nd, 2018 at 10:54 AM ^
I was out of town, watching the game with another Michigan fan--decades long but a non-grad--and a U Florida grad/fan and his girlfriend, who doesn't like football. I couldn't get on-line again till this morning. So glad too, because I can only imagine how the board meltdown paralleled the on-field meltdown. But the sun still rose this morning. Hopefully, we do get big changes on the offensive side of the ball. I will always support the team of course, whatever the record. But I still had a fun day will friends yesterday.
January 2nd, 2018 at 10:24 AM ^
"Whatever"
My exact response when my daughter texted me, talking shit last night. She's a sparty fan like her mother before her. Yet her school is that one down in Ohio. (I resisted bringing up that if Michigan would lower its acceptance standards many athletes would get in that currently cannot, much like her mother's experience of being told "no.")
January 2nd, 2018 at 10:40 AM ^
I feel like behind every Sparty fan there is a rejection letter from Michigan. I know several where this is true.
January 2nd, 2018 at 11:14 AM ^
January 2nd, 2018 at 11:19 AM ^
January 2nd, 2018 at 1:31 PM ^
January 2nd, 2018 at 1:46 PM ^
And probably have a life to boot.
This stuff is why people mock with glee when M loses - the “institutional arrogance”
January 2nd, 2018 at 12:12 PM ^
my sparty ex girlfriend wrote her law school admissions essay about how her michigan rejection letter changed her life. she sucked.
January 2nd, 2018 at 11:20 AM ^
January 2nd, 2018 at 1:43 PM ^
the academic standards are similar, the attitude towards off-field issues is very different.
For the record, I am not advocating that Michigan ever changes that.
January 2nd, 2018 at 1:44 PM ^
January 2nd, 2018 at 2:03 PM ^
Dude, just, no. You joined the day of State's bowl game and every one of your few posts has been about MSU. Your fake Michigan fan concern troll schtick game is beyond horrific.
January 2nd, 2018 at 1:59 PM ^
It's true, when it comes to acedemic acceptance standards, MSU rocks.
January 2nd, 2018 at 2:27 PM ^
Speight/O'Korn/Peters threw for a combined 9 TDs this year.
Threet/Sheridan threw for 11.
January 2nd, 2018 at 6:01 PM ^
January 2nd, 2018 at 10:25 AM ^
January 2nd, 2018 at 10:35 AM ^
It will be the first post after the site upgrade is rolled out.
January 2nd, 2018 at 12:42 PM ^
Came for Henri, and Henri I received. It just feels less official coming from you instead of Brian.
January 2nd, 2018 at 10:24 AM ^
guess I don't understand why people who get frustrated and upset over Michigan losses are kind of marginalized now. In the sense that this blog's official take on Michigan football has become "jeez, it's just a game." Of course its just a game, but this is a collection of people who are very passionate about this particular "game." Is that not what kind of binds the people on this site? Some people go overboard and lose their shit, yeah, that is uncalled for. But this "what are you guys so upset for - none of this means anything" approach to watching us lose. Meh. Not a fan.
January 2nd, 2018 at 10:41 AM ^
But this "what are you guys so upset for - none of this means anything" approach to watching us lose. Meh. Not a fan.
I find your ironic detachment to Brian's ironic detachment to be...
Ironic.
January 2nd, 2018 at 10:49 AM ^
is just a defense mechanism for some people to say "eh, I wasn't invested anyway." It is very Mike Valenti-esque.
January 2nd, 2018 at 12:41 PM ^
What?? Are you accusing people of not being invested because their reaction to a shit loss isn't the aburdist garbage that most spew out? At some point it becomes inane to analyze the same shit over and over. It doesn't mean you're not invested and nowhere does Brian suggest he wasn't invested. He's literally about the most invested fan there is.
