Little Wing

His sentences came abruptly to an end and he bit the inside of his cheek every now and then. There was no anger or inextinguishable rage, just a bluntness he was probably too weary to avoid. There was no attempt to placate anyone. Here is your quote, now let me get the hell out of here.

“I spoke when I played with bruised ribs, a bruised shoulder, and a wrist that needed surgery. That told you I was tired of living beside the memory of someone who no longer exists. And that I knew there was a cause bigger than my own, no matter how impossible you think it is to find when you’ve lost nine games. I spoke when I carried the ball six times in a row and tore my limbs away from tacklers like someone was trying kidnap me and I just wanted to survive. That told you I was stubborn and brave and probably a little insane. And I speak when you see me on the sidelines, sitting on the backrest of the bench rather than the bench itself. That told you there are some of these men that I am above, and that I know what belongs to me. I know what I have earned.”

Brandon Minor didn’t really say that. He didn’t have to. There are other ways to tell us that you have arrived.

His cuts are rough and imprecise, and he throws his body around with a selfless, uncommon audacity. “I wish I could be more graceful, but I’m running behind a center Notre Dame didn’t want, a guy with a dislocated elbow, a former defensive lineman, and a rotation of others. It’s second and forever and no one believes we’d pass right now anyway. I don’t have time for precise. Maybe I can handle it myself.” That’s what he tells me. And I love him for it.

This is what he really said after the game: “It’s like some people don’t even believe in themselves when they step on the field. You know it’s just…when you step on the field you gotta’ believe that you the best player on the field, like can’t nobody mess with you. That’s how I take the approach on the field, you know I don’t care who I’m going up against.”

Michigan didn’t beat Ohio State, but most of us already knew they weren’t going to a few weeks ago. There was only the blind faith that “something had to go right,” the same way there was the day after Bo died. But sports show no mercy. Ohio State is radically better than Michigan is, and at least for now, there are more important matters. It’s alright to admit that; it’s part of what makes the revival so satisfying. But I can’t be angry. Peasants don’t challenge the king to a duel, they can only stand and throw rotten fruit at his throne.

I’m not sad or even discouraged. In a season spent agonizing over the loss of the players who meant the most to me, I see vague traces of new ones. I see hope. I see it in Minor, Feagin, Fitzgerald Touissaint, Shavodrick Beaver’s loyalty, Darryl Stonum’s repentance, and maybe I’m forcing this all because I can’t handle another season I feel so excruciatingly indifferent about, but watching Minor Saturday made me believe that some of it is real. Five consecutive losses to Ohio State might seem paralyzing, but for better or worse, we are Michigan fans. Our hearts are calloused and immune to this. Michigan hasn’t been good for a while; I am used to the losses. I try to tell myself that.

In 2003, I watched Michigan lose to Iowa 30-27 in the basement of some house in Ridgefield I’d never been to before. My friend Danny lived in Ridgefield for about a year, and we went to play tackle football with some kids he used to play tennis with. Earlier in the day we’d driven there because Danbury’s football team was playing Ridgefield’s. (I don’t remember much about that game, other than that Danbury won; the girl sitting behind me had brown hair and was wearing earmuffs; and that I drove.) The house was cluttered but quaint and rustic in a way a cabin in Vermont might be -- it had a lot of mahogany furniture, and I think there was a coffee table made out of an old tree trunk. I watched the game on a large and absurdly out of place flat screen T.V, and when Michigan was leading by enough, I went outside. When we were done playing, I came inside and saw that Michigan had already lost.

When they lost to Northwestern 54-51 in 2000 I was at a restaurant for my grandma’s birthday. Next to the kitchen there was a payphone inside a small alcove in the wall, and there was a wooden door on it like all the saloons have in those old Westerns. I remember I kept having to ask my mom for change so I could call home and ask my dad what the score was. Anthony Thomas ran for 200 yards that day, and both David Terrell and Marquise Walker had 100 yards receiving. But Michigan still lost to Northwestern.

Earlier that year they lost to Purdue 32-31, after they’d led by 18 points on two different occasions (I had to look that part up). I was watching it in a pizza parlor on a 14 inch T.V. that was on top of a refrigerator, surrounded by cardboard boxes and empty soda cans. I had slept over a friend’s house the night before, and he didn’t have cable. I remember Anthony Thomas ran for a long touchdown and the game seemed secure enough that we could walk back to his house. I know Michigan better now; things are rarely secure enough.

