Unfortunately for him, it seems most coaches were less than impressed by his relatively meager throwing highlights in high school and more enthused with the promise he showed carrying the ball.

I do not have the impression that he was demanding a starting spot or any guarantees. Rather, a simple chance to show that Yes, He Can (play QB).

Fortunately for him, Rich Rodriguez, perhaps desperate, told him he’d be able to compete at the position.

On Saturday, Denard Robinson ripped through defenders, made throws, made reads and at one point scampered at light speed to the end zone. But instead of displaying the trademark scowl of a man about to ask a nation HOW MY ASS TASTE, Robinson knelt down and had a moment to himself.

It was almost 5 long years ago that the esteemed cooker of brains declared that 86 = 1. Today, we have a new mathematical proof.

383 = Truth.

Cooped up in that backstreet summer beach house of despair and clinging to any shred of good news and hope and an increasingly irrational belief that everything at Michigan was going to be just ok dammit you’ll see … we heard a tap on the window … and a dreadlocked, half-man half-motorcycle messiah invited us to take a ride with him.

You might say wellllll let’s not start sucking each others dicks just yet and point out that it’s only one game, blah blah blah. I disagree. I hold a firm belief that we must enjoy every victory in life. Happiness is a lot like a game of Tetris. If you keep ignoring little wins, you’ll have a towering monstrosity of angst and find yourself praying for a long skinny block that may not come before it’s too late. So you’ll excuse me if when I see the potential savior of the Michigan Wolverines sprinting to the end zone and playing the role of great uniter in a fragmented fanbase – because if you don’t like Denard Robinson then just get the fuck out of this planet already since you are obviously devoid of a soul – I get a little excited.

It’s hard to overstate the excitement that Robinson, deservedly, has created. If someone hasn’t made a Heisman statue with a dread wig yet, it’s coming. And I couldn’t be happier for this guy.

When the Robinson highlights cropped up during the recruiting process I was intrigued by his speed. When he picked MICH and flashed that smile, I made a note of his name. When he picked up a dropped snap and teleported through the WMU defense to the endzone, I bear hugged dexbro and knocked him to the ground. After he fought valiantly and came short against Iowa, my heart broke like it hasn’t for many Michigan players. In the aftermath of the spring game, I sought wisdom from a football sage in North Carolina who texted several variations of “once he knows the offense he’ll murder people”. At the New Big House on September 4th, I think I was speaking in tongues and going into convulsions. Right now, every shoelace I own is on fire in the backyard and I’ve cancelled haircuts for the next six years.

Denard Robinson is Truth. He is universal Truth in a Winged Helmet. He is undeniable proof that if you work hard, stay focused, and stay smiling, you’ll be a success – at least for one day.

Bring on Notre Dame.

Finally, this was written/posted before I read Orson’s eerily thematically similar (and excellent) post here.

This the sunrise over lake Michigan on September 4th, 2010. It’s sort of an odd time – the sky is dotted with both birds and bats. One group is stretching their wings to start another day. the other getting one last Taco Bell run in before bedtime. 

“What the fuck is your problem?”, you may be wondering, “it’s 5:30 AM.” You’re not wrong.

The dawn brings all sorts of rather obvious metaphors that an optimistic Michigan fan may grasp at to begin a season on the heels of two of the most disappointment in program history. The cylclical nature of life, the rebirth of the program from the darkness, the light struggling and eventually vanquishing the dark – all these are facile, easy, and I’m not going to waste our time at 5:30 AM to bludgeon all of us over the head with it.

What’s notable, I suppose, is that I’m awake. At 5:30. As a Jewish kid, I don’t know what it was like to go to bed on December 24th unable to control your excitement for the bounty of toys you were going to receive the next morning, or what it was like to pester your parents for hours at the crack of dawn asking if now is when you can finally open your presents. Yet, here I am, the Saturday of Labor Day weekend, and I guess it’s something pretty similar.

Through two years of admirable play and disappointing results, I’m still here with butterflies in my stomach, waiting for a game I’m going to have no hand in deciding. All the assorted crap from the off-season recedes – today there’s football. No articles to parse, grudges to harbor, or op-ed’s against which to take umbrage.

