Little Brown Jugular: Michigan 49, Minnesota 24

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“Little Brown Jugular,” I am almost certain, is the Michigan Daily cover title from a mid-90’s housing of the Gophers. I seem to remember that the title had blood dripping down from it. Maybe it was a Halloween thing? Can’t recall. Will continue to research.

**UPDATE, FOUND! From Michigan’s 44-10 victory over the Gophers from 1996.

ANYWAY…Ben Mason is a limber acrobat (that still gets dumb penalties) in 2020. So, THINGS ARE WEIRD.

John Autey / Pioneer Press

John Autey / Pioneer Press

I mean, REALLY WEIRD.

It was a cold night in Minnesota.  And that shitty $10 souvenir hot chocolate you’ve had at Stadium and Main?  I can confirm that’s a Big Ten staple.  Crappy non-functional plastic slider top, watery, lukewarm when you got it, and cold before you make the steep climb back to your seat on the precipice of a six story drop off of a metal upper deck (Spartan, Beaver, Ohio, old Ross-Ade end zone, I’m talking to you).  There’s a willingness to huddle with strangers in these scenarios, hopefully they’re in Maize and Blue, though you’d probably brave the stench of the body odor and dip spit of a Buckeye-laden human windscreen if it made itself available.  In the uncharted territory that is a Covid situation, with no other like-minded folks to huddle up against, those family members in attendance felt every bit of that 28 degrees whip through their bodies.  Joe Milton from Pahokee apparently did not, and required nary a sleeve until he was relieved for garbage time by Cade McNamara and draped himself in a grey Nike down comforter like it was a king’s robe.

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A Ranked Road Win at Night is a fantastic thing.  Something you hang your hat on as a team and boast about as a fan.  So first, let’s do that.  Go ahead, seriously, permission granted to enjoy something in 2020.  Punted once.  The newly formed O-line graded roads.  So many running backs we can’t decide which one we want to have the 10ypc average.  New QB in his first start managed the game with poise, moved like Devin, threw like he was trying to win a radar gun contest.  Blake Corum was so fast that Carrie Ann Moss called Keanu Reeves to tell him that “he moves like you do.” When Charbonnet talked me off the ledge that I was on after the first drive comedy of errors finally led to a blocked punt, it occurred to to me that I haven’t seen a Michigan running back get separation from people chasing him since, well, ever.  And if you watched the game, you are probably convinced that there is more than one Michael Barrett.  Dude left it all on the field.

So many touches by so many folks, it’s the proverbial (fill in any offensive skill position here) by committee.  The Team the Team the Team at it’s finest, with one solid constant pitching fastballs and handing it off.  No standout stats, but the football equivalent of a hoops game with every player in double figures.

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In the end, it was an unapologetic 49-24 drubbing of Row the Boat, the darlings of the 2019 Big Ten season, and PJ Fleck, who I’ve heard second hand is kind of a dick.  Seriously, Jerry Kill is a god-damned treasure, and he wants to punch PJ Fleck in the face. It was as impressive of an opening victory as you can find in the annals.  It’s true that the story of how good Minny might be is still to be told, not unlike the 2017 Florida Gators, who is the only Michigan opponent in an opener this century that meets the not-at-home-victory-against-a-ranked-team criteria.  We thought they were good too. They were not. But Saturday’s win should suffice to shut up the naysayers that think Michigan rebuilds, when in fact they reload.  Sure, they reload at a 9-4 or 10-3 caliber, but that is enough to expect victory against the Minnesotas of the world, whatever the scenario.

Moving on to the Work From Home aspect of the game, the tailgate was great.  Not quite the turnout I expected.  Only two people, but they were enthusiastic.  Pizza House catered and the feta bread was, as always, delish.  I must say, I thought that watching from the couch would provide game insight that I didn’t get being in the stands.  But I’m surprised to find that somehow a Michigan road crowd with mostly signal-crippled cell phones provides collective knowledge beyond what I could get on my home WiFi.   I found myself scouring twitter throughout, as the broadcast left something to be desired.  Herby was accused of mailing it in by many a Michigan viewer.  I yelled at the screen a bit when he tried to praise Bateman when he started making catches late, not acknowledging that it was only because Dax was sidelined.  

Minnesota seemed to always be floating around, seemingly on an endless drive-before-the-drive that they couldn’t quite execute, but close enough to keep our attention and dread intact for most of the game.  That is until Kwity Paye went full finishing move(s), with sack dances in the general direction of a human-less abyss.  THINGS ARE WEIRD.

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Next week we’ll need the RichRod and Hoke era people counters to come in to tell us that the consecutive streak of 100,000 fans continues as we battle Michigan Agricultural College.  Mel Tucker and friends had a little different experience over the weekend.  You might have heard about it.

GO BLUE!

Way Back When-sday Captures A Historic Event

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October 24, 1992: The Godfather serves food to a tailgater before Michigan’s 63-13 victory over the Golden Gophers. In the 28 years since this photo, he has not cooked or served a single morsel of food.

However, he has handed out a lot of sugary, caffeinated, un-naturally colored shots and probably given your girlfriend or wife an uncomfortably long hug. More photos from that day and a link to game highlights are available here.

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Way Back When-sday Pic of the Week Knows Where The Road Will End

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November 10, 2008: The look of pain you see there is real. It was a rough night in the Twin Cities. Baby Gorilla, Godfather and I all piled on some diner breakfast that morning, and two of us managed to keep it down. Later, 5 KC Lopata field goals helped propel Nick Sheridan and the Wolverines past the Gophers 29-6.

I will be having breakfast there again on April 6 if you want to join me.