You want me to write that Michigan will be back, defiantly, and to forget how truly bad they were this season. It would be poetic, and nothing is going to happen over the next nine months to prove that they won’t be. I rely on Michigan for more than is probably healthy or wise, and on some level, I need them to come back. I don’t know if they will, if they’ll stop losing and constantly pounding our hopes into dust -- whether it's with Lloyd, or Rodriguez. But I do know that I can wait.

I’ve got time. I’ve already been here for a while.

Burn yourself alive and join the monster squad

Nevermind that Stu Douglass looks like the kid who would show up to your birthday party wearing a turtle neck and a pair of those Bugle Boy jeans that had the elastic in the waist. John Beilein told him to "play with some swagger", and he did this:



I guess you could call it that. Or playing without a conscience, which seems more menacing anyway.

The offense occasionally seems a little disoriented, and there's this pervading fear that the 1-3-1 will get eaten alive against someone who can shoot from the perimeter, but this is a good, competent team that looks like it will win most of the games it should, and probably take one or two it shouldn't just by hanging around long enough.

There Is Thunder In Our Hearts

This is in response to Dex’s post at Wolverine Liberation Army; the comments left on my post yesterday; and, indirectly, Brian’s post, which was exceptional, but clashes in some places with what I wrote below.

I was 11 years-old when Michigan last won a national championship, and since then they haven’t been very good. At least, not as good as everyone thought they had a right to be. They lost five games in 2005. They lost to Appalachian State last year when they were ranked third in the country, and I’d said before the season that their offense was better than anyone else’s. They lost to Toledo, Northwestern, and haven’t beaten Ohio State in four years. Read what I’ve written over that span, and you’ll see that despite the frustration, there’s nothing but unwavering devotion. You tell me I only love Michigan less intensely because they’re bad, or unfulfilling, and I’ll tell you you’re a liar.

I wrote in September on this blog, “I’d rather lose and have a lifetime of players I love than win with a bunch of faceless cogs I don’t like or even feel indifferently about.” Losing does not matter to me nearly as much as it does to most people. It hurts, but more than anything it hurts because I know that the players I love had to endure that pain. I care about the players themselves, and I know winning matters to them. Chad Henne tried to play with a partially torn MCL and a right shoulder that basically wasn’t there; Mike Hart carried the ball 282 times when he was 18 years old and weighed only 194 pounds. Adrian Arrington woke up at five in the morning to run stairs for an hour, and I wake up 15 minutes before noon games and watch most of the first quarter in my bed. I’m sure the tattoo of the winged helmet on your shoulder looks fantastic, and it really is amazing that your daughter’s first word was Braylon. But those players committed far more to this than we have; pardon me for holding onto them a little too long.

People have this bizarre, ridiculously obsessive need to not only root for their favorite team exactly the same way regardless of the circumstances, but also to castigate anyone who roots somewhat differently than they do. It doesn’t give you more privileges if you can recite which high school every player went to, or if you watched every second of every game in person. It’s admirable, but it’s just a feat of strength. People say they love this Michigan team as much as they’ve loved any other, like it makes them an illegitimate fan if they don’t. Well that’s bullshit. You’re not telling the truth. And if you are, there’s something frighteningly wrong with that fact that you can like a player who you’ve known for 11 games as much as you could Jake Long. There’s no justice in that.

You like watching this Michigan team try to catch a kick (not return, simply catch) as much as you liked watching Steve Breaston do it? Maybe you’ve survived it, but you haven’t liked it. It has been miserable. And if admitting that fact and others like it make me less of a fan, if it means I should go fuck myself, or that I don’t deserve to celebrate a victory over Ohio State, then so be it.

I am a Michigan fan; I root for Michigan to defeat other teams. But ultimately, we are all rooting for the players on that team. For about 50 games, we rooted for a team that was led by Chad Henne and Mike Hart. We relied on them, and aside from the defense in 2006, we relied mostly on them alone. They were iconic. They defined Michigan for four years as much as this mystical “Tradition” that seems to transcend everything. But in the first game of this season, Michigan started Nick Sheridan, Sam McGuffie, Darryl Stonum, and Martavious Odoms. None of these players had ever played a down for Michigan before in their lives. I never counted on them for anything. How is it at all possible, or even reasonable, for me to care about them as much as Mike Hart. If it seems like there's less emotional investment, it's because on some level there is. It's not intentional.

