Sports are funny sometimes. We aren’t actually on the field. I’ve got no power over the outcome.

I can only follow the three teams I’m invested in – the Tigers, the Wolverines, and the Lions – like I might somehow be able to cosmically play a part. I have to watch these teams like I’m actually on the team. It’s disgusting, really.

That’s why I can’t question the coaches. It IS kool-aid. But if you are a part of the team, can you really question anything? Shouldn’t you just do whatever they tell you, as good as you can? Nobody wants to be that guy on the sideline, bitching about play calling.

It’s not a matter of this view being superior to any other. It’s just how I handle the irrational, visceral feelings that come up when you’re watching. I don’t want to be the guy hitting his cat because he is slowly becoming certain that Michigan can’t stop a 7th grade team, or that guys who have worked their asses of are going to be unfairly forever a piece of a historic losing streak, or that your baseball team is collapsing like the city it’s inexorably linked to.

Seen a man standin’ over a dead dog lyin’ by the highway in a ditch

Events were somewhere between awful and terrifying for most of Saturdays. A carnival freak show – SEE THE MEN WHO CAN’T EXECUTE A SNAP! MARVEL AT THE DEFECATION INDUCING SURGE OF PANIC THEY BRING UPON YOU! GUARANTEED TO CAUSE SWEAT SOAKED NIGHTMARES FOR DECADES! STEP RIGHT UP!  – combined with the won’t-you-please-just-die-already zombie monsters from Indiana.

Michigan went 3-9 last year by losing games exactly like this. Try to tell yourself you didn’t at least think about that. You can’t, because you are a filthy liar. We all thought it.

I think there are many aspects of sports more intriguing than the black and white of wins versus losses. But no sports fan can ever completely disregard the winning. It’s an essential part of the narrative.

My personal goal for this Wolverines team has been steady improvement. 7 and 5. A bowl game. Respectable mediocrity.

Now Mary Lou loved Johnny with a love mean and true

We all watch for different reasons. Some of us fall in man-love with certain players or teams for their perceived personalities. Others just like the colors. Many have an emotional attachment through years of simply watching. Winning is the one thing that can unite any and all fans. 106,000 reasons become one. Hippies like me love that shit.

When some guy you’ve never heard of in a Indiana jersey is streaking down the field after  a verging upon miraculous touchdown to take the lead back and perhaps seal a victory, it hurts. It doesn’t matter why you are watching. It hurts more when you’ve decided to toss your preconceived notions away.

At the end of the 3rd quarter, I tried to push “we’re going to lose” out of my head. It was a return to Carr era thinking for me, comrades. Under a new leader, I had to adjust. Wins will never again be met with a sigh of relief. They will be utterly savored and properly enjoyed, because winning is never easy.

Believing that Michigan will win every game will inevitably hurt you in ways you’d rather not talk about with normal people. But standing through all the shit, eyes forward, even as just a spectator, makes a win something spiritual. It’s the only way to feel even 1/100th as good as the players on the field do.

Lord won’t you tell us
tell us what does it mean

The 2009 Michigan Wolverines are not the 2008 Michigan Wolverines. They have their own issues. And they are undefeated going into October.

Do I expect Tate Forcier to walk off the field with a crystal football? Will a loss be UNACCEPTABLE? Absolutely not. Mysterious, creepy, events improbably occur though. Sometimes they are even good.

There’s a lot to doubt. We might give up 50 points to anyone who steps on the field. The offense might jam and quit working for a few quarters. Mistakes are going to happen. I know all this. You can focus on this. Or …

MRG’s favorite Western philosopher, the “Macho Man” Randy Savage, once told a parable to one “Mean Gene” Okerlund. In it, Savage presented a dilemma to his students – there was a fork in the road. Savage went right, his companion Miss Elizabeth went left. Savage crossed a bridge – meeting much adversity, and then came out with an epiphany. He made the right decision – he could see he was heading to the top down this path. He forced Elizabeth to join him. Less than one year later, the Macho Man was WWF Champion. It had seemed improbable, even delusional, when he spoke of the fork in the road, but he became the best in the world.

Michigan could roll over and die after the Hoosiers’ touchdown blow. They decided to try something different. We should join this journey. When they are down, we wait. When they run, we follow.

like if he stood there long enough; that dog get up and run

You’ve got to convince yourself the defense has the will power to continue making stops when they unequivocally must. You’ll need to start believing that Cissoko isn’t the antichrist. Occasionally you might just have to swallow your officiating instincts and find some vague evidence to convince yourself that what happened is how it should have happened.

You’ll have to trust the guy running the offense, whether it’s Tate or Denard or even Sheridan. Keep drinking extra milk for Carlos. Use all those tips from “The Secret” to heal Brandon Minor. Embrace the analytical center play of the Moose.

There’s still a zero in the right column. This doesn’t happen every year. It’ll never happen again with this exact team in this exact circumstance. For now, anything is possible in a season where we didn’t really think much was in August. Even if it’s marching towards heartbreak, fuck it. I’m going to milk this right up to the last possible second. The longest off-season in the sports world will give us all plenty of time to thoroughly rehash and relive whatever happens for these four months.

Michigan is undefeated.

Shouldn’t that sentence always make you happy?

BOOM ALBOM’ED

still at the end of every hard earned day

people find some reason to believe