I wrote one of these eleven years ago, when Michigan basketball took on Louisville in Atlanta. It never saw the light of day because Michigan did not win that game, but it was titled the same thing. I had largely opted out of the great grim period before John Beilein was hired and so the post had undertones of apology to those who did not, those hardy folks who stuck it out through Ellerbe and Amaker.
I said that everyone was going to float that night, but the people who had invested more would find themselves lighter, and go higher. I said that the payoff here was proportional to the pain. And I still believe that.
Apply it to Michigan football, now: a slow degradation over the last few years of the Carr era, culminating in less than 100 yards of offense against OSU. Then a good-on-paper hire who Michigan sabotaged internally with a bullshit NCAA investigation. Then Rich Rodriguez did a pretty good job of sabotaging himself. This was followed by a hollow suit hiring Brady Hoke over Jim Harbaugh and telling us "all that glitters is not gold." This was followed by Brandon's unceremonious firing—Hoke exited soon after—and Jim Hackett dropping in with a single mission: hire Harbaugh. This he accomplished.
In some ways this was the worst part of the journey here. Harbaugh immediately improved the team to near-elite levels but could not get over the giant hump at the end of the season. After a two-year ramp up period Michigan lost in double OT with an injured starting QB; the next year the starting QB went down again in a game that anyone but John O'Korn probably wins. Michigan was so close they could taste it, and then OSU pivoted from being JT Barrett's team to one that would have a series of NFL-level passing attacks. The next year Michigan entered The Game with the #1 defense in the country and proceeded to give up 62 points. Ryan Day would infamously promise to "hang 100 on 'em" after 2019, when OSU put up 56.
This is the point where I more or less gave up hope. After all that—dumping Brandon and getting Harbaugh and being one nanometer away from the paradigm-shifting win—Michigan was once again playing football seasons that existed merely as foreshadowing for an apocalypse. I was not in a mental space to regard 2020 as fake, which it now clearly was, and wanted someone other than Harbaugh in 2021.
As teams were headed to locker rooms at the half. @OhioStateFB @UMichFootball
About to be an interesting 2nd H
@CollegeGameDay pic.twitter.com/knxp97O4Oq— Kirk Herbstreit (@KirkHerbstreit) November 27, 2021
To go from that nadir to the last three years… I have experienced nothing like it as a sports fan and never will again. Because that all counts. Some years ago, when the site was small enough that I could only afford to have Paul Nelson and Tim Sullivan on part-time, I asked Paul to put together a weird highlight video set to Rilo Kiley's A Better Son/Daughter that spent its first half reprising debacles in black and white. A certain segment of the Michigan fanbase revisits it, or something like it, periodically, to the point where there is occasional backlash against that vibe. We have occasionally caught flak around here for being the type of site that puts up posts like "here are the worst plays of the last ten years whoops here's part two." The word "wallowing" could apply to fairly large swathes of our content.
Why did we do that? Because it hurt, and that counts. It hurt so badly that at times I swore this was the least fun program in America to follow, or wrote a column that was entirely about buying a new mattress, or tailed off in the distance trailing UFRs I would never get around to doing. Sometimes when we did do one—usually this was Seth—the comments section would be filled with people wailing "whyyyyy did you do this?"I dunno. It's who we are. We're not here to paper over holes in your heart. There would have been something dishonest about not wallowing during… all that.
But then… this team. And the two before it, all part of the process of getting here. Aidan Hutchinson is on this team. Hassan Haskins is. Luke Schoonmaker, Olu Oluwatimi, Brandon Graham, Denard Robinson… every bit of hope chiseled out by a guy fighting so hard and so futilely before the breakthrough is on this team. Khalid Hill getting into the endzone by an inch on fourth and goal in Columbus. Devin Gardner putting the team on his back with a broken foot. None of that was enough, until it was. Until some wonderful idiot started waving chairs around and Michigan said fuck all that wallowing shit. The past is past.
This team took on Washington and Alabama and Ohio State and Penn State in the midst of the most ridiculous sturm und drang in the history of college football, and in the end they proved what I'd hoped back in August, a thousand years ago:
They run like my kids run. My kids do not have keys, or a wallet, or a phone. They do not have objects they carry around every day that represent demands, obligations, responsibilities. Mortgages, credit card balances, texts you have to answer from people you do not want to talk to.
Unlike my kids, they do have all of those objects, and all of those demands, obligations, and responsibilities. They've signed up for an order of magnitude more than their fair share by playing football at the University of Michigan™. But they do not seem burdened by it. They are joyful. They run like there is nothing in their pockets, nothing at all.
This is as good as it gets. I was planning to fly home tomorrow; I still will, but I won't need a plane.