The coaches don’t talk the same way, the offense lines up in formations I’m not used to, and I don’t know who most of these players are. I’m sorry that I don’t. I’m not predisposed to disliking them, or the spread, or Rich Rodriguez, just because they are different. But it does take more than a season to know how I feel.

Addressing some specific points of yesterday’s post:

• When I wrote bitterly about Sam McGuffie pulling himself out of Saturday’s game, I was unaware that someone in his family had died. Had I known that, I certainly wouldn’t have written it. His own position coach reported that he decided not to play because he was too hurt, so I had no reason to think otherwise. Even so, it was insensitive, and I apologize for saying it. However, my criticism of his running still stands. In high school, his blocks on defensive ends and blitzing linebackers were glorified summersaults at their legs. I heard there was something wrong with his shoulder that game, but he’s been blocking that way since he got to Michigan. He seems less hesitant to unleash his speed on those wheel plays, and I think he’s been the most instinctual kick returner besides Odoms, but he’s overmatched at running back.

• In his post, Dex wrote: “It's likely, extremely likely, that these seniors will leave with another loss to Ohio State. So those of you… who launch mis-guided, pretentious, faux-literary, never bothered to lace up a cleat in your life, whiny, overly-romantic, over-rated diatribes about the present not being the same as the past; you can all feel free to watch something else. Maybe you can put in your 100th game DVD and masturbate through the tears until you feel good again.”

I think most of this is dead-on, and I actually really like their blog. But considering WLA cites Fire Joe Morgan as an inspiration, it’s strange that he would call my credibility into question simply because he thinks I’ve “never bothered to lace up a cleat in my life.”

Oh, and in case any ladies would be retroactively attracted to a timid backup quarterback, my career rushing totals for the Danbury Trojans were two carries for 16 yards and one touchdown. I also successfully handed the ball off several times in practice.

• ShockFX’s second comment is pretty flawless, and in the body of this post I’ve responded to most of the concerns he mentions. I just wanted to acknowledge that I read it. Also, I want to mention that I have only written good things about, Greg Matthews, Brandon Graham and obviously Grady. I am most impressed with Graham’s versatility, or the fact that he doesn’t rely simply on his speed and is comfortable playing on the interior. His guarantee against Michigan State was charming, in the sense that he knew something had to be done, and thought of the most compelling thing he could. It lost some of its clout though because Mike had just done it the year before, and he basically conceded that the whole thing had been premeditated. Plus, the defense didn’t seem unified enough to grasp the urgency of what he was saying. Don’t forget, up until the Minnesota game they were still trying to convince the coaching staff to let them play with a four-man defensive line.

After The Gold Rush

On Saturday, Michigan threw 36 passes and only completed 12 of them. There is nothing discrete in how this team loses. There is no drama or climax; there would be something thrilling in that, at least. This is like rubbing sandpaper on your scalp until you hit brain. There is nothing but snow, and rain, and a numbing, overwhelming, and undeniably hopeless decay of something I once loved, and still do, but much less intensely.

It’s like trying to love a wife who lost her leg in a train accident, or got third degree burns on her face from a grease fire, and now she smokes cigarettes and drinks cheap whiskey from a sleeve of leftover paper cups you bought for some barbecue about a year back. This is not the same woman, and you know it’s not. You see things in her that you remember, things that used to make you happy. But now more than anything they make you sad, because you realize most of the time they don’t exist.

Steve Threet and Nick Sheridan have alternated everywhere between dreadful and fleetingly adequate. Sam McGuffie was hailed as some kind of messiah, but we found out his moves are nothing but extravagant head jerks; that if you coughed on him he’d probably fall to the ground; that he pass blocks with less enthusiasm than most people mow their lawns with; and that his spin moves seem tentative and halfhearted, like they’re more out of fear than deception. On Saturday he decided he wasn’t going to play, because he said he was too hurt.

Donovan Warren and Morgan Trent frantically look over their shoulders after every incompletion to make sure there’s no penalty flag, then shake their head at the wide receiver as if they had anything to do with the incompletion in the first place. At this point, that's probably all they have.

The players I do love appear inconsistently and without warning; increasingly neurotic and damaged.

Brandon Minor runs furiously and at times unnecessarily aggressive, as if he’s spent two years struggling with depression and regret, and he’s trying to make up for lost time all at once. He always seems more relieved than excited when he scores, and when he speaks, he sounds disinterested and slightly aggravated. He tries to laugh every now and then, but then his eyes dart anxiously to the side, like he’s waiting for someone to tell him he doesn’t have to pretend that everything’s going to turn out alright.

