It's a Good Life if You Don't Weaken

The past and the future together. (Patrick Barron)

When the colour of the night

And all the smoke for one life

Gives way to shaky movements

Improvisational skills

A forest of whispering speakers

Let's swear that we will

Get with the times

In a current health to stay

Let's get friendship right

Get life day-to-day

In the forget-yer-skates dream

Full of countervailing woes

Its diverse-as-ever seen

Proceeding on a need-to-know

In a face so full of meaning

As to almost make it glow

For a good life we just might have to weaken

And find somewhere to go

Go somewhere we're needed

Find somewhere to grow

Grow somewhere we're needed  

--"It's a Good Life if You Don't Weaken" by The Tragically Hip, the first single from the band's 2002 album In Violet Light

 It's almost charming to look back at my previous column and see the level of unknowingness in the final paragraph about the December that was about to transpire.  I am choosing not to recap it because if you're reading this, you're well-versed in a "December to Dismember."  But here we are, at the end of 2025, in a Citrus Bowl of a pair of blue-bloods that ABC even said in its opening, disappointed to not meet their standard.

I'm not even sure what there is to say about this game.  Cole Sullivan made some big plays, including forcing a turnover on an early Texas kick return, which led to a Bryce Underwood to Kendrick Bell TD that needed to be replay reviewed, but was ruled a touchdown.  Andrew Marsh looked good on kick return duty and made some nice catches in his Michigan debut in the #3 jersey.  Michigan even had a fourth quarter lead thanks to a Bryce scramble that made the pylon (which again, needed a replay review to confirm).

It's just that everything unraveled from there.  Bryce threw a pair of awful picks. The defense got home on Arch Manning only to whiff on the tackle, which allowed a drive to stay alive and Texas to take the lead. Everyone on the defense missed again on Arch, who scrambled for a 60-yard touchdown, things of that nature. 

In the words of Futurama:

When the colour of the night

And all the smoke in one life

Gives way to shaky movements

Improvisational skills

In the forest of whispering speakers

Let's swear that we will

Get with the times

In a current health to stay

Let's get friendship right

Get life day-to-day

In the forget-yer-skates dream

Full of countervailing woes

In diverse-as-ever scenes

Proceeding on a need-to-know

In a face so full of meaning

As to almost make it glow

For a good life we just might have to weaken

And find somewhere to go

Go somewhere we're needed

Find somewhere to grow

Grow somewhere we're needed

Find somewhere to go

Let's go somewhere we're needed

Find somewhere to grow

We grow where we are needed

'Cause in the forget-yer-skates dream

You can hang your head in woe

And this diverse-as-ever scene

Know which way to go

But, ultimately, none of this matters. This was the required denouement of a season that never felt right.  Which, admittedly, feels like curve-fitting based on facts now in evidence, but I see it more as explaining the vibes, which were papered over but rancid.  Wink will be gone.  There will be a new OC, there might be other new coaches, but the key thing is that the 2026 season will mark a chance to start over, with a coach who has plenty of experience but no ties to Michigan football.  It might completely implode, which, maybe that is the price of climbing to the apex of the college football world again, but even if it's just a coach who puts a team out there that no one is worried about the staff having some kind of embarrassing (or hideous) scandal (hopefully, again, if its in the walls, you have to make sure you fumigate) and hopefully a team that is focused on football.    Let's grow somewhere we're needed.  Until Western Michigan.

Tales from the Spreadsheet

• 41-27 IS a Scorigami!
  
• 47,361 were in attendance for the game (Michigan's smallest bowl game crowd since the Outback Bowl following the 2017 season against South Carolina).
  
  
• Michigan moves to 0-3-0 all-time against the University of Texas.  This is Michigan's third loss to Texas in the 2000s, each under a different head coach.
• Michigan falls to 2-3-0 all-time on December 31 (wins against UCLA in the 1981 Bluebonnet and 2024 Reliaquest.  It is Michigan's first non-CFP loss on NYE.)
  