At some point, harsh realities will blunt what’s possible, but right now it’s all Denard  gliding free, Tay Odoms laying the wood to an unsuspecting cornerback, and images of Ryan Van Bergen extending “his series” against Indiana into a full season.

It would be patently wrong to say “there’s nothing like Michigan football” when describing the feeling – I had a son born this year, and comparisons of this sort have a new, much farther, yard-marker to pass. But maybe that’s part of it – today is the first Michigan game of my son’s life, although only one of the two of us is going to remember it.

In a fanbase beholden to tradition more than most, there’s frequently talk of what cosmetic changes are better/worse for the program – the White Knight of the Big House hates expansion, MGoBlog hates piped in music, the whole kerfluffle with Big 10 re-alignment. But thousands of kids this year, somewhere, are watching their first Michigan game with their parents - doubtlessly launching them on a fandom not dissimilar from the one that has me awake at 5:30 AM on a Saturday writing a blog post about Michigan football. And maybe that’s the most import “tradition” we have as Michigan fans.

Right now it’s all endless possibility – and the odds are that at some point this year, whether it’s this week or later on, that possibility will start to have fences and limits constructed around it. No matter what happens, though, this moment will come again next year, and the next (though then, hopefully, minus a screaming infant), and as “what’s possible” for my son, like for Michigan football, slowly gets limited by life, he’ll still have these mornings of endless possibility, even if what prompts them is different.

Today is the dawn of Michigan Football, 2010. Go Blue.

I picture Rich Rodriguez hunched on a couch with a notebook in hand while silent practice film flickers on the screen. He takes a note, rewinds, and takes another.

I imagine Denard Robinson, Devin Gardner and Tate Forcier nodding in compliance as yet another offensive meeting rolls on. They occasionally look at each other with the friendship forged among a unit in combat together, mixed with an aloofness that comes with the knowledge only one of you will emerge the victor.

I think about Jordan Kovacs dutifully performing his rehab exercises and watching his diet, doing everything humanly possible to make sure his surgically repaired knees hold up long enough to keep his Wolverine dream alive.

I look at the rain splashing on my windshield as the Taurus glides down US 127 on a gloomy Friday night. I take mental inventory of a depleted bank account that holds just enough funds to transport to Ann Arbor and back, with perhaps a few drinks. Like the salmon of Capistrano, I am drawn to this game.

It is September 3rd, 2010.

Trying in vain to breathe the fire we was born in

Times have been lean since The Revolution began. We’re living on the backstreets of the college football world. Nobody wants to be beaten and looked down upon. Least of all those wearing the Winged Helmet. You don’t come to Michigan to be known as the coach who pissed away four decades of excellence. Recruits don’t dream of laying face down on the turf in front of a stunned 110,000 while the Toledo Rockets storm your field. Students don’t expect to lose two straight to their former high school classmates up in East Lansing. The wine and cheese donors don’t pay good money to hear some West Virginian with an 8-16 record awkwardly relate a Lion King story and a metaphor about ropes on a cliff at their fundraising dinner.

With a love so hard and filled with defeat ..... Running for our lives at night on them backstreets

You could be forgiven for feeling that our Revolution has been destined to fail. From a controversial buyout onward, things have not been coming up Michigan. The black and white world of sports is a blessing and a curse. Nerd sportswriters and angst-ridden fans compose page after page of hate filled diatribes. They create complicated charts to explain why players suck. Players are graded from a distance by men who aren’t your coaches.  Men who represent, in theory, the institution a fan takes pride in are personally and viciously insulted for their inadequacy.

Ah, but then there is the flip side.

The athlete receives a 60 minute time slot to show why everyone is wrong. And once the score has been registered, there is nothing the men outside the arena can do to take away what the man inside the arena has accomplished. Wins are not taken away after the fact by mathematical formulas.

