Knowing

That kind of night. (Photo by Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images)

Feelings are always a difficult thing because they're not transparently logical and it is sometimes, even with a wide ranging vocabulary and a wholly developed sense of one's self, difficult to express how you are feeling, because it may not make any sense to anyone but yourself.  You try but sometimes you just end up more frustrated because the audience to whom you are speaking lacks the context or the empathy (or both) to not only understand how your feeling, but perhaps also the sense that you do not understand how and why they are feeling what they are feeling.  Almost every fight and disagreement in the world boils down to this and the intangibles surrounding it.

But sometimes, it is more than easy to express what you're feeling because it is a feeling shared by a larger number of people.  So, to that, the block quote:

"I want to say sorry to everybody who watches football, watches Michigan football and whoever follows Michigan football.  I want to say sorry and it won't happen no more. I'm going to be accountable for the rest of the season, I can tell you that much.  Whatever it takes for the team to win, that's what I'm going to do. I don't want to feel like this anymore."  

--Denard Robinson 

First of all Denard, that's a pretty big apology and probably unnecessary in the grand scheme.  The people who understand that you are still a net positive, that you are still one of the most dynamic and special players to have wandered through our football lives, well, they don't need it and those who cannot understand any of those things will not care how you feel, they will instead focus on what you did and why it was so awful.  But in an era when personal accountability is used as a punch line or a sound bite all too often, I appreciate the spirit in which it was offered, because I believe from everything I read, it was sincere.

But man, that feeling, that feeling of responsibility that it is all your fault, that you are the proximate cause of a disaster, that you, and you alone, bear the awesome burden of responsibility of failure when so many are counting on you, that has to be hard.  Any of us may have had that feeling, in a small scale, within the private lives we lead, but I don't know if anyone reading can say that they would have felt this way as a 22 year old* and one of the most famous athletes in the country who just laid an egg on national television.  But I do think, if we take inventory, we've had that moment of not wanting to feel a certain way anymore.  It's hard to shake, and sometimes you just need to say it aloud, to hear your voice say the words, even if just to yourself, but sometimes to a throng of assembled media.  You have to know that the road to feeling better comes with telling yourself that this sucks and I am taking personal responsibility to make it better.  It is in this knowledge, in this knowing that you have started down this path, that it, theoretically, makes every part of getting better and not feeling that way possible.

(*-And seriously, talk about having an awful birthday.  If I had time, I'd make up a list of nightmarish birthdays from history, but this one is up there.)

Not a night worthy of emphatic pointing. (AP Photo/Darron Cummings)

So you stare at a long two weeks, knowing that losing, while unpleasant, was not as devastating a body blow as it could have been.  Sincerely, when you turn the ball over six times, you pretty much need something resembling a miracle to win, and I think after the previous three seasons, that metaphorical well may have run just a touch dry.  Line play looked better on both sides of the ball, I thought Fitz looked like he was starting to get some traction, and I thought that there were enough easy what if moments in this game.  It is, at the same time, less and more frustrating than the Alabama game, because you can see a path through that leads to victory, but you also know that path was not taken.

(Worth noting as an aside: Purdue is the only game this season remaining on natural grass, which I also think didn't exactly help the cause last night.)

As I read countless times in my Twitter feed last night, all of Michigan's goals are still achievable, and the Big Ten suddenly does not look to be a scary monster but rather simply a grotesque.  So, you go out, you get some lipstick and you figure out the right way to dress things up to get to Pasadena, even knowing the whole time this isn't the way you hoped it would be.

Michigan History Calendar

We're very proud to have worked with MVictors on the Michigan History Calendar. We're still trying to add new and fun memories to the calendar, but we wanted to share it with you here as well. If you want to add to your own Google Calendar, go to "Other Calendars" and add by using the friend's email address mail[at]mvictors.com

HOCKEYBEAR's Guide to Campus Destruction III: University of Virginia

The best place to find someone for your college or university's Board of Regents is the Milford Academy of Newport Beach, California. Regents should be neither seen nor heard, not even by someone with the super-terrestrial visual and auditory capabilities of HOCKEYBEAR. The only way that good regents can be detected is by the steady stream of sizable alumni donations and the steady inability of the state to pass legislation cutting higher education funding.

Unfortunately, for many state schools, regents are chosen by election or by gubernatorial appointment, and a human does not get elected or appointed by being neither seen nor heard. (HOCKEYBEAR could identify some humans whose chances of getting elected would improve if they were neither seen nor heard if he had much interest in non-galactic politics.) These humans realize that their position as regent gives them power and yet do not realize that with great power comes with great responsibility. They could use radioactive spider bites.

