Margaret vs. Pauline

To be clear, several players had excellent days.  It just wasn't enough. (Patrick Barron)

Everything's so easy for Pauline

Everything's so easy for Pauline

Ancient strings set feet alight

To speed to her such mild grace

No monument of tacky gold

They smoothed her hair with cinnamon waves

And they placed an ingot in her breast

To burn cool and collected

Fate holds her firm in its cradle

And then rolls her for a tender pause to savor

Everything's so easy for Pauline

--"Margaret vs. Pauline" by Neko Case from her 2008 album Fox Confessor Brings the Flood 

When I committed to the bit of naming every column about for a Neko Case song this year, friend of the blog HockeyBear called the shot on Michigan/Michigan State.  Inspired by the 1968 post-apocalyptic novel In Watermelon Sugar, Case builds a story of two women, one of who looks upon the other with great envy because of the ease and advantages that life has handed to Pauline while Margaret has had to scrap and claw for everything and she's still not any better off.  From a broad reading, one could see this as a metaphor for the entire Michigan/Michigan State rivalry.

Then again, Margaret had all seven replays reviews go her way today, so maybe there's more to this.

OK, let's be clear.  Michigan made a lot of mistakes.  A tremendous number of them.  Poor substitution patterns even after it became clear that Michigan State wanted to tempo.  If they get you on a couple of those, tip your cap.  When it keeps happening in the fourth quarter, that's on the coaches.  The safeties were not in a position to provide support on run plays, leading to massive runs for Kenneth Walker III. There were three occasions where Michigan settled for red zone field goals when touchdowns would have put the game out of reach.  There were plenty of mistakes to point to as to what brought about this result.

There were excellent performances by individual players.  Andrel Anthony had a huge breakout game in his hometown, Aidan Hutchinson and David Ojabo both overcame significant holding, by and large uncalled, to get into the Michigan State backfield.  Cade McNamara had the game of his career and looked mostly on point and mostly made the right read and good throws after a week of discussion about whether playing JJ instead was the right call.  

Like 1999 Michigan State where the five-star had a critical turnover late to give Michigan State the winning score, JJ was sent in because McNamara was in the injury tent.  This was after a near disaster in the red zone that only gets overlooked because a Spartan defender kicked the ball out of bounds.

You can overcome mistakes with reasonable officiating on the argument that both sides will make their share of mistakes in a game.  You can overcome...interpretive...officiating if you play relatively clean, mistake-free football.  Rare is the day when you can win a game overcoming both.  Especially against a top ten team on the road.

That's what I needed to keep reminding myself of in this.  Michigan State was undefeated coming in.  Michigan State had legitimate weapons and had made good use of them.  There was a great deal of doubt to the outcome coming into today.  But when Michigan raced out to a 10-0 lead and later a 23-14 halftime lead, hope crept in and all of those rational notions disappeared until it was too late. 

And yet...

Walker's first touchdown might have been a fumble out of the back of the end zone.  Reviewed, no change.  Peyton Thorne was strip-sacked and Aidan Hutchinson recovered the ball in the end zone.  Reviewed, no, somehow Thorne's shin was down, a delta 4 loss of points on that possession.  Michigan State keeps a drive alive with two reviews that go their way and then scores.  Every small thing that could go Michigan State's way today seemed to do so.  JJ fumbles on an exchange because Cade is in the tent and Michigan State recovers deep in Michigan territory.

It turns out that, sometimes, everything's so easy for Margaret.  It just depends on who's singing.

Post-Script: This is still an exceedingly fun and engaging team.  This is still a team that does a lot of things really well and has a lot of players who are playing hard and playing well.  I don't want to lose sight of that in the disappointment that comes from today's result.  It doesn't make it better, but it's not fair to presume that this team is only fun because they kept winning.  As several of the players themselves said they know it's about how they come back from this.  I believe in them because I think they have earned the right to be believed.

Heart of Glory

And every Michigan fan exhaled.  Finally. (Michigan Athletics)

I wanted to believe.  I wanted to tell myself that the numbers were right and I was being needlessly scarred by the waning seconds of last year's game and that the computers had everything sorted out.  But data, for all that it can tell us, is retrospective.  It can only tell us what has happened, and potentially what may happen, but not what will happen.  That does not mean that data is not instructive, it's deeply so, especially if you take the time to study it and understand what it means.  It's just that "models are opinions embedded in mathematics."