January 2nd, 2018 at 12:58 PM ^
The guy that makes his living (mostly) off of UM football and the poeple who post here is now telling us "Whatever" and he's "tired of this toxic-ass fanbase screaming at stuff". Well he may as well pull the plug on his mgosever, cancel the site upgrade and forget about publishing HTTV 2018 since none of this stuff matters anyway. What a crybaby, lame-ass cop out. He helped create this monster by giving ALL OF US an outlet to discuss our favorite UM teams/sports, whether the discussion is good or bad and now he's tired of us.
I guess it's time for Brian and co. to go get real jobs and quit playing in the UM fanbase sandbox because nothing is going to change with this fanbase until UM wins another national championship.
January 2nd, 2018 at 10:43 AM ^
I was in Madison watching this game decked out in Michigan gear. I was so frustrated with this game. My wife and brother-in-law, both Badger fans, were just kind of like "what's up with Michigan?". I had zero answers.
No, it didn't ruin my day but the more I thought about the game, the more pissed I became. Not ready to listen to "it's only a bowl game" shit. Most people on this blog, myself included, were excited for this game because it was expected we would win. We had the game won but our team is not mentally strong enough to play through a bit of adversity late in games.
In saying this I don't believe we need to have a fire sale of coaches but I don't understand how great coaches like Harbaugh and Brown don't have their guys mentally prepared to play 4 quarters.
January 2nd, 2018 at 11:25 AM ^
Actually, I agree with both Brian and this take as well. Our fan base has a problem with careening from one extreme to another.
Either we are:
1) Too amped up with unrealistic expectations (a side effect of being in the wilderness for so long & thus being unrealistically impatient to again attain "elite" status)--exhibits A, B, and C are the hot takes on this blog's message board, twitter, some of the posters on the paid "insider" sites; (too hot/impatient) or alternatively;
2) Totally detached. I posted Henri the Otter of Ennui above as a joke, but Brian's "whatever" post encapsulates this attitude as well. It's a defense mechanism against getting hurt by the program again when people get too emotionally invested in it in the first place, put unrealistic expectations on it, then get disproportionately hurt when things don't work out. (i.e., too cold/uninterested, which leads to a lack of accountability--I don't want to become simply the "big brother" to the Northwestern Wildcats).
The truth is, I think the right approach is in the middle. Namely:
- Stay engaged & interested in the program. Adopting an apathetic attitude totaly removes accountabilty from the equation & will increase the likelihood that the program continues to spin into irrelevancy.
- Understand that the probram was BROKEN for a solid 7-9 years. Yes, it takes some programs only 1-2 years to turn around, but ours was a total black hole of institutional dysfunction. A 4-6 year rebuilding process is not unreasonable. So partly, chill the hell out. No coach or player wants to work/play for an absolutely toxic fan base.
- That being said, as a pro-Harbaugh guy, I'd say that right now we are NOT "on schedule"--not totally a disaster yet, but behind the curve of reasonable expectations. In my mind, an "on schedule" season this year would have resulted in a 10-3 type season with wins over MSU and our bowl opponent, and with "eye test"/fancy stats demonsterating improvement among the younger players across the board. Instead, the coaches largely derp away loses to MSU & SC, and we get only patchwork progress among the young players (and in some cases possibly regression). The early warnings were there at the start of the season. We should have been crushing Air Force, Cincy, Purdue, etc. like we crushed Rutgers, Minnesota & Maryland later in the year. Yes we had QB struggles & injury, but we should have been able to steamroll physically inferior opponents with ease. IMO, Harbaugh is not on the "hot seat" yet, but the Harbaugh Honeymoon is over. Yellow alert, not red alert.
