WSJ critic of Michigan surrenders.....
The long article is behind pay wall, so I am just pasting in the pertinent sentences. Senior WSJ sports columnist gets straight to the point today:
I surrender.
If I’m going to soak up the Schadenfreude, I have to absorb the pain. As a petty Wisconsin graduate, I don’t celebrate the success of the University of Michigan football team, I root for their maize and blue doom—especially since I’m surrounded by oodles of rabid Wolverines at the Journal.
But I need to acknowledge reality, because I saw it myself Saturday, behind enemy lines:
Michigan rules.
November 26th, 2023 at 10:31 AM ^
Jason Gay is pretty fair minded for a Badger grad surrounded by Michigan grads
November 26th, 2023 at 11:34 AM ^
The B1G has a number of reasonable fan bases and Wisconsin always impressed me as having nice fans. Sparty or Ohio might be the only two fans bases that could never utter these words. Maybe Illinois (for some 1980’s silly reason) as well.
November 26th, 2023 at 2:32 PM ^
I lived in Milwaukee for a few years and was constantly surrounded by Becky fans and they aren't nice. They act as entitled and insufferable as ND fans, but without the history.
November 26th, 2023 at 12:09 PM ^
He can be annoying sometimes but he's really mostly tongue and cheek in his writing. Humor is part of his style and he does poke fun at Wisconsin sometimes too. I had no problem with his signgate article.
November 26th, 2023 at 4:59 PM ^
Came here to say the same thing. Always enjoy is columns even when he takes the anti-Michigan stance. Reminds me of coworkers who are fans of rivals but are also good sports.
November 26th, 2023 at 10:37 AM ^
If only there was a search function on the forum.
November 26th, 2023 at 10:37 AM ^
This is great. Keep creating threads on the article and keep posting different snippets from the same paywalled article until we get the whole thing for free!
November 26th, 2023 at 11:31 AM ^
It exists without paywall on the Internet Archive.
November 26th, 2023 at 10:42 AM ^
Even Keith Jackson tweeted that he couldn't believe what he just read in today's WSJ.
November 26th, 2023 at 10:58 AM ^
"if reading and commenting on different parts of the same self centered article doesn't whet your appetite, whooo did you come to wrong message board" - maybe: keith jackson.
November 26th, 2023 at 12:04 PM ^
Well, here we find ourselves on this brisk autumnal evening, perched atop the windswept hills of opinion and spectacle. Our esteemed columnist, adorned in his self-importance, starts weaving a tapestry of musings tethered ever so delicately to the grand world of Michigan football. Ah, but his pen dances with the weight of insipid clichés, drawn from a wellspring of predictable narratives, like an overly rehearsed play awaiting its curtain call.
He ventures forth, regaling readers with the profound insights of a sage, only to deliver paltry observations wrapped in a cloak of grandiosity. The game unfolds before him like a canvas, yet his gaze fixates on the minutiae, narrating tales of the obvious with the pomp and circumstance of an epic saga. Each play, each stride, magnified through the lens of his presumed wisdom, births declarations of absolute certainty—prognostications that hover on the edge of relevance, barely grazing the essence of the sport they claim to capture.
Ah, but behold, for in this self-congratulatory soliloquy, Michigan football is but a fleeting muse, a canvas for the columnist's self-absorbed pontifications. With every word, he crafts an echo chamber of his own convictions, a symphony of banality parading as insightful analysis. And yet, despite the glaring dissonance between substance and spectacle, the columnist persists, unaware of the cacophony he orchestrates with his inflated narrations and trifling witticisms.
As the game marches on, the audience—both captivated and bemused—watches the columnist's meandering discourse, a whimsical labyrinth of tangential wonderings, forever circling the perimeter of profundity without ever truly daring to venture into its heart. Ah, such is the peculiar dance of a columnist ensnared in the vortex of his own verbose mediocrity, all while the true essence of Michigan football frolics unshackled in the stadium below.
November 26th, 2023 at 12:05 PM ^
I'm going to get the Wall Street Journal, get the Wall Street Journal.
November 26th, 2023 at 12:48 PM ^
I thought I heard that Keith passed…
November 26th, 2023 at 10:51 AM ^
Are Michigan fans really more annoying than, say, Ohio State fans? What is it about Michigan winning that is more annoying than Ohio State winning? Ohio State has had a sense of entitlement for a long time. Why does that not draw ire from other schools in the Big Ten?
November 26th, 2023 at 10:55 AM ^
People generally think Michigan fans are arrogant. :)
November 26th, 2023 at 12:41 PM ^
*enters the chat*
November 26th, 2023 at 1:14 PM ^
They think that because they don't know the more-proper definition of "arrogant" is about exaggerated superiority, yet our superiority (while lofty) is not exaggerated.