What Michigan State has been this year is utterly surprising to virtually any college football observer whom I have read.  It doesn't seem like it's real, even when you account for the issues like losing a quarterback like Connor Cook or seniors on the O-Line, it just appeared that Michigan State's collapse was inexplicable.  Without getting all cliche, however, there was no way that Michigan State was just going to roll over in this game. A win over Michigan would, if not save their season, could easily mark the moment when they turned their season around.  They were going to take their best swing at Michigan, and for the opening minutes of a swiftly paced first quarter, they looked like they had connected.

Michigan, however, tasted the blood in their mouth, smiled, and proceeded to put 27 points on Michigan State by halftime and had their biggest lead at Spartan Stadium that anyone seemed to be able to remember.  It had been a long, long time.  But the fear remained.  For as great a day as Amara Darboh was having, grabbing nearly everything thrown in his general vicinity, there was still trepidation.  Michigan hadn't looked great last week in the second half against Illinois, for a relative definition of great, would this be the case again.

So when Wilton Speight threw a pick on a wheel route, (which I didn't even know could happen because wheel routes are blameless, holy creatures) and Michigan State took the ball inside the ten-yard line, the fear began to rise once more.  When Jabrill Peppers was called for a meh defensive pass interference in the end zone, giving Michigan State new life and a new set of downs, the fear rose up again.  This was calmed when Michigan stopped them yet again on four straight plays inside the two-yard line, and there was a realization that this year was not all of those other years, Michigan State was not going to out tough Michigan this year.

Except, Michigan really couldn't get anything going as they had to that point.  After the 14 play drive that ended on a nicely placed Kenny Allen field goal to make it 30-10, Michigan went three and out for its first punt of the game, which was followed by a Michigan State touchdown.  Michigan then went six and out, which was followed by a ten play MSU drive that ended in a turnover on downs thanks to a Jabrill Peppers sack.  

Michigan got the ball back with 1:46 left and MSU had two timeouts remaining.  They used both after two Michigan run plays, the second of which looked like Karan Higdon got it but a meh spot, and then a run for no gain had Michigan punting again.   A cleanly handled Kenny Allen snap and punt put Michigan State on their own 25 with 37 seconds remaining.  Time to breathe easy.  Except no.

Michigan State traversed the natural surface of Spartan Stadium quickly (on the clock, the interminable fourth quarter took forever, thanks to reviews, penalties, and general shenanigans) and with one second remaining, scored a touchdown to make it 30-23.  Without warning, Michigan was facing the possibility of a kick with one second remaining where Michigan State could potentially win the game, especially if they converted the try for two.

So when Jabrill Peppers scooped up the loose football from a failed pitch and raced to the end zone for Michigan's own defensive two-point conversion, putting Michigan up an insurmountable nine points with one second remaining, there was a collective exhale from the Michigan fanbase.  The onside kick attempt sailed harmlessly out of bounds and Michigan was, once more, the rightful possessor of the Paul Bunyan Trophy.

There should be no grand proclamations of order restored, or Michigan being back.  Michigan is playing well, the defense, while perhaps no longer on its heretofore historic trajectory that it was before the most recent sixty minutes in East Lansing, is still formidable.  At a time of the year when the chaos begins to swell and swirl around the college football landscape, Michigan went into a stadium that has been a nightmare for them for the last decade and got out with a win.  Style points may matter, but style points don't make the Paul Bunyan Trophy any more beloved when it is displayed in the Towsley Family Museum.  Michigan remains undefeated as the calendar turns to November.  That hasn't happened in long enough that we should pause and reflect on the excellence of that fact.

By happy coincidence, today marks the tenth anniversary of my first HSR post.  Though it took me some time to find my voice, and eventually start these columns, essentially my dairy of my thoughts on the most recent Michigan football game, looking back at these ten years, these eleven seasons spanned in that framework and you realize just how odd they really have been.  Michigan has had as many head coaches in this time frame as it did from 1959-2007.  We have seen the end of the Lloyd era, one that was as confusing at the time as anything. We have seen the high hopes for the Rodriguez era dashed on the rocky shore of tradition and "fit".  We have seen the early promise of the Hoke era collapse under the weight of a lack of competencies. We have seen our way through three coaching searches, each more chaotic than the last.  We have seen our belief in the power of home mocked by everyone outside the tribe except for the one person to whom it actually had to matter.  We have seen the chaos of the Harbaugh era mitigated by the grace of a return to the past, an odd combination of the movie series reboot that works, retaining that which we loved about the original while giving it the right modern twist.  We have seen the staggering highs of Denard running wild, and the dismal lows of well, there was a lot of them.  The final analysis is simple: The last ten years are a rich tapestry, filled with more heartbreak than a Michigan fan is accustomed, but one that has made us more grateful for the small graces.  Like when Michigan's do-everything linebacker runs a two-point conversion back in the final second of a rivalry game.  The small graces matter, and that's why we write about them.  We're trying to capture in words what we feel in our hearts, in our heads.  Something beyond the data, something beyond the metrics, not because those things don't matter, but because we need to give them context.  

