So ..... I am sitting here in my house near Annapolis on a sunny morning and it’s around 60 degrees . Sounds like a great day , and yes it should be. My oldest son and I went to Naval Bagels to get breakfast and to just talk. I started about Michigan football and the basketball team ( trying to decide whether to tape the game and watch Red Zone or watch the game instead ). As I have posted many times , my wife , 3 sons ( 23 , 22 and 19 ) always watch games together. Each year we have gone back to AA and see a game and go to the Michigan vs Maryland football and basketball games. Some years we fly back to a couple of games , and last year we had maybe our best time in the monsoon playing ND. It was a great time , rain and all ......we hugged , laughed and high fived many times !
This season like for many of you we missed our Saturday games together ...... we struggled to find things to watch and when we heard there would be a season we were thrilled. We didn’t have crazy expectations , but just hoped we would be decent. Well ...... clearly things didn’t go as planned after week 1. The boys quit watching. That made my wife sad , as it took away our activity. Thank God for basketball , but that’s a different conversation. So I kept on watching and getting more frustrated like so many of you. I just kept asking myself ( like all of you ) and just could not believe what I was seeing. As some of you MAY know I do stay in touch with some former players from Michigan and a lot of football people ( former NFL guys ) . I truthfully never bought into the , “ we would kill MSU “ narrative and posted as much saying that I would take a 1 point W and be happy. Not that I knew anything but to me more often than not rivalry games are tough. Well that game crushed me .......I could not believe that this was a Michigan team. As I have also posted a former player at Michigan told me “ State treats the game like a fight in an alley “. They punch you in the face from the getgo and have an attitude as they come on the field. He told me , “ we don’t get it “. We don’t understand the rivalry “. Those kids he said in many cases were rejected by Michigan and want to beat our ass . Our kids are from all over the place and to them it’s just another game. Well it has all gone downhill from there. He and I talk a couple of times a week and his comments like others I talk to center on our recruiting policies , those mistakes , the staff composition , and changes in Jim. He and others I talk to have different ideas as to the why and how , but pretty much agree that those issues have gotten us to where we are. Kids that are more interested in themselves , vs the team and a team that lacks focus and leadership. It has been a brutal fall and early winter to be a Michigan football fan. As he put it nobody knows the answer to the big question ...... can Jim fix this , or not and does he want to if given the chance. Nobody knows the answer to this .
Now after this long rant , these past few days I have gone after a few posters and just want to say I am sorry to those I jumped on. I get all the anger and frustration. But I HATE all the posters who put up crap like the guy yesterday who said when a game with Iowa was mentioned , “ I hope we lose by 50” .
That kind of crap for a supposed fan of Michigan is bs. Now someone will say it’s just some troll , but I dont believe that. There are MANY on this board that now openly root for Michigan to get its ass kicked in every game. They feel it will fulfill their narrative. I just don’t understand that no matter how much you hate Jim or Warde. So many of us act like we know what’s going on ......we sit on our couch , rip kids ,recruits , each other and yes I get it that we are in terrible times as a society and no this isn’t political , but the hate has spiraled out of control. We NEED to take a step back somewhat and try to realize what we are doing. Warde and Jim are going to do what they think is best. No matter how much we rip them it’s their call. As Section 6 has said Warde has done a helluva job with hires like Juwan and others. The story is not over with football. We don’t need to start out with 25 posts a day on what a stupid ass Jim is , Warde is incompetent , and how soon is Matt Campbell coming to AA or Luke Fickel, ( I know CB wishes he had a nickel for every time he has had to say FICKELL AINT COMING TO AA ).
I am going to wrap this novel up. So I know many of you will laugh , but is there ANY chance many of you can just lighten up on the bashing Jim and Warde posts ? Maybe for a week ? Can we let this play out and see what happens ? Yes I know it’s a message board , and yes everyone is entitled to their opinion , and yes people can ignore those posts. But it just leads to so much negative crap. We ALL have to hope this whole thing improves no matter who is the coach next year. THANK GOD for Juwan and basketball , which I ended up ignoring in this novel. Finally ..... THANKS to CB and EJ for answering our question 100 times over. Their jobs cannot be fun now. I hope this all improves. I want my family to enjoy Michigan football like we used to. It makes me sad to where things have gone ...... and to ALL of you in this same mindset , I hope things get better for you. Happy Holidays , stay safe and ........
