Go Blue in 2022

We did it. We finally did it.

On November 27, 2021, under a dreary gray sky, in the driving snow, we reversed eighteen years of humiliation. Eighteen years of frustration.

42-27.

42-27.

We vanquished the hated Ohio State Buckeyes.

With our heads held high, and our swagger restored, we went on to win the B1G conference championship for the first time since Dubya was President. Sure, we got pantsed by Georgia in the playoff semi-final, but who cares, because 42-27!

We were back in our rightful place, bestride the college football world like a colossus. The future had never looked brighter. So how did we capitalize on this fountain of good publicity and goodwill?

1. The regents fired our university president for being an incel.

2. The university agreed to pay $490 million in damages to “compensate” the victims of decades of institutionalized sexual abuse by an athletic department physician. Sound familiar? So long moral high ground.

3. Our beloved basketball coach slapped another grown man, planting the seeds of inspiration for Will Smith and Chris Rock to get physical at the Oscars.

4. And our mercurial football coach — fresh off restoring his reputation by proving he could win the Big One after all — waded into the Roe crisis with one of the dumbest takes in recent memory.

42-27 42-27 42-27 42-27 42-27 42-27 42-27 42-27 42-27 42-27 42-27 42-27 42-27 42-27 42-27 42-27 42-27 42-27 42-27 42-27 42-27 42-27 42-27 42-27 42-27 42-27 42-27 42-27 42-27 42-27 42-27 42-27 42-27 42-27 42-27 42-27 42-27 42-27 42-27 42-27 42-27 42-27 42-27 42-27 42-27 42-27 42-27 42-27 42-27 42-27 42-27 42-27 42-27 42-27 42-27 42-27 42-27 42-27 42-27 42-27 42-27 42-27 42-27 42-27 42-27

MICHIGAN SEASON PREVIEW

Anyway, as a Michigan alum who’s never been prouder to be associated with the Jumpman brand, I can’t wait for the season to kick off tomorrow!

To celebrate the return of this glorious fall institution, let’s peruse this year’s schedule, analyze our opponents, and predict the winners of each contest.

September 3 vs. Colorado State

Apparently, things aren’t going too well in Fort Collins.

Due to high levels of West Nile Virus infected mosquitoes, the City will spray for mosquitoes in south Fort Collins.

In better news, a bear was safely relocated from an elementary school playground. So that’s nice.

Projected result: Michigan 52, Colorado State 16

September 10 vs. Hawaii

Ever wonder how a small archipelago in the middle of the Pacific Ocean became a U.S. state? Colonization and imperialism, obvs.

Projected result: Michigan 59, Hawaii 17

September 17 vs. UConn

Great basketball game.

Projected result: Michigan 63, UConn 3

September 24 vs. Maryland

Smart fans of The Wire, like Ta-Nehisi Coates, know season two is the best season. Quote:

Oh, you thought this was some black shit? …this is the system at large, and it’s eating — at everything.

Projected result: Michigan 44, Maryland 21

October 1 at Iowa

Kirk Ferentz, sixty-seven-year-old head coach at Iowa, living legend, longest tenured coach in college football, respected elder statesmen, highest paid public employee in the state of Iowa, recipient of tens of millions of dollars in salary over the course of his career, overseer of racist football program, and all-around great guy, said the name, image and likeness (NIL) policy, which allows players to monetize their talent and popularity, is too vague, and college football needs an intervention. Shocking.

Projected result: Michigan 15, Iowa 16

October 8 at Indiana

Recently in the Hoosier State:

Wife: Looks like we're in a horror movie.
Me: We are. It's called Indiana.

Projected result: Michigan 48, Indiana 26

October 15 vs. Penn State

Dr. Oz is running for U.S. Senate.

Projected result: Michigan 39, Penn State 13

October 29 vs. Michigan State

Everyone who tried to kidnap Big Gretch and half the people who ransacked the Capitol on January 6 were proud Spartan fans. Check the tape.

Projected result: Michigan 18, Michigan State 12

November 5 at Rutgers

Love, love, love the taste of that sweet, sweet, sweet tri-state area TV money.

Projected result: Michigan 44, Rutgers 12

November 12 vs. Nebraska

The Cornhuskers are just a few years ahead of the Wolverines on the long arc toward cultural irrelevance.

Projected result: Michigan 38, Nebraska 20

November 19 vs. Illinois

If a game is played in an empty cornfield, did it really happen?

Projected result: Michigan 27, Illinois 11

November 26 at Ohio State

According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, in 2021, the great state of Ohio ranked second nationally for housing extremist, antigovernment hate groups. The proud Buckeyes punch above their weight on more than just the gridiron.

Projected result: Michigan 32, Ohio State 47

January 2, 2023 vs. USC: The Rose Bowl game presented by Palantir Technologies and sponsored by Northrop Grumman

Future B1G conference foes face off in what promises to be a barnburner for the ages. The PAC-12 may be on life support, and the B1G still can’t compete with the SEC, but Los Angeles is the second biggest TV market in the country, so Kevin Warren will be laughing all the way to the bank.

Projected result: Michigan 23, USC 34

Projected final record*: 10-3. Get ‘em next year.

