While the seductive song of Northwestern fandom – an exceedingly likeable coach, true student-athletes, no sanctions, and reasonable expectations generally met – proved soothing and calming during the penultimate week prior to the college season, we have, once again, turned our minds, and hearts, back to cheering for our Michigan Wolverines.

While our hiatus couldn’t have been timed better – we had much more fun giggling at Fitz having two brawling players run a lap holding hands and rejoicing in Senior LB Quentin Davie’s nomination to the Butkus Award watchlist while Michigan fandom melted down over the OSU game – some things just kept pulling us back to Michigan. It wasn’t whether the band was going to have microphones, the latest salvo from the Free Press, or even realignment controversy (again, thank god we were NW fans for that shit). It’s not even the storyline of “the most important Michigan season in recent memory”, and how it may chart the course of Michigan football. A century of traditions continued, forgotten, or ignored isn’t what brought us back to the fold, nor was it a concern for what’s going to come, and “what Bo would think” about that. Many seem beholden to everything that has happened before, and many seem to already be debating about whether we should go back to that at the end of the year, with the name of prodigal son Jim Harbaugh on the lips of even some of the Rich Rodriguez believers.

Comrades, it’s none of that. We’re excited to watch this team, in 2010. We’re not excited because of what it may presage in the future, and we’re not excited because they may help expunge some of the nastiness of the past few year. We’re excited because this is Michigan football, and we’re only going to get to see this team play 13 times this year, and watching Michigan football is more fun than the alternative.

JT Floyd, in the minds of many, wasn’t supposed to play this year. He was behind Boubacar Cissoko, Donovan Warren, Troy Woolfolk, and Justin Turner – all of whom were supposed to have eligibility left. Instead, he’s our #1 cornerback. A confident young man, who, in all rights, should be an underclassman being lead by two senior CB’s has stepped up and taken the role of vocal leader for the secondary. Floyd has been waved off as “too slow”, with nearly every alternative being placed above him. Well, as others have crashed and burned, or just left, Floyd is the one who stayed as others fled, and worked as others didn’t. We’re excited to see him play.

Obi Ezeh , Mark Moundros, and Steve Schilling have extremely little in common. Ezeh is a three-year starter at MLB who has seen his name splashed over pre-season award lists and draft projections for two previous years. Moundros is a walk-on fullback who got some playing time in 2007, now converted to linebacker. Schilling is entering his unheard of fourth season as a starting offensive lineman. Ezeh and Schilling are, to many, emblematic of the Michigan decline over the past three years. Schilling was on the field for the loss to Appalachian State, and both were on the field for the humiliation at the hands of Oregon. They started the entire way as Michigan posted their worst two-year stretch in the modern era. Moundros, largely, watched helpless from the bench. All three have the opportunity to change their narrative. Ezeh has the chance to not be remembered as a play-fake-prone linebacker who squandered his considerable talents. Schilling has a chance to not be remembered as the five-star offensive line recruit who started for the worst four year stretch in Michigan’s modern era. Mark Moundros, already named captain, has the opportunity to lead the team, either on, or off the field, to pointing in the right direction. All three have their final chance to change their legacies, and that chance starts Saturday.

Roy Roundtree was initially dismissed by the impatient as a handsless willowy reed of a receiver. During his first pre-season camp, he dropped nearly everything thrown at him, and became an after-thought for many. Despite a strong spring more than a year ago, Roundtree still didn’t find himself on the field as the season started. With four games left in the year, Roundtree found the field against Purdue. In four games, Roundtree put up 30 catches for 390 yards – he was the single most dangerous offensive weapon on the team. Roundtree, still just a tiny sophomore, almost shyly squints when he breaks into a huge smile (which he seems to do regularly). He’s poised to be a star at Michigan, and when he talks about the school, and the team, he still just looks like a six-year-old excited to be getting an ice-cream cone.

On his first career play, Denard Robinson took a shotgun snap, fumbled it, scooped it up, and took off on a Bo-Jackson-in-Tecmo-Bowl style touchdown run. Since then, the fan-base has moved him to every single position on the team other than quarterback. Running back? Wide Receiver? DB? How about LB? Robinson, however, stayed a QB.

His obvious unbridled enthusiasm for football saturates nearly every clip of practice footage. After a long run, offensive linemen sprint down the field in practice just to give him a celebratory chest bump. He’s the first person to reassure a player who made a mistake, and the first to congratulate them after a good play. He can literally not contain his excitement about a play during the spring game:

Denard isn’t out there because of tradition, legacy, or the future of Michigan Football. He’s out there, exuberant, because playing football, for him, is so much fun. We love watching Michigan football, and we’re excited for the 2010 Michigan Wolverines for the same reasons. Go Blue.