Onward to Maryland, onward to November.  

No Light, No Light

History never looks like history when you're going through it.  (Photo by Bryan Fuller)

You want a revelation,
You wanna get it right.
But it's a conversation,
I just can't have tonight.
You want a revelation, some kind of resolution
Tell me what you want me to say.

History can be instructive, but we must remember that it rarely repeats itself.  It echoes, it begs for comparison, it tells us what has been and what might be again, but in the final analysis, we cannot predict the future simply by looking at the past.  If we could do so, we would be far less likely to repeat foolish mistakes.  We would just make awful new mistakes.  Which, really, is what we do.

As much as we want to think so, it is hard to pinpoint "the single moment" upon which the result of a football game turned.  Of course, I say this knowing full well that Michigan had three games in which one could readily point to a single moment.  But if I wasn't already in "this does not bode well" mode after the drum major dropped the mace after throwing it over the crossbar, but no, it was the photo above.

Punt block attempts are high risk/high reward.  Michigan already had one punt block effort blow up in their faces this year, against Maryland.  That penalty, though bad, ended up being meaningless in the grand scheme of that game.  This one, on 4th and 7 from OSU's own 9 handed the Buckeyes a first down on their own 24 and two plays later, Ezekiel Elliott was off to the races for 66 yards and Ohio State figured out they just needed to run the Indiana offensive game plan writ large, coupled with a more solid defensive performance, and they would have this one.  A game that was 14-10 at the half was 28-3 after the half and could have been worse if not for a solid stand late in the fourth after the game was well out of hand.  No one can say for sure what would have happened if Michigan had not been flagged for a personal foul on that play (which I still think is specious, but, you know, biased.) but it did feel like that was going to be "the mistake" upon which the game would turn.

It is not a failing to acknowledge that Michigan just ran out of gas down the stretch,  The stretch, in college football, is what separates great teams from good teams, and national championship contenders from great teams.  Michigan's 9-3 mark this year was better than even the wildest dreamers would have allowed ourselves to believe in, even when Harbaugh landed at DTW eleven months ago.  That doesn't mean we have to like that of Michigan's three losses, two were to rivals at home.  But I think in the end, when you can reflect calmly upon it, it's just that Michigan did not have enough at the end, the attrition of football being football got to them.  That will change.  That will get better, but for now, we don't have a whole lot of answers.  We await a likely New Year's date in the Florida sun against an SEC team.  And that is certainly not the worst way to end Year 1 of a new coaching administration.  More to the point, it was fun again.  There were far few of these "what is the lesson of this terrible thing that has befallen our team" columns, far less gnashing of teeth and rending of garments.  It was fun again, even when it wasn't on the scoreboard.  But for the first time in a while, we end a season with hope, realistic, grounded hope.  Not flights of fancy, not longings for that which is gone, but seeing a process and knowing that there's a foundation upon which to build.

Until we know where January takes us, as always, we fight for better days.  My thanks to you for reading again this season and a blessed holiday season to you and your family.  Go Blue!

Zeal

(Photo: Greg Bartram, USA Today Sports)

It struck me when I was reading another fantastic piece from Ramzy at 11 Warriors, that there is a dirty secret to the Michigan/Ohio State rivalry.  One might argue that we don't care as much as they do.  Michigan fans don't spend this week obsessively blocking out every "O" on campus, don't constantly refer to Ohio State as "That School In Columbus" (Yes, we do the Ohio thing, but it's kind of contrived and probably isn't going to last past this weekend anyway.  We just don't feel it in our hearts)

I almost have begun to wonder in the past decade whether Michigan's interest in the rivalry is, in knowing how much it means to them, being able to beat them and ruin that for them, is what Michigan fans truly get out of this.  Michigan fans don't care less about the rivalry than Ohio State fans do, they just care about it differently.  Michigan fans like winning, period.  Michigan fans want to beat everybody and dread that there will be somewhere along the way in a season where Michigan doesn't win.  Michigan's season is not going to be made by beating Ohio in a way that Ohio's might be.  But it makes me sad to know that there has not been one game since 1999 where Michigan went in to The Game and thought "we should win this." *  Ohio State fans have thought this all too often since the Tressel era began.  If I have a sadness about this rivalry, it is that.

