Among other lessons from the Vikings series, someone has to kill the Earl before he grows old. It's sad, but death in battle is his only chance of reaching Valhalla. This season should just about do it.
Another first in diversity for the University of Michigan, a female Bag Person. Submit her name to the multi-cultural review committee immediately! She just needs to work out how to turn insurance payments into loose cash and she's in business.
Like Brian, I am totally appalled at the lack of effectiveness of our Bag Men if they even exist at all. Michigan has been late to the party on a number of innovations in college athletics like progressive / variable ticket prices, night games, luxury boxes, club seats, etc. We simply cannot afford to be left behind by yet another shift in the college football landscape. I hereby call on the University of Michigan to form a diverse, multi-cultural committee of civic leaders, poets and non-mainstream religious figures to recruit and retain better Bag Men. Clearly, this is our only hope.
Returning from the land of sarcasm for a moment, I think we would actually struggle to produce effective Bag Men. While the article does specifically mention the culture of the South being generally tolerant towards this type of behavior, it doesn't mention the effect that social structure has on Bag Men. The South is effectively a class-based society. People are born into a social class and generally stay there all their lives. One of the trappings of the upper (ruling) classes is attendance at The School in your state or region. This concentration of alumni and wealth among a relative small and geographically related group, while maybe not unique nationwide, is certainly more pronounced in the South.
If I think about the people I went to U of M with, we are first scattered around the world and second concentrated in careers that don't lend themselves well to Bag Manning. I don't know anyone from Grand Blanc for example who went to U of M and then returned home to take over running Daddy's car dealership or tractor repair business. I struggle to see an entrepreneur take a break from a meeting with the investors in his new biotech startup to deliver an envelope full of money to kid at a bus stop on Washtenaw. Or a playwright or a dentist or a.... Furthermore, we don't exist in an area where every single business owner went to either Alabama or Auburn with a few stragglers from Tennessee and Georgia thrown in. Wealth here is much more distributed than in the South. Not to say that those people don't exist here, but there's far fewer of them and they hold far less stature in society.
I think the comparison between Steve Fisher and RichRod is totally fair. I don’t know that I buy the totality of Brian’s Equilibrium State Theory though. I would submit that while the Michigan Ecosystem (Former Players, Alumni, Boosters, Fans, Hanger-ons, etc.) certainly applies an almost irresistible force helping to hold a team in place, the Equilibrium that force is trying to achieve has limited memory. I think the Equilibrium State that force is trying to achieve is last great success for a given team. That force was acting on Steve Fischer trying to force him back to the Bill Frieder era. I believe that same force is now acting on John Bielen (and was acting on Tommy Amaker) to return back to the Steve Fischer era. Yes, I too believe in the ghost of Fielding Yost. But I don’t actually believe that the Equilibrium Force is actually trying to push us back to into a Flying Wing-based offense. Our last great football success was with a pro-style set and that’s what the Equilibrium Force is trying to push us back into.
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Another first in diversity for the University of Michigan, a female Bag Person. Submit her name to the multi-cultural review committee immediately! She just needs to work out how to turn insurance payments into loose cash and she's in business.
Like Brian, I am totally appalled at the lack of effectiveness of our Bag Men if they even exist at all. Michigan has been late to the party on a number of innovations in college athletics like progressive / variable ticket prices, night games, luxury boxes, club seats, etc. We simply cannot afford to be left behind by yet another shift in the college football landscape. I hereby call on the University of Michigan to form a diverse, multi-cultural committee of civic leaders, poets and non-mainstream religious figures to recruit and retain better Bag Men. Clearly, this is our only hope.
Returning from the land of sarcasm for a moment, I think we would actually struggle to produce effective Bag Men. While the article does specifically mention the culture of the South being generally tolerant towards this type of behavior, it doesn't mention the effect that social structure has on Bag Men. The South is effectively a class-based society. People are born into a social class and generally stay there all their lives. One of the trappings of the upper (ruling) classes is attendance at The School in your state or region. This concentration of alumni and wealth among a relative small and geographically related group, while maybe not unique nationwide, is certainly more pronounced in the South.
If I think about the people I went to U of M with, we are first scattered around the world and second concentrated in careers that don't lend themselves well to Bag Manning. I don't know anyone from Grand Blanc for example who went to U of M and then returned home to take over running Daddy's car dealership or tractor repair business. I struggle to see an entrepreneur take a break from a meeting with the investors in his new biotech startup to deliver an envelope full of money to kid at a bus stop on Washtenaw. Or a playwright or a dentist or a.... Furthermore, we don't exist in an area where every single business owner went to either Alabama or Auburn with a few stragglers from Tennessee and Georgia thrown in. Wealth here is much more distributed than in the South. Not to say that those people don't exist here, but there's far fewer of them and they hold far less stature in society.
Now in Ohio on the other hand...
I think the comparison between Steve Fisher and RichRod is totally fair. I don’t know that I buy the totality of Brian’s Equilibrium State Theory though. I would submit that while the Michigan Ecosystem (Former Players, Alumni, Boosters, Fans, Hanger-ons, etc.) certainly applies an almost irresistible force helping to hold a team in place, the Equilibrium that force is trying to achieve has limited memory. I think the Equilibrium State that force is trying to achieve is last great success for a given team. That force was acting on Steve Fischer trying to force him back to the Bill Frieder era. I believe that same force is now acting on John Bielen (and was acting on Tommy Amaker) to return back to the Steve Fischer era. Yes, I too believe in the ghost of Fielding Yost. But I don’t actually believe that the Equilibrium Force is actually trying to push us back to into a Flying Wing-based offense. Our last great football success was with a pro-style set and that’s what the Equilibrium Force is trying to push us back into.