Terrance Taylor, more subdued than he’s ever been, has tried to find new reasons to make this season matter to us, even as those reasons eroded from admirably naïve, to outright pathetic. After they lost to Notre Dame they played for the Big Ten championship. When that was gone, they played to beat Penn State, then Michigan State, then for a bowl. What they play for now, I doubt they’re quite sure, though there’s still Ohio State, and I guess revenge is as good a reason as any.

Back in the middle of February all I knew about Justin Feagin was that he either ran impatiently or was just incredibly decisive, I wasn’t sure which, and he had essentially said, “Terrelle Pryor, I am not afraid of you” before he even got to college. He sat in a chair after the Minnesota game, his hair matted erratically on one side, like he’d fallen asleep in the backseat of car with his head resting against a balled up t-shirt, and he blinked slowly and spoke without hesitation. Sometimes he picked the wrong word and found a different one in the middle of his sentence once he realized it, but he was excessively calm, and already seemed accustomed to the whole idea of people wanting to talk to him.

In high school, Justin told Rodriguez he wanted to play early in his career, but it wasn’t the same robotic insistence most freshmen have. We knew he wasn’t lying when he suggested he burn a year of eligibility just to play sparingly in Michigan’s final four games. On a team going nowhere, after he’d declared that he could compete with the best high school player in the country, he volunteered to play special teams.

“I can’t really explain it for the fans that are listening,” he said on Signing Day. “I just play football, and I’m good at it.” It wasn’t a prepared quip; it was the only way he knew how to describe himself after a career of defying or ignoring reputations. If Mike thrived because he had been eternally doubted, Justin did so because he lived in a world oblivious to expectations and pressure. I wanted him to be Michigan's quarterback for the next three years, and at that position, he ran seven times for 49 yards against Minnesota. Afterwards, Rodriguez confirmed that his permanent position would be receiver.

These days, the coach's once-hypnotic charisma feels hollow and trite. At press conferences he seems embarrassed, like he’s still a little detached from it all and doesn’t have to cry with, or for a team he just met. Maybe it seems like he’s fighting for them when he’s being irascible and short-tempered, but this team is a reflection of who he is as a coach. He’s defending himself as much as he’s defending them.

For the seniors, he can only say, over and over again, that they deserve a hug. He did say that. At first I thought he was only using that line in press conferences, because it seemed affectionate enough, and a horde of obsequious reporters might pretend it had a vague humor to it. I was wrong. I saw a video of the locker room after the Minnesota game, and he said that to their faces.

Terrance never beat Ohio State, played for three different defensive coordinators, and vomited and bled for Rich Rodriguez after he considered giving it all up. He’s spent the better part of his adult life outnumbered two to one, and as a defensive tackle gets maybe three chances a game to remind everyone that he’s even there. He’s six feet tall and squatted 680 pounds in high school. A hug? I’d tell him to keep it.

This was once Michigan:

They used to exist.

LORDS OF THE JUNGLE

He walked around the corner and turned his head to each side, somewhat aloof and not too concerned that he was meeting someone he’d never seen before in his life. His steps were deliberate and incredibly slow, the way they might be if he was walking through water, or a snow storm, or a dream, and his arms were at his sides. He seemed much taller than he did on television, though in those instances he was usually exhausted, hunched over, and had often just spent the previous four hours of a Saturday afternoon watching a game, or a season, or a piece of a career vanish, and was being asked why that happened, or what that felt like.

It was 8:30 last Friday morning, and I was meeting Lloyd Carr for breakfast. I wanted to ask him about things like Mike Hart and the Spread Offense, because these are important matters, and this is Lloyd Carr, and I see him right there drinking his coffee. But mostly, I just wanted to sit across from him, peacefully, when I didn’t care that Michigan ran the ball on second and long, maybe see what kind of toast he ordered, or if he’d laugh at my jokes even if they weren’t funny, because I seemed like a nice enough kid who loved something irrationally, and he respected that, because it was Michigan football, and he loved it irrationally, too. Then I’d stand up when he said it was time for him to go, shake his hand, and watch him walk away.

I got there about a half hour ahead of time and was oddly calm, though I drank three glasses of ice water before he even arrived and had a burgeoning fear that he’d make a sarcastic remark about my shirt being entirely pink. But once we started talking it was comfortable, relaxed and didn’t feel nearly as monumental as I thought it might be. It just felt like I’d met him before, only it had been a while since I saw him last. We were just two people talking about football, only he happened to know a little more about it than I did.