(*-If you want to argue 2011 with me, I'll listen, but even then, the best chance Michigan had to get a win since 2003 (when it was #4 vs #5, which is not a "should"), did not feel like a "should win", but like a "please dear God, let us win."  It's not the same.  And 2004, #7 in the country vs. a 6-5 Buckeye team, still had to go to Columbus.)

The Devin Gardner era ended yesterday not with a whimper, but not with a bang.  It ended with more conclusive proof about the kind of person that Devin Gardner is (see photo above), but also the maddening flaws about what kind of quarterback Devin Gardner, turnover prone, but flashing brilliance here there and everywhere.  There seems to be a desire to make a metaphor of this game as a microcosm of the Hoke era, and perhaps it is.  Unfortunately, like so many times in the Hoke era, we're left with more questions than answers.  If Hoke's era is coming to a close, then the book will be left to be written, but we've written so much of it.  In so many ways, we've known for months what is going to happen, but we're waiting for the actual moment, so we can move on and move forward.

My role with this blog started eight years ago.  Geoff was kind enough to ask me to contribute, and I was thrilled to get a chance to do so.  I've spent the last eight years documenting some staggering highs and some really stupid lows.  But at some point, all of this feels so cliche, that we've been here before, and instead of being filled with hope, we're filled with an impending sense of dread.  A change is gonna come, and they're gonna ask us to go along, and we will, because we've already invested too much.  But there will be others who aren't going to come back, because we've given them no reason to stay.  The zeal is dying, in part because the fuel hasn't been there.

Here's to hope we get it right this time.  We've talked us into so many ridiculous ideas that so many realities are going to seem like consolation prizes, and I hate that.  I hate knowing in my heart that no one in their right mind is going to want to come here, because tradition and history are wonderful, but the expectations that come with it are kind of insane.  There's no reason, on paper, a quality coach shouldn't be able to come in to Michigan and rack up wins, but it's a new millennium, new rules, and an understanding that the old ways aren't going to work anymore.  Let's hope we get it right this time.  Because, like this season, that's all we have left.

Divide and Conquer

When I was in high school, nigh on 15 years ago, I would frequently kill time in class by designing divisional alignments for a Big Ten that would add a twelfth team and thus a championship game. That 12th team was always Notre Dame and I would always end up frustrated that the divisions would never ever seem to work out right.

Fast forward to the Brave New World of Conference Realignment and the one simple fact that on June 11, 2010, the Big Ten welcomed the University of Nebraska-Lincoln as the conference's 12th member. The Big Ten will now fully welcome the cash cow that is a championship game and will need, under NCAA rules, to figure out how to split into divisions to make that happen.

So, what will these divisions look like, and how does the Big Ten try to make the fairest, most logical, most cost effective divisions possible. (Please note: Only football needs to be in divisions. Every other sport can just be one nice big 12 team division.) Below, some thoughts, rocking out to R.E.M.'s Monster to get me back into the old high school mindset.

Before I reinvent the wheel, MaizeandBlueWahoo did some nice ground work on the topic as an MGoBlog diary, covering the classic "East/West" and "North/South" divisions.

One of the fundamental questions the league will need to answer is, what do you want to do about Michigan/Ohio State. As Michigan-centric as that question might seem, the rivalry, even if one sided of late, is still the rivalry, and knowing that it is the centerpiece of much of the tradition of the Big Ten, the rivalry must be preserved. I know that Michigan and Ohio State will not approve any divisional scheme that fails to make sure that The Game is played every year come November and this means you need to look into one of three things (as brilliantly stated and shamelessly stolen from Twitter friend Rebecca Stanek:

1. Michigan and Ohio State are in the same division. They’re guaranteed to play each other every season, but then can never play against each other in the Big Ten Championship game.

