johs ross

11/2/2019 – Michigan 38, Maryland 7 – 7-2, 4-2 Big Ten

A game at Maryland is always a time for contemplation of life's mysteries. Foremost amongst them is "why are we playing Maryland?" Michigan has one of these annually now: they wander out to the Eastern Seaboard to play in a mostly-empty stadium in which Michigan fans are a clear majority. The game is either a boring blowout, like this one, or an exciting blowout with third-string FB touchdowns, like 78-0 against Rutgers.

With that lone exception these games melt away almost before they're played. Here are the things I remember about other Maryland and Rutgers games, post-Hoke. One year against Maryland they ran a lot of tunnel screens that worked and everyone freaked out about it. They played a tiny guy at QB once. Rutgers got a touchdown last year. That's it. Wait: also this year people were freaking out about Glasgow because he missed a couple tackles. That's it.

The only memories these games generate is when one of these teams puts up a boggling statistical marker of ineptitude, like that time Rutgers passed for one yard against Indiana, or is forced to put an elf in at quarterback because all previous quarterbacks have been murdered by pass rushers or escaped to Bolivia to escape said fate. They are the football equivalent of pixie sticks: a sugar rush of touchdowns that don't taste like anything.

I mean, look at Indiana. Indiana is the definition of a moribund football program but you remember things about Indiana. Antwaan Randle-El. Lee Corso fielding a lateral right before Anthony Carter scores. The pure sphincter-tightening terror of playing the Hoosiers at their jet-speed #chaosteam apex. An inexplicable run of NFL tailbacks. Their sheer cussedness to both stay in and lose every game against top-tier opponents for a solid decade. Indiana isn't good but they are interesting. They are the Steve Buscemi of the Big Ten. They are great in a supporting role and then they get put in a wood chipper.

has no idea what's about to happen to him but also already knows what's about to happen to him

Indiana has personality. Indiana is a character in the rich tapestry of college football.

Rutgers and Maryland are filler. Since joining the Big Ten in 2014, the high water mark for Maryland and Rutgers was a 30-36 Maryland loss against Boston College in the Quick Lane Bowl. By the old scoring ratio rules we used way back for GopherQuest, this year's Rutgers team is on the verge of becoming the worst in conference history. They are the conference's comic relief, except when they are repeatedly abusing their players.

Michigan marks time against both of these schools every year because they get some more money from television. This era is rapidly coming to an end. In a few years it's estimated that 20% of the US population will have cut the cord, and if anything that rate is likely to go up as over-the-top providers organize themselves in a war for supremacy.

So it's a matter of when, not if, two Eastern Seaboard schools with no history in the conference and a record of absolute misery in the sport that makes the most money become a net drag on the revenues of teams like Ohio State and Michigan. It's one thing to carry Northwestern and Minnesota, and entirely another to carry the worst athletic department in the country and also Maryland.

Maybe it takes 10 years. Maybe it takes 20. But there will be a point when it makes sense to kick Delany's Folly out of the conference. Until then, a couple more of these will happen every year, gone before they're even over.

[After THE JUMP: words you've already forgotten]