When he said it was time for him to go to work, I initially nodded my head in accordance, then made a few desperate attempts to ask him something he might perceive to be important with the hope that he’d indulge me. He leaned back in his chair, held the sides of his jacket and stayed for about 10 more minutes. We talked about the culture of blogs and their legitimacy as a medium, and he smiled genuinely for most of it. Not incredulously, or because he was perplexed that people would waste so much of their time on the internet and he didn’t want me to feel offended. But because he was impressed, grateful, and, I hope, because he realized that football meant this much to some people, for better or worse, and that he once reigned over not just The Greatest Team of All Time, but a secret society, too.

I like idealistic Westerns where the good guys win, pictures of Marilyn Monroe, Cheers re-runs and sharp cheddar cheese. I have a deranged, ridiculous obsession with a football team, and I cherish it. Lloyd didn’t condemn me for (inconsistently) blogging, or for caring too much. He admired it, and he understood that it took a certain person to be capable of that.

I think the waitress smiled slightly and briefly when she first saw Lloyd, though maybe I’m making that up just because I thought he deserved it. Later on she called him Coach, but I didn’t notice anyone staring at him or even looking at him because they recognized that this man is, at least ostensibly, important, even if they didn’t care about football, and here he was, sitting in the same room. It was early, and it was during a meal, and I suppose the kind of people who have to be up before noon are the kind who know well enough to leave a grown man alone, but I never saw anyone drift from their conversation because they were trying to hear what he was saying, or stop in the middle of a sentence to nod discretely at him and hope he made eye contact. I was conscious of this; I looked around the room when he walked in, after he sat down, and occasionally when he spoke, in case someone only noticed his voice.

People respect Lloyd because they feel obligated to, because “he was a good, honest man.” He was boring and he didn’t win enough, they say, and he was alright football coach. But I don’t agree. Braylon Edwards, Shawn Crable, Adrian Arrington, and Chris Perry were stubborn rebels, and he turned them into something better. And he gave Mike Hart a chance. I didn’t want a coronation, but a handshake from a father with good morals who would have liked his son to play for Lloyd would have been appreciated. It was silent, aside from utensils scraping against the plates, and when he walked out of the restaurant I didn’t see anyone stop to watch.

This was in direct contrast to what happened late the night before. I was at a place called Rick’s with my friend Danny, and a girl he brought along. Becoming increasingly aware that Bud Light-induced charisma and a pair of black Chuck Taylor’s are no guarantee to get you laid, I walked away and sat at a quiet table. I pretended to look at my cell phone -- out of habit, not because I was ashamed and needed an excuse to be alone -- and watched Oregon State’s 5 foot 6 running back, Jacquizz Rodgers, slowly dismantle Southern Cal.

A little later, while Danny was in the bathroom, I pretended to dance with the girl he brought so the average guy who attends Rick’s (see: people who wear shirts that say “Define Girlfriend” or “I Pull Out” non-ironically) wouldn’t think she was available. After three or four minutes of apathetically rocking back and forth, Danny came back and told me that he saw Mike Hart. It is impossible to write that sentence, under the premise that This Was A Big Deal, without seeming outrageously pathetic. But Mike Hart was there, and this was obviously a big deal. I don’t know any other way to say it.

I saw him sitting at the bar with Will Paul and who I’m almost positive was Anton Campbell. Maybe Mike won’t ever start in the NFL, and maybe he never beat Ohio State. But people bought him drinks, and the girls smiled and put their arms around him even if he didn’t ask them to. On this night, he wasn’t standing on the sidelines holding the collar of his shoulder pads all game while some guy named Dominic Rhodes stole his carries, and he didn’t need to get excited because he “almost made a tackle on special teams.” People followed him through the dark and tried to pat him on the back.

He was like an astronaut who’d pulled off his helmet for the first time in a long time and stepped onto earth from outer space. And we were all just happy to be there to see it. He laughed a lot and didn’t seem to have any particular objective, outside of being the hero one more time, surrounded by cardboard beer signs, loud music, and a persistent murmur which was more than likely about the fact that he was Mike Hart, and he existed.