  
• Michigan falls to 46-8-0 when scoring exactly 27 points.
• Michigan moves to 1-4-0 all-time when allowing 41 points to the opposition (including that Peach Bowl against Florida, and the Cowboys Classic against Alabama).
• Michigan has lost 23 games all-time by precisely 14 points, the most recent example being the 2024 Illinois game.

Live Forever

Game MVP Jordan Marshall; muddied but unbowed (Patrick Barron)

"Maybe I don't really wanna know

How your garden grows

'Cause I just wanna fly

Lately, did you ever feel the pain

In the morning rain

As it soaks you to the bone?"

--"Live Forever" by Oasis, the third single from the band's 1994 debut album Definitely Maybe

Let's be clear. Few, if any, of us expected this. We were riding high off the 13-10 victory over #2 Ohio State in Columbus, yes, a thing that still happened, or we were looking forward to what Bryce Underwood would bring next year. All of Michigan's top-drawer guys who could opt out for the draft got their pat on the back and a thank you Instagram post from fans because we understood. There was little to be gained from this. Alabama was mad that they were excluded from the CFP, that major players were not opting out, and that they were a three-score favorite. So, let's just kick it off, hope for the best, and look ahead to next season.

Maybe I just wanna fly

Wanna live, I don't wanna die

Maybe I just wanna breathe

Maybe I just don't believe

Maybe you're the same as me

We see things they'll never see

You and I are gonna live forever

One of the funniest things to realize about "Live Forever" is that it's just the same verse and chorus repeated three times. In that way, it is not fundamentally different from "Mr. Brightside."    So perhaps it is fitting that this game ended up being a bookend of 2024, starting in the Rose Bowl on New Year's Day against Alabama and ending in Tampa on New Year's Eve against Alabama. The Michigan world is a very different place than it was 365 days ago, but there are some similarities. One of them is simple, Michigan can still play pretty darn good defense. Even without their three likely first-rounders on the defense, Michigan can still play some ball. Add to that the fact that Michigan got an absolute gift from the weather in the first quarter, and Michigan's defense suddenly put Jalen Milroe in the spin cycle. To wit.

The biggest complaint might have been that Michigan was only leading 16-0 after starting all those drives, but one was in the Alabama red zone. But if you've watched Michigan all year, you knew that was just how it would be. The weather improved, and the game settled into a defensive slugfest until Alabama used a bit of tempo and some favorable formations and matchups to get a touchdown and bring it to 16-7. The more significant issue arose when Michigan couldn't burn enough clock or get close enough for a long Zvada field goal attempt, instead opting to pin Alabama deep, which they did. But then this happened.

That felt like Chekov's timeout, especially in the fourth quarter, when Michigan was letting Alabama drive down the field again at the end of the half, needing a touchdown to win. While Michigan could limit Alabama to just a field goal, going into the half up six after you had been so effective in limiting what Alabama could do was frustrating. But it was also perfectly 2024 Michigan, so...

The third quarter settled into a very clear "no one can do very much" half, and then Davis Warren was injured, which meant that Alex Orji had to come in with all his known limitations. The ESPN broadcast team was openly calling for Michigan to let its hair down, open up the playbook, and do things it had not done all year. Mind you, with a backup quarterback who had been benched due to his propensity to turn it over at the most inopportune times, and an interim offensive coordinator with minimal play calling experience. So when Alex Orji threw an interception that put Alabama in business at midfield, you would be forgiven if you presumed this was the point where the other shoe dropped, the wheels came off, etc. Except, they didn't. The defense got just enough pressure on Jalen Milroe to force a six-and-out, which included a turnover on downs. Michigan would march down, get another field goal from arguably the 2024 team MVP, Dominic Zvada, and take a 19-10 lead. Yes, I wanted Michigan to go for it on fourth and less than 1 from the Alabama 19, but you take the points, go up two scores, and force Alabama to match. Alabama did get a field goal to bring it back to a one-score game, setting Michigan up with 4:38 left. It looked like the Tide would force a three-and-out when Jordan Marshall stopped the first down run after just two yards beyond the line of scrimmage, only to see defender Justin Jefferson punch, actually punch, Max Bredeson, earning a 15-yard unsportsmanlike conduct flag and Michigan getting a fresh set of downs at their own 42. But Michigan could do nothing with it, and the hope was that new punter Hudson Hollenbeck would continue his excellent day, which he did, dropping a 50-yarder on the Alabama size, only to see Ryan Williams finally make his presence felt and return it all the way to the Tide 44-yard line. The sequence that followed was a microcosm of Alabama's offense on the day, a series of incomplete passes mixed with big enough plays to put Milroe and friends on the Michigan fifteen and eventually set up a familiar story: 4th down in the Michigan red zone needing a touchdown at the end of the game to win and Jalen Milroe to get the snap. It was only fitting that Rayshaun Benny, who broke his ankle in the Rose Bowl to start the year, came in with pressure on Milroe, arms raised in pursuit to force a bad throw by Milroe, which fell harmlessly to the ground. Milroe stopped; Michigan wins again.