2. Michigan and Ohio State are in different divisions. Some years they meet in the Big Ten Championship game.

3. Michigan and Ohio State are in different divisions, but are guaranteed to face each other every year. And if there’s a rematch in the championship game, so be it. This is maybe the best solution, although it’s probably unfair to be locked in to the same team year after year for one of the (few) out-of-division, in-conference games. (It would work better in a 12-team conference than in a 16-team conference, for sure.)

This also applies to other major Big Ten rivalries (as defined by their permanent status in the current Big Ten schedule): Iowa/Minnesota, Minnesota/Wisconsin, Iowa/Wisconsin, Illinois/Northwestern, Illinois/Indiana, Indiana/Purdue, Purdue/Northwestern, Penn State/Ohio State, Michigan/Michigan State, and Michigan State/Penn State. Nebraska should also figure in to this mix and I suspect that Iowa will be the first permanent rival and Wisconsin the second (dropping the Wisconsin/Iowa game as a permanent rival and making a four way quadumverate of hate on the western edge.) Jim Delany stated that rivalries are important, but not all rivalries are created equally.

One of the other issues is, does having two major rivals in the same division diminish the importance of the rivalry if they could not meet in the championship game? I think that divisional rivalries are important. Consider: Texas/Oklahoma, Auburn/Alabama, Florida/Georgia, Florida/Tennessee, Alabama/LSU, Nebraska/Colorado, Kansas/Missouri, Oklahoma/Oklahoma State, North Carolina/Duke, and Virginia/Virginia Tech are all major rivalry games that are/were contained within the same division. The ACC and SEC have a "permanent rival" model for cross-divisional games, and it looks like of the 12 permanent rivalry games, the only ones that "wow" are Florida State/Miami, Auburn/Georgia ("The Deep South's Oldest Rivalry"), Alabama/Tennessee (The Third Saturday in October), NC State/North Carolina (important, but not the NC/Duke game), LSU/Florida. Everything else feels "compelled". So does that mean anything?

Now that we have all of this down, here are some of my proposed notions:

Alternating Alphabetical Triads

One and Three:

Illinois
Indiana
Iowa
Nebraska
Northwestern
Ohio State

Two and Four:

Michigan
Michigan State
Minnesota
Penn State
Purdue
Wisconsin

All I did in this one is take the 12 schools by their common name, sort them alphabetically, and divide them into four groups of three. I then took the groups and alternated them, leaving us with the grouping above.

Why is this one compelling? Because it balances the "Big Four" problem (Michigan, Ohio State, Penn State, and Nebraska are four of the seven programs in Division I-A with the most all-time victories. Balancing them 2 and 2 is likely important.) It shows that divisions need not be based on geography where football is involved. From a Michigan-centric perspective, it would ensure that Michigan would play for Penn State every year, Michigan State every year, and for the Jug every year (not important to every one, important to me.) The permanent rivals could be:

Michigan-Ohio State
Purdue-Indiana
Minnesota-Iowa
Wisconsin-Nebraska
Michigan State-Northwestern
Penn State-Illinois

I feel a little bit bad about the last two, because they feel compelled (even Wisconsin/Nebraska feels a little forced, but I already dealt with that above.)

Not bad, but can we do better.

Inside/Outside Alphabetical Triads

One and Four:

Illinois
Indiana
Iowa
Penn State
Purdue
Wisconsin

Two and Four:

Michigan
Michigan State
Minnesota
Nebraska
Northwestern
Ohio State

This one isn't as good as the model above, in part because it leaves a three/one split for the Big Four. I do think the one advantage is the permanent rivalries feel a little more "real". To wit:

Michigan-Penn State
Michigan State-Indiana
Minnesota-Wisconsin
Nebraska-Iowa
Northwestern-Purdue
Ohio State-Illinois

With the exception of the Michigan-Penn State and Nebraska-Iowa games, each of these games is a trophy game. The Big Ten would probably be pretty happy about Michigan against Ohio State, Nebraska, and Penn State every year. Honestly, of the models, this one is the most favorable to preserving Michigan's rivalries, but the divisions don't feel balanced.

The reality is that Mark Rudner and Mike McComiskey at the Big Ten office probably have dozens of magnet schedule versions of this kind of thing and are consulting with the 12 athletic departments of the conference to figure out the best possible configuration. I wish them well. For now, it's fun to speculate.