- Harbaugh & his staff should not be excepted from the meritocracy concept. What's good for the goose is good for the gander--first because it WORKS, but also because it's good for morale--leaders shouldn't be asking anything more of their players than what they're willing to put in themselves. I want to see accountability on the coaching/staffing side. What that looks like I don't know since I'm way on the outside & not a "football" knowledge guy. Maybe the staff/scheme/personnel needs a major shake up--maybe it doesn't & it's just a matter of building consistency & stay the course so as not to force these kids to totally change their techniques/playbooks again. Whatever the answer is, the final arbiter won't be seen for another year or two--it'll be the results on the field, period. We know this is metaphically possible to achieve excellence year in & year out, because other programs do it. Even if we don't stoop to corrupt methods like some of the other football powers, it's entirely rasonable to build our program to a consistent 9-10 win level, punctuated by frequent 11 win seasons where we compete in the BTCG and maybe a trip to the CFP (if it remains at 4 teams) maybe once every 4-5 years.
Bottom line is I think our approach should be "Engaged Concern" right now, not "Apathetic Abandonment" nor "Outraged Panic."
In my view, barring some catastrophic program collapse or off field scandals, Harbaugh has my 100% support through the 2019 season. By that time any adjustments (or NON adjustments/"stay the course" strategy) he makes will have worked (or not). If our oustanding D can remain a top 10 unit over that period of time, all Harbaugh has to do is bring the offense up to a top 30 or so unit in order to produce some excellent squads.
At that point in 2020 or 2021 it'd be a make or break year for him IMO. If he can't maintain our D & bring our offense up to a top 30ish unit in another 3 years, (or--less likely--our D slips a bit but our O gets to the top 15 or top 10 zone), then it isn't ever going to happen with a now 56 year old Harbaugh at the helm.
And at that point, I'd say we search for a young & innovative (but not TOO innovative) coach with a solid 4-6 year track record of consistent improvement/excellence, and who shows a desire to be a "life long" college HC (i.e. potential to be around a good 10-15 years). So by 2021 for example Iowa Stat's Matt Campbell presuming the Cyclones show additional improvement/consistency he'd have a 5-6 year record at ISU competing against Power 5 teams). Competitive fire & recruiting ability would be a must & having a "Michigan" pedigree would be of only minor consideration. An "OK" X's and O's head coach can import genius/scheme talent into his staff if he has the temperment/lack of ego to delegate the createive side of things to other guys.
Anyway, that's my 10 cents on this slow work day full of everybody else's hot takes & resigned apathy.
As always, Go Blue!
January 2nd, 2018 at 10:25 AM ^
I am not screaming. I am not angry. I have context.
However, I am disappointed that I may never get to go to the Rose Bowl with my father while I am an adult and he is still alive. Many BIG programs/fans will never get to experience the Rose Bowl or the game with all the friends and family they want to be present. I never thought it would happen to me as a UofM fan.
I am jealous that all my Sparty friends and family have pictures under the Rose Bowl entrance, with the sunset and celebrating what appears to be an amazing trip. I am not so sure I will get to experience that. Crazy to think that when looking at the history of Michigan football and the Rose Bowl.
Yes, it is just a game. A game that brings life long memories to many. Memories that I won't have because the program is what it is. And that is why I am disappointed in Michigan football.
January 2nd, 2018 at 10:52 AM ^
Amen, reverend. It is just a game, but it brings a lot more to people when good things happen. I want to see this program do something great, so I can share that experience with my family, my dad, and my 2 sons. There are certainly many other ways to do that, but sports can bring people together like no other.
January 2nd, 2018 at 2:27 PM ^
January 2nd, 2018 at 10:25 AM ^
Seasons like this are always a gentle reminder to myself to not get too invested in things that are out of my control. If you are like me, and you occasionally get to the point where you find the need to yell at things after a Michigan loss, it might help to go out and get involved in things you have some control over. Join a rec league basketball team, start a home-based business or simply do some work around the house. Maybe we should all unplug for a while and invest some sweat equity in the real world, where we can be the masters of our own domain. Our mood will no longer depend on Drevno's laminated play sheet or which hat an 18-year-old chooses to pick up off a table and place on his head. Besides, Brian is tired of us, and he certainly won't miss the traffic or anything. Follow me to freedom!
January 2nd, 2018 at 6:28 PM ^
January 2nd, 2018 at 10:25 AM ^
Michigan Football: Making people apathetic since 2007
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