I don't know what to make of this Michigan season. On the one hand, it was deeply frustrating on the surface because the quarterback play was so middling. On the other hand, three of Michigan's losses were to teams in the CFP, a fourth was their only West Coast game (where every ETZ team in the Big Ten struggled this year), and the fifth was to a ten-win Illinois team. But this is also a team that underachieved on the field based on what they had on paper, but simultaneously beat #2 Ohio State on their own field for their fourth straight win in the series and beat a #11 Alabama team that was trying to show it deserved to be in the field of the College Football Playoff. It may not need to make sense. Trying to find narrative sense in a season doesn't always have to exist. We want a narrative to make all these things that happened make sense, but sometimes, they don't. Which is great about sports in general and college football in particular. Things don't necessarily have to make sense because it would be boring if they did. Michigan should not have beaten Ohio State or Alabama logically, but they did, and it's pretty great. Having climbed the mountain last year, to have done the thing that so many presumed was impossible, it feels like MCU movies after Endgame. The grand story arc is completed, and we must now find a new story to tell with some of our familiar characters. The result is uneven, with some high points and low points, but when it hits, man, it still hits.

Until August 30, we'll see you at the Big House for New Mexico. Go Blue.

Tales from the Spreadsheet

• 19-13 is NOT a Scorigami (1938 Penn (the Ivy one), the only other entry, which was win #329.)
  
• 51,439 were in attendance in rainy, then sunny Tampa, the smallest crowd Michigan played in front of this season.
  
  
• Michigan moves to 4-3-0 all-time against the University of Alabama (they were 2-3 against Alabama on this date in 2023.)
  
• Michigan moves to 2-2-0 all-time on December 31 (The losses, of course, are the CFP semifinals against Georgia and TCU.)
  
  
• Michigan moves to 14-4-1 when scoring exactly 19 points (this includes that Illinois game from 2022).
• Michigan moves to 47-12-1 all-time when allowing 13 points to the opposition (Yes, that includes the 13-13 tie in the 1992 Ohio State game.)
• Michigan has won 31 games all-time by precisely 6 points, most recently, last year's Ohio State game.

Low Desert

The butterfly effect, but for college football. (Patrick Barron)

It happened fast, it's over quick

A little dust and the engine kicks

Did your hands drift down off the wheel?

Roll out, hit your windshield

An eyelash or a little bit of sleep? Time stands still

Just call it now and you're on your way

--"Low Desert" by R.E.M. from their 1996 album New Adventures in Hi-Fi

There's this moment after any loss, especially a one-score loss, where you try to figure out what the difference was, what was the "if you change one thing" moment that would have made things different.  This game had so many of those moments, that performing the exercise would become a catalog, which in turn, become almost a ranting litany of grievances.   That is not what this will be, because the biggest point that needs to be made is that TCU played an excellent game and did everything it needed to do to win.  Michigan did not.  For all of the what-ifs and maybes, it still comes back to that simple fact.  That Michigan was still in this game speaks volumes to the team's effort, its fight, and its character, but the reality is that it wasn't enough on this day.  The dreams of a national title died on middling turf grass in the desert.

