Some Might Say

Real talk: I kind of forgot Charleston was on the roster until he caught this pass (Michigan Athletics) 

Some might say that sunshine follows thunder

Go and tell it to the man who cannot shine

Some might say that we should never ponder

On our thoughts today 'cause they hold sway over time

Some might say we will find a brighter day

--"Some Might Say" by Oasis, the lead single off their 1995 album (What's the Story) Morning Glory

I am not saying I was some kind of prophet when I say this, but my mind had been coming back all week to Michigan's 1998 game against Syracuse.  I remember that game very well, like even when I looked at the box score, it was exactly what I remembered.  It was a warm and windy September day.  Donovan McNabb sliced and diced Michigan through the air and on the ground, Syracuse was up 24-7 at half, and 38-7 at the end of three, and Michigan put up 21 in the fourth, it was never as close as the final score indicated.  It was as bad as I remember feeling at Michigan Stadium about watching a Michigan team until probably 2007 Oregon (App State was shock and disbelief, it's a different bad feeling.)  There are days where it is just not your day and you have to accept that.  I wondered if this Texas team, that looked really good on paper, would put it all together on the big stage.

They did, and then some.

It is not a surprise that a team where Quinn Ewers is playing well enough to keep Arch Manning on the bench without even a rumbling would be able to execute on offense, even down their top two running backs.  Sark schemed up some beautifully simple plays to get his guys into space, the Texas offensive line blocked very well, and Michigan decided that missing tackles would be a solid thing to keep doing and Michigan was down 24-3 at the half and it could have been much worse.

That Michigan did not look organized or competent on offense until when they game had already been decided was deeply frustrating and speaks more to future concerns than anything else.  Receivers looked to be struggling with their positioning with an alarming frequency, Davis Warren often looking like he was only comfortable throwing passes when he was running for his life, very little out of a running game that allegedly on paper was one of the strongest position groups.  All of it was confounding and none of it looked like it has easy answers.  

And yet, there's a level of...it's not contentment and it's not indifference.  It feels like having returned to the mountaintop, having proven it's possible, a number of Michigan fans looked at all of the changes that happened between last year and this year, accounted for it appropriately in their emotional tenor, and while aren't happy that things felt so off and so non-competitive for most of the day, it's that they understood the circumstances.  They're upset, but it's tempered by the context of last season, of the last three seasons.  So many things went right, it almost feels like there's a cosmic paying of the piper occurring (which some might argue that the years preceding this run had already built up the karmic credit, but that's an epistemological discussion for another day.)

I do believe that brighter days are ahead, but clearly they're going to come with a lot of work to do to get there.  Let's hope there's a plan in place to get there.

Tales from the Spreadsheet

31-12 is a Scorigami

111,170 were in attendance (the 60th-largest crowd of Michigan Stadium history, largest post-pandemic crowd).

Michigan moves to 0-2-0 all-time against the University of Texas.

Michigan moves to 4-1 all-time on September 7.

Michigan moves to 16-9-2 when scoring exactly 12 points (many of these 12 point games were pre-WWI.)

Michigan moves to 8-12-0 all-time when allowing 31 points to the opposition.

Michigan has lost 7 games all-time by precisely 19 points, most recently, the cursed 2020 Citrus Bowl vs. Alabama.