People Got a Lotta Nerve

Cornelius Johnson made a lot of people look good today.

You know they call them killer whales

But you seem surprised

When it pinned you down to the bottom of the tank

Where you can't turn around

It took half your leg and both your lungs

And I craved I ate hearts of sharks, I know you know it

I'm a man, man, man, man, man, man, man eater

But still you're surprised when I eat ya

--"People Got a Lotta Nerve" by Neko Case from her 2009 album Middle Cyclone

We are haunted by Michigan's football past in a way that the players are not.  We are conditioned by our experiences with Michigan football to see that quick strike drive by Wisconsin at the end of the first half to bring it back to a three-point game.  We blame the squib kick that nearly created another special teams turnover instead of being astonished by two pinpoint throws by a quarterback who had not shown much of a capacity to do so otherwise up to this point in the season.

“That was going to be our juice. We were going to steal their juice” — Dax Hill on the players enjoying “Jump Around”

— angelique (@chengelis) October 2, 2021

The energy is 🆙 #GoBlue pic.twitter.com/hHHVv6mWQD

— Michigan Football (@UMichFootball) October 2, 2021

Dax Hill stated that he remembered what it was like to see Camp Randall do "Jump Around" in 2019 when Michigan was down 35-8, and he determined that Michigan wanted to be in the lead to "Jump Around" without issue.  That this was in the middle of 25 straight points from Michigan after the half, in a half where Dax Hill set about atoning for being beat on the TD throw late in the first with a sack that knocked Graham Mertz out of the game, a couple of excellent coverages on third down, and then two plays into the fourth, Michigan's own Thane of Fife, David Ojabo, caused a Chase Wolf fumble and Christopher Hinton recovered in Wisconsin territory.  This drive stalled, leading to a Jake Moody field goal that looked as nice of a golf draw as you will see, and Wisconsin got back to work.

We are haunted by Michigan's football past because we know that win percentage probability can lie to you because it's a probability, not a guarantee. Still, it did indeed appear that Michigan had succeeded in stealing Wisconsin's juice.

We are haunted by Michigan's football past because we know the rhythms all too well.  This was the game that was supposed to screw Michigan's season up if it got past Washington.  Last week's second-half inspired little in the way of confidence.  Only getting three points out of the Wisconsin muffed punt inside their five in the first half felt like the harbingers of a past come round again.  You cannot blame Michigan fans for this.  You can also credit the Michigan players for not playing scared.  You can credit the Michigan coaches for coming into this game and playing aggressively, playing to win.  Not every every decision worked, but enough of them did. Michigan gets their first win at Camp Randall since 2001, ruining Barry Alvarez Day (which, admittedly, they did a lot during Alvarez's Wisconsin tenure, as they were 7-3 against the Badgers between 1990-2005.  Yes, we have weird gaps in the historical record against Wisconsin.)

We are haunted by Michigan's football past in a way that many of us spent the entire week expecting this game to go sideways.  I already had picked the Neko Case song that was likely going to represent the mood of the fanbase when this turned out to be a loss.  We expected horror because horror is so much of what we have known.  This was Jim Harbaugh's first win at Michigan as an underdog, but as was argued, Michigan was only an underdog because it keeps losing games like this under Harbaugh.  Not today.  The offense looked more whole, if imperfect, but also understood it was up against an outstanding Wisconsin run defense.  Cade made some mistakes, but he also kept escaping sacks in a way that made up for them.  Michigan didn't look amazing for every stretch of the game, and it still won by 21 points.  

We are haunted by Michigan's football past, but we do not have to be.  Oh sure, Michigan has never won in Lincoln, ever, but it's also a grand total of two games, one of which was the Denard night of the soul in 2012.  This team believes in itself.  This team trusts itself.  Let them lead us the way.  Spooky season may have started yesterday, but it does not mean we need to be spectrally enthralled for an entire month.