I'm sticking with the masks. This is my symbol. There are many like it, but this one is mine.

I wish the staff would treat the whole program along the same lines as the Marine Rifle Creed referenced above.

My MICHIGAN FOOTBALL PROGRAM is human, even as I, because it is my life. Thus, I will learn it as a brother. I will learn its weaknesses, its strength, its parts, its accessories, its sights and its barrel.

Brian is Walter Cronkite. The Michigan program is the Vietnam War. As the (mythological, probably) LBJ saying goes, "if I've lost Cronkite, I've lost the country."

I enjoyed this. Not because I enjoy the complete clusterfuck and downfall of the guy who's jersey is hanging in my basement, I just thought it was fun. Great writing. 

Just to rub salt in the wound, Dylan McCaffrey will go on to be Joe Burrow 2.0 with 75% completion rate and win the Heisman, while Milton struggles to get 50%.

Appearances count for something? Is that the sum total of this take? I'm not happy with the arc of our program either, but this summary smacks of something on a par with name-calling. Higher expectations of the program, but not higher expectations of those covering the program? I appreciated seeing the LB clip, so that part was good. Please let's not descend to M. Rosenberg-like depths, tho.....thanks.

You’ve nailed it and there’s just not much else to say. Moving on.....

The nose boners are understandable because masks tend to slip down when you talk.

The mask over the headset is just stupid and illustrates a complete lack of common sense. It’s STAEE levels of cringe.

I don't think our University cares any longer about  having a top football program. I expect that Harbaugh will get at least a 5 year contract extension if he wants one. Our only hope is for Harbaugh to leave for the NFL at the end of the season.

1) When you are winning, being quirky or different or awkward or difficult or a tyrant, etc is acceptable and often applauded and celebrated.

2) When you are losing, all the said above are seen as annoying and probable reasons for why you are losing.

UM football is in a bad place right now for a bunch of reasons, and the blame needs to go to the top.  But it's often hard to separate the chicken from the egg.

As the old cliche goes....winning solves everything.

Hey, at least the non-Michigan media (including Herbstreet) are acknowledging how hideously unlikely it was for Harbaugh to come to Michigan and suck this badly. At this point I'll accept a little sympathy, even from the devil.

And can we please put a sock on Michigan arrogance now? We may think we are better because we don't cheat, use steroids, turn a blind eye to player misconduct, and we expect our team to go to class. Fine, but SHUT UP ABOUT IT ALREADY! This is the reason why we get every other B1G team's best shot, while they shrug their shoulders at wanting to upset OSU. We think we're elite, but we're really just pretentious. Everyone loves taking down that guy, especially when he's down.

We should be like Chris Evans; shut up and take our medicine.

In a year that totally sucks, I was really looking forward to watching the Wolverines play once the season was back on.  After Minnesota, I thought it might be a fun year.  And yet, the season since has only made 2020 an even more putrid experience.  Seems the only remaining question is whether this team can actually beat Rutgers.

If Milton had not thrown that perfect pass to the LB, it would have ended up at least five yards short of the receiver. Much like the one against IU.

How many hrs/days until the members of Excuse Station Zero start coming back out of the woodwork to enlighten us all as to why Harbaugh is the only answer at this junction in time?  I'm guessing 1.33 days from 0000 hrs EST today.

OSU is going to kill us and do awful things to our corpses.

Well...I thought the tone would be worse, even though still pretty damning.  I said it the other day and I will say it again: This is THE worst Michigan football team in my lifetime.  That effort on Saturday from both players and coaches was the most pathetic I have ever witnessed in my 50 years.  RR's first year team would beat this team - They sucked out loud, but at least I don't recall that team ever laying down.  

And I probably would have given the #1 Award for the week to McNamara.  He came into the game with some energy and was slinging it all the way to the end zone.    

This is worse than not wearing a headset.  This is where we are.

This game was bookended by two amazing feats in offensive futility.  Rutgers would even tip their cap to this...

To start: 20 minutes, 1 yard

To end: 18 minutes, 0 yards

Recruiting fails is one big element. Confirmation bias is totes understandable.

But it feels as if something's missing in the mix of explanations and arm-waving. Nothing I've read, here or elsewhere, solves the mystery of why the wheels have fallen off completely.

I think people are giving Mcnamara a little too much credit. If you back and watch his throws on the one drive they were probably the only ones all night where either QB had a clean pocket. The Milton overthrow that could have been a td was disrupted by a lb that should have been blocked. Spread has changed football to some degree but the thing that never changes is games are won in the trenches. You get dominated in the trenches, you aren't going to have a good time and a young QB will struggle. We all knew this season would suck if it was all put on the shoulders of the QB position. 