There is no better, or stranger, feeling on this planet than what happens inside you on a late summer day when you put the pads in the game pants and look at that bright, clean jersey for the first time in a season. You immediately recognize that months of never-ending torture, ice packs and soreness in tiny muscles you’d have never known existed has been leading steadily to the moment that is only minutes away, when you take the field and everything in the world except 100 yards of green turf and 11 men in different colored shirts disappears. For months you have argued and competed viciously with the men that share your locker room, a cramped place that has a smell only those who have experienced it can even begin to claim to enjoy. You look at them now, your new family, and realize that it’s only you now. This is the time to silence the doubt. 60 minutes to show the world how hard you’ve worked and how much you’ve suffered to play to your absolute height of potential. Because to them, and to yourself, it didn’t happen if it doesn’t show up on that field.

I’d run over a kitten to sit on one of those benches and watch my friends bob their heads to their iPod or lean back in silent meditation once again. But alas, I am old and washed up. These Ann Arbor weekends are the closest  I can come.

Huddled in our cars waiting for the bells that ring in the deep heart of the night to set us loose from everything...

The lines have been drawn. Not so much publicly, but we know the score. Rich Rodriguez and his coaching staff knows what must happen this year. If they fail, they will be left with a nagging thought in their minds forever – what could have been at Michigan? – and a stain on their reputations that will take many wins in a far off land to wash away.  Rich Rodriguez has only one way to politely tell his detractors to kiss his ass. He must win. He knows this. We know this. Win, and Michigan will be his.

The seniors of 2011 – such as my beloved Tay – will be staring down a coaching transition and the surreal possibility of being a Michigan senior class that graduates without playing in a bowl game. They will be forever tarred. Forever cast to a side table, way off in the corner, at reunions. Invitations to Braylon’s golf scramble will be mysteriously and consistently lost in the mail.

You may be full of anticipation and fear on the eve of 2010 – these men are running on enough nervous aggression to power a battleship. Nobody wants to fail. And everybody knows what must be accomplished. Maybe failure is our destiny. But Michigan still gets 60 minutes to decide that. It’s come to this. Everything on the field. All questions answered. Fates resolved. No more speculation. The future will be decided.

Some hurt bad, some really dying ... at night sometimes it seemed you could hear the whole damn city crying...

You can blame it all on me Terry ... It don't matter to me now

But don’t despair, comrades. I have a feeling. There’s something about this team that I’ve grown to love more than any other Michigan team in my lifetime, even through the struggles. I refuse to believe that faith is unjustified. No, it is simply based in a reality that hasn’t quite arrived yet.

Our boys aren’t Desmond Howard and Ty Wheatley or Braylon and Hart or Henne and Long or even Navarre and Bellamy yet. But that’s not who they should be. They have to be themselves, and forge new legacies. The rest of the world can piss and moan all they want. We see the truth on the horizon.

They see a bust. We see a legend on the verge of breakout.

They see disappointment in the making. We see potential playing with new motivation.

They see unanswered questions. We see a three headed beast ready to be unleashed.

They see walk-ons and left-overs. We see the personifications of dedication.

They see injuries and size. We see hell on wheels.

They see a fraud. We see a leader.

They see losers. We see MICHIGAN.

At 3:30, Michigan kicks off Game 1 of 12 against Destiny. And we’re fighting until the last second of the last game.

Who in the fuck wears a double breasted suit?

Comrades, I am from Connecticut. It’s a nice, albeit boring place. Yes, there are clam-bakes, town squares, and copious amount of lobster. Even some appreciable amounts of political corruption. There’s plenty of money (highest per capita income in the US!), lots of cigar wrappers, Julia Roberts’ old pizza parlor, guns, subs, helicopters, and plenty of Insurance. And Yale. And boat shoes, obviously.

What there isn’t, comrades, are many sports fans. Their one professional franchise – the Hartford Whalers, slinked off to frigid North Carolina after decades of being sentenced to play in a mall. Depending on their locale in the state, people generally follow New York or Boston franchises. So what I’m saying, really, is that there are plenty of front-runners. The single largest rooting interest in the state is Women’s Basketball (wonder why?) and the lone professional team is owned by (and plays at) an Indian Casino. UConn Basketball grew in possibility the moment Tate George propelled them to the Sweet 16 in 1990, and now, apparently there are college football fans.