In Summer 2012, HOCKEYBEAR was enraged to see the Board of Visitors of the University of Virginia abuse their authority and interfere with the academic leadership. While previous episodes of my Guide to Campus Destruction have involved fiery explosions, this week HOCKEYBEAR will destroy with subtlety, deviousness, and minimal property damage. The University of Virginia will receive my vengeance, served very, very cold!

Ordinary

[Editor's note: Hey, it's our 600th post.]

Always a sucker for the sea of helmets. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio)

Ordinary is underrated.  Seriously.  Christianity calls any of its non holiday seasons "Ordinary Time" after all.  But, if we have learned nothing else from our social media revolution, it's that there is a certain beauty and joy in the every day, in the expected, in the run of the mill. That is, as Ann Howard Creel put it, the Magic of Ordinary Days.

I've always felt like part of this has to be that we as people cannot handle constant heightened states of alert.  The part of our brains that recognize danger cannot live constantly "on".  It's part of why soldiers have such a hard time dealing with the silences after a constant barrage of artillery, it's as much physiological as it is psychological.  The combination of adrenaline and situational awareness mean that we end up on edge, we snap too easily, our bodies don't work correctly.  Ordinary is the down time we need to actually be able to function like normal human beings.

Ordinary is not facing the defending national champions.  Ordinary is not facing a triple option attack. Ordinary is not facing one of your long-time rivals in a game under the lights as they celebrate their 125th season of football.

The Funchess and the Fitz get their party on. (Photo by Dave Reginek/Getty Images)

So that is why I am not ever going to complain about a game like yesterday.  They are necessary and they are good for the soul.  Sure, there's very little drama, but haven't we had enough of that already this season. So if yesterday was about seven different guys running the ball and eight different guys making a catch, I'll take it.  If it's about no one getting hurt while winning by 50, I'll take it.  Because we needed a breather.  Doesn't make it a bad day, after all.  I still got a chance to watch Denard do Denard things, an occasion which is sadly dwindling down to fewer and fewer as we progress toward the end of his senior year.  I still got a chance to watch Devin "The" Funchess make a pretty spectacular play to open the scoring, Devin Gardner make an amazing dive to get across the goal line, and Vincent Smith score a couple of touchdowns by doing the Vincent Smith things he has done for such a long time.  Ordinary, perhaps, but if it is, we need to appreciate how hard it was to get back to a point where this is ordinary.

Part of the magic of working on the MVictors' Michigan History Calendar is not just walking down memory lane for the obvious highlights, it's finding those little moments in the hopes that the user will remember them as well.  David Brandon may have committed himself to creating "wow" experiences, but the Magic of Ordinary Days is not about wow.  It's about "neat" or "nifty" or "cool".  For instance, no one would remark on Michigan's 1996 game against Boston College as a "wow" game, it, in fact, was not much of a game.  But it always has stuck in my memory as the moment I earned my first Fandom Endurance III badge, and for the Battle of Britain of marshmallow fights (back in the day when we were allowed to bring things like marshmallows into the stadium.)  So a day like yesterday is going to be important for someone.  It was inevitably someone's first time at Michigan Stadium yesterday, probably a place that they had dreamed of going for their whole life.  And they're going to remember that they got to see Michigan win and that will be all that matters.  Because there is Magic in Ordinary Days, you just have to know how to look for it.

Additional note:
If you missed it yesterday, the Michigan Marching Band had a "Behind the Scenes" with the MMB leading up to their halftime show and it's really worth your time, if just to see the time and effort put in by the MMB members laid bare.

So, get ready, because we're back into the holiday season of college football known as a rivalry week.  No number of awesome puppet based videos can change my opinion on that.

It's Always Denard Time...

[Author's note: I regret nothing!]

Denard Time

Woah-oh-oh-oh

It's always Denard time

Woah-oh-oh-oh

It's always Denard time

Rolled out to right side of the line

Doesn't matter that the situation is third and nine.

Hands up if you're open for a first down tonight,

Cuz It's always Denard time.

Threw off my back foot like I didn't care

Lost a shoe, still couldn't tackle me anywhere

I'm in if you need a touchdown tonight

Cuz It's always Denard time

Good morning and good night

I do my best work Under the Lights

It's gonna be alright

Doesn't matter if were down by nine,

It's always Denard time

Woah-oh-oh-oh Woah-oh-oh-oh

It's always Denard time

Woah-oh-oh-oh

Doesn’t matter if we're down by nine,

It's always Denard time.