Go Blue.
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McSomething
January 8th, 2024 at 11:42 PM ^
They did it, guys. They fuckin did it.
Joined: 09/29/2010
MGoPoints: 35053
maznblu
January 9th, 2024 at 1:04 AM ^
The weather forcast in Houston, TX:
Joined: 01/03/2011
MGoPoints: 450
charblue.
January 9th, 2024 at 2:12 AM ^
Sometimes when you're on, you're really fucking on. And your friends sing along and are proud. Tonight is for greatness personified. Michigan conquered Everybody and lived to rejoice in that splendor of joy.
For Michigan fans everywhere from 1997 to now, you know how it feels to be the leaders and best, no doubts, no questions asked, just receipts from Team 144, that promised greatness and delivered it on its own terms in gratitude for team, the team, the team. We are what we thought we are, National Champions, because those who stayed made it happen.
Joined: 05/25/2010
MGoPoints: 10922
Creedence Tapes
January 9th, 2024 at 2:19 AM ^
"Pull it down!"
Joined: 01/23/2011
MGoPoints: 3622
TheCube
January 9th, 2024 at 4:08 AM ^
Michigan thank you. Thank you so fucking much. GO FUCKING BLUE.
Joined: 12/19/2018
MGoPoints: 30659
BlueVball8
January 8th, 2024 at 11:43 PM ^
Go Blue! I love you all.
Joined: 12/13/2010
MGoPoints: 752
lorch_arsonist
January 9th, 2024 at 12:11 AM ^
The greatest team in sport covered by the greatest sport writers on the greatest blog on earth! Thank you all--especially you, Brian!
Joined: 11/07/2016
MGoPoints: 1169
Bombadil
January 8th, 2024 at 11:43 PM ^
Brian, you deserve this. All of this. Thank you for everything you’ve done for our amazing community. Go Blue!
Joined: 01/22/2011
MGoPoints: 8228
bighousechris
January 9th, 2024 at 12:14 AM ^
Amen. Amazing, Who’s got it better than us?
Joined: 06/30/2008
MGoPoints: 1957
aiglick
January 9th, 2024 at 12:23 AM ^
Nooobooodddyyy
Joined: 11/27/2010
MGoPoints: 21237
MGoChippewa
January 9th, 2024 at 12:25 AM ^
NOOOOOOBOOODYYYY
Joined: 01/06/2011
MGoPoints: 11264
Blue_Goose
January 9th, 2024 at 12:31 AM ^
Noooooobody!!!!
Joined: 08/27/2017
MGoPoints: 2294
MGoBernie
January 9th, 2024 at 1:59 AM ^
NOOOOOOOOOBODY!
Joined: 09/24/2011
MGoPoints: 41
Davy Found
January 9th, 2024 at 3:32 AM ^
NOOOBODDDY!!!
Joined: 12/07/2017
MGoPoints: 3632
Davy Found
January 9th, 2024 at 3:32 AM ^
NOOOBODDDY!!!
Joined: 12/07/2017
MGoPoints: 3632
Davy Found
January 9th, 2024 at 3:32 AM ^
NOOOBODDDY!!!
Joined: 12/07/2017
MGoPoints: 3632
MichiganFootball1313
January 8th, 2024 at 11:43 PM ^
I love everyone
Joined: 01/05/2023
MGoPoints: 1283
Charlton Banks
January 9th, 2024 at 1:06 AM ^
Literally all I can say. We weathered the storm of all naysayers and came out with the irrefutable chant. We are champions! Fuck you all! No gracious way to say it.
Joined: 06/02/2017
MGoPoints: 2184
rice4114
January 9th, 2024 at 1:11 AM ^
We let a naysayer know!
Joined: 08/26/2010
MGoPoints: 42450
Ballislife
January 8th, 2024 at 11:43 PM ^
A perfect capstone on a perfect season. Hats off to you, Brian, and the rest of the MGoStaff.
This is only the beginning. Go Blue, forever and always.
Joined: 02/26/2014
MGoPoints: 9329
Indy Pete - Go Blue
January 8th, 2024 at 11:44 PM ^
Brian, thanks for being the heartbeat for a long-suffering fanbase. Congrats on your awesome work for all these years. Enjoy this moment!
Joined: 01/23/2018
MGoPoints: 144652
rugbyjosh
January 9th, 2024 at 12:22 AM ^
Couldn't agree more. We all read the columns full of agony and disappointment. That was hard enough. I can't imagine writing those columns. Enjoy this one, Brian. We wouldn't be here if not for you.
Joined: 02/03/2012
MGoPoints: 254
borninAnnArbor
January 9th, 2024 at 12:25 AM