Balderdash. I am from Connecticut. I know plenty of people in Connecticut. I don’t know a soul who has watched them on TV, listened to them on the radio, attended a game, or even checked their score in a newspaper. So what’s the deal with UConn football?

For starters, UConn is the single most bourgeois sporting endeavor in the United States. Rentschler Field (“The Rent”) was initially conceived as a scheme to lure the the New England Patriots from Foxboro, and moved to east-bumfuck (er, East Hartford) after the Pats declined. Handed off to the entertainment Goliath The Anschutz Group, The Rent, which is owned by the State of Connecticut, is actually charging the state’s University rent to play there. Well done, Connecticut!

Gameday is a little different in East Hartford. In Ann Arbor, students are accustomed to tailgating on their front porches, then walking a few minutes to Michigan Stadium. According to Google Maps, a similar walk would take UConn students 7 hours and 12 minutes (a short-cut apparently exists that cuts three minutes off the walk). Man. Not much time to pre-game, dudes.

Even if students opt to drive from Storrs, the drive, in clear traffic, is 34 minutes. On gameday, driving through the mixing bowl of Downtown Hartford (seriously), that easily exceeds an hour.  So, clearly, UConn football is not for the student body of the University, otherwise they wouldn’t have moved home games off-campus to a location more than an hour away – right?

Is it for long-time Husky fans in the area? UConn’s division one program is less than a decade old. No. UConn football is that guy in the picture – the trust-fund jagoff from Long Island Sound who wants to enjoy a lobster roll in a stadium parking lot, but doesn’t feel like driving to a Giants game in order to do it. Anyway – those fans are a bit too…blue collar. And scary.

Now, he and his saddle-shoe wearing brethren have taken to the online message boards and called US a “wine and cheese” crowd? Perhaps the elbow patches on his corduroy blazer have fouled his mind. The home of Insurance and the bedroom communities of greater Manhattan are referring to the epicenter of the rust belt, of the proletariat, as effete, wine-swilling pansies? This will not stand, comrades. Be excited, comrades. The first shots of the revolution are fired on Saturday.

He must be the hawk that swoops across large distances to kill a rodent for dinner break up a pass:

He must be the missile that disrupts an enemy air force:

He must be The Wolf that corrects others’ mistakes:

No, not that kind of wolf. This kind of Wolf:

This is what is expected of the free safety. But none of these descriptions fairly applies to Michigan’s free safety this year, because the starting back 7 on Michigan is an unmitigated disaster consists of less than 7 scholarship players will be challenged extensively. Problems loom here, and it is unrealistic to expect greatness from the man who will be forced to deal with those problems.

So, what do we ask of our completely unknown wildcard brand new Free Safety Cameron Gordon? Comrades, Cam Gordon’s job is a bit simpler yet more precarious:

There is a Dutch American legend about a little Dutch boy who noticed a small leak in the dike he was passing. Rather than continue on to school, the little Dutch boy stuck his finger in the dike to stop the leak until help arrived and repairs were made. He acted quickly and decisively, and because of his self-sacrifice he saved his town and the surrounding countryside from ruin.

Can you see the analogy, boys and girls? Cam Gordon should not be expected to be a superb free safety, a ball hawk, a roving missile, or a vaguely menacing cleaner for the Mob, at least not yet. His job is to prevent disaster, and wait for help to arrive (in the next few recruiting classes). His job is to be Not A Catastrophe, and in so doing enable the defense overall to be Not A Catastrophe.

Cam Gordon, Dike Fingerer (swirl that phrase around in your mouth and enjoy). Let us down a shot to honor Cam Gordon in his thankless task as this year’s Defender at the Gate!

ed: TC and Max now pictured, CPS edited to protect his identity.

We start another glorious year in the Revolution by taking to task UConn. Maize, this one goes out to you where ever you are.

