Wolverine Liberation Army

Over the past few days, the Big Ten blogosphere has been aflame with rumors about the potential demise of the conference’s greatest rivalry.  “How could it be?” people have been asking… surely the conference higher ups couldn’t be so stupid as to throw away the greatest tradition they had just for the sake of TV money! Sadly, it appears they could.

We’re talking — of course — about the season ending battle for the Land of Lincoln trophy. Who could imagine a season where our beloved Wildcatz didn’t play the scum from Champaign to end the season? Sadly, it seems the Big Ten is imaging just that… transforming the greatest rivalry in all of sports into a meaningless game in the middle of October. This isn’t the Red River Rivalry or the World’s Greatest Outdoor Cocktail Party we’re talking about, this is the Land of Lincoln trophy! This game divides families and splits neighborhoods… it’s not just a football game, it’s a battle for the soul of the state.

Splitting us up just so you can hope and pray that we’ll meet again in the conference championship game is just silly. Sure it would be a massive moneymaker, but it wouldn’t happen nearly often enough to make it worth devaluing the game. Hasn’t anyone learned anything from the ACC’s attempt to artificially force an annual Miami-Florida State title game? And rematches suck anyway, no matter how many weeks apart they are. This is bound to end badly, just like the Big 12′s murder of the Nebraska-Oklahoma rivalry that led to the current situation in our own conference.

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Popularity: 17%

Bill Martin. Who is this man? What do we really know about him. In the past few months the Michigan fanbases core belief that Bill Martin was a good and simple man has been rocked to its core by revelations from a secret past that he’s worked very hard to be keep concealed. Like Idi Amin wearing a Mother Teresa skin suit, it was only a matter of time before the leathered veneer of human skin began to decompose and Martin’s true self was revealed.

Revelation, the first. Bill Martin secured mortgages for various members of U-M’s coaching staffs through the Bank of Ann Arbor. Oh, did I mention that Bill Martin IS THE CHAIRMAN OF THE BANK OF ANN ARBOR? Martin tried to brush it all off as a “normal business transaction” that “people” engage in “every day” at “banks” across “America.” Spin it however you want, all I see is hush money.

Revelation, the second. Bill Martin had made physical contact with members of the Michigan Stadium security staff when they didn’t recognize him at recent football games. Apparently, in Bill Martin’s world, you can punch a Starbuck’s barista in the face if they don’t greet you by name. Actually, that’s not a bad world. I digress…

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Popularity: 2%

Dear Asshats (aka people who think RichRod should be fired now):

Hello. You don’t know me, but I’m the guy that’s going to tell it like it is. If you’re upset with the direction Rich Rodriguez is taking the Michigan football program and would like to see him fired now, there are some unavoidable realities you need to face.

1. Firing Rich Rodriguez After Two Seasons is an Extremely Bad Idea

I don’t know what your next step would be, so help me walk through the timeline here. First, do you want RichRod to be fired right fucking now, before he’s even allowed to finish his second season? If so, then wow- conceivably, the team could win one of these last two games (unlikely, I know) and go to a bowl game…and you’d still think it wasn’t good enough to stop the termination of the head coach before his second season was finished. Wow.

But suppose we take the more likely finish of 5-7, and you believe he should be fired but only after that’s occurred. Ok, that puts Michigan (back) in a national coaching search in early December, when all the “good” coaches are preparing for bowl games and while several other programs are trying to land those very same “good” coaches, and you know what? We went through this already and it sucked donkey balls. How much confidence do you have that a retiring Bill Martin is going to do a better, more aggressive hiring job now than he did then (back when he barely lumbered up and offered Greg freaking Schiano)? Best case scenario is that Martin finds somebody, anybody by the end of the month. Worst case scenario is, well, worse- we don’t have a coach until mid-January, mere weeks before National Signing Day. Awesome.

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Popularity: 3%

Dear Asshats (aka people who think RichRod should be fired now):

Hello. You don’t know me, but I’m the guy that’s going to tell it like it is. If you’re upset with the direction Rich Rodriguez is taking the Michigan football program and would like to see him fired now, there are some unavoidable realities you need to face.

1. Firing Rich Rodriguez After Two Seasons is an Extremely Bad Idea

I don’t know what your next step would be, so help me walk through the timeline here. First, do you want RichRod to be fired right fucking now, before he’s even allowed to finish his second season? If so, then wow- conceivably, the team could win one of these last two games (unlikely, I know) and go to a bowl game…and you’d still think it wasn’t good enough to stop the termination of the head coach before his second season was finished. Wow.

But suppose we take the more likely finish of 5-7, and you believe he should be fired but only after that’s occurred. Ok, that puts Michigan (back) in a national coaching search in early December, when all the “good” coaches are preparing for bowl games and while several other programs are trying to land those very same “good” coaches, and you know what? We went through this already and it sucked donkey balls. How much confidence do you have that a retiring Bill Martin is going to do a better, more aggressive hiring job now than he did then (back when he barely lumbered up and offered Greg freaking Schiano)? Best case scenario is that Martin finds somebody, anybody by the end of the month. Worst case scenario is, well, worse- we don’t have a coach until mid-January, mere weeks before National Signing Day. Awesome.

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