I waited to write something up because I wanted to see if I would feel different with a little time, but it has stayed the same.  I'm sad about the result, but I understand how it arrived.  How mad can one be when the team you are rooting for never led in a game where they looked anything but themselves?  

Maybe it's the benefit of age and time that I would rather focus on the joy that the first thirteen games of this year brought me and so many others than the ending no one wanted.  It's easy to understand that when the mountain presents itself to you, to not reach the summit for whatever reason must be considered a disappointment.  But so much time was spent wondering if Michigan could ever get back to this point, that to ignore the mountain below is also perilous.  

At some point, I will understand why Michigan has such a poor record in bowl games, but I tell this to myself every year, and I have never come any closer to an answer.  It will remain a mystery until it ceases to be a mystery, but until then, it will just be a fact of life in late December/early January.

That's it for another season, thank you as always for being along for the ride.  We'll see where the days take us when we head back to our (Big) house up north in September.              

Maybe Sparrow

Pictures really are worth a thousand words, sometimes. (Patrick Barron)

Maybe sparrow you should wait

The hawks alight till morning

You'll never pass beyond the gate

If you don't hear my warning

Notes are hung so effortless

With the rise and fall of sparrow's breast

It's a drowning dive and back to the chorus

La di da di da di da

La di da di da di da

Oh my sparrow it's too late

Your body limp beneath my feet

Your dusty eyes cold as clay

You didn't hear my warning

Maybe sparrow it's too late

Moonlight glanced off metal wings

In a thunderstorm above the clouds

The engine hums a sparrow's phrase

For those who cannot hear the words

For those who cannot hear the words

For those who will not hear the words

La di da di da di da

La di da di da di da

--"Maybe Sparrow" by Neko Case from her 2006 album Fox Confessor Brings the Flood

There are so many things that one could say about this game but they all come back to one simple truth, Georgia is an excellent football team.  I don't mean excellent in the everyday use of the word; I mean excellent from the Latin meaning "being preeminent."  Georgia defense, which the college football ecosystem spent most of a season calling one of the greatest ever, learned from their mistakes in the SEC Championship Game and played this entire affair like a singular vision of vengeance drove them, Michigan being a mere underboss to get back to the final battle.  Georgia had better athletes across the board, a top-notch game plan, and was crisp in their execution.  You might be able to pull an upset if one of those things isn't firing for your opponent, but when all three hit, it's a long night.

Michigan never quit, though.  They never looked lost or disappointed, or frustrated.  They kept trying, and they were rewarded with a late touchdown.  Perhaps a meaningless cosmetic rearguard action that made the final score look more respectable, but when you realize it was freshman JJ McCarthy finding freshman Andrel Anthony with a critical pass block from freshman Donovan Edwards, the notes of what the future may hold. If nothing else, a small moment of joy for Michigan in a genuinely thorough processing by the Bulldogs.

Many wanted Michigan fans to be sadder about this result than we were, but in the end, nothing of what happened on the last day of 2021 can take away the other joys of 2021.  This team was not supposed to be close to here; their bowl game predictions slated for something earlier in the week in a locale more akin to Nashville.  That it wasn't, that this team slew so many of the dragons that tormented the program and the fanbase, that is the memory of this season.  It may be a new beginning, it may be a one-off, it may be, like much of life in college football's upper-middle-class, a taste of something that may be hard to get back to consistently.  We don't know because the future holds infinite paths, but only one that will become manifest.  But the past is written.  This team will come back to Michigan Stadium in 2031 and celebrate a ten-year reunion, and be applauded by a fanbase that remembers what they did and appreciates it, either for its rarity or as the beginning of something new.

Thank you, Team 142, forever Go Blue.

Semi-Charmed Life

Hey, pictures are worth a thousand words. (John Raoux/AP)

What exactly could I say here that we haven't said at the end of each of the previous three seasons?  Michigan looked pretty good in the first half, had a lead on Alabama going into the locker room, and then did exactly nothing on offense in the second half.  The Shea Patterson experience ended with him missing most of his deep balls, in an increasingly frustrating manner, only to see that in the moments after Michigan's defense got a three and out to give Michigan a shot to get back into the game, he threw a pick that sealed Michigan's fate. 