Max:

1. Most Carries – Shaw with 20 to match his number
2. Most Snaps at QB: Denard or Tate – Tate. RR will call the TD play more often with Denard resulting in fewer snaps, but more points
3. More Catches: Tree, Stonum, Smith – Stonum, RR did not get enough receivers in last year’s class and will call a lot of the TD play-pass to get more receivers to commit to MICH
4. Total MICH Points: 36
5. Projected Beers consumed during game – 3, it’s a magic number.
6. Scorn meet up results, i.e. who gets skinsuitted – elno. Despite is CODMW prowess, the online fighting poorly translates to real life, but the suit is ruined by the fight over his skin

JG:

1. Most Carries – Better the devil you know. Denard will get between 12-16 rushes, Tate will have 5-8 before he gets pulled for not running the read option right, and the rest of the backs will get a random 5-10 carries to try and prove their worth before Toussaint starts v. Notre Dame.
2. More Snaps at QB: Denard or Tate – Tate, but ONLY because Denard will be used all over the field as a MICH-of-all-trades weapon. Overall, Denard will play more than either Tate or his clavicle on Saturday.
3. Most catches: Tree, Stonum, Smith – Because Denard is going to get lots of time, the short passing game is going to get the call, and that’ll mean lots of Tree. I predict 8-10 catches on Saturday.
4. Total MICH Points – last year was about 29.5 ppg. The O-line is stacked, the QBs have experience, the RBs might actually produce. UConn might try and shorten the game, but MICH’s offense is explosive, it’s early in the season, and the team will be jacked up for the opener. 45-48 points seems appropriate.
5. Projected Beers consumed during game – During the game? Depends on how many I can fit into my jorts. I would image 4-5 pre-game brewdoggers (ROAR FIGHT DRINK) will fight a losing battle with my pimp hand.
6. Scorn meet up results, i.e who gets skinsuited – easy. Jamie Mac. He’s too nice to fight back.

Chitownblue

1. Most Carries – Denard – around 11 or 12. I think Shaw/Smith/Cox will eat into the RB carries enough to stop any of them going over Denard.
2. Most Snaps at QB: Denard
3. Most Catches: Tree, Stonum, Smith: Vinny Smith. I sort of think he’ll be the leading receiver on the season, at least in terms of receptions.
4. Total MICH points: 35
5. Projected Beers consumed during game – Five or Six? I got a babby
6. Scorn meet up results, i.e. who gets skinsuited – I’m going to guess Shock, because he’s both pretty and the most likely to come up with a talking point that would prompt the drawing of knives

HathaCHIPS;

1. Most Carries: Denard Jonathan Robinson (150+/- yards, 2 TD’s)
2. More Snaps at QB: Denard or Tate: I’m going to go with Tate.  Although all the blue hairs will be up in their suites and unable to see who the QB is….hmmm, strike that, Nard Dawg will have more snaps.
3. More catches: Tree, Stonum, Smith : Martavious Odoms and Roundtree will tie @ 5 receptions each.
4. Michigan Defense Prediction: Not very goodt, but goodt enough.  Probably give up a few bombs, but freshman GRIT will prevail.
5. Projected Beers consumed during tailgate: 14
6. Final Score: MICH 34 – Uconn 28 (MICH down 27-28 in the final 5 minutes)

ShockFX

1. Most Carries - Shaw.  If MICH’s offensive line is as improved as we all hope, then Shaw could run wild.
2. More Snaps at QB: Denard or Tate – Tate because he’s the better passer, and I think UCONN will score some points that pushes MICH to throw a bit more early in the game.  I think Denard might get more snaps, but not until the game is decidedly in Michigan’s favor.
3. More catches: Tree, Stonum, Smith – Kelvin Grady, because you don’t dictate my options to me.
4. Total MICH Points – 52 points.  Will that be enough?  I think so.
5. Projected Beers consumed during game – Should have quoted the B10 JoePa sportsmanship commercial here: “Before, during, and after the game.”  Now that’s a valid count.  And I’ll say six…teen.  Plus a flask on hand, just in case.
6. Scorn meet up results, i.e who gets skinsuited – Gotta be the sweetest man, it’s always the guy that doesn’t see it coming.

tcblue

1. Most carries – Shaw (or whoever does the worst job of brushing his teeth)
2. Most snaps – Tate
3. Most catches – Tree
4. Total MICH points – 38
5. Projected beers consumed – 5 (I am at home with the family after all)
6. Skinsuits – that UCONN guy who’s coming with someone.  Elno to collect so he can haz his ticket.

