Why does the football program underachieve so much?

Look at the 2016 MSU game.  Sure, we won the game but not after essentially giving up for the final 7 minutes to allow MSU to make the final score respectable.  That year we had a huge talent and experience advantage and should've stomped them by 20+ points.  Instead we chose to coast.  That is the kind of bullshit that nobody wants to see.  When you have your rival on the ropes you throw the knockout punch and then kick them when they're down.  That is the mentality we need to get back.

I also look at Notre Dame and see the same phenomenon. Yes they have had some good seasons with Brian Kelly, however I still think they suffer from that elitism and lack of killer instinct which has taken them out of true elite status in the last 20 years. 

The elitist programs with the beacon on the hill academic reputation just don't do well. Even a player who grew up in public housing takes on that same elitist attitude once he arrives here (just listen to the players' perspective toward the fans). It's a badge of honor to not be nasty, to not have a chip on your shoulder, to be a "good guy." It's like Michigan is too self-conscious to truly take on a tough, gritty persona thinking that it's beneath them. 

You think Ohio State fans, students, or players give a shit if the ivory tower folks don't consider them a public Ivy? Alabama? USC? Mind you, these are all good-excellent schools. Fact is, you can be a great academic institution and have an elite football program. Seems like the UM culture doesn't recognize that and that the reputation is more important than the substance behind it. 

Today's game was very much like most of the other 24 bowl losses I've watched since 1/1/1970 in that we just seem lethargic from the beginning on offense, while our opponents generally seem sky-high to play us, even when it's Southern Cal.

Since that 1970 Rose Bowl loss to USC, no other program in the country has as many bowl losses as Michigan does at 25. That's simply pathetic.

I remember at freshman orientation basically being told my shit didn't stink. I believed it of course but it probably wasn't a great motivating factor. 

Whenever I see videos of former players coming in to talk to the team or any presentation on Michigan, you are shown all the past champions of the last century. Everyone pats themselves on the back in pride, only to see entitled attitude on the field right after and we wonder why.

I'd love it if the new recruits and returning players came in on their first day of practice and they saw a presentation of all the past great teams. Once that nostalgia welled up their eyes and put a lump in their throats, fast-forward to the last 15 years and show only yakety sax bloopers and embarassing losses to our championship-level rivals (like ESPN does every season). Remind them who we are NOW. It'll be sobering, and it'll piss a lot of people off. 

Not to disrespect the players that worked hard over the last 2 decades, but to ask each incoming player which version of the program they wanted to create. Yes...create...from scratch. No more riding the coattails of "tradition." Let them create their own identity apart from the one the program created when the old money ruled the roost of football. 

The whole "This is Michigan!" thing Hoke did was cringeworthy for me from the start, but it explains a lot. Meaningless entitled rhetoric. 

We're running the same offense Bo ran at Miami? It doesn't look like it at all to me--where's all the triple option stuff?