I walked up to him and told him the next round of whatever he and his friends were drinking was on me. It wasn’t exactly four years and an eternity of moments that should be carved in the tombs of a pyramid, or painted on the wall of a cave some place far from here, but for now we’ll call it even. One of his friends put his hand on my shoulder and shouted “Cristal” and while I helplessly looked at Mike, for a fleeting moment I tried to justify buying a bottle, economic crisis be damned. Mike chuckled and said Jager Bombs were fine, and I handed the bartender 60 dollars and told him to give me whatever I could get for it. The bartender shook his head, grinned out of the corner of his mouth and kept pouring. He either envied me or thought I was incredibly foolish, not that I cared either way. Mike waived a bunch of his friends over so we could have the drink, and that was the end of it. I walked away and called a few people, but I don’t think they understood what I was saying anyway. It was loud, and I was probably crying.

The next day I saw Mike was on the sidelines wearing a visor turned sideways and a pair of exceptionally large, black, and presumably expensive sunglasses, which didn’t really seem to correspond with his plain white t-shirt, but would no doubt earn some kind of wry comment from close friend and noted fashionista, Steve Breaston. I could see him from where my seat was, and before realizing that he was waiting to do an interview with ESPN, I remember being disappointed that he wasn’t paying attention to the game.

I have experienced few things as predictably, miserably boring as Michigan’s offensive performance through the first two and a half quarters against Wisconsin. An episode of “Yes, Dear,” an NPR segment on endangered species of sorghum, jury duty, and not much else. Michigan was trailing 19-0, and there was no conceivable reason why it shouldn’t have gotten worse. It didn’t, at all. In the second half, Michigan scored 27 points in 13 minutes and 38 seconds, and only the Michigan State game in 2004 and Penn State game in 2005 rival it in terms of shock and moments of sheer exhilaration.

I’ve complained about a lack of familiarity with these players, or an ability to empathize with them or be intensely devoted to their narratives. I’ve even tried to tell myself that losing isn’t so bad, because this season was sacrificed the moment the Florida game was over, and everyone that meant something to me retired or graduated or packed their bags because getting 3 receptions for 41 yards every game didn’t exactly enhance their draft status. Well, that’s a lie. Watching Michigan lose – lose like that – is vicious, no matter if Mike Hart is on the team or not.

Maybe Terrance won’t become Warren Sapp, but for a halftime speech he was vigilant and enraged, and for a post game interview he was so bewildered he looked like if he didn’t shake his head and exhale deeply every few seconds, he would start to cry. In a year, he’ll be somewhere and remember the time he tried to rescue his team in all of 20 minutes, and it actually worked. He’s spent a career being a comedian who was just bordering on unruly, who always had someone more important to defer to. This wasn't the same person anymore.

In the second quarter Morgan Trent fumbled a kickoff on Michigan’s 27 yard line, after the defense had just been on the field for almost eight minutes the previous drive. I saw Terrance walk onto the field in front of everyone else immediately after, swinging his arms and probably shouting something so recklessly that the spit flew from his mouth and hung down his facemask. As if to say “Is this really the best you’ve got?” He was obviously frustrated with the offense’s incompetence, as we’d find out after the game, but he craved any chance to keep playing. He was undaunted, undeterred; the voice on a cold night telling you everything was going to be alright, even if deep inside the voice didn't believe so itself. You tell me sports are insignificant, and I’ll tell you how I watched them turn a boy into a man before my own eyes.

When it was over I screamed and sang and kept standing, and didn’t care that my shoes were covered in half-used mustard packets, because they’re only shoes, in the same way that they’re only lungs, or only a larynx. Beyond a blur of heads and hands and elbows, Terrance sat on a brick wall and looked out upon all that was his, while Mike pumped a clenched fist alongside someone else's team.

In the press box up high and far away, where no one could see him, Lloyd sat and watched. It was probably quiet, and I doubt anyone noticed when he walked away.

You move like a dream I had, woke up sweating in my room

Morgan Trent was holding an orange Gatorade and playing with his ear, and he rubbed the back of his head and wiped his face with a white towel even though he wasn’t sweating. He was mature and calm and only sporadically successful at convincing us he wasn’t at least a little overwhelmed.

Before the season began, he called himself the grandfather of the team and joked that he’s been here forever. It’s been five years; it might as well be.

After Utah he was purposely monotone and said all the kinds of things that will look inconspicuous in a newspaper. He knows he’s been on better teams, and he’s fighting against the crippling thought that everyone else’s perception is a reality. Maybe the defense – as reckless and undaunted as it was supposed to be – isn’t good enough. It needed to be, and it wasn’t.