CPS

1. Most Carries: Tate.  He could have the Great Wall of China around him for protection and he still wouldn’t stay put.
2. Most Snaps at QB: Kennedy.  Denard will get five snaps, each of which results in 8 points thanks to 5 excellent calls by RichRod for the TD play followed by the TD play being called for the extra points.  Denard sits, Kennedy comes in to shine (see below).
3. Most Catches: Koger.  It will be revealed later in the season that Koger needs glasses (the only explanation for dropped passes at MICH), but in an odd turn of events, a near-blind Koger will benefit from the erratic throwing of Kennedy, finding his hands in the right place at the right time even when Kennedy is looking the other way.  Passing and receiving records for a single game will be broken.  Book it.
4. Total MICH points: Hard to say.  It’ll depend on how fast we can get the enginerds up there to tally MICH’s score, ’cause it’ll be a big number.  10 to the power of 7 maybe?  I don’t know.  I don’t have my TI-85.
5. Projected Beers consumed during game: One, but it’s a big ‘un.
6. Scorn meet up results, i.e. who gets skinsuited: Everyone but elno.  Seriously.  I don’t think he’s meeting up with you, but you still need to watch out for that guy.

CGC

1. Most Carries: Have to go with the Nard Dawg here, he’ll get the most carries by virtue of the zone read and because I assume half of his passing attempts will end up as runs.
2. Most Snaps at QB: Nard Dawg, is there any question.  Although it’s possible that Rodriguez is really pulling the Woolfolk over our eyes and will reveal his secret weapon tomorrow: ONE MORE YEAR FOR THE CONE BONE!
3. Most Catches: Tree, Stonum, Smith -Royland Squarebush, without question, Jim.  He was the most consistent at the end of last year and throughout the spring and summer.  He’ll be Robinson’s safety valve when the running lanes are covered.
4. Total MICH points: 38 big ones.  MICH is really going to need to throw down some points in order to cover for their LOL defense, especially the secondary.  What used to be a lot of points in the Carr years (recall MICH surprise sexing ND in 2003 with 38 points…..AN OFFENSIVE EXPLOSION!), will be the norm for this MICH team.
5. Projected Beers consumed during game - during the game?  The hell.  I sit in normal seats with all the other savages…no fancy Suite for me, DR. MACKS.  How would I even get A brewdogger to my seat, let alone several?
6. Scorn meet up results, i.e. who gets skinsuited: I hate to say it, but Jammie Mac.  At first you think, “well, hey now, he’s way too sweet”.  BUT, that’s what makes his skinsuit so valuable.  PLUS he is e-famous what with his frequent appearances on the mgopodcast, fine contributions to the annual MICH preview magazine “Hail To The Victors” and of course the greatest website about not gambling: www.justcoverblog.com

SethBigBrisket:

1. Most Carries: Denard Robinson
2. Most Snaps at QB: Denard Robinson and Tate Forcier are within 10 snaps of one another. But Denard starts, and is clearly the more effective quarterback in the system.
3. Most Catches: Tree, Stonum, Smith: Roundtree, with at least 3 more catches than any other receiver.
4. Total MICH points: 38
5. Projected Beers consumed during game: 0 (I don’t drink during Michigan games, after last year’s Illinois game)
6. Scorn meet up results, i.e. who gets skinsuited: Hatha ‘suits Boutros, Paul turns out to have been ‘suiting Tim all along

Well there you have it. MIIICHHH will win, because lulz, who has logos like this one?

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.

Two players scuffle, take some swings at each other’s helmets …
“You guys are idiots!” Fitz yells. Then the two had to step off the field and walk a lap, holding hands.

That’s PatFitz. He steadies the ship. He brings calm to chaos. Order to disorder.

