Should we play Sparty in the last game of the year instead?
I am sure this will be violently unpopular with many, but I can't but think we need to come to grips with the fact that playing Ohio State in the last weekend of the year is hurting our program more than helping it. Getting our pants pulled down in front of the whole country during Thanksgiving weekend is no fun, and having that linger into the "postseason" casts a black cloud over the bowl game where we often seem to get de-pantsed again. This can't be helping with recruiting.
What if we moved the OSU game to earlier in the year and moved the Michigan State game to the last weekend? To be honest, I feel they are our true rival now that we can't compete with the OSU machine. I bet MSU would be on-board as they are stuck playing Maryland in front of an empty stadium, no matter how crappy a season they are having their stadium would be filled for the UM game.
Having the OSU game earlier in the year would make the inevitable throttling less painful since we won't have to stew on it for months and maybe we'd even beat them now and then like how Texas sometimes beats Oklahoma. Having the MSU game as the final game would only enhance that rivalry for both sides.
I know that many would view this action as surrender, but lets be realistic: We can't keep doing this and there is no end in sight. For the health of our program I think this might not be a bad idea.
Any thoughts?
December 1st, 2019 at 10:17 AM ^
Wow, what an approach. If you don’t mind me asking, how old are you? How can you have such a lay down approach to life?
December 1st, 2019 at 10:24 AM ^
Meh I don’t blame em. Young Michigan fans have either never seen a W over OSU or have only once or twice. Rivalry is dead.
December 1st, 2019 at 11:48 AM ^
I'm 46 years old. I have a great life. I have two degrees from UM and a wonderful family and job. I have learned that doing the same stupid shit again and again is no path to success in anything you want to succeed at.
December 1st, 2019 at 10:59 AM ^
Dude, do you even think about what you write? If your life was akin to the Michigan football program then you'd be doing good work for the most part but constantly hearing grousing about you when you aren't at your best. It's irritating. THEN, LIKE CLOCKWORK, YOU GET EMASCULATED BY THE SAME DAMN TASK EVERY YEAR. It frustrates you, people talk about you, EVERY EFFIN' YEAR. You tell yourself, 'you gotta get better to beat the best tasks' and 'you wanna be the best, you gotta man up and tackle that task'. BUT YOU SAID THAT TO YOURSELF SEVEN YEARS AGO, after 11 years that you'd only successfully completed the task twice. And since then you've been EMASCULATED FOR SEVEN STRAIGHT YEARS.
You'd be stressed, and unhappy. That task would own you. It would affect your health. If this was your life me thinks you would have moved on to a better job a long time ago.
December 1st, 2019 at 10:07 AM ^
How about instead of being pansies and running away from competition we try to get better about preparing for this game?
December 1st, 2019 at 10:32 AM ^
Sounds good in theory. However they are fielding team of 5* talent and we are not. Look at their roster vs ours.
Tell me how you think we should be able to win this game?
If you say “recruit better,” again, tell me how. Do you want to abandon our principles and employ the same bagman tactics? I don’t.
December 1st, 2019 at 6:45 PM ^
Again, I say: Ask Auburn. And by ask, I hope Jim and the whole staff goes down to Auburn to visit with their staff to see what they do differently.
Auburn has been 4-6 vs. Bama this decade (bama's greatest decade EVER), while Bama's last 5 recruiting classes have been:
#1, #5, #1, #1, #1
That's crazy. But Auburn is damn near .500 against them while we are batting the Mendoza Line.
Learn from others and figure it out....
December 1st, 2019 at 10:22 AM ^
“inevitable throttling.”
fuck that.
December 1st, 2019 at 10:22 AM ^
Sadly, yes, I was going to make the same suggestion.
I don’t think we get anything out of this, and I suspect if we played them on a random date in October, we might pull that game once in awhile where they don’t show up.
December 1st, 2019 at 10:23 AM ^
Keep Jimmy and swap divisions with NW.
December 1st, 2019 at 10:28 AM ^
Why would sharty agree with it. The same reasons you have for not wanting to play osu thanksgiving week apply to them playing us that week, assuming they are bowl eligible that year.
December 1st, 2019 at 11:08 AM ^
They would accept it in a heartbeat as it would elevate their program immediately.Truth be told, it would solve a few problems for the conference as PSU is another program that is somewhat left out in the cold on this biggest of all CFB weekends.
The thing is though - it won't happen and it won't happen because 'tradition' is a big deal to a lot of folks around both programs.
December 1st, 2019 at 10:40 AM ^
This is unbelievably shortsighted. You don't mess with college football's greatest rivalry because there's a stretch where it's one sided. It won't always be like this. Yeah we've lost eight in a row and the last two were blowouts. This game is well over 100 years old. OSU has endured similar. Get some perspective.
December 1st, 2019 at 11:15 AM ^
We have won 7 times in 25 years. That’s a quarter of a century of your life. Are you willing to wait 10 years more for osu to get bad?
December 1st, 2019 at 12:37 PM ^
You left out the seven in a row we lost before the eight in a row.
December 1st, 2019 at 11:37 AM ^
I love it. Much better than my ideas after yesterday: Cancelling the OSU game, leaving the Big Ten, adopting a ND like schedule (a few Big Ten teams, a few Pac 12 teams and the service academies).
Either way, I completely agree we can’t keep doing this. It ruins my Thanksgiving every year and is foolish and embarrassing. I don’t care what it looks like, taking a break from this one sided ‘rivalry’ would greatly benefit us.
December 1st, 2019 at 12:05 PM ^
Yes. This is what should happen.
December 1st, 2019 at 12:35 PM ^
I agree. The current arrangement made sense for a long time but not any longer. If we had taken this beat down in mid October and just finished throttling MSU this weekend we'd all be in a much better state of mind.
December 1st, 2019 at 2:23 PM ^
Soft.