It seemed like they over-pursued and played tentative, but what do I know? I’m the kind of guy who likes to see tackles for loss and batted balls on a 3^rd and 11 when the other team runs a 12 yard out pattern. I tell my little brother to catch balls with his hands, not his chest, and tackle at the thighs, not the ankles. I couldn’t tell you much else, and the second part of that is probably wrong anyway. But the defense gave up 313 yards in the first half, and if this season is going to be anything more than a glorified sacrifice for the advancement of Rich Rodriguez’s ideals, 313 yards is too many.

Donovan Warren wore two diamond earrings that looked like snowflakes and swayed back and forth while he held the zippers of his jacket. He chewed his gum and nodded with his jaw clenched between questions, and though he is only a sophomore, and once just a prodigy from Long Beach that spoke a little too fast and said “you know?” all the time, he tried to defend the rest of his team. It was admirable, but also naïve. We’re not entirely ready for him yet – at least, to have our fears and doubts erased by a couple of poignant one-liners.

Mike Hart was never the kind of guy who threw thunder bolts from above the clouds. He turned water in to wine and make the blind see again. When he told us Michigan would beat Notre Dame last year we believed him, and it was because we knew he’d probably laid awake in the dark on more than one occasion and wondered how the last four years had become just blood and scars and dreams so fragile it’s like they never existed. Or stayed home on a Saturday night, too numb to change the channels between commercials, holding his hands in his lap and saying very little because the outside is malicious and haunting.

Donovan is still too young, too unfamiliar to believe. He said things like, “We just kept our heads high and I’m proud of the way we fought in the second half,” and that the reason he rarely fair caught a punt was because “the team was in need of a big play, and I was just trying to make that big play.” He’s an amateur superhero whose cape is still way too big for him, and most of the time he closes the door of the phone booth on it as he’s about to try and rescue somebody.

Michigan isn’t very good this year and, at least for now, he can’t change that. But he either ignores it, or has never known of something he couldn’t save on his own. Whether he’s stubborn or oblivious, I can tolerate a loss if that man is on my team.

Terrance Taylor stared at the ground and spoke as rhythmically as he always does, but he was interrupted mid-sentence by a few security guards who had to move a metal gate that Terrance was standing in the way of. He was quiet and had no jokes to tell, but he was mostly unfazed. He inched forward slowly and kept talking. This is the same man who used to warm up before practice by having a catch with Alan Branch, flexes his muscles whenever there’s a camera around, and still eats pepperoni rolls despite a hellacious strength and conditioning program. Terrance abides by his own rules. I don’t worry about him, because he’s been through worse than this before. I’m only depressed that his personality had to be so muted after a summer in which he’d learned to believe in himself again.

Rich Rodriguez was as stern as he’s been throughout the summer, but more subdued and impatient. Earlier this week, there was a sense that maybe he knew something we didn’t. Though he certainly wasn’t overflowing with praise, there was an odd, reserved confidence. He never mentioned that the running backs would, collectively, have 15 carries for 34 yards, or that the quarterbacks would average 4.4 yards an attempt. They would “learn as the game progressed,” and the now-ubiquitous speed backs and slot receivers would struggle with inconsistency, but would ultimately provide a new and wholly dangerous dynamic. He'd start to smile and he'd point at you like you were the only man in the room. But they didn’t. And they didn’t. The loss was surprising, even though I guess it shouldn’t have been.

I get made fun of because I tell people I’d rather lose and have a lifetime of players I love than win with a bunch of faceless cogs I don’t like or even feel indifferently about. On Saturday, the entire offense was foreign to me. They wore the right jerseys, I guess. But in early February Michael Shaw was going to Penn State, and on Signing Day, Sam McGuffie wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to play for Michigan.

The offense was awful, but they’re all strangers. If I said I was sad, it’d be pretend. Better luck next time; you all seem like fine gentlemen. What else do you say? It’s as if we’re walking past a homeless person on the street, and he’s asking us for change. I’m conscious of your plight, but who the hell are you, anyway? I’ve got to catch this train.

There will always be wins, but it takes longer to forget the losses. And without a defiant post-game soliloquy, or something like this along the way, the losses stay just as cold and crushing. You need someone to give you hope, or at least a 54 yard touchdown to hold on to. I’ve been to the last three Rose Bowls Michigan has played in. Maybe I just need reasons to believe everything is going to be alright.