Never fear, fellow Wildcatz friends. In those rare times where doubt, fear or uncertainty creep in to your consciousness, take comfort in the steadfastness of PatFitz. He sees well beyond the arc of visibility. The waves may be ANGAR and Northwestern may forever be sailing into a headwind, but have faith that PatFitz will keep us full and by.

Please display this poster where any Comrade that is of weak constitution and monumental stupidity (i.e., less than a 4.0 GPA) may view it.

Now that we’ve raised the Purple banner, the WLA quickly searched about for media or weblogger elites to defend our new heroes from. Certainly, there must be those who would seek to destroy The Revolution by misusing the so called “free press.” To our surprise, we found that while the Michigan media is full of Spartan wannabes and Michigan Men that seek to fill their coffers by feasting on the misfortune of the Mother Land (ooops you

A young Wilbon and Greenberg suckling at the teat of the great Northwestern Mother Cat.

 didn’t think I was going to link the Freep did you?), the Northwestern media was devoid of villains. Some may say this is because no one really cares about Northwestern football. Others may say it is because Comrade PATFITZ recruits only the finest men in the greater Chicago Metro area. But we at the WLA know it is because of the media heroes, first suckled at the breast of the Mother Cat, forever DEFEND and protect men of the Purple. May the names of Michael Wilbon and Mike Greenberg forever be remembered as speakers of the truth and protectors of the Purple.

Greenberg figured he'd never know what if felt like to be an athlete. Then he tried p90x!

Wilbon and Greenberg, using their respective media organs ESPN and the Washington Post, seek always to provide a voice to those wronged by the media. Woe unto any who attacks a Northwestern alum, Chicago sports star, friend, or really anyone who appears on their show; for Wilbon and Greenberg will provide an outlet for the true story to be told. Mike and Mike in the morning is a ready outlet for all convicted felons to let the world know that they are just super nice guys who are either misunderstood or didn’t really mean to do, like, those awful things. Wilbon’s Washington Post column and PTI segments are perfect outlets to explain how each of Wilbon’s friends, such as World Champion Poon Hound and Philanderer Tiger Woods, are just doing what every star athlete before them has done.

Without these Great Defenders of the Purple, we might fall victim to the so called “free press” and get the idea that professional athletes are just spoiled, self centered, mega-rich men—when what they really are is super nice guys who just want to feed their families.

If Wilbon loves Chicago so much why doesn't he go write for one of their damn papers?

It came as a great disappointment to The Revolution that the much heralded Northwestern football weblog, Lake the Posts, has yet to immortalize the names of Comrades Wilbon and Greenberg in the annals of great Purple alums.* Perhaps he, like the Brain Cook, has been seduced by the siren call of riches and fame and has since forgotten the foot soldiers of The Revolution. On that note, it has not escaped the WLA’s notice that Brain Cook has promised to delete all criticism of the organ of the mouth piece of the Enemy—the vile Freep. He says his motive is to protect the community and his sanity but we in the WLA know to be wary of those that purport to take our freedoms for the purpose of securing our safety. The end result? Even ‘serious, careful’ criticism of the den of thieves and villains, otherwise known as the Freep, has been silenced.
Here at the WLA, we worry what will happen to the Northwestern faithful when we, just like that idiot you dated in college, return to our first love. The one we complain about constantly. The one we seem to hate. The one who treats us so poorly. The true love of our sporting lives. (I’m talking about Michigan here!) But then we remember. The Purple People will always have Comrades Wilbon and Greenberg to keep them on the Path of the Glorious Leader PATFITZ.

*To be honest, I don’t know anything about the person or people who run Lake the Post. I’ve only read a few of their posts. On the other hand, I don’t even know much about the other writers for the WLA (for security purposes.) The only thing I know about Brain Cook is that I find his grooming choices appalling. None of that has stopped me from writing crazy shit about them dudes, or buying Brain Cook’s book every year. So, I feel perfectly comfortable putting all of e-blogging credibility behind the assertion (ASSertion is right!) that Lake the Posts has never posted a hagiography about Michael Wilbon or Mike Greenberg.