Looking at MGoBlog's Seth-edited Hail to the Victors, I was struck by how well his intro back in August captured the feelz of The Game. Of course, a few details are slightly wrong, like the entire 1st paragraph after the quotation, and references to getting gashed.

But hindsight shows green shoots struggling up through the mire. Little did we know those green shoots of hope ("Haskins trampling a safety," "one-handed grab," "exalt to be alive together") were the MAIN story, and the mire mere (back)ground.

[NOTE: I checked with Seth to make sure it's okay to post this. Overcoming his fabled shyness, he said OK, and that he still has hard copies, which also gets you the digital copy, LINK below.]

So here's what August-Seth had to say, with LOTS of hints of Now-Seth:

“The poem is endless, the odds against us endless, our chances of being alive together statistically nonexistent” — Lisel Mueller

There are 130 teams in FBS, and once again Michigan is going to be among the 127 without a chance in Columbus of winning the title. To add insult to a season that can’t afford injury, Ohio State is one of the systemically protected three. Also their single foundational and unifying principle is they hate us.

Their justification for this is our arrogance. Which: fair. We’re not warriors for parity; we’re old wealth grappling with an incongruous reality that even Jim Harbaugh can’t get Michigan back in the club. I would change this, but having examined a fair bit of internet, I have come to the conclusion that telling people to alter their identity when it’s no longer working for them is one of the least productive, though paradoxically most common, uses of our marvelous modern communication tools.

But then, isn’t some of that arrogance justified? We just did a hard, extraordinary thing together. We masked and social distanced and vaccinated and saved the local comedy club and survived grade school by videoconference. We have barely even thanked each other. (Thank you!!!)

If we think that entitles us to few beer clinks, some unhinged jaws over a one-handed stab, and having our speechified conversations interrupted by Hassan Haskins trampling a safety, so what? Haven’t we breathed enough inside air to risk the smell of a lawn parker’s cigar as it wafts down Granger, or the miasma over the biggest, round- est, most democratic hole ever dug in the football gods’ green earth?

Yes, even for a bleh to bad year of Michigan football. The kid assistants are due
their mistakes. The new defense is going to get gashed where we don’t have calluses. Shortsighted decisions in ticketing will result in the emptiest Big House since two cokes. The cornerbacks return. It’s enough for any pre-pandemic Michigan fan to want to crawl into a lonely darkness and stay there for 18 months.

But we did that last year. This one let us exalt to be alive together, together and alive.

Sincerely yours in football, Seth M. Fisher

Thanks, Seth (& Brian & the MGoGang). Go, Blue. Beat Iowa.

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