*These predictions have proven alarmingly prescient. From 2016-19 and 2021 — 2020 made no sense #SARS — I projected an aggregate record of 48-17. Michigan went 49-17 over that span. I have the email receipts to prove it.

B1G CONFERENCE PREVIEW

B1G rankings based on projected on-field results

1. Ohio State

2. Michigan

5. (tie) Michigan State, Penn State, Wisconsin

Irrelevant. (tie) Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Maryland, Minnesota, Nebraska, Northwestern, Purdue, Rutgers

B1G rankings based on institutionalized sexual abuse scandals*

-∞. (tie) Michigan, Michigan State, Ohio State

-∞-1. Penn State

Crimes not yet disclosed: (tie) Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Maryland, Minnesota, Nebraska, Northwestern, Purdue, Rutgers, Wisconsin

*There are tragically too many of these to track, so I probably overlooked several.

B1G rankings based on alumni I’ve personally met*

1. Purdue

2. Northwestern

3. Michigan

4. Illinois

5. Rutgers

6. Indiana

7. Maryland

8. Minnesota

9. Penn State

10. Michigan State

11. Ohio State

12. Wisconsin

No known graduates: Iowa, Nebraska

*Ranking based upon totality of evidence.

Reflections on this piece

Predicting the results of my alma mater’s football slate has been a running gag for twenty-plus years now. The twist is, because I spent my formative years watching college football in Florida, during the halcyon era of the late eighties and nineties, I wasn’t imbued with the regional tribalism that consumes most of the inhabitants of the Wolverine state. As an outsider, I was free to declare the obvious: Michigan football (relatively) sucked.

The storied program remains a perpetually popular American institution for reasons largely unrelated to its on-field performance. The academic arm of the (alleged) gridiron powerhouse boasts one of the largest alumni bases in the world. Sports a hefty endowment. And has placed legions of prideful, boastful alumni into the highest echelons of business, technology, government, medicine, entertainment, broadcasting, journalism, and numerous other branches of our neoliberalist engine.

We’re ubiquitous. Find any white-collar crowd in any major metropolitan area anywhere in the world and you’re bound to come across a loudmouthed Michigan alum — like me. GO BLUE.

The singular experience that binds us is attending Michigan football games. Chilly fall Saturdays in Ann Arbor are an integral part of the student experience. Engraved upon the school’s identity. The alumni perpetuate this tradition and it’s explicitly endorsed by the university’s regents in the form of a two-hundred-million-dollar annual athletic department budget.

This is a double-edged sword.

On the positive side of the ledger, I’m a VIP member of an expansive yet exclusive club. When I don my Michigan cap or sweatshirt — these days usually during basketball season — a bevy of “Go Blues!” and head nods and smiles and high fives soon follow.

My wife, a Princeton alum, becomes visibly envious. Bezos, Icahn, Cruz, Duchovny and the rest of the oligarch class may run our crumbling empire, but nobody says “Go Tigers” and daps you up for wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with “The Tiger.” (I really expected more creativity from the school that claims John Nash.)

But then there’s the downside.

Because the football program is the most high-profile wing of the institution, its on-field success — or lack thereof — carries outsized influence. Sure, we’ve got top-rated medical, law, and business programs, famous and infamous alumni, and a rich and exemplary history of scientific achievement, but we didn’t beat Ohio State (again).

Don’t get me wrong, I love being a Michigan grad. I received (and paid dearly for) an outstanding education, met amazing people, got great jobs, and leveraged my degree to find and marry someone much more talented than me, who lets me write this free email newsletter instead of forcing me to get a real job.

But over the years I’ve increasingly come to resent the reflexive association of my academic credentials (B.S. in chemistry) with my school’s middling football program.

You went to Michigan?

Who’s gonna start at QB?

Are you guys gonna beat Michigan State?

Are you guys gonna beat Ohio State?

How’s this year’s recruiting class?

Do you think you guys can make the playoff?

Why should I care about any of this?

I’m a middle-aged man, a supposed grown-up, who’s old and wise enough to realize the players — who are literally mauling themselves for our “entertainment” — are kids.

Meanwhile, the sport’s glaring list of terminal illnesses (e.g., traumatic brain injuries, racism, CTE, racism, discriminatory hiring practices, racism, toxic fandom, racism, institutional sexual abuse, racism, etc., racism) have become all but impossible to ignore.

For years I’ve known the system surrounding these players was broken. And it’s eaten at my subconscious. Now it just feels gross.

But then 42-27 happens. And no matter how much I’d tried to distance myself, I get sucked back in.

I know I shouldn’t care about the dealings of a program I have nothing to do with. A team coached by people I wouldn’t like. Games played by people I’ll never know.

But I’d be lying if I said watching Michigan administer a beatdown to Ohio State in the driving snow last fall wasn’t among the most satisfying, cathartic experiences in recent memory.

As long as I keep watching, as long as I keep buying the swag, as long as I keep attending games — and justifying those activities as excuses to bond with my buddies — I’m part of the problem.

I recognize that.

Each year I drift a little farther away. 

Come a little closer to escape velocity.

Old habits die hard.