For anyone like myself, a proud and loyal Michigan football fan, today is a day of utter shame. And so is tomorrow and the next day and the remainder of this season. The Michigan football program hit an unthinkable low on Saturday as the #5-ranked Wolverines lost to Division I-AA Appalachian State in their opening game of the 2007 season. Let me take you back to Friday when I was “juiced” for the start of the new college football season. I made sure the old David Terrell #1 jersey was washed and ready for a big autumn. I scrambled to see if I could find the game on the internet (to no avail– ESPN canceled its internet package this year in an attempt to be the biggest bunch of assholes ever). I even watched some YouTube preview video edited to the Any Given Sunday song to get psyched up for the new season. What does Michigan do to repay the team’s biggest fan in Shanghai? A fan who stayed up drinking coffee until 4 in the morning listening to the local Ann Arbor broadcast of the game? They lost. To a team that everyone had written off as a joke, a game everyone believed would result in nothing more than a crushing week 1 win for Michigan, and a fat paycheck for App. State. The Mountaineers got their fat paycheck. And they also got the most improbable victory in the history of college football. Yes, I said what the Michigan broadcasters would not. This was the biggest upset in the history of college football. This was a team from what the NCAA calls its “subdivision” walking into the biggest stadium in American sports and defeating what is supposed to be college football’s fifth best program. This is like the Yankees losing the World Series to the double-A Bowie Bay Sox. It would be like the Spurs dropping a close one to the Guangdong Southern Tigers of the Chinese league. And for those non-sports fans, it would be comparable to Dennis Kucinich walking into The Shelter in Detroit and defeating Eminem in a rap battle. Or winning the Democratic nomination. It was something that should have been impossible. The odds were so skewed in Michigan’s favor, there wasn’t even an official betting line on the game. Appalachian State exposed a wide variety of weaknesses in Michigan, namely the D, who couldn’t make make a stop in the first half and the special teams, who on Saturday were special like the Special Olympics– two blocked field goals and 3 mangled returns? They also proved what I’ve been saying for years– the Big House is not feared or revered by visiting teams the way most Michigan fans believe. If Saturday’s game were a house party, Appalachian St. are the awkward losers we invited to help us look good and get laid. But instead, they trashed the place, drank all the booze, fucked all the women and left us drunk and depressed by ourselves. To stay on this metaphor, if we Michigan fans were alcoholics, Saturday’s game was our rock bottom. This is a loss that should result in a Sunday morning firing of head coach Lloyd Carr, who, as far as I’m concerned, led his team onto the field wholly unprepared. This is a loss that makes Michigan, the most storied team in college football, the laughing stock of the sports nation. And as a fan, I am completely ashamed.
•Detroit Free Press: Apalling!
•ESPN: Hail to the Victors
It’s not like the Yankeeys losing a 7-game World Series, it was one game. Michigan was arrogant to schedule the 2-time defending Division I-AA Champs who are a very proud, disciplined team loaded with athletes. Michigan was out-prepared, out-coached and ultimately, out-played. And who’s fault do you think that was?!
As someone who despises football, I found the result to be hilarious. It cracked my ass up. And how much can you blame a coach? The players have to make the plays. The coach is just on the sideline. Maybe they should respect their opponent, even with their superiority complex.