Not like the offense did anything after that one drive either and that is because the blocking went back to being dog crap. It is incredibly frustrating because the backs and receivers definitely have talent, but this o-line has devolved into late Hoke era level play.

But honestly who gives a crap about the details of why, the big picture is the Harbaugh era is a failure and even on personality level he is not even the same guy they hired.

This is so unbelievably sad. I don't think he is getting fired until next year. Maybe we will have a team worth watching when i'm in my fifties.  Why is this place so broken? 

Mask boner....you literally could have typed those 2 words and shown that picture and that would have been a sufficient column for me because that game was unwatchable minus the Cade first drive.  I found myself looking forward to the AT&T commercials with the girl with the big rack.

This is the first time in a while that there is nothing keeping me interested in this team.  Even when Michigan use to be up big, I would look forward to the 2nd string QB.  I have lost all trust in the program identifying the talent and putting it in the right position to succeed.  

I honestly never saw this coming with all of the success Harbaugh had at Stanford and the 49ers.

Snowflake thread. I actually like watching Michigan football. Team sports are hard, and you have to put in a lot of work to be good. I hope they win the rest of their games. Will they? Well, I have bad news, but I won't root against them. 

Further snowflakes, letting Dylan go was poor, and I'd start Cade. It's clear that people who don't star gaze that Haskins and Charbonnet are the best two backs and Evans should be used every damn third down. Those are your best players and your rotation. Use them. I think Harbaugh has a tendency to play the hardest working guy. Your hardest working guys aren't always your best players. It's tough, but you don't get more snaps by working harder. It's a true meritocracy. The best players should play. 

If I was Harbaugh, I'd actually take over playcalling duties from Gattis. Eff it, this is what we are going to do and this is how we do it. I had way more confidence in Gattis, and I like the idea of his offense, but it makes no sense right now. I'd assume I was coaching for my job and at least go down swinging. 

Defense-They are so bad it's hard to imagine. I'd run 4-2-5 every play. Your DT play is abysmal. I don't know how you fix it, but I'd coach the crap out of that position. I'd just run Brown's system. The whole defense looks confused af now. I assume the coaches are too, which is why we are seeing it. Play one high, stop blitzing your damn linebackers every third down and use them to check mesh, but you have to roll with an idea. Right now, the players look beat. Give them something simple. Play every corner until you find someone who doesn't grab and hold every damn play. 

So, I like to check in on the national pundit's take on the M situation, and to them, Harbaugh is clearly out by the end of the year.  It made me wonder - while perhaps 80-90% of our fanbase wants Harbaugh out, would it be safe to say only 40-50% actually think this is going to happen?  More? Less?

I wish I had the confidence of these national pundits that Harbaugh is gone, but I really don't see Warde getting rid of him.  The only hope, I would imagine, is if Harbaugh decides to move on.  

Harbaugh is a weird guy who wore out his welcome. Covid probably exacerbated things, and whatever grumblings were on the team turned into a full on fracture. There is no chemistry on the team. The culture is corrupt. Whatever success Harbaugh had in year 1-5 is now gone and cannot be recovered. And let's be real - there were still glimmers of hope as late as last season. The 2nd half vs, PSU was a valiant effort. Michigan beat a very good Notre Dame team, and ND hasn't lost since then. They competed well with the Bama machine. It still felt like, as a program, if they could just find "the guy" at QB they could get over the hump. Maybe we should have expected a step back this year, but underneath it all we should have seen a program competing hard in every game....they should have been 20-points better than MSU, the IU game should have gone down he wire (at least), and the Wisconsin game should not be over midway through the 1st quarter. 

So that makes it all the more infuriating to hear the story of how DMac left the team. Especially now that we know Milton was nowhere near ready to lead the team (although in his defense, his WRs need to stop dropping the damn ball, and he has no run game support). 

Michigan and Harbaugh crafted the story that they were handling covid well*, and maybe that was kinda true, but Harbaugh is a weird guy who lacks in people skills. And people skills might be the most important thing right now. It has harmed the roster in direct ways, and now has poisoned the team and whatever culture he tried to build. 

*This also is feeling suspect. How the heck do you square the staff's refusal to wear a damn mask correctly with "handling covid well"? How the heck do you also do that with the DMac story - if true? Like in the year 2020 where there is a literal global pandemic, I would think coaches understand now that if a player feels sick then they are SMART to want to stay away from the practice field.

I think people saying Harbaugh won't be fired are underestimating the influence large donors can have in these situations. In the same vein some of us can say we don't want someone who is dubious from an ethical standpoint, but if the influential donors want that  then someone like that is who they will go after. Those donors sure as heck aren't giving the AD the money they do for these results and no conference titles to speak of. I'm fairly sure the majority of them are going to want Harbaugh fired by the end of the year if not now.