Freaked out missed the open man again

Checked out of coverage and hit my tight end

Let's find you if you're open for a first down tonight

Cuz It's always Denard time

Good morning and good night

I do my best work Under the Lights

It's gonna be alright

Doesn't matter if we're down by nine

It's always Denard time.

Woah-oh-oh-oh Woah-oh-oh-oh

It's always Denard time

Woah-oh-oh-oh

Doesn't matter if we're down by nine

It's always Denard time.

Woah-oh-oh-oh Woah-oh-oh-oh

It's always Denard time

Woah-oh-oh-oh

Doesn't matter if we're down by nine

It's always Denard time.

Doesn't matter when

Denard just made 'em miss again.

Doesn't matter where

Denard just made 'em miss by a hair.

Doesn't matter when

Denard just made 'em miss again.

It's always Denard time

Woah-oh-oh-oh Woah-oh-oh-oh

It's always Denard time

Woah-oh-oh-oh

Doesn't matter if we're down by nine,  

It's always Denard time

Woah-oh-oh-oh Woah-oh-oh-oh

It's always Denard time

Woah-oh-oh-oh

Doesn't matter if we're down by nine, 

It's always Denard time.

Yonder

Unleash the Funchess!  (Photo by Gregory Shamus/Getty Images)

One of the best books I have ever read is My Favorite Year, an anthology of football (world definition) from some very amazing authors, including Roddy Doyle and Nick Hornby.  The authors basically put together an essay on their favorite season for their favorite team.  Hornby, having already taken his readers through his obsession with Arsenal in Fever Pitch, takes the time to walk his readers through his season with Cambridge United 1983-84 while he was at university.  Cambridge United, as Hornby points out was a second division team at the time, so it was not cheating on his beloved Arsenal.

*-By the way, if any of my favorite football bloggers wanted to get together and do their college football version of that, well:

When I was in fourth grade, my mother found for me an Air Force sweatshirt while she was out Christmas shopping with my grandmother.  It was navy but it had a white band through the center that said "Air Force" in script.  While she knew I loved Michigan as much as anything, she also knew I dreamed of being a fighter pilot.  This, of course, was a pipe dream since I was already rocking some serious glasses and like zero hand-eye coordination, but you know, I was ten years old, what did I know?  So I wore that shirt all the time.  I read about all of the greatest planes in American military history and by the time I was in sixth grade, I pretty much knew the entire litany of U.S. air power.  I also came to like Air Force as my other college football team because hey, Air Force has a football team.  (This did once lead me to pick Air Force over Ohio State in the 1990 Liberty Bowl which helped my dad win his bowl pick 'em pool at work because no one else had it.)  So for years, I've always had a notion of wanting Air Force to be successful.

So when I saw Air Force on the schedule for this year for the first time since the Johnson administration, I was excited, but I was also nervous.  Air Force, after all, is a triple option dynamo known for giving good teams fits.  So it's the first home game, coming off a huge loss to Alabama, what would Michigan do?  How would Michigan look?  Something like this:

That is a diagram of the flight path of a KC-135 reduced gravity simulator aircraft, affectionately known as "the Vomit Comet".  It is used by NASA to train astronauts for reduced gravity as well as to test the effect of lower gravity on equipment.  It also informs us of the general track of the Michigan game, low, then high, then low, then high, then low, then high, and finally relief that you have landed safely.

As Stewart Mandel pointed out, Denard accounted for 416 of Michigan's 422 yards yesterday. That's not a long term solution, but it did work for what it needed to do.  Denard found a new toy in Devin "The" Funchess (I'm calling him "the Funchess", because it sounds like some kind of weird European nobility, like the Baronet or the Count.), making him the new Junior Hemingway.  Mistakes were made.  The defense looked maddeningly more like GERG level than Mattison's Marauders, but got it done when it needed to do so.

