Michigan's silver lining?
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If you could refrain from your laughter for, oh I don't know, 5-6 minutes, that'd be great.
I know it's hard, but try to keep your mind off of questions like, 'how ridiculous was that upset?' And, "how could they find a way to lose to Appalachian State, of all teams?" Just find anyway to get that laughing to subside. If worst comes to worst, bite your tongue, it always helps me.
They sure are hailing those victors in Ann Arbor Michigan tonight, although if I told you this morning that the team they would be hailing would not be the #5 team in the nation, and the team that usually recieves the brunt of the hailing would not be receiving said hailing, you might've thought two things. One being, the word hailing was used so many times in that sentence, it's now been marked as endangered by the National Word Protection Agency, and two, that there was no way in hell that Appalachian State was actually pulling off that upset. Too improbable. Michigan's in the Big House, they're furious after losing to Ohio State and USC to finish last season, they've got plenty of fresh players with spark and energy who have got to be rip-raring to go in their Big House opener.
As it turned out, Michigan forgot that they had an actual football game to play, and decided that it didn't matter if every shred of dignity and pride that the University of Michigan holds as an institution of higher learning and more importantly as a great football program were on the line, Appalachian State was just another bottom-feeding school from the Artist Formerly Known as I-AA.
Oh, how wrong they were.
The Michigan Wolverines were clicking on all cylinders saturday afternoon, unfortunately these aren't the kind of cylinders that make fans cheer or coaches happy. These are the cylinders that can most often times be found clicking on all fronts for the Northwestern Wildcats, or even the Indiana Hoosiers. They involve senseless penalties, being a man short on a play numerous times, they involve blocking so terrible that it could only be topped by the utterly horrendous tackling display put on by the young Wolverine defensive corps. On saturday afternoon, if it could be done wrong, Michigan did it wrong.
The worst part of all these terrible wrong-doings is how it completely ruined the potential great season upcoming for the three senior studs Michigan possesses, Henne, Hart & Long. Chad Henne was decent today but could've been better, going 19-33 for 233. For the most part he hit his recievers and made good decisions, that was until it got down to crunch time and he couldn't come through. Not entirely surprising, especially from a guy who is 0-6 against Ohio State and in bowl games in his 3-year career.
Mike Hart on the other hand was excellent, and when you consider that he sat out for most of the second quarter and some of the third because of a sore groin then his numbers (23 for 188, 3 TD's) become even more impressive. His awe-inspiring, tackler-dodging, 54-yard TD dash in the 4th quarter to give Michigan a slimmer of a hope near the end was, despite this loss, without a doubt a ticket into the Heisman Sweepstakes.
Although it's incredibly unfortunate and terribly saddening (at least for Maize and Blue Nation and me) to see a promising season cut down before it even got started, if one good thing can be taken from this utter disaster, it's that Michigan has proven that it has the stones to schedule actual football teams.
This separates Michigan from a lot of the other top-tier schools, to make sure you understand what I'm getting at, I'll run you through the Top 6 teams right now, and their astoundingly ferocious non-conference schedules. But the Surgeon General requires me to warn you that the absolute terror that will grip your entire body after scanning your eyes across these schools' names and records might be too much for the faint of heart, so read onward cautiously.
1. USC - Idaho, Nebraska (20), Washingston State, combined '06 record: 19-19 2. LSU - Miss St, VTech (9) , Mid Tenn St, Tulane, combined in '06: 24-26 3. West Virginia - W. Mich, Marshall, Maryland, Miss St, combined in '06: 23-26 4. Texas - Ark St, UCF, TCU (22), Rice, combined in '06: 28-22 5. Michigan - App St, Oregon, Notre Dame, E. Mich, '06: 32-21 (even after Eastern's 1-11!) 6. Florida - W. Ky, Troy, Tenn (15), FAU, '06: 28-24
While stats never tell the entire story, these stats tell most of it. The teams in bold are teams with winning records in the '06 seasons, and only two teams had 3 on their schedule, Michigan and Florida. I know just as well as the next guy that college football schedules are set years in advance, and teams have no possible way of knowing how well or not well a team will do in the years preceding their matchup, but Athletic Directors everywhere are pretty steady-handed when it comes to making educated guesses about what kind of state a program will be in for the next 5 years, or so it seems.
I understand that AD's and coaches are going to try to protect their teams, conference schedules are grueling enough, what's the point of non-conference hassles? Schedule a team you know you can take care of, and maybe once in a while through a decent team in the mix so that your organization won't be seen as completely pathetic.
I guess it depends on your point of view, if you are ok with programs taking the easy road and not scheduling anyone difficult so that their record might look a little shinier come BCS time, but I prefer the other route. The one that involves believing that by scheduling tougher teams you may not win any prizes (or trophies), but should you escape these marginally tougher games unscathed, your team will be all the more prepared for the rough conference schedule that awaits you.
But the line those daring teams walk is a fine one, should the team encounter a rough patch or two, which the Michigan Wolverines should know all about after today, championship aspirations are dashed and fans utter phrases such as, "Maybe next year," or "Looking up at Northwestern in the standings sure is embarassing," which isn't exactly music to anyone's ears, well except maybe Northwestern's.
So while the fear of these utterances and the fear of looking up at Northwestern in the standings may scare away many coaches from scheduling tougher non-conference matchups, and it's understandable why ADs and coaches won't call up two-time reigning I-AA champs like Appalachian State so often, but when a team does, and just so happens to be unfortunate enough to bite the dust, give 'em a break. At least for a second.
And during that second think about how Michigan's loss today will be your favorite team's loss during the conference schedule, that they would've been prepared for, had they not scheduled another creampuff.
So, laugh all you want, just keep on chuckling. It was embarassing, and those young Wolverines deserve every bit of shame coming their way. But come time, this incredibly humbling loss today will rub off on these young players, and it can only benefit them. While their play today was no indication of good things to come, Michigan still has a shot at a Big 10 Title and a Rose Bowl birth, both things that are all the more likely with a seasoned team. A seasoned team being something you gain through tough losses such as these, and the possibility of a more experienced team is Michigan's silver lining in this enormous mess.
But for now, feel free to resume your laughing.