Quick note: The Big Ten now breaks readily down into three longitudinal triads:

West:

Iowa
Minnesota
Nebraska
Wisconsin

Central:

Illinois
Indiana
Northwestern
Purdue

East:

Michigan
Michigan State
Ohio State
Penn State

If were a way to guarantee that each of these teams could play each other annually in a two division format, I think everyone would be happy (OK, Nebraska would be happiest, because that east is an absolute nightmare.) (By the way, doing four longitudinal groups of three is even worse, because it's Michigan/Ohio State and Penn State on the far east side.)

One more completely insane one: The Rich/Poor Divisions, based on the school's endowment:

* Michigan - $6.00 billion
* Northwestern - $5.45 billion
* Minnesota - $2.07 billion
* Ohio State - $1.65 billion
* Purdue - $1.46 billion
* Wisconsin - $1.37 billion

* Indiana - $1.23 billion
* Penn State - $1.23 billion
* Nebraska - $1.15 billion
* Illinois - $1.11 billion
* Michigan State - $1.05 billion
* Iowa - $766 million

Permanent rival games:

Michigan-Michigan State
Northwestern-Illinois
Minnesota-Iowa
Ohio State-Penn State
Purdue-Indiana
Wisconsin-Nebraska

Am I crazy, or does that work out pretty darn well?

Catch 11

I wanted to open this by saying that Coach Rodriguez is in a no-win situation, but that not only sounds hopeless, but perhaps hits a little too close to the Vest right now. But I have been thinking about this as the usual "Rodriguez hasn't embraced the rivalry and it's going to cost him." floats around during Ohio State week. The problem for Rodriguez is, he can't embrace it like you want him to and he can't embrace it like you want him to for a reason that some people miss.
Adam Rittenberg put together some numbers on current Big Ten Coaches records in Rivalry Games, which leads me to my overall point: If Jim Tressel beats Michigan, his entire fanbase is relatively happy. We don't have empirical data on this, but if Ohio State went 1-11 and beat Michigan, I am pretty sure the good people of Ohio who call themselves Buckeye fans would be pretty happy.
If Mark Dantonio beats Michigan, his entire fanbase is ecstatic. Michigan State fans live to beat Michigan. It is their raison d'être. Sparty spends 364 days dreaming of hanging one on Michigan and a 365th hoping it goes their way.
If Tim Brewster beats Michigan (in years that Michigan and Minnesota play for the Jug), his entire fanbase will be largely satisfied. I am sure Gopher fans would love to see wins over Wisconsin and Iowa, but beating Michigan is pretty high on the to-do list for a season.
If Ron Zook beats Michigan, his fanbase will be oddly placated. Illinois considers Michigan a rival (which was true in, say, the 1920s), and Michigan looks around and says "you guys, too?" and laments that the Illini have taken Michigan behind the woodshed in consecutive years.
If Joe Paterno beats Michigan, his fanbase is relatively satisfied, particularly after nine straight losses to Michigan, it certainly helps. I don't know if Michigan/Penn State is a rivalry, but you have to get up for the game nonetheless. Plus, it's Joe Paterno, do you think he really worries about what his fanbase is thinking? He's freaking JoePa!
In order for Michigan fans to be happy, Rich Rodriguez has to, at a minimum, beat Michigan State, Penn State, Notre Dame, and Ohio State, or at least three of the four, and really it's all four. So if that's the case, why not just try to win all 12. You give every other team on your schedule your best shot and you see what happens.
If Rodriguez "embraces" the rivalry, what is the opportunity cost? If he does something in every practice to beat Ohio State, does that come at the opportunity to be at the best for Notre Dame, or Michigan State, or Penn State, or Minnesota, or Illinois, or any other team that wants to punch Michigan in the mouth every chance it gets?
Part of the problem with being at the top, being the powerhouse, is that everyone makes you the focal point of their year. "If we can just beat Michigan, well, things will be better." Who does Michigan get this with? This is not a complaint, mind you, it comes with the territory. But you cannot ask Coach Rodriguez to "embrace" this rivalry like Jim Tressel for a very simple reasons. Tressel's fans demand that the rivalry not only be embraced, but be lived in, worn as a second skin every waking moment of every day, and dreaming of beating Michigan in his sleep. Michigan fans want Rodriguez to never lose to anyone who considers us their rival.
It is impossible to be all things to all people. He's a football coach, not the great and powerful Oz. You start to fix things by winning one game. Maybe if he does that, people will say he's embraced the rivalry, simply because he won. Winning changes everything. Start changing things Saturday and see what the world looks like on Sunday.