We All Go Back To Where We Belong

Jake Moody knows what's up.  (Patrick Barron)

I can taste the ocean on your skin

That is where it all began

We all go back to where we belong

We all go back to where we belong

This really what you want

This really what you want

--"We All Go Back to Where We Belong" by R.E.M., the band's final single from 2011

There is a moment in a season opener at home when you are sitting there, and every possible option is on the table.  Not all of them are as likely as each other, but they all exist on the unfolding horizon.  On a morning where even before noon, one knew it was going to be a hot and humid one in Michigan Stadium, I sat pondering these possibilities when two things struck me.  One, Jake Moody was the last man off the field from warmups, having made sure to do a practice kickoff from each 35-yard line.  There was something routinely mundane in making sure everything was set up the way he wanted it to be.  The second was the wonderfully sonorous voice of Carl Grapentine bidding us good morning and welcoming us to Michigan Stadium and the 143rd season of Michigan football.  Carl's voice was the sign that the off-season was now officially in the rearview, and we're now into the season.  There was a moment of palpable joy in hearing it. 

This was a game that was mathematically, never in doubt, but there are always those moments of trepidation with a new team, and we're also a little out of practice.  So with a quick three and out that featured two drops, and then CSU tempoing and going 25 yards in four plays, all of the dread of every bad thing comes flooding back.  Then Mike Morris made a tackle behind the line, and suddenly Michigan's getting the ball back off a punt, and Roman Wilson said aloha and flew away home to the end zone and Michigan never looked back.  While it wasn't perhaps as crisp and clean on the offensive end, the defense handled its business in a highly efficient and effective way, and the game was never even close to being in doubt.  Cool things happened, DJ Turner's fumble recovery TD, JJ's 20 yard TD scramble, some nice runs by Corum and Edwards.  It was a little of small, nice things.

There isn't much to say about an opener that pretty much goes according to plan.  The new guys looked mostly good, we're still no closer to a decision on the long-term starter at quarterback, and while that may seem trite or like a moment of surrender to the strictures of a column, the reality is, sometimes you do the things that you have loved to do in the past because they remind you of the joys and pains of the past.  

We all go back to where we belong.