GO BLUE ! Sorry it’s so long ....
This season like for many of you we missed our Saturday games together ...... we struggled to find things to watch and when we heard there would be a season we were thrilled. We didn’t have crazy expectations , but just hoped we would be decent. Well ...... clearly things didn’t go as planned after week 1. The boys quit watching. That made my wife sad , as it took away our activity. Thank God for basketball , but that’s a different conversation. So I kept on watching and getting more frustrated like so many of you. I just kept asking myself ( like all of you ) and just could not believe what I was seeing. As some of you MAY know I do stay in touch with some former players from Michigan and a lot of football people ( former NFL guys ) . I truthfully never bought into the , “ we would kill MSU “ narrative and posted as much saying that I would take a 1 point W and be happy. Not that I knew anything but to me more often than not rivalry games are tough. Well that game crushed me .......I could not believe that this was a Michigan team. As I have also posted a former player at Michigan told me “ State treats the game like a fight in an alley “. They punch you in the face from the getgo and have an attitude as they come on the field. He told me , “ we don’t get it “. We don’t understand the rivalry “. Those kids he said in many cases were rejected by Michigan and want to beat our ass . Our kids are from all over the place and to them it’s just another game. Well it has all gone downhill from there. He and I talk a couple of times a week and his comments like others I talk to center on our recruiting policies , those mistakes , the staff composition , and changes in Jim. He and others I talk to have different ideas as to the why and how , but pretty much agree that those issues have gotten us to where we are. Kids that are more interested in themselves , vs the team and a team that lacks focus and leadership. It has been a brutal fall and early winter to be a Michigan football fan. As he put it nobody knows the answer to the big question ...... can Jim fix this , or not and does he want to if given the chance. Nobody knows the answer to this .
Now after this long rant , these past few days I have gone after a few posters and just want to say I am sorry to those I jumped on. I get all the anger and frustration. But I HATE all the posters who put up crap like the guy yesterday who said when a game with Iowa was mentioned , “ I hope we lose by 50” .
That kind of crap for a supposed fan of Michigan is bs. Now someone will say it’s just some troll , but I dont believe that. There are MANY on this board that now openly root for Michigan to get its ass kicked in every game. They feel it will fulfill their narrative. I just don’t understand that no matter how much you hate Jim or Warde. So many of us act like we know what’s going on ......we sit on our couch , rip kids ,recruits , each other and yes I get it that we are in terrible times as a society and no this isn’t political , but the hate has spiraled out of control. We NEED to take a step back somewhat and try to realize what we are doing. Warde and Jim are going to do what they think is best. No matter how much we rip them it’s their call. As Section 6 has said Warde has done a helluva job with hires like Juwan and others. The story is not over with football. We don’t need to start out with 25 posts a day on what a stupid ass Jim is , Warde is incompetent , and how soon is Matt Campbell coming to AA or Luke Fickel, ( I know CB wishes he had a nickel for every time he has had to say FICKELL AINT COMING TO AA ).
I am going to wrap this novel up. So I know many of you will laugh , but is there ANY chance many of you can just lighten up on the bashing Jim and Warde posts ? Maybe for a week ? Can we let this play out and see what happens ? Yes I know it’s a message board , and yes everyone is entitled to their opinion , and yes people can ignore those posts. But it just leads to so much negative crap. We ALL have to hope this whole thing improves no matter who is the coach next year. THANK GOD for Juwan and basketball , which I ended up ignoring in this novel. Finally ..... THANKS to CB and EJ for answering our question 100 times over. Their jobs cannot be fun now. I hope this all improves. I want my family to enjoy Michigan football like we used to. It makes me sad to where things have gone ...... and to ALL of you in this same mindset , I hope things get better for you. Happy Holidays , stay safe and ........
GO BLUE ! Sorry it’s so long ....