November 26th, 2023 at 11:07 AM ^
I can’t load the comments on Off Tackle Empire to see if the whiny OSU author of the Sunday Morning Coming Down thread is getting put on blast, but that big 10 site generally blasts us to no end and never seems to mention the different rules OSU has played by for years. Not to mention, OSU has run up the score and left their starters in deep into blowouts, padding stats, making themselves look better, etc.
But after seeing Gene Smith yesterday, they clearly seem to be the kings of the court, and all the other sheep decided to fall in line at some point.
Whatever it is, it’s strange.
November 26th, 2023 at 11:22 AM ^
Cause we always remind them we’re better at whatever sport they’re competing with us AND we’re better academically too.
There’s really no other school that can make that claim across literally every sport.
November 26th, 2023 at 11:22 AM ^
Someone needs to do a thread of Wendy's posts from this weekend. She is unleashed!
November 26th, 2023 at 11:55 AM ^
I think we’re just more aware of it. I earned my Master’s at Purdue and there I didn’t really notice much animosity towards us if there was any at all. Frankly, Purdue has been so bad at football for so long that they bear a kind of resigned humility, even towards IU.
That said, I did get emails from friends last night who are alums of other B1G schools “thanking” us for beating the Buckeyes, calling them insufferable, and much worse.
November 26th, 2023 at 12:09 PM ^
We're viewed (maybe justifiably) as more obnoxious in general. Think Notre Dame and Duke basketball. We don't just win but we win the right way. It's the academics plus athletics. It's why getting caught with the Stalions thing was so delicious to so many people.
November 26th, 2023 at 12:23 PM ^
Funny you should say that. Just the other day, a screen shot of an MGoBlog post showed up in my Facebook memories. I had shared it with my FB friends. It had to be from at least 10 years ago, and I can't remember who the poster was. It said something to the effect of, "At least we don't laud our cheating coach, and put him up on a pedestal in spite of his cheating like some other fan bases do." I chuckled because while I don't think Harbaugh knew about what was going on with Stalions, we've absolutely given him a lot of leeway here. If this had been Tressel or Meyer back in their day, we absolutely would have called them cheaters. Regarding cheeseburgergate, had the Ohio State coaches done that, we would've called them cheaters. I'll have to remind myself of this if/when the rivals get caught committing some smallish infraction, and refrain from joining the chorus and thinking we're better than them. We're winners, just like they are. And self-awareness is a good thing. That said, hiring PI firms is beyond the pale.
November 26th, 2023 at 10:56 AM ^
Snippet by snippet, we are getting the whole article!👏👏
November 26th, 2023 at 11:02 AM ^
If only someone could post the entire article content...
November 26th, 2023 at 11:08 AM ^
I find the petty little Michigan haters in the media annoying and unprofessional. At least this guy has a bit of self awareness, which is refreshing.
November 26th, 2023 at 11:55 AM ^
Rats flee a sinking ship, and the media always does a 180 of its narratives when they're proven dead wrong.
The media was fully, overwhelmingly, pants-unzipped-and-ready invested in a Michigan loss they maliciously helped set up. Then Michigan won.
This is just damage control.
November 26th, 2023 at 11:14 AM ^
I wouldn’t really call him a critic, although if you’re not familiar with his tongue-in-cheek, I-know-that-you-know-that-I-know-that-you’re-in-on-the-joke-style it could come across that way. He’s a funny, talented sportswriter who generally writes positively of us and of Ann Arbor if from a slightly envious Badger perspective.
November 26th, 2023 at 11:29 AM ^
I live in Wisconsin and I understand what the WSJ writer is referring to, but I never understand it. Badger fans have a weird hatred for Michigan football whereas, so far as I know, Wolverine fans merely know that Wisconsin football exists.
November 26th, 2023 at 12:09 PM ^
It is not just Wisconsin. Illinois fans have the same hatred for their rival Michigan. I am told that Rutger feels the same way about the rivalry but I do not have first hand experience like I do with Wisconsin and Illinois.
They do not feel the same way about Ohio - they just don't.
November 26th, 2023 at 11:44 AM ^
I remembered his first article as well on his UM colleagues. It was pretty humorous about how he had to put up with so many Michigan alumni at his work. Agree that his articles are pretty balanced.
November 26th, 2023 at 12:02 PM ^
He's a funny tongue-in-cheek writer who's pokes at Michigan are pretty light-hearted stuff framed by his description of torment from being surrounded by Wolverines at work. He's not a part of the lathered up anti-Michigan horde with the torches and pitchforks.
On a side note, we attended the Oregon-Oregon State game on Friday. Oregon State's gameplan (or lack thereof) seemed appropriate for a future Sparty coach. Sheesh.
November 26th, 2023 at 12:13 PM ^
Michigan rules and Wisconsin badgers drool.