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Picture Catch Up...Minnesota

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The Michigan Indifference

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This is probably going to be brief (edit: guess not), but we'll see where it goes.  They say that opinions are like assholes, everybody has one, and if you've spent any time on the internet or turned on a television in the past few days, I think you might come to the conclusion that everybody has at least two, which makes for a weird situation, at least biologically. 

Brady Hoke is a Michigan Man, a guy that molds young men, a guy that knows the histories and traditions of Michigan Football, and a guy that believes in the idea that we can and will win because we are Michigan.  He likely does one thing every week in practice that has nothing to do with the next game, but is preparing us for Ohio State.  He never wears red.  I've heard from people close to him that he's known for outdrinking his staff, and I once attended a practice where the wad of skoal lodged into his front lip was as big as I have ever seen.  That's why that one side of his mouth has a little stroke-like deadness to it at pressers...because 10 minutes earlier it was blown up like a balloon.  He's a man's man, your average everyday tough fat uncle.  He loves.  He hugs.  He wrestles Greg Mattison.  He coaches...albeit poorly at this level.  He's emotional and passionate, and in the right non-media setting, he says all the right things.  He will fire you up and make you believe, and that no doubt is the reason he is such a great recruiter.  He's probably great in a job interview.  Unfortunately, he arrived here in a time machine from 1999, and he is neither prepared nor aware of the way the world around him works.  Kids are different.  If you ignore social media, you are doomed to fall victim to it.  Mistakes are magnified, spread like wildfire, and they require immediate and truthful responses.  Apologies work man!  Bullshit does not.  "I don't know" does not.  You can coach within the walls of Schembechler Hall, but you cannot hide behind them.

If Brady had showed some competence or candor prior to Saturday, particularly with the media, the Shane Morris situation would have been much less serious.  If Brady had acted swiftly and responded to the issue with vigor, anger, or public self deprecation, it would have been much less serious.  If Brady was molding football players into game winners when he wasn't too busy molding men into the next great generation of fathers, it would have been much less serious.

I find it hard to believe that Brady maliciously put a possibly concussed player back in the game.  I think he didn't know, and that's probably as bad or worse.  He didn't see the hit.  He doesn't wear a headset.  As we wait for the magical medical documents we were promised at the presser, we don't know for sure yet what happened to Shane Morris, why he stumbled into his lineman after getting speared, or if he had a concussion.  The problem is, our Coach says he doesn't know either.  Ignorance is bliss I guess.  That's one happy fat bastard.

But this is not about Shane Morris's scrambled noggin.  In fact, this whole situation with Shane is taking away from the fact that the Gophers just handed us our ass at home in front of about 90,000 people.  The team is ill prepared, unmotivated, and folds at the first sign of adversity.  The stadium gets progressively more empty as each week passes.  Aside from the allure of night game number three, there is nothing to look forward to.  If you're (stupid) like me, and you go to the away games, the MSU and OSU trips are looking about as appealing as a warm glass of the sweat wrung out of Brady Hoke's underwear.  There is not a recovery option here.  "But if we win out" is not on the table.  2014 is over in September, snatched rudely from a fan base that has already been waiting too long to return to above-the-mean, let alone prominence.  Reflecting back to App State, I said at the start of the season that Michigan Football died in 2007.  It seems now they've hired a band of rogue orderlies to dig up and hump the corpse.  We're at that point where that douche in the cube next to you that has never seen a game and doesn't know Harbaugh from blue balls is knocking on the divider and asking "What the fuck?!?"

And then there's Dave Brandon, whose resume does not need to be gone over again.  What do we do with him, and when?  Brandon or no Brandon has no effect on the on-field performance. But if a lame duck Brady has to be axed, we obviously don't want DB around to pick up the pieces and make our next move, right?  "Whatever" is the proper response here I think.  Akin to "what about the recruits?" when it comes to firing Brady, it just doesn't matter anymore.  The timing of their inevitable exits should be inconsequential at this point.

As I stare at my twitter feed looking for something, anything that might be some semblance of news, some start to the closure, I wonder if I'm just impatient or spoiled.  Worse things have happened to better, well, at least similar programs.  But time marches on and we become more and more disconnected from a team we never expected to be hard to love.  Nearly 40 years of greatness, and sometimes even excellence.  We are not conditioned for this, and it's a test of fandom I guess.  It's become difficult folks, and that's for me...a guy that used to pretend to be Jim Harbaugh (but chubbier) snapping the ball playing tackle football on the cement floor of my parents basement at 8 years old, a guy that wept in the stands for Kordell to Westbrook, and again for Woodson down the sideline.  A guy that has been in attendance at every game, wherever and whenever it has been, for fifteen years, and most home games for several years prior to that, and that started a website dedicated to drinking and eating before every one of those games.  I reside less than a mile from the 50 yard line.  This is my life, or at least a really significant part of it.  There were times when I pointed and laughed at those of you that take it less seriously because you didn't get to feel the level of joy I got to feel when things went well.  Now I envy most of you, for being able to turn it off, to realize it's just a game, and because you don't have to feel this pain.  The scariest part is that the pain is starting to go away.  There is something much more powerful than The Michigan Difference, and that's The Michigan Indifference.

I have always lived under the assumption that there are people that are smarter than me making the decisions...people that know what I know and more, but have the donation dollars to back it up.  These are the policy makers.  The money talks.  I hope I'm right about that.  I hope somebody somewhere is doing something.  Making plans, lists of coaches, lists of AD prospects, figuring out what it might take to get one of the Harbaugh brothers to come home and save us from ourselves.  Saban, Narduzzi, Miles, or somebody I'm not even thinking about.  The home run.  The uniter.  THE coach.  The splash that will make people forget about the last 7 years.  I hope you are out there, anonymous rich guy that reads Mgoblog in the morning and makes ten million dollar deals at night.  Do something.

GO BLUE!  See you in Piscataway.