Did anyone else think that the banner looked like a new one with the more yellow maize?  Oh and happy 50th Anniversary to the Banner.  (Photo by Gregory Shamus/Getty Images)

Air Force looked exactly like I would want to see a group of my nation's future military leaders look like as a football team, disciplined, focused, moving quickly, attacking the enemy's weaknesses, and fighting to the last man.  They gave Michigan all they could handle and earned the respect and admiration of hopefully every Michigan fan.  I had joked earlier in the week that "It's hard playing against Air Force because you can't boo freedom*", but I stand by it.  Air Force, along with Army and Navy, are America's teams.  Every one of those players made the choice to not only become an officer by going the Academy route.  Every one of them has taken on the additional responsibility of being a football player at the Division I level, above and beyond what is asked of them.  It was the same reason that I found it so hard to be angry when Air Force beat Michigan in the opening round of the NCAA Hockey Tournament in 2009.  The cadets did an outstanding job and I am proud of their service to our country.

*-The fact that this holds true was made even better by the fact that Air Force's players all had either "SERVICE" or "FREEDOM" on their name plates.

Who loses a shoe, I mean really? (Photo by Gregory Shamus/Getty Images)

Schedule: The funny thing is though, no matter what, I'd rather have non-conference games like this one than like next week with UMass or next year against Akron.  Even what happened last week was a better kind of option, provided that every Division I team was playing a similar schedule.   I don't know where the cut-off is, because I would hate to lose the Michigan MAC schools while saying the Sun Belt isn't up to par.  But a schedule where Michigan (and all AQ level schools) would be facing let's say a Pac 12 team, an ACC team, a Mountain West team, and a MAC team would go a long way to making college football better.  (Solve the I-AA funding problem by allowing teams to play an exhibition game in August against them for a set fee.)

Credit where credit is due: The student section showed up and they showed up mostly on time.  I was impressed at how quickly between 30 minutes to go and 15 minutes to go the pregame clock the maize filled in.

It gets worse: Special K decided to throw Pitbull's "Back in Time" into the mix.  I was really hoping he had gotten lost on the way back from Kodiak.  I'll let you determine who I mean by that pronoun.

Oosterbaan never had that kind of flow: Love the choice of Jake Ryan for the Oosterbaan #47.  He seemed to play an inspired game yesterday, though I do think Bennie would have caught that ball that Ryan dropped on Air Force's final drive.  Looking forward to seeing who gets the Ron Kramer number.  I hope whomever gets it likes apples.

Is this a Hoke point?  Can I get a ruling? (Photo by Gregory Shamus/Getty Images)

Not Impressed

Friend of the blog Brian Hilger made this for us and wanted us to share, hoping perhaps to appease HOCKEYBEAR!

HOCKEYBEAR's Guide to Campus Destruction II: The University of Georgia

HOCKEYBEAR was very sad to hear that my old pal Neil Armstrong died recently. I was on the committee of space-faring species that welcomed him to the moon, along with Flipper, Lassie, and Mr. Ed. That's the part of the moon landing that the government tries so hard to keep hushed up. What HOCKEYBEAR found really confusing was how the news media reported on the death of a human hero. The Anchorage Daily News had the headline "Neil Armstrong, first man to walk on moon, dies at 82." CNN had a video report called "Armstrong, first man on moon, dies." HOCKEYBEAR thinks there are three types of humans who do not know why Neil Armstrong is famous: 1) those who are too young and thus unlikely to purchase newspapers or cable; 2) those so unfortunate that they did not receive a proper education and thus likely to also be too unfortunate to afford a newspaper; and 3) those too stupid to know who he is and who are unlikely to be interested in keeping up with the news. HOCKEYBEAR's point is YOU DO NOT HAVE TO EXPLAIN WHO NEIL ARMSTRONG IS. Every human interested in paying for the news knows who he is!

Most humans agree that the prominent national media has grown quite complacent. HOCKEYBEAR sees this in the reports on the foot-ball game where the small humans of Michigan were defeated by the less-small humans of Alabama. ESPN's Gene Wojciechowski, by no means the most odious "reporter" at that network, filed a story about how the less-small humans of Alabama "played with a purpose" and were "hungry" to win. HOCKEYBEAR has no doubt that this is true, but I also have no doubt that the small humans of Michigan "played with a purpose" and were "hungry" to win. That is not news, only meaningless cliché. HOCKEYBEAR is not impressed.

HOCKEYBEAR is not impressed.
Original photo by Paul McCarthy.