Let me steal this moment from you

I used to go to summer camp with a kid named Kevin who was three years older than I was, and when everyone was drying off after swimming the girls used to hang around his towel. His favorite sports team was the University of Michigan football team, so mine was, too.

I remember one time he had an ingrown toe nail, and one day I hit a home run in kick ball and he didn’t. He wasn’t invincible – more of a prankster than a rebel – but he was cool and independent enough that liking the team he liked seemed to be a wise decision socially. I was eight years old, and aside from some fleeting success as a little league shortstop, my most notable life achievement was kissing my next door neighbor on the cheek during truth or dare. It’s not like I had much to lose. One afternoon, he stood on a table and used a broom as a guitar and lip-synched “All Along the Watchtower,” and none of the counselors even got mad at him. That’s the reason why I like Jimi Hendrix.

About a year ago I found out Kevin has a beard, lives in Oregon, and reads a lot of Gabriella Garcia Marquez. He wears flannel, goes for long rides on his bicycle, and sometimes he’ll end up in the middle of nowhere in particular, taking pictures of his dog lying under a shady tree. When I asked his sister if he still liked them, she said she wasn't sure. If he still cared at all, she’d have known; he used to like them that much.

I know one of the kids at camp liked Alabama but in my memory, when we all argued about college football, the rest of us either liked Michigan or Notre Dame. The arguments usually ended when one half walked one place and one half walked another, and about 17 minutes later we were all friends again. We were eight or 11 or 13 years-old, and at the time, this seemed incredibly important. Some people are prone to self-loathing, nostalgia, and hopeless, mythic romanticism. Some people like Notre Dame. This is still incredibly important to me.

I find myself listening to The Chromatics’ cover of Kate Bush’s “Running up That Hill” a lot lately, thinking about Michigan. Not ambivalent, but definitely melancholy and a little detached. You want to trust sports, to know that they’re honest, that – at least cosmically – there is a little chivalry. But it's not that way at all. I still feel scorned, so forgive me if I don’t seem as excited as I should be.

Last November I sat and watched Ryan Mallet throw incomplete passes against Ohio State in the rain. I put my hands up to my face and my middle fingers in the corners of my eyes, so that my dad wouldn’t notice, and I didn’t stop crying. Michigan was 8-3 and was about to be 8-4. I shouldn’t have cared so much, but I did, because this was all Mike Hart and Chad Henne had left.

That’s why one day before the renaissance, or The New Era, or whatever you’d like to call it, it’s a struggle to not be conflicted or sad, or to believe that the world is fair and that sometimes, even if it seems completely insignificant, people like Mike get what they deserve.

I watch him on the Colts now. He still runs like a cartoon character – his legs a whirlwind of dust and chaos and he doesn’t really end up getting anywhere. He finished one run without a shoe on his left foot, and another without his helmet. To him, strength still seems to be defined as half desperation, half vengeance.

But he’s more mechanical now; he doesn't smile like he used to, he isn’t as self-indulgent. His cuts aren’t as risky – more just graceful, cautious lunges. He’s a professional now, measured and stoic and less eccentric. He looks stronger, and too focused. It used to just be a playful resentment for the institution, but now he seems like he respects it. It’s like the NFL has tranquilized him.

Maybe I’m making this all up, and this is the same way he was before he learned to spin the world on his finger the first time. But maybe I’m right, and when he was real, when he was at Michigan, he never got much besides the adoration of a bunch of nostalgic kids like me who can’t let go.

Mike, Jake and Chad risked their dignity and only left with a little of it, but they came back in the first place by choice, because of something bigger. As for the guys that are still here, Trent and Jamison are mostly quiet and patient and had no place else to go. And no matter how jubilant and grateful Terrance might seem, he knew how much money could be made by coming back. I don’t hesitate to say that wins this year won’t be as satisfying as wins last year were. Not enough of these players have suffered yet.

Donovan Warren and Brandon Graham already have the surging yet tempered egos that superstars come from, and Greg Matthews possesses a Steve Breaston-esque humility. These are players I am thrilled to root for, but for now, it feels like I’m being unfaithful. I want Michigan to win, but I wanted them to win more last year, or even in 2006. Maybe that makes me sound strange and disillusioned, but it’s the way I feel.

I guess it’s the reason some widowers keep their dead wives’ old bathrobes around the house. It's sentimentality and blind, ignorant hope that you can love the same thing the same way forever. Some people never move to Oregon.