Part of you may want to be happy that Alabama, even a wounded Alabama, didn't run Michigan off the field.  I respect that because I understand the desire to be happy about the situation.  I also understand that this is who Michigan is now, but simultaneously, this is who Michigan has been (with one not inconsequential blip) pretty much forever, certainly for the last 30 years.  Michigan is back to being what it has been forever.  The problem is that the world has changed and what that was would no longer get the accolades that Michigan got used to when it was this way in the past.  Nothing in the last five years have really shown us anything different, it just took many of us longer to get used to the idea than we perhaps realized it would.

So I don't even know what I want for Michigan to be.  Perhaps the most frustrating notion is that Michigan hasn't won a game in the Harbaugh era in which it was an underdog.  0-10.  47-8 as a favorite, 0-10 as an underdog.  So basically, when Michigan is supposed to win, by and large, it does, but if Michigan isn't favored, it has no shot.  There is no unexpected surprise.  That's the real frustration.  Michigan is chaos free Auburn.  The difference is that Auburn will lose games it's supposed to win, but then it will beat Bama when it's not supposed to and people are happy for a touch.  Michigan doesn't do that, and we all end up sad.  (Truthfully, Michigan should have been in the Outback against Auburn, which would have been a much better game, as would have Minnesota/Alabama, but that's now how bowl ties work anymore.)

There are bright spots you can point to for next season and that's what we'll do because not having hope in sports makes it pointless to even be a fan.  We'll talk about the loaded running backs room, we'll talk McCaffrey/Milton, we'll see which receivers come back for another year, and we'll tell ourselves with a few breaks, we can make it to Indy.  We won't, of course, but we'll tell ourselves that because feeling hopeless for eight months is probably more than fans can bear to ponder.

So thanks for another great season, Thank you for continuing to read, even when we haven't had a lot to say.  We'll see you around.  Go Blue.

How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful

Embed from Getty Images

There is a certain joy in watching your team pull away with a lead during its bowl game.  Like much of this season, it was a joy rediscovered during the Buffalo Wild Wings Bowl this New Year's Day.  When Michigan got called for some pre-snap penalties, including a drive-extending illegal substitution penalty which led to what would be Florida's only score (and on a trick play, no less), it was a bit nerve-racking.  You don't want to see the season end and new year start on the wrong foot.  But then, a touchdown, an end zone pick, and a field goal and Michigan never looked back. Win with character, win with cruelty.  It wasn't a perfect game, but it did not need to be.  It was simply a well-executed game plan with improvement shown from the several bowl practices.  Hooray for bowl practices.

There will be arguments that Florida's heart was never really in this game and that may very well be true.  But Michigan took one of the nation's best defenses for a ride on this day.  Rudock made me regret that this was the only season we will have with him, but grateful for those thirteen games we as fans got with him.  It was so much better to see this game as the farewell for these seniors than the chill of Ann Arbor during the Ohio State game.  It's almost a perfect full circle, a cap to the eight-years-in-the-adidas desert era that after that wonderful New Year's Day 2008 in Orlando where Michigan sent Lloyd off into the sunset by beating Florida.

So this is where we stand.  Harbaugh will tell you it wasn't a rebuild or a righting of the ship, or however you may see it, and that is fine, but as a fan, it feels like something more.  We told ourselves this after 2011 and we ended up being wrong, but we can certainly hope, for any number of reasons, that this, this is different.  For starters, there isn't a game with Bama in JerryWorld looming to open the season.  It's not an optimal schedule, but Harbaugh will relish the challenge.

Mostly, I just want to savor this feeling.  This moment of knowing it's not perfect, but it's better.  It's no longer unfounded hope and belief, it's not "where we are going from here."  Let's head off into the sunset of the 2015 season knowing that what lies over that next horizon is much better than what lies behind us.  Fair winds and following seas friends.  Hail.