Meanwhile, the student reporters at The Michigan Daily were ready with two separate analyses dissecting the foot-ball strategies and execution that resulted in the defeat of their small humans. Unlike reporters at big media outlets, who are relatively secure in their jobs and can afford to be lazy, student reporters are fighting to make names for themselves and these days are producing better reporting than the "professional" media. HOCKEYBEAR is, of course, most interested in hockey than foot-ball, and notes that Matt Slovin of The Daily produced the most important hockey journalism of 2012 by reporting on the UNHOCKEYBEARLIKE shenanigans of the Kitchener Rangers. The newspaper has since "clarified" that story by apologizing that it did not include facts that were not known at the time the story was published and would not have come out in the open if the story had not been published. HOCKEYBEAR is happy to see that steps are now being taken to cut down on cheating in the OHL, even if my favorite OHL team, the Windsor Spitfires, were punished. None of these steps would have happened without student journalism.

Last time I demonstrated a fairly standard campus destruction on North Campus. In columns to follow, I will show you subtler ways to destroy a campus. To show you how destroying independent student journalism can make destroying a campus much easier, The University of Georgia will tremble beneath my rage!

Choices

"Well, that could have gone better." (AP Photo/LM Otero)

Life is all about choices, some we make for ourselves, some that others make and have an impact on us.  The Alabama game was a series of choices, after all.

Back in July, Fitzgerald Toussaint made the choice to get behind the wheel of a pick up truck after he had been drinking.  Police caught him doing this and he was charged with OWI, later reduced to OWVI.  For this choice, he, Michigan's leading rusher from 2011, was suspended for the Alabama game.

Brady Hoke made the choice to suspend Fitzgerald Toussaint for the Alabama game, but he did so at pretty much the last possible moment on Friday.  This drew praise from media types (as well as a fair amount of confusion, Hoke was being praised for issuing a fairly standard issue suspension for a player charged with a DUI.  I have to agree, but I think it speaks more to our lowered expectations with college football than anything.)  Hoke's choice was likely to not give any unnecessary advantage to Alabama and to encourage Toussaint to keep working towards getting back into the good graces.  Hoke also understood that this suspension would have consequences, but he still made the choice.

Back in 2010, in what had to seem like a good idea at the time, David Brandon was convinced by the combined powers of Jerry Jones and the ESPN matchup makers that taking Michigan's show on the road to Dallas to open the season against Nick Saban's Alabama team would be tremendous.  This was a coach ago and an 14th Alabama national championship ago.  But hey, RichRod's first recruiting class would be seniors, right? It would be the talk of the summer, the Michigan brand, which had taken a beating in 2008 and 2009 needed something, anything, to bring it back in to focus.  This was an event, a moment, something that was supposed to wow us.  Instead, Michigan becomes one of only two B1G teams to lose its 2012 opener.  Admittedly, not all opening games are created equal, but because of Mr. Brandon's choice, Michigan is 0-1 to start the year for the first time since 2008.

Al Borges had a choice.  He could choose to be aggressive and attack a fierce, but young, Alabama defense, or he could be conservative, hope that Denard could connect on some big plays (which, admittedly, without some drops, might have worked) and not let Denard get hurt.  It didn't feel good, but I am not sure that in a game where it didn't look/feel like you had much of a chance after 10 minutes of play if it wasn't the smart choice.

Denard Robinson had a choice.  He could let the man who had just picked off his pass (a man who had shoved Roy Roundtree out of bounds, which is apparently perfectly legal as long as the ball is not in the air in a rule with which I was unfamiliar.) head for the end zone, or he could try to make a tackle and potential risk to himself.  He threw himself in to the tackle and got dinged up in the shoulder for it.  But leaders do not let their man get by them, even when it may not have been the smartest choice.

We have a choice as fans.  We can sulk, we can lament, we can shake our fists in anger.  But I don't think we will.  I think that in a game where few people game us a chance, it went poorly. We don't have to be happy that Michigan isn't at Alabama's level, but we can choose to believe that it may be somewhere down the line.  We can choose to enjoy the home opener this weekend, making sure that we are respectful to our friends from the Air Force who have made the choice to defend America's freedom, and we can choose to believe that things will get better from here.  We can choose to believe that we would have been happier with a neat little 35-10ish dusting of a MACrifice or FCSer, but I choose to believe that a reality check, from time to time, is not the worst thing in the world.  We're not as deep down in the depths as we have been in recent memory, but maybe we're not as high back up the mountain as we thought.

We don't wait for these nights to arrive, we yell like hell to the heavens

Craig didn't include my suggestion of "The House that Heaven Built" on the MGoMix, but he gave me posting privileges, so he might as well have. Good thing Japandroids album covers are the easiest things in the world to photoshop.